Transcript
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Hello and welcome to teenagers untangled the audio hug for parents going through the teenage years I'm Rachel Richards trained parenting coach mother of two teenagers and two bonus daughters.
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Hi there I'm Suzy Asli, mindfulness coach, mindful therapist and musician and mother of three teenagers two of them are twins.
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Susie, can you tell when someone's emotionally intelligent?
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Yes.
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Like any tips on how
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well it can take a while to reveal itself.
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Okay, well, we will be talking about this today Betty has written to us about her twins, who she thinks may benefit from developing their emotional intelligence. I love this topic. I jumped at it. As soon as you mentioned it, we'll look at why twins might be slightly different, what emotional intelligence is and why it matters. And then some tips for how you can help your team develop this. Yeah. So let's have a look at this review that we
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have a lovely five star review here called so glad I found this podcast spread the word. Hi, ladies, I started listening to your podcast a while ago. And I think I've listened to all episodes some twice. And I really feel like you're helping me through this exceptionally trickery time with my teens. Your advice is practical and realistic. And every episode has some golden tips to help me cope. Last week, I encountered some discussion about alcohol in my 14 year old daughter's group. And following a quick recap on your podcast discussing alcohol. I feel I coped with it in a much more positive manner than if I had not heard you both discuss it.
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And thankfully, she seems to have taken my your advice. 1000 thank yous. Wow. Thank you so much. And
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I love those sorts of reviews. Because when our listeners give us specifics about how they've used the podcast, it's really helpful for others to sort of go Oh, I could do that. Yeah, that's
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so true. Yeah, yeah.
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I mean, some listeners have actually even, you know, marked places in an episode and got their teenager to listen, because they go, it's easier. If you say it, then there are all sorts of ways that it can be used. It's really lovely feedback. Thank you so much. Do you have a nugget for us?
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I do. Yeah, mine is kind of an idea that I read years ago, and I can't remember where I read it. And I really wish I could find it again, I've tried to look it up since but I've used it pretty much every day. Wow. And it's it's this idea of push pull. So in a relationship you have, the idea is that there's often one who's who's doing the pushing, and one of them doing the pulling. And you know, this idea maybe in a romantic relationship, where you've got one who's maybe a little bit more needy or needs a bit more attention for whatever reason, that that's not in a judgmental way. It's just how it is. And they, you know, they go towards the other one more, and the other one goes, well, it's too much and backs off, and then the more they back off, the more the other one runs towards until they go, would you just leave me alone and the other one's going to hate me? Yes. So that dynamic plays out. And once you start understanding this concept, you see it everywhere. So what is the ideal is if the one who's who's going towards the other one, you know, pushing? can go home? Yeah, maybe I can just take care of myself for a moment and pull back a bit. And then the other one goes, oh, oh, where did you go? Yes, oh, I need you. And then it tries to rebalances. And it's a little bit of a dance, but it can become very toxic, if you're not aware. And that is really relevant with our teenagers.
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Because a lot of times, and often I've seen so many times, you know, particularly maybe for mothers pushing, you know, needing and to teenagers, as we know, are in a stage where they they want to pull away. And the more we go towards them, the more they go back off, mom go away, leave me alone, slam the door. And if we can just let them pull away, and let them and let them and let them we even though we're going over and you don't want to do this, and it's uncomfortable to sit in that space. Then they go Oh, where are you man? Oh, man. I love that. And then it's much more of a good dynamic. And it's just it's just, I think with my son going away to university, it's just reminded me again, and that that is you know, a sort of a physical push pull because he's literally physically gone. But it it appears pretty much every day at home as well. It's in any dynamic is quite fun to play with. And yeah, it's
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a great thing to be aware of. And I think a lot of us I've seen so many people and I think a lot of us really struggle with this sense of losing of losing Yeah. And the feeling that it will stay that way. Yeah.
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And the opposite of you know of letting go isn't completely letting go it's not black and white. So we can we can let us go. Yes, but I'm still here and I'm still here and I still have boundaries and then they will come back. Even if it's just like for dinner time you know it comes. It appears in all relationships that are all moments now. I
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Love that I think that's really, really helpful. The nugget I have for this week actually relates to a big story we've had in the UK, about a man called Russell Brand. Now, when you're not in the UK, you may not be aware of any of this. I'm not really interested in getting involved in a trial by media. But I thought it's a really interesting one to reflect on one of the allegations because it relates to today's topic. And at the age of 30 brand is accused of having dated a 16 year old girl. And this involves sending a car, allegedly, to her school to collect her. And it's alleged that her mother desperately tried to stop the relationship and took away her phone grounded her. But the girl claims he coached her in how to get around those restrictions.
