Help Your Teen Calm Down, Repair Conflict, and Reconnect: The Wonder Room

Hello and welcome to the Teenagers Untangled Wonder Room where we wonder out loud as parents about what my recent guests have told us. What landed, what we disagreed with, and what parenting looks like on a wet Friday when nobody's doing what they're told. I'm joined, as ever, by the brilliant parenting expert and author, Catherine Rodice. Catherine is a teacher. So she sees our kids in the hours we don't, and she's mum to two boys, so she knows exactly what it's like when the theory meets the kitchen table. Welcome back, Catherine. Good morning. It's always a joy to be here. Now let's talk today about Dr. Jodie and emotional regulation. Given I haven't got the capacity to edit a new episode this week, I thought, why don't we just listen to her again? What did you think? I loved it.

I think it is one of my all-time favourite episodes. Me too. And what I loved about it is A, she is so human, you know, so obviously human and real. But also her messages are just crystal clear. And actually, in the space of that podcast, you know, sometimes people try and cover, you know, a lot of ground, but she kept coming back to certain messages which just stayed with me. And I still, in my head now, hear her phrasing of walk them home and tell me more. Because actually, when someone's able to deliver their ideas in phrasing where it just sticks, like nice short taglines, or you know, kind of get eyes. I found myself doing that even more with my teenage sons just over the last two days, actually, making sure that if I'm talking to them, I move into the room where they are and I see their face. Because it's so easy, isn't it? Just to kind of be shouting round the house and this, that, or you know, saying stuff in passing, and to sit and have someone say, get eyes, tell me more, you know, walk them home when they are finding it difficult to set to themselves. I thought she was absolutely brilliant. Totally.

And a couple of other things that stayed with me were if the big people aren't okay, the little people don't stand a chance. And I think as parents, I think we really struggle with this, and it's such an important message. And another message that I love and which people really respond to is you only need to get this right 30% of the time. And I heard that the first time with her, and I've heard it since. That statistic was used by Dr. Suzanne Garfield Crowell in my interview with her. Even the most attuned parents only manage to stay well attuned 30% of the time. That's the most attuned parents. So the point is, we're never going to get this right a lot of the time. And I think that's that's the permission to say, I don't have to be perfect. I don't have to be constantly on it with my kids, constantly emotionally available, right? Because you can't.

Yeah, exactly. And actually, in that 30%, I think there's two things which are brilliant. You know, first of all, it's so grounding. As you say, the permission to say every single parent has their jagged moments where they're misaligned and they look back and think, you know, what was I doing? But also, I would say there's quite a big value in not getting it right all the time.

Yeah.

Because, you know, if we just imagine, if we kind of run the thought experiment of let's imagine we were this like perfect, perfect set of parents, and we met every single set of needs seamlessly, and there was never any misalignment, and it was all just absolutely glorious. What a terrible preparation for life. You know, literally, our teenagers would grow up entirely ill-equipped for building meaningful relationships with anybody else. Because, you know, anyone who's been through any sort of long-term relationship, whether it be you know romantic or friendship or professional or whatever, you know, a long-term relationship is all about realigning when things have gone a little bit wrong. And therefore, as a parent, repair, exactly. So, you know, those moments where I can think of all the times where I've lost my temper and shouted at my kids and afterwards thought, do you know what? That was me, not them. You know, I brought my baggage into the room. And then my sister, Bless her, said to me, Do you know what? Stop beating yourself up over the fact you've lost your temper. People do lose their temper, and your kids need to learn what it's like to A, push someone to their limit, and B, what happens next? And actually, those moments where we mess up, if we can have the sort of courage and confidence to own it and say to our kids afterwards, I wasn't my best self, Ted. You know, I'm really sorry. Yeah. What happened was this. Let's now move forward. If we recognise that the getting it right 30% of the time means that we've got 70% opportunity to repair and help our kids deal with relationships that aren't always easy, that's a gift, isn't it?

