Parenting During the LA Wildfires

Dr. Becky recently held a virtual event for parents affected by the LA wildfires - this episode is the recording of that event.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  After my first baby was born, I treated my own recovery like a complete afterthought. If the baby needed something, I showed up immediately. If I needed something, well, it would wait. But research shows that when parents have the support they need, they're better able to care for their children. Taking care of yourself isn't separate from parenting. It's a huge part of parenting. That's why I love Frida's mission to prepare women for the realities of pregnancy, postpartum, recovery, and feeding. Frida creates solutions for the moments that often catch moms off guard. The Postpartum Essentials Kit and Breastfeeding Survival Kit help women feel more prepared for those early weeks of motherhood. Be motherhood prepared and shop Frida at Amazon, Target, and Walmart today.

• 0:43Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I recently hosted a live event for parents who have been impacted by the California wildfires. I wanted to share the recording with you. If you're a parent who has been impacted by the California wildfires, or if you know a parent who has, please do share it. Please do listen. In it, I talk about how to explain what happened to our kids, how to answer difficult questions, how to talk to your kids about things you don't even know, where you're uncertain, where you're not sure you have words. There are definitely no right answers or right scripts for situations in the world. It just feels so unimaginable and so wrong. So this is not about

• 1:28Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  getting it right. This is about putting words to things that are really hard to talk about. And so take what resonates, change what you want to change, and just flat out throw out what doesn't feel like you. This is just meant to be a support during this unimaginable time.

• 1:55Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Hey, everyone. Welcome. I don't know, usually when I start a live event, I'll say something like, "I'm excited to be here." Does not feel like the right words. "I am honored to be here. I've been really looking forward to connecting with you." I'll introduce myself and then we'll really jump in so we can get the most out of our time together. I'm Dr. Becky Kennedy. I'm a clinical psychologist. Someone would say I specialize in parenting. I actually just think I like thinking about relationships, you know, the relationship with our kids, the relationship we have with ourself and other adults. And I think one of the things I think a lot about is how to show up during really, really hard times for ourselves and for our children.

• 2:36Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And certainly what you are all going through is like a wordless time, so a really hard time, wouldn't say it. But thank you for having me. And by the end of this, I hope that you leave with some ideas and frameworks and strategies that, without a doubt, I will not say will make life easy, but might be useful and feel important in certain moments. Sometimes that's the best we could do. Please do use the chat during this. You know, sometimes people find connections in the chat. Raina and Jakira from our team will be paying attention to the chat, incorporating things. I really believe community is, you know, is everything. And so just what happens in the chat often is the best sign that we're not feeling alone.

• 3:16Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  If you're willing, I actually think it could be powerful to start by putting one single word into the chat that represents how you're feeling right now. And I'm a big believer in parts. I believe we all feel many things at the same time. But put one word, and then please take a moment to scroll, and I'll read. Overwhelmed, devastated, gutted, anxious, heartbroken, overwhelmed, scared, on edge, drained, worried, squeezed, broken, helpless, shut down, shattered, heartbroken, gutted, sad. Unmoored, confused, hopeful, heartbroken, angry.

• 4:00Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  You are not alone. I know if you look, there's someone else who's feeling how you're feeling. And that does not make a feeling go away. But sometimes knowing that we're not alone can give us this tiny softening. When in certain awful situations, that tiny thing is the best that we can do.

• 4:22Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I will be recording this event. I hate the idea of people having to take notes when something, you know, has happened in their life that already makes their list of things feel insanely unfairly overfull. And that way, people who can't come can receive it. I want to quickly introduce Reina Pomeroy. Reina leads community efforts at Good Inside. And she is, in many ways, as you'll see, kind of like the perfect moderator, if I could say that, for this event because of her personal connection to the topic. And so I'll let her introduce herself and then we'll get into the questions that have been coming up the most for families.