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This is kind of what you call grooming. Yeah. And which we will talk about in a future episode. Grooming that is, the only reason I wanted to mention this is because I have a 16 year old girl, who I would say is that the high end of intellectual and emotional functioning for for that age.
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And yet, when we talk about relationships, whether it's friendships or romantic, she often feels unable to pinpoint at all, what she's really feeling or thinking, Yeah, completely normal, completely normal. And it's made a really good platform for talking to my girls about their relationships, you know, when they complain about their friends doing things they don't like, or Oh, she did this and and all boys who can't explain why they're doing something or how they feel. I've said, Well, maybe they just don't know, maybe have we thought about that. And that being able to pinpoint how you really feel is so hard. And this is something that we are going to talk about today. And it's normal. It's totally
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normal. And we'll talk about it more in the episodes. And it's really great platform to talk about it. You know, we go through our heads most of the time, don't we? It's all in our analytical minds. But there are other ways to
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Yes. So Betty has written to us about her twins, they've started sixth form this year. She says she's has good friendly relationship with them. They talk a lot, you know, there's no real big problem there. But she says she feels sometimes they lack emotional intelligence. So they don't really talk about how they feel. They don't ask others how they feel. And she's asked us to do an episode looking at how we teach teenagers emotional intelligence, and you know how to talk about their feelings that I love this subject. I think we touched on feelings quite a few times. You know, anxiety, self harm, and being able to express your feelings is really important, but it's also really, really hard really hard.
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Yeah. So the term emotional intelligence. Do you know where that came from? No. Okay, so there were two researchers, Peter Salovey, I nearly said Sally, Sally. And John Mayer wrote an article emotional intelligence in the journal imagination, cognition and personality in 1990. And it was later popularized by Dan Goleman, in his 95, book, emotional intelligence. And it's defined as the ability to understand and manage your emotions, as well as recognizing and influencing the emotions of rat or people around you. So Daniel Goldman's book, emotional intelligence, actually said why it can matter more than IQ. So he claims it's more important than IQ. Yeah. And it's this is a source of debate amongst psychologists. So I'm not going to say it's clear cut, but it does look as if emotional intelligence could be quite a big factor in huge life success.
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Yes.
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Absolutely. Massive.
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I agree with him.
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Yeah, yeah. And actually, they thought, well, here's the missing the missing piece, because up until that point, when emotional intelligence first appeared to the masses, it served as that missing link. Yeah. Because people with average IQ seem to be outperforming those with the IQs that were the highest 70% of the time. I don't know where these numbers come from. But and it was an anomaly that they couldn't really figure out.
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Can you actually separate them? I'm thinking they overlap massively. I.
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So they do IQ tests, right, there is an IQ test. My father scored exceptionally highly on IQ tests, but he just didn't have really any emotional intelligence. That's quite common. I think, if you have very high so I think this is this is what they're trying to get out. Okay. But they can overlap as though they can overlap. Yeah, maybe the other
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way. Maybe if you're emotionally intelligent, because otherwise if you if you're not emotionally intelligent, like, if you've got lots of stuff going on, it gets in the way of your IQ. So you're thinking true, yes.
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Anyway, before we talk about emotional intelligence, I want to touch on the daughters of Betty. It's relevant because they're twins.
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She says she hasn't tested their DNA. They're taking different subjects in school, but they can open each other's phones with their fingerprint. So that's how close Okay, in terms of DNA, they're not fraternal. They are Are two girls, right? So I think this was important because you've got twins. So we'll move on to that with Barbara Klein, who's a twin herself and author of not all twins are alike, actually says twins and triplets are born married and share a special way of communicating both verbally and nonverbally.
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Twins understand each other without words and think other people will be able to understand them in the same way that their twin does. It's actually talking about identical twins, I'm sure. Yes, you must be and then and that can then have a knock on effect for twins when they are trying to form relationships with other people.
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Because it's not something they've had to experience.
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They've had somebody who completely understands them.
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This is her Yeah, position. So Susie, you have twins, but they're fraternal. Yeah, really different.