Yes, and I love her analogy with the flipped lid. You know, and when the lid is on, we have access to all the best parts of ourself. But when it's been flipped, then we just can't. We don't have that capacity. So it's actually how do we get the lid back on? Whether it's our children or ourselves. And I love what you're saying about practice because um I don't recommend the way I was parented by my father, but when my daughter had this catastrophic burn, it's covered 4% of her body, and I've been having to really hang it together. I was thinking about why am I capable of coping in these really difficult situations? And I think part of it is that I've watched my father losing it so many times and being and and not really being helpful. And I thought, I'm not gonna do that. And I think a lot of us parents have been brought up in ways where we thought, I'm not gonna do that, and then we've learned skills as a result. Some of them have not been good coping skills, some of them have been good ones. But when we get things wrong, it actually is an opportunity for our kids to learn how to put it right and how to get our lids back on again, you know, and and the fact that adults will get this wrong too. And I think my husband has dealt with it differently. So one of the things that happened with him is just he just got really angry with other people. He was with my youngest daughter, he nearly ended up in a fight with a man over something really trivial. And I thought, oh my goodness, that's his emotional reaction to what's been going on. It's because he's not processing it very well. Um, and we all do this. And my youngest daughter calmed the situation down because she recognized what was happening, and I thought, this is a child who's actually growing up to recognise where someone else needs some help to get the lid back on, to access the best of themselves. Because he's not like that normally at all. So Dr. Jody said you don't lose your ability to be great, you lose access to it. So, do you witness in the classroom and this happening?

All the time. All the time. So I think that phrase of losing your ability to access your best self is really helpful because we need to remember that the the best self is there, right? So, you know, one of the big things of behavior management in the classroom is to try and make sure that if a kid is behaving badly, we don't criticize the whole child. We don't say you are disgraceful. We comment on the behavior. We say that behavior is inappropriate. And that's such an important principle because the fact is that, you know, a child, a whole child isn't ever disgraceful. A whole child has a range of capacities, they have their best self, and then they have moments where they don't show their best self. But it is so much easier for a kid to come back to their best self if they know that the adult is willing to see it. And where conversations go really wrong, where things really derail, and I think we probably feel this as adults as well, but where things totally derail is when someone believes that the other person who's cross with them thinks badly of them as a whole. Yeah. And then what happens is they get really defensive, and either they just refuse to listen or they keep kind of pushing their version forward because they want to defend and say, look, you know, I'm not that terrible person overall. But I found in all the work I do, both kind of with classes and individually and also at home, if when things are going wrong, we can say, look, I'm interested in the best version of you, and what I've seen today isn't that. So how can we get back to that best version? You know, someone who knows that the adult is on their side and willing to see the best in them, they will show their best self to that person. And therefore, I thought the you know, one of her ideas that was so interesting was this idea of walking back to the best version of yourself because actually it may gave me real pause for thought to think, okay, what is the best version that I, you know, hope my kids want to show to the world? And also as a parent, what is the best version of myself as a parent? Because I don't actually think it is knowing the answer in advance, getting it right, finding things easy. I don't think those are the best versions of myself. I think actually, if we take a really long, hard look, the best versions of ourselves are things like a readiness to apologize or a kind of courage in the face of uncertainty. You know, I mean, I think through everything you've been through over the last kind of, you know, couple of weeks, and I think like you have must have met so much of your own courage and actually pausing and thinking, this this is something that I care about, and how can I access the showing of it? That's really interesting, isn't it? You know, thinking about what we want the best versions of ourselves to be, because they're probably less shiny than we think maybe they would be.

Yes. And one thing I realize, which I've written about in my Substack, is that often when we think we're being strong, it's actually the people around us who are supporting us to be that way. Phoebe said to me, Mummy, they are so kind here. I feel so looked after, I feel so cared for. These people are doing a job, but I feel like they're like them, they're like another mother, which is incredible. But one nurse was really brusque and difficult, and it absolutely exposed all my flaws. It I just I wasn't coping well at all when I witnessed the way she was, and that's when I fell apart, when Phoebe fell apart. And it made me realize we don't do this alone. Often we do when we try to cope alone. But if you're falling apart because things aren't working, it's it's often it's not just you, it's the environment we're working in. And I think we often can look at our kids and think, why are you behaving like this? There must be something wrong with you. But actually, it's worth looking at the whole environment and saying, well, maybe what they're reacting to is other things as well. It's not just about them. The thing I learned with um that particular experience with that difficult nurse was I actually had to come back to having my lid back on again before I wrote to the hospital to say, okay, this happened and I don't think it was good enough. And before I wrote that email, I thought, what is actually the message I want to get across? And I think this is a lesson for when we're talking to the school, for example, as well. And the overall lesson was this place is incredible. What these people do on a day-to-day basis is extraordinarily good. And that's actually the most important message to start with. And I think it's the same with schools. If you're you we we very often zone in on the things people are doing wrong and say, right, you've done all this, and then everybody reacts, everybody feels bad, everybody's angry, everybody's defensive. But actually, if you can start by putting it into context and saying, almost everything is brilliant, or a lot of what you're doing is is great. Here is what it is. Okay, so this bit didn't work. And starting from that premise, everybody's gonna get a better result in the end.