• 4:56Speaker 01

  Awesome. Thank you so much, Dr. Becky, and thank you for being here. I'm Reina Pomeroy. I lead community here at Good Inside. And I, myself, am a total loss fire survivor from the Marshall Fire of 2021. I have been in your shoes. I've been in the sitting in many, many webinars to try to see if I can piece myself together. And so I'm right here with you. And I'm honored to just walk alongside you to moderate this event with Dr. Becky.

• 5:28Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And just as one more personal story, you know, Reina's, you know, being a total loss survival of the Marshall Fire happened, I think, a week or two before she joined us at Good Inside. And I remember us on the phone. I remember us talking through things.

• 5:45Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And I think that's, you know, given me a little bit of a sense of, you know, that deep connection with you, Reina, and what this is like. And I'm just so glad that you're here because your lived experience of that, there's just, you know, it's unmatched. Okay, let's jump in.

• 6:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a great place to start. And you held a lot of hope for me. And I think that that's where we're starting today. But where do we start? When we'll get, we'll get to our kids later, but we'll first talk about how, how can we even process this when we don't really know what we're going through?

• 6:16Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And I think this is the perfect place to start. And it's something I hope everyone here puts up on their list after, because I promise you, we'll talk about how do we talk to our kids? And certainly parenting through total devastation, it's like this crazy thing we have to do, take care of our kids while we feel like the infrastructure of our life just, you know, for just changed. The place to start is actually not with our kids. It's definitely with ourselves. Your kids just went through something unmanageable. You just went through something unimaginable. And there's no words that can fully explain what I think is like the word list. But a couple of things that I find powerful are

• 7:00Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  words like, it makes sense that. And if I just go back to what so many of you shared, it is so well received by our bodies to say, it makes sense that I feel heartbroken. It makes sense that I feel unmoored. It makes sense that I feel gutted. Whatever the word is that rises to the top, or the word that most represents in this moment, how you feel, it is so important to give your body those words. Our feelings are forces, and they're looking for containers, not containers that make them go away, but containers they can live in. And when our feelings don't have containers, because they're forces, they

• 7:42Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  just come out in all of these ways. And they do more and more things to get our attention, kind of like our, you know, pesky, pesky toddlers can do. And so taking a moment, and maybe it's something you do right now. And maybe it's something that feels natural and maybe this is something that you're like, this feels so hokey. Is this so not something someone like me would do? I'm going to encourage you to try it on. And if you hate it, you know, you can say that was the worst suggestion ever. I'm never doing it again. But think about the one word that's loudest in terms of how you're feeling. And I just want you to put your hand on your heart. And just to say, it makes sense that I'm feeling this way. I do not expect unicorns

• 8:21Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  and rainbows. And it does start a regulation process in our body to say those words. Other words, just because I'm big on giving a lot of examples, knowing that I expect you to throw a good percentage of them out, because only you know the overlap of my ideas and what feels right to you. And so when people say that doesn't make sense to me, I'm like, great, throw it out. You know, you best. I give myself permission to feel this way. I give myself permission to be mad and angry and sad and to not know what I'm going to do. I give myself permission for all of that. Our body likes to hear that our feelings make sense. And our body likes to hear that we have permission to feel the way we're feeling.

• 9:06Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  It sounds so cheesy. And if it sounds extra awkward, it probably goes back to something way beyond this event. Right? Whether we grew up in a home where we were told our feelings make sense, and we were told we're allowed to feel things, which is separate from behavior, goes back to whether something like this feels natural or super awkward. But I really encourage you at least once a day to pause, to set an alarm, maybe it's once an hour, and just to give yourself that validation. It's a lot harder for us to hold the feelings of our kids, if we don't practice holding the feelings that are happening inside of our own body. I'm just going to share some other things again, because I like options.

• 9:46Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  This feels scary. It's okay to feel that way. Yes, I feel powerless. And that's really hard. I'm allowed to cry, scream, and feel whatever I'm feeling. The other thing that I think is really powerful to tell ourselves, and I'm going to share, and you might say this sounds so overly simplistic, but one of the things that's happened here is a massive violation of expectations. Nobody expected overnight to evacuate their home, for their community.

• 10:24Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  To look like scorched earth, to have their home and everything in it gone, to not know if you can go back, to not know when school is gonna... No one expected that.