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They're really different. They did used to have a little funny language when they were little, which was hilarious. And they do funny little drawings, and then go, yeah, and they talking and I go, What are you doing? But they're very different. So they don't have that experience. But I'm really curious about how the daughters experience because I think sometimes we have, and I don't know any more about this, this lady who is really interesting question, think thanking her for and you know, how they experience it. Because sometimes we can have ideas as to how we think things should look and maybe that maybe the girls are finding it a problem as well. I don't I don't know if she says that. No, maybe they're not. Maybe it's her own. But whatever. It's a fascinating topic.
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Well, the sort of, is it true? Like I'm seeing this, but is it actually a problem? Or is it something that just concerns me? Is it a fear
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I'm having that they should be better at this and fearing for their future and their relationships? Or is it actually a problem right in the now.
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But that's why that's why these podcasts help, because quite often, even if you have to, for whatever children, you only know your real own experience. And you might be looking at others that are presenting something that looks ideal. And then you think, well, we're falling short. So it's really helpful to hear that this is normal.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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And it's a common thing, isn't it? My my kids can't tell me how they feel. They won't tell me how they feel. They just go Yeah, and safe day was fine.
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Thanks, mom. But don't actually say how they feel, I think the quickest way and the best way to getting your kids to be emotionally intelligent, is as in many things, modeling, yes, modeling model model, they do what you do, and they might not be able to do it immediately.
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But they will it will suddenly pop out. I've seen it in mine, because I'm banging on about feelings all the time until they don't want to hear anymore.
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Probably the room the other way or the other end of the spectrum. And then suddenly you hear I hear them going, Oh, how do you feel about that? It's gone through because I'm modeling. I've never had a conversation with him about how to be intelligently? Yeah, ever.
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I wouldn't know what to say.
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You're
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spot on. And that's one of the ones that is highlighted as important. No, no, you're absolutely spot on.
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There's a there's a man called Dr. Travis Bradbury, who wrote a book called Emotional intelligence 2.0, co founder of a company called Talent smart, which is a consultancy that he claims service support to 75% of fortune 500 companies, and gives them emotional intelligence tests and training. He says decades of research now point to emotional intelligence has been the critical factor that sets star performers apart from the rest of the pack. Jack Welch is quoted as saying no doubt emotional intelligence is more rare than book smarts. But my experience says it's actually more important in the making of a leader you just can't ignore it. No, and any
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leadership research, you know, in a company or any any leadership role, it's empathy that matters the most.
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Yeah, absolutely empathy. You have to have emotional intelligence. And that's can be measured. Statistically, it's you're a better leader.
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And despite the significance of it is actually intangible. It's quite hard to test. So Dr. Bradbury has given a he has this test that he uses and he's got data from million plus people. In the test, he's been doing good, which I thought was magical actually worth listening to. So and he wrote a piece in Forbes about what what how do you know if someone's emotionally intelligent, so you have a robust emotional vocabulary? So yes, yeah. Do you do you say I just feel bad? Or do you say I'm frustrated, I'm downtrodden, I'm anxious, the more words that you have to explain what it is you're feeling, the better your level of emotional intelligence. I've actually will this is one of the tips is I have found if you look online, there are emotional word wheels. Yeah, there's a massive list of them. Yes. And I looked at the list I looked at the wheel I thought the wheel was quite useful because it's sort of happy sad feelings and then yeah, group some and then you can kind of, you know, work your way out from wherever it is.
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You're feeling. I thought act She, I've bought one, because I thought what a great thing. We can put it in the loo downstairs and people can just scan it and think I'm feeling that right now. And
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just a little bit
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when I I've used joyous recently, and it sounded like it was out of context. But the other person said, yeah, no, that's it. Yeah.
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Yeah.
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So okay. nuancing It is really, really lovely.
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Exactly. Are you curious about people. So people who are curious about other people, emotionally intelligent people are very curious about other people.
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Because the more you care about other people and what they're going through, the more it's going to improve your empathy.
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Yeah, I have a theory that to be emotionally intelligent, you have to have be fairly regulated, you have to have be quite grounded and have regulated your own nervous system and be quite comfortable and balanced, not completely 100%. Cuz nobody is, but you have to be. Because if you're not, then your stuff, and then that links to what you've just said, because if you if you are busy with your own stuff, which you know, we have phases in our life where we are, you don't have the capacity to worry about other people, you just can't. So you're not able to, to, you know, show empathy to others, because your own stuff is simply in the way to have emotional intelligence, you have to have a certain amount of, I'm more I'm okay, I can manage that. Because otherwise you're just reactive.