Yeah, totally, totally. It's it's that kind of principle, isn't it? Of when things are going wrong, if there's conflict or if there are difficult emotions in the mix, like anger or fear or shame or guilt, you know, those things so often coalesce, right? You know, so if things are going wrong, have we paused just to remember the importance of kindness? Because I think your comments about how you kept going, you found your strength and your courage because you were bolstered by the kindness of people around you is so true. You know, every time I talk to anyone who's been through any difficult experience, you know, kind of grief, loss, breakup, you know, difficult things, a message you hear again and again and again is it's the kindness of others that kind of gives that emotional recharge or helps people find the best version of themselves. And I've quite often said to my boys, you know, one of the things I've said again and again and again is that when you most need someone else to be kind to you, you have to show your kindness to them. You have to put that kindness out there because quite often when we're most in need of kindness, you know, we're feeling tired or we're feeling angry or sad or whatever, we kind of forget to be kind to others, and then you end up in this difficult position where you're craving kindness or TLC, but you're actually putting out there something which is the opposite, and then you kind of get back the opposite of what you need. So I think when you were kind of talking about needing to advocate for Phoebe and to call out a problem, you know, when a member of staff hadn't given the care that she needed, to be able to call that out with kindness and respect to say, you know, I recognise how amazing your team is, you've done all of this stuff, actually, you get so much better a result back. And similarly, as parents, when we're dealing with the jagged edges with our children, like you know, it's not easy if your kid has just kind of stormed out of the room or you know, been rude or insulting or whatever, you know, it is hard to remember that that best self still needs to be seen. It is, it's really hard. But thinking actually, when we're navigating this, what sort of kindness can I bring? Because someone's with a teenager who's flipped their lids, you know, the kindness they need is e.g. to know that you as a parent remember they probably didn't want to be that person in the first place.

Those words have come into my mouth. You always do this, you always do it. And then I hear myself and I think, no, no, that's a horrible thing to say, and that's not true. And then I have to say, no, actually, I'm sorry, I that's not true. Um, it's normal. And I loved Jodie's description of what a regulated body feels like. You know, actually being able to recognise it, where she said the shoulders are dropped, the tongue is off the roof of your mouth, toes can wiggle, breath comes easily, and how she walks around with snacks in her pockets. And so, because she knows that you can't, you can't be lid-flipped and able to eat or suck. And she said, you know, when you get that double sif, then then you can tell that they're starting to calm down. So even being able to realize that we're looking at someone who's dysregulated is helpful, isn't it? Because if we don't understand this somebody is not able to access that stuff and we keep going on at it, we're not going to get anything out of this situation.

Yeah, I thought she was so good as well when she said, you know, we need to distinguish kindness from reward. So when she was telling that story about, you know, if she's working with a kid who is absolutely flipped their lid, you know, kind of claming on the ceilings, whatever, you know, growling at people, can't even find their words, and she has snacks in her pocket, and she said, Some people will say that I'm rewarding behaviour and not what I'm doing is I'm walking them home, I'm helping them return physically to the best version of themselves. And I think as parents, it's really helpful to keep those things separate. That a reward is saying, Oh, I like what you've done. Well done, you know, have a biscuit. That's a reward. But helping someone come back to the best version of themselves by saying, Look, we're just gonna take a beat here. I'm here to help you. Let's just sit, let's just ground, I'm gonna have I'm gonna have a cup of tea. Would you like a biscuit? As a we're just gonna do this as a means to come back. Those are totally different. And you know, yes, a biscuit features in both, but there is a difference between have a reward and this is a mechanism that helps us come back. I was um actually I was doing um an event at a school in Surrey recently, and the head there is brilliant, Naomi Bradshaw. Shout out to Naomi Bradshaw, she's totally fantastic. Hi, Naomi! And and you know, we were doing this session for parents on supporting through the difficult bits of school. And she had this lovely, lovely phrase of a hot chocolate break. Because one of the messages we were working on with the parents is that, you know, when emotions are really high, when someone's finding it really difficult to have a conversation, to get words out, when a situation feels like it's derailing, if you just give a little bit of space to finding calm and you don't rush that space, then calm comes much quicker than you might think. And she said as a parent, it's basically usually about the amount of time it takes to put the cattle on, heat some milk or whatever, make a hot chocolate, sit down, let the hot chocolate cool brilliant and drink it. And that's actually only about four or five minutes. But if ki if a kid is really, really upset about something or behaving really, really badly, you know, a teenager and we say, right, let's just ground here, there's no rush, you take your time, I'm gonna make a drink, and you don't hurry that bit, and you think it probably only needs a couple of minutes, but it needs to not be rushed. Things do settle much quicker than we think. And where rows build is when we feed them because if someone shouts and the parents says, Stop shouting now, and the child kind of runs off, and you say, Don't run away from me, don't slam that door, and then you chase after them and you have another goat, you know. And if we feed that row, then actually the emotion lasts so much longer than if we say, I see you're really angry, I'm really angry, let's just take a beat and centre, and then have a conversation. And I think little things like that, like you know, the hot chocolate break, it doesn't take as long as you think if you are willing to give it the space. I think that's really helpful for us as parents.