• 10:36Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And actually saying words to yourself like, "I didn't expect this to happen." Or, "I really didn't want this to happen."

• 10:50Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Sometimes more than the validation of our feelings, it's the validation of the violation of our expectations that our body really, really needs to hear from us.

• 11:02Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Sometimes we get into almost a blame. We don't even realize we're blaming ourselves, but telling yourself, "I didn't expect this to happen." "I didn't want this to happen."

• 11:14Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Is really important. The last thing I want to say before we go to the next question is, it makes sense if you're struggling.

• 11:26Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I know people who are going through what you're all going through, who are

• 11:31Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  optimizing in any part of their lives. And what you went through, like, I really mean it. It's a horror. What you are going through is a horror. And amidst horror, struggling is the best any of us can do.

• 11:52Speaker 01

  Okay. On that note, what can we do when we're stressed or crying? And what if our kids see? Or if they feel, this is fact, like we're short and reactive?

• 12:04Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  So we all feel and experience and show our stress and our pain and our fears in different ways. Some of us, we kind of melt into it, right? We melt into it. We cry, right? It's hard to motivate to do anything.

• 12:25Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Others, we can have a tendency to turn pain and fear and sadness into anger. Kind of converts, makes us feel in the moment a little more powerful. I'm so reactive, no matter what my kid does, I'm yelling at them, right? So the first thing to know is that crying or seeing you upset, there's no problem with that when it comes to child development. I think something happened in the child development literature where things that we know about kids' development, it got, it got put into some reel that like, didn't quite get the whole story and didn't get the nuanced. Just, right, missed it. And people say, oh, I'm not supposed to let my kids see me upset.

• 13:07Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  It, it feels to me like it would be very bizarre if children going through this didn't see their parent upset. And so it's not your crying that upsets children. It's actually your crying and not having a story to understand what's happening that upsets children. It's kind of almost always, it's the lack of a story around the event, not the event itself. And I really want you to know that because you're human. You're going, you know, again, through something wordless. And so I hate the idea that there's an extra layer of like, oh, now messing up my kids because I'm crying.

• 13:51Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  What's important is to say to your kids. If it was me, you saw mommy crying, and this is one of my favorite lines. You were right to notice that. We, you know, and then here's the story is personal, but it could be, we don't know if we can go back to our house yet. And I was thinking about all the things we don't have and how much things have changed in the last number of days. And I feel sad about that. And when I feel sad, sometimes I cry. And that's why I was crying. Now, the thing you could layer on to that, because in some ways, it's what our kids are always wondering,

• 14:34Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  is, and did you know that even when I'm crying, I can still take care of you?

• 14:43Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Even when I'm crying, I'm the same dad who's gonna make you dinner and put you to bed. Because that's kind of the struggle, like is my sturdy leader not available anymore? And we're available in a different form. But what kids need to hear is that we haven't gone away, right? And so I just want you to remember that. And if you're yelling a lot, right? I always say the best strategy to get good at as a parent is repair. I really mean that. And I know I said this in my TED Talk and it brought a lot of laughter, but I really mean it for myself that for me,

• 15:26Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  when I yell at my kids, which of course I do, because I'm a human, not a robot, I remind myself, Becky, the most important strategy to get good at is repair. I can't repair if I don't yell. So, step one, crushed it, you know? I already did step one, I did the yelling. So now I get to do step two, the repair, which I'm trying to get really good at. You know, and I always joke, everyone says the first step's the hardest step. Okay, well, I did the hardest step, I yelled. Now I just get to say, hey, I yelled. I'm sure that feels scary. It's not your fault when I yell. Lots on my mind as we think about the next steps. I'm going to figure it out. We are.

• 16:10Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And I'm gonna try to stay a little bit calmer tomorrow. Whatever we can say that feels honest. Again, it's often not the yelling at our kids, but are kids feeling alone and scared without a story to understand after the yelling? That's the thing that really lives on. Because like, oh, am I a bad kid? Do I just make people yell? And I just have that impact on everyone? That doesn't feel good to kids, right