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And pinging, you're probably in fight flight freeze a bit of the time as well.
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Yeah. And that can ebb and flow. So if you witness 100%, a lack of empathy at some point that could just be that, particularly with our teenagers, they really overwhelmed by the amount of things that are required of them.
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And what we see and the world revolves around them, because that's the stage of life they're in. It's meant to, they think everything is personal.
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And everything affects everything that happens is because of them. And due to them. Yes. And it's not. And we'd get older and realize that oh, there are other people in the world. Yeah, and maybe they're stressing over an exam, and they've seemed super selfish or cold or cut off. They're not.
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They're just overwhelmed.
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Yeah, yeah. And you embrace change. They're emotionally intelligent people are flexible. And they're constantly adapting, they know that the fear of change can be paralyzing, and a major, but it also is a major threat to their success and happiness. So it's this ability to say, to look at something and think I'm going to have to adapt, coming back to what you've said in the past about how life is constantly changing, and being able to accept and embrace that takes a level of emotional intelligence that takes time to develop and courage. Yes, you are difficult to defend. So this is an interesting one, because I have become really hard to defend.
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And I've always say to people, you know, really, it's gonna be very difficult to offend me. And I think part of that is just maturity is where you start to get to the point where you've done all this the work on yourself, and you know, you know, really how bad you are at things. And that's okay. So if someone levels at you, you just think, Oh, well, yeah, fair point. Yeah,
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I think that's so true. And it relates back to the teenagers take everything personally, because they think the world revolves around them.
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And as you get older, and you mature, you go, oh, oh, it's not all about me. And it's not personal. It's, it's their stuff.
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Yes. And so if you have a clear grasp of who you are, how you feel, it's harder for people to really go do
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and we can coach our kids in that, you know, like, I think you've come with a couple of examples. You know, I was so and so was mean to me, or maybe they've got something going on at home, you know, maybe they're struggling with something else.
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Yeah, not just about you. And you're kind of introduced those kinds of ideas. So they start to take things less personally.
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Yeah. And as part of that sort of underpinning, all of that is, you know, your strengths and weaknesses, you're able to say, actually, I'm not very good at that. And that's okay. And that's fine. And I'm really good at this. And that. So you know, that's a good thing to talk about and to be proud of. Yeah.
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People who are emotionally intelligent tend to be able to let go of mistakes. Yes. So it's not who they are. It's something they did we talk about this a lot. You can say it, you're not stupid. You just did something.
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That seems stupid. Yeah. You
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chose a behavior that wasn't good and knew that's not who you are. It's just what you did. Yes. Yes. Yeah. I'm struggling a little bit with the title, I think emotional intelligence because it kind of implies and maybe I'm hearing it wrong. That's something we're born with are not born with. And it's not. It's something you can absolutely develop and grow.
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Yes.
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And that's the fantastic news is that you can actually develop this and we're going to come on to how you do that. But it's Yeah, unlike IQ, which they think is pretty fixed. I mean, you can nudge it a little bit. But basically, that's what you've got.
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Emotional Intelligence. Oh, we can build this. This is a good one to focus. So it's actually as a parent as a good one to be thinking about and focusing on
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a psychopath maybe no.
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I Interestingly, one of them was you don't seek perfection.
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emotionally intelligent people don't set perfection as their target because they know it doesn't exist.
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Yes. Again, it's one thing knowing academically and intellectually, and maybe we'll come on to that I'm sure in a minute. Knowing stuff intellectually is one thing and really integrating it and feeling it is another.
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Yeah, you have to. Absolutely. And you appreciate what you have. We talked about this gratitude. And I've been doing that with my daughter talking about gratitude journal. She absolutely. She said, Yeah, you know, this is really good. It's really helping me. So we can do these things.
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So
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mindfully poohed it well, my son of this is ages ago, I should probably try again.
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No, no, but it was oh, it was because she came to me with a specific thing. And I said, why don't you start a gratitude journal, because that will make you realize all the great things that are happening.