It's it we notice that in our kids, and that's something we can do for our kids and ourselves. One thing that I wrote about in my Substack that I learned from this scenario was that often we parents are not able to access the best in ourselves, and that's really difficult. And I think it's about noticing in our body what's happening, noticing how our body responds when our lid is about to go off. So for me, it was when I was in the first dressings change. So Phoebe had been through several dressings changes when they debrided her skin, which is where they take off the burnt dead skin. She'd had morphine, they wouldn't even let her look, and they wouldn't let me in the room. So the first time I was actually with her when she was getting a dressings change, which by the way is the most excruciatingly painful thing because you've got open wounds that they're taking. Uh, and I'm quite screamish. So I stood in the room and I was trying to hold her hand and let her push hard against it, and I was coaching her like a like a cocks in a rowing boat because she's a rower. And uh she was like, Mummy, that's really helpful. Thank you, thank you. And then I I noticed my body starting to respond. So I noticed it got hot, and I was like, Is it really hot in this room? Can we open a window? And then I realised something was happening and I was gonna faint. So I actually pulled a chair over and I said, Can we just take a second? Because I need to just sit down. And I thought, I'm gonna I'm gonna vomit and faint. You know, because it was so awful. And and I bring this up because I've got a couple of other scenarios I mentioned in my substack, which is one where my bonus daughter, when she discovered her mother had cancer and the school knew about it, she was in this room with this adult who basically sobbed. And that was the last thing that she needed was another adult around her who was supposed to be supporting her falling apart. And another friend I was talking to heard about another mother who basically, when she discovered her daughter had to have a C-section, lost the plot completely, started wailing. And the poor girl who was about to have a C-section now had to make space for her mother's emotions rather than her own. And we've all done it. But my point is, it's one of those things that we can learn to notice, to know, oh gosh, I am finding this so hard. And if we notice it bubbling up, then we can do something. We can leave the room, we can sit down, we can take that pause so that we don't end up occupying all the oxygen in the room when it's needed by someone else. We've all done it.

Yeah, totally. And it means actually, you know, as a parent, we can invest our mental energy either in trying to think how do we get it right all the time, or we can invest our mental energy in thinking when I am about to flip my lids and not be my best self, I recognise these are my steps, this is what it looks like. Yes, and it takes a bit of time to notice it, to kind of see our own dance. And, you know, I've realized as a parent that if I'm getting too busy, too tired, you know, I'm running on empty, I'm losing my resilience. The first thing I do is I overcompensate. I suddenly start thinking, right, you know, I'm slightly behind the curve, so I'm gonna make some biscuits. I mean, it's just ludicrous, totally ludicrous. But my first move is I overcompensate. And then the second move is that because I then have completely exhausted myself, I then get very cross over something tiny, like my kids being 30 seconds late for supper or not pouring out the water for everyone else. And I absolutely, and because as a family, we've worked quite hard on narrating what we do, just noticing it and narrating it with kindness, we've been able to verbalise that you know, this is the dance, and therefore, my lovely boys, they've been able to say to me, a bit like you were saying happened with your kind of husband earlier, they've been able to say to me, Mum, do you realise what you're doing here? Do you see that you've moved into base one? Like you are now like trying to wash the kitchen floor, even though you've only got two minutes. Like maybe you just we just need to pause. And they've learned that when I start overcompensating, it's because I'm sort of running on empty, and they've learned that actually if they just say, Look, how can we help? You don't need to take all this on yourself. And then, you know, if I get to the stage of like flipping my lid over something minor, they're like, actually, Mum, we know what this looks like. And I have found it so helpful that they now are able to help me catch. And then I can say, Oh, you're right. You know, this anger I feel is real, but it's born out of the fact that I have run out of energy. It's not that you forgetting to pour out a glass of water is a cardinal sin. And therefore, I think, you know, parents listening to this, like if we just pause and think, what do we do when we're running on empty? What happens in our body? What happens in our behaviours? And if we can be quite honest about it and own it and say, I recognise that this is what I do, you know, I recognise that I get, you know, more fussed about neatness if I'm feeling stressed, or I recognise that I get really, you know, negative if I'm feeling, you know, whatever. If we can name our dance, then actually our kids can also help us walk back home to the best version of ourselves.

Exactly.

And it's so good for them. And that's not putting responsibility on them for our feelings. It's just recognising exactly as Jodie was saying, that we help each other. Humans help each other. We help regulate each other by noticing and remembering what the best version of ourselves looks like and helping someone come back there because we remember it exists.

Yes, and I know that a lot of us will have had parents who refuse to admit that they would get things wrong or refuse to admit the failings that they had. And it doesn't mean that you haven't noticed them. I went through plenty of times when I try to point something out and say, Do you see you're doing and I would be completely shut down. And I think one of the most powerful things is allowing our kids to notice those things and give us that feedback and know that it's not us being catastrophically bad parents and being able to apologize. So the repair section I thought was brilliant. Where if she has an argument with her husband, she actually makes him come downstairs and apologize in front of the kids. And I love this because Nick and I rarely argue. But I there have been maybe two or three times in our marriage where it's really boiled up and we've got really angry with each other. And I remember one of them where we sort of marched outside and we were arguing outside, and then Nick disappeared off, but he'd gone to buy me some flowers. But um, the girls are going, Mummy, are you getting divorced? And I think the repair thing's so important because if we actually lost our rag with each other, they will catastrophise too, and they will think it's their fault. Because I remember always thinking it was my fault that my parents were having these terrible rows or he was being so horrible to her. And um, and I think this this ability to go into a room in front of our kids and say, Oh, you know, we've we've repaired now, he's apologised, she's apologised, and you know, I I realise I got this wrong and my lid was flipped. Having that language is so healing because everyone in the house feels the energy. Everyone is exposed to it, but if they don't see the reconciliation, they don't see the denouement and then the end of the film, yeah, then they'll they'll have all sorts of ideas about what's been happening, won't they?

Yeah, totally. Her comments made me think actually that quite often we row quite publicly, you know, because actually when we row, you know, as humans like voices raise, or you know, even if you're trying to row non-publicly, like the whole kind of you know, row in the front of the car while the kids are in the back seat and everyone's speaking like this and you know, trying not to, you know, present it as a row. As you say, the kids always know because they feel the emotional energy, they feel that emotional energy before they hear the words. So, you know, rows tend to be quite obvious, but it suddenly struck me that apologies are often quite private because they're karma and they often are in a different room and they're often separate. And it did make me think, actually, you know, how do we how often are we adult as adults, are we role modelling repair with others? Because exactly as you say, you know, if there's a row amongst kind of you know parents and the repair happens but the kids never see it, if there's no sense of we have made this better because I have recognised where I upset, and you know, your father has recognised where you know he upset. And if we really own that in that row, there's always behavior on both sides, and there's always repair on both sides, that a row is never just for one person to sort out. That is great role modelling, and no one likes the fact they've ride in front of their kids. But if you could move through it to something better and can say, you know, we're in the 70% where we didn't get things right, but we have moved through it to something better, that's really, really constructive. And here's how you do it. Here's how you do it. Because no kid needs a perfect parent. And as I said at the start, a perfect parent is not actually optimal. Kids need parents who can help them learn how to deal with the tough stuff.