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And so I think it's about timing, and I think it's about the way you it's about how they have come to you with an SU you've solved the issue with the gratitude journal, rather than saying, I think it's about time we had a gratitude. Yeah,
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come on, let's all be grateful. We used to do gratitude at dinner. Actually, that was quite nice. Yeah, most maybe when we bring it up,
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I know. I burnt it be grateful. Yeah, exactly that, get your journal and write it down. Oh, yeah. So that we we've said, EQ is highly malleable as and what happens is when you practice things, your brain reinforces the use of the new behaviors. And then you get new connections. And you can develop this to be a real habit.
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neuroplasticity. Yes, yes. So So what do we do? What are what are the skills right? Number one, active listening. And we've talked about this right at the start, when we're talking about the way we can talk to our kids, and how we can listen to them to make it really work. Active listening, is a key part of helping create genuine two way communication. And it's about far more than just paying attention. It's learning to listen to what someone else is saying, look at their body language, and be able to demonstrate back to them that you've understood them. So we've talked about this, we talked about listening until you feel understood LUFU, all those things. And this is something that you can coach your children in. So it can affect how students receive feedback in a classroom, for example, which is why it's really, really important. And in
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a home, it gives them a real sense. And I really experienced that with with my own in my own home, it really gives a sense of respect. I'm really listening to you and what you're have what you have to say, actually is really important, and I want to hear it, even if it's something little. And then that is then they feel that they're being respected. And then they respect that, which is a big part of emotional intelligence.
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Yes. And that's why what you said was so important, which is that we can model this behavior. So when we actively listen with our teenagers, we feed back to them what we think we're hearing so that they can verify whether we've got it right or not. It teaches them that this feels good. This is a benchmark to work towards. And when they're getting feedback in the class, where the teacher said you did this, but this didn't work, rather than feeling, you know, misinterpreting what's actually happening. They're able to take the feedback and listen to what's being said to them absolutely in a positive way.
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And we can also then take it a step further, which we've also talked about, which is a feeding it back emotionally, which is obviously very, it's very name, a part of emotional intelligence, you know, oh, that sounds really frustrating. Oh, that sounds really disappointing. Oh, that sounds really amazing. And then they, they link that to emotions, and they go, oh, yeah, it does. And then they explore that further, or no, it didn't actually, it felt really sucky, or whatever, then yeah, it's taking it deeper.
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And what you've done is you've introduced words that they can use to then identify that specific feeling, which is, again, the vocabulary for feelings is really, really important. And one suggestion I saw was that you can play a game which is you start with a and you think of a feeling TO DO WITH A then B, then sit right that's, that's a game. That emotional well I talked about, which I love. And the way you would use it is you can say I'm feeling this, you look at the core feeling and try and work where look at where it is on the wheel and then move outwards.
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And can you can compare your feeling so is I'm feeling this today, but yesterday I felt this. So it's trying to just summarize things and the more chance they get to do this, the more articulate they will become when
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they notice it and they can also feel that chain that feelings change. They come and they go and today I felt like that and tomorrow I'll feel like that that'd be like that.
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And right now I feel like this.
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It's really important. And another way of going in which is what a big part of mindfulness and I use with clients and at home and is you know, we can go in through the head, which doesn't always give us It's not very helpful, correct information so often wrong. Or we can go into the body, which feels a bit weird for most of us, because we've chopped off we go, we are walking around, as you know, intellectual calls for the head. Yeah, and our bodies kind of follow with us unless we're doing exercise. And it's tuning in. Okay, what does anger actually feel like in my body?
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Oh, oh, actually, it feels like I get this kind of weird sensation in my chest or my hands get sweaty, or my brow furrows, it's tiny little bits, and practicing, what do they feel like in my body so that when they come up, which they will, we're better at spotting.
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We just become emotionless emotional intelligence? And what does what does Joy feel like in my body? What does What does anxiety feel like in my body, and they're all very different.
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And we usually have no idea until we tune in. It's really,
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really valuable. Love it. And that's actually again, it comes down to the self awareness. So the next one is developing self awareness. And this is slightly different. There's a Dunning Kruger effect, which was named after researchers asked students how they thought they did an a test, okay. And then they compared their perceptions with their actual results. And they found that I find this strange, most students actually overestimated their ability.
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Yep. And most likely, this was to be the case in students who had done poorly,
00:26:25.710 --> 00:26:28.440
yet. So familiar.