Yeah, and one of the other things I've been thinking about this uh last three weeks was there's a whole debate, isn't there, about what you do when your kids go to university. And there was a recent article in the Times where this mother talked about why she's got her son being tracked. She will call him if he doesn't get to his lecture on time. She's very visible in his life. And I've seen other stories where parents have moved to university where their kids are, and you know, parents who can't let go. And so there's this big sea change in the way some people see their role when their kids go to university. And it really was an interesting one for me because I moved in with Phoebe when she went back to university, so she missed two weeks because she couldn't physically do things, she couldn't walk, it was, she was in so much pain. But finally, she was desperate to go back, it was constant negotiation, and I said, Okay, you can go back, but you can't do a lot of things, so I will live with you. So the university gave me a bed in her bedroom, and I thought, isn't this ironic? Here I am, you know, the mother who is now living with her daughter, this poor girl, in her room, just because she needed so many things done for her. Because, you know, just in terms of shopping for things, setting up her room, dressing changes, going and getting medication when she needed all those things. It was only four days, but it was a very interesting dance. I think what we have to do as parents is we have to give our kids enough strength beneath them so that they can then fly off. And I was just trying to make sure that she was surrounded by things that she needed so that she could get on with what she needed to do. And as soon as she looked like she could cope, so the last dressings change I had to do, then I took her to the consultant, then I said, I'm going home now. And we were both ready. We were both like, we're so over this, and now I'm just available on the phone. And I think the hardest thing for us parents often is knowing what the balance is between allowing our child to just take agency of their life. And, you know, in a meeting with the university, the head of the academics, and I sat there with Phoebe, it was really hard for me because I had to keep biting my lip and allowing her to say what she needed because they were offering her all sorts of things, and I'm like, yeah, take them, take them. And Phoebe was going, Oh no, that's a bit that that would be overkill. And there was something inside me going, no, but that just but and then thinking, no, she knows it's her body, it's her life. She's a person who's going to have to navigate this, and we can always row back on things if we need to. So it's just knowing, like being able to step back and constantly remind myself, this is a young person who is trying to grow up and be an individual in the world, and it's not helpful when I keep stepping in and trying to do things for her.

But it is such fun. Oh my gosh, I find it so hard. And you know, I've kind of written about this that one of the difficulties as a parent is you have to keep recalibrating around your changing child, right? So what worked really well when they were 10, when they're 20, it's really different. And a bit like you, you know, my eldest child is now an adult, and he's 18. Yes. And that is different because he is both legally an adult, but also he needs to feel like he's an adult because that's what he is. So I know that I need to recalibrate around that, but it's really, really hard sometimes because if you're sitting in a room and you're suddenly worried about something, it's really hard not to kind of step in and try and do that help. But I think so much of it comes back down to you know this idea we've been talking about of what is the best version of yourself. Because if we narrate that to our children and say, look, you know, now you are an adult, I want to be the parent who you know is there to support, but at your request, I don't want to steam in. And I know there's going to be times where I misstep because I might be on autopilot or I might be acting out of my own emotions or whatever. Like if we can label the value, the best version of ourselves that we want to be, then we can also say to our children, when I misstep, please catch me, please tell me. Because if we have labelled that value, then it's possible for our child to say, Mum, remember you said you wanted to help, but not kind of crush me with your advice, you know, or whatever it is. Like if we kind of have that label, that thing, that thing, you know, because if we put a label on that we've agreed, then when our kid says, Mum, you're overadvising, if we put a label we've agreed, then that that label is non-hurtful. And therefore it's possible. Exactly. And that is the huge difference, isn't it? Because if you've agreed, like my value is I don't want to overadvise. Like this is something I'm really working on at the moment with my own children, as you can probably tell. You know, so if we say the label of my value right now, now you're 18, I want to be there for you, but I don't want to overadvise, I respect the fact you're an adult, and if you find a tagline, then because you've agreed that this is a value you both care about, then when your child says to you, Oh mum, you know, you you are now tipping into overadvising, that doesn't hurt. Whereas if we haven't given it a label that shows it ties to a positive value we care about, then what happens is, you know, I might do the same thing and my kid might lose their temper and be like, Mum, back off. You're always telling me what to do, you know. And then that communication comes out in language that hurts as opposed to a reminder of this is the thing we're aiming at, you know. And so I just keep saying I love this idea of walking back to the best version of yourself, but it means we do, as parents, need to think about verbalizing and sharing those values with our kids of here's the parent I want to be, and recognizing I'm not always going to get it right. You know? Yes.