00:26:31.289 --> 00:27:42.119
And, and the point is that if you have low self awareness, you are at risk of not realizing how you're going to come across and how well you're actually performing something. Yeah. Can go the other way they can go the other way. And that's yes. Because I always used to think I was doing worse than I actually was. But the question is, isn't and and one way of improving this is to encourage your team to ask self reflective questions such as, What could I have done differently? So you take a scenario, and they tell you what happened? Yeah. And you say, Good, because you know, Socrates use this, you just ask questions. You are you you you get people growing and learning by just getting them to think about the answers, not telling them Brene Brown who will have yet talks about sympathy and empathy, the difference? Do you have any definitions that you want to give us? Or shall I just use the Brene? Brown. So she says she says that the difference is that sympathy drives disconnection. And empathy drives connection. And sympathy is kind of when someone's in a hole. So when someone's in a hole, if you're empathetic, you would climb into the hole with them and say, wow, it feels really dark in here.
00:27:38.579 --> 00:28:17.430
It's the sympathy, sympathy is where you look down into the hole and go, that doesn't look very nice cup of tea down. That sounds really good. It's a really great video, I've put it in the podcast. And it's actually really worth showing it to your team. Because she says that this is actually with my, my bonus daughter who had gone through a really horrific life event, there was the response of Pete some people saying, well, at least it's I'm Brene, brown points out, she says, if the sentence starts with at least, it's not going to be very helpful for someone who's really suffering,
00:28:17.460 --> 00:28:35.730
it's well intentioned, usually disconnect, and they're on there. And in addition to empathy is compassion. So empathy is putting yourself in somebody else's shoes, which is wonderful, and really, really, really helpful. And then compassion is noticing that maybe there's some there's some suffering there, and wanting to help them and, and assist them in saying,
00:28:35.730 --> 00:29:12.809
Yes, I like that. So we develop empathy by experiencing how others show it we can reading reading books is a very good way of you know, because then you're getting inside someone else's head. This is fiction, you can inside someone else's head and seeing the world through their perspective. But also things like using the phrases such as I see, I understand, I don't know how that feels. But I can imagine it's being able to sit inside their shoes. Yeah. So it's just teaching them to use those sorts of words and just be comfortable with the discomfort that someone else is going through a really horrible
00:29:12.809 --> 00:29:25.170
time. Yeah. And having the openness as well. If your team comes and says, And you you think you know how it feels, and you say it and they go no actually doesn't feel like that. Oh, okay. Well, how does it feel? Let me go home here.
00:29:25.410 --> 00:29:51.690
Yeah. And again, mirror, it's teaching them by behaving that way yourself. Yeah. managing emotions and self regulation. So the Sutton trust states that helping students improve their self regulation, which is the ability to manage your thoughts and feelings is one of the most effective and efficient ways to support our students and is especially so when they're teenagers. This kind of impulse impulse control Yeah, time. I mean,
00:29:51.690 --> 00:30:04.259
imagine I always think Imagine if everybody could self regulate, imagine if everybody was taught self regulation, nervous regulation over Hang on about us at home, my kids roll their eyes and stop listening. Imagine the world would look
00:30:05.009 --> 00:30:42.180
different. No, absolutely. And it is something to reach towards. Because teenagers tend to rely on their limbic system, which is their instinctive reactions, because the prefrontal cortex isn't developed yet. And and because they haven't practiced it. Yeah, they haven't practiced it. And it tests adults were shown a picture of a person's face and had to choose whether the emotion expressed was fear, shock or anger, all the adults correctly identified the look of fear, whereas only about half of the teenagers got the right answer. Yes, it's extraordinary, isn't it? Yeah. So what we need to know is that they may not be recognizing these emotions, they can practice in front of the mirror,
00:30:42.660 --> 00:30:47.640
and then we stick a label on them. Yes, yes. They can't do that.
00:30:47.970 --> 00:31:23.369
So the thing to do is to look at events as a good opportunity to try emotional regulation skills. So if they have if they are in a tricky situation, where they feel enraged, or whatever, some of the techniques you talk about in terms of just grounding themselves, and being able to, and then also picking out emotions on other people, because they may identify an emotion on someone else that's not correct. And act on that, which then escalates everything into an unpleasant situation.
00:31:21.420 --> 00:31:23.369
Really important
00:31:23.369 --> 00:31:40.829
point, I'd forgotten that that's really important. My daughter can sometimes get massively dysregulated. With me, particularly, which is completely normal. She knows now, I have to remind her, like, we're not having this conversation now. Because your your brain is actually offline.
00:31:40.829 --> 00:32:20.400
There's no point. And actually, the other day, she was having a wobbly, and her brother was like, I'm telling her off, that's not cool. Like, tell her off, he needed me to tell her off. And I was like, there is no point right now, I will talk to her later, she cannot hear me, she cannot react, there's no point they will just escalate further. So he also saw that and was like, okay, and then saw me later having a conversation. But they're all different. And another point, which I think is really important is some kids seem like they're maybe not so emotionally intelligent, whether they are or not, I think it's up to the individual. And you can, they can appear in one way. And maybe they're not, maybe they're more intelligent than you see.
00:32:20.730 --> 00:32:33.569
But some of super emotionally intelligent and like sponges, I have one of those. And that is also helping them in a different way. Because my daughter, she wouldn't mind me saying this.
00:32:33.839 --> 00:33:02.910
She is a sponge, and for years, and she's much, much better at it, which means she's her boundaries for taking in all of that. There are holes, so she takes in everybody's stuff, all of it. People come to her with issues. She's amazing with animals and kids and all of that. But she needs to learn to how to block that out and have boundaries within that. So she's not exhausted and left, you know, with everyone else's rubbish thrown at her. So it does go both ways and having an awareness of that.
00:33:03.239 --> 00:33:17.608
And you can have something in between where I've got a daughter who's extremely tuned in to what's going on, but doesn't get it right all the time. Yes. So often she'll say they this person did this? And I'd say yes, but it could have been Yeah, this reason not that.
00:33:17.608 --> 00:34:08.518
Yeah. And it's just helping them understand that there are other ways and other reasons for the way people behave. Yeah. Just before we finish that made me think of when I used to coach parenting, and I would play this game where there would be a forfeit. Yeah. And what was really funny was that people would want a lot of people would want to see the forfeit, enacted and if I said Oh, you don't have to do it. The response was, wait, wait a second. I want I wanted to watch. And and this is human nature. This is human nature. People used to go to hangings. Yeah. Be kind of like in a big event. So it's sort of understanding that we were curious, how's this gonna pan out? How is this this sort of dealing with this bad behavior going to? Anyway? Yeah, we
00:34:08.519 --> 00:34:26.190
can also have a game I was just that reminds me, as well as my eldest picks up other people's emotions very quickly, and I do as well and and we were walking somewhere else few years ago, walking somewhere, and I said, let's play a game. Like, people that walk past us. Tell me how you think they are, how they're feeling what you tell me what what do you plan like that?
00:34:26.219 --> 00:34:35.429
And he, he was like, okay, because I know you do it. And he was like, how do you know that?
00:34:30.630 --> 00:34:35.429
Well, I know you. We had this.
00:34:35.699 --> 00:34:46.170
Yeah, I think she's like this like that. Yeah, me too. And we took it in turns. And then he was like, I thought everyone did that. No, no, no. I you can do it. It's really fun.
00:34:47.159 --> 00:34:50.159
Yes, you could sit on a wall and just watch people coming by I love so
00:34:50.159 --> 00:34:51.960
if you find that difficult, you can practice it.
00:34:52.380 --> 00:34:53.639
Brilliant. Best tip.
00:34:54.000 --> 00:34:54.269
So
00:34:55.710 --> 00:34:56.849
why do you know I could do that?
00:34:57.570 --> 00:35:36.929
Well, this is they think they think no one's noticing. Yes. So in essence we have a really important role to play with our teens in helping tease out how they feel and find words for those feelings. If you found this topic useful, please go to the main page of the podcast and click follow and share. Tell your friends tell the school you can review us yes because it really makes a difference and if you want to search through our old episodes, you can find them on our website www.teenagersuntangled.com where there are reviews and a blog and ways to contact us we're also both on social media where you can message us at any point Susie you have your own website
00:35:36.960 --> 00:35:45.449
while I do it is WWW dot unmindful hyphen life.co.uk and you can book a free chat
00:35:45.929 --> 00:35:56.730
with me if you so wish. Yes, you had someone do it the other day. I did. Yeah, it was really cool. Lovely. So lovely to contact people. You know, we sit here in a room chatting and it's so nice to kind of reach out to the outside world
00:35:56.730 --> 00:36:00.300
and meet everybody it is and I offer all sorts of like mindfulness or Yes,
00:36:00.809 --> 00:36:04.230
exactly.
00:36:00.809 --> 00:36:05.909
Exactly. Do it now. That's it for now. Bye bye for now. Bye bye