And I think before we go, I wanted to come back to her. She's she's very good at the tell me more. You know, when your kids are struggling with something and being able to give them space, like what's the hardest part? And this listening, this ability to say, how does that feel, and be able to cope with the emotion that they might uh dump in your lap, is I think one of the really difficult things for us parents and things I had to really learn as my kids grew up, because we can hold their pain, we can't fix it. And it's this ability to say, okay, you're safe with me, you can tell me the worst. You can tell me all of the horrible, messy things that uh really embarrass you, shame you, make things difficult. And I will just be there, but I can't fix it. And being able to accept that, I think, has been one of the most challenging things that I've had to learn. But it also helps the pay them move through the pain. If they can vocalize, so particularly with Phoebe, where she was really struggling with things, and she'd say, I don't know why I'm sobbing, I've been crying so much. And I said, Because you're in pain. You know, it's the proper reaction to what you've been experiencing. And then allowing her to talk it through. And I said to her, you know, I know from my own experience that the more we're able to vocalize how things have affected us, the more they don't trap us, they don't stay stuck, that we let our kids move through it. Because then once they vocalize it, then you can say, So what do you think you'd like to do? And you give them the chance to step back from what they've just painted, the picture, and go, Oh, actually, I'm not sure, you know, and then they can think about things clearly.

So much. When when I first started teaching, I think back to some of the advice that I got when I first started teaching. Not because the advice was particularly brilliant, right? There was all sorts of terrible advice that I wouldn't in any way repeat, but I think back to the advice that stayed with me. Because the advice that stayed with me over 20 years is the advice that works. And one of the things that was good when I first started teaching was someone saying to me, Don't fear the question you can't answer. Just be willing to work your way through it. And I think as parents, that's really helpful for us as well, because I think where our fear kicks in as parents, I mean kicks in all over the place, but one of the places where our fear or our shame or our guilt as parents kicks in is when we think we need to know the answer in advance. So, you know, our kid comes to us and they say something, you know, really difficult, and we're suddenly like, oh, like news, what's the answer? What's the answer? What's the answer? You know, I don't know the answer in advance. And I think where I've got to is thinking, actually, we need to not fear not knowing the answer in advance because not knowing the answer at the starting line doesn't mean you're not going to work your way through in a positive way. And one of the reasons why I love her Tell Me More as the first response, tell me more, you know, collect before you direct. What a great tagline. Um is that actually if you think your first step is to find out more so you can think more carefully about it, then it also gives you permission to pause and you don't need to know the answer in advance. And I would say actually, now to any parent that if your kid comes to you with a difficult situation and you think you know the answer in advance, what you're doing is you're parenting off habits or defaults. And that may well be right, but pause all the same, tell me more, find out more, and just check whether that instinctive response actually does fit the situation. And once you give yourself permission just to pause and not know the answer in advance, then I think a lot of parenting gets easier, and I also think it becomes easier when you've got teenagers to work in a way that is respectful and collaborative, not handing over you know control to the kids, always remembering that you know we are the adults and ultimately we do have to make decisions and take responsibility. But as our kids get older, that parenting does have to gradually evolve into something that is more of a you know side-by-side relationship than a top-down, because if we don't recalibrate, we're not really going to have a positive relationship with our adult children, you know, with whom it would have to be a collaboration, as opposed to oh, you must still do what I say because you know I gave birth to you.

Catherine, it's been brilliant. Thank you so much for listening to Dr. Jodi giving us your brilliant thoughts and reflections on her advice because I thought she was amazing and I get that feedback from a lot of parents who listen to it. If you haven't listened to it, listen to it. Right now. Listen to it right now. Before you go, please check your hot water bottles tonight if you have them. I honestly mine are all thrown out. We're using rice and wheat bags that you can microwave. Uh, they should be thrown out after two years after they're made. I have spoken with people who contacted me with the most horrific stories, lots and lots of people who've got old hot water bottles that need throwing out, and actually somebody who threw out her hot water bottles, bought some new ones from a reputable retailer, and has found that they're already past their expiry date. I think it's just unbelievable that these dangerous things are out for sale and nobody really understands the problems that they can bring. So um if you found this useful, please right now send it to somebody who might benefit as well. And Catherine, thank you so much. I hope you have a good week. We'll speak to you very soon. Bye for now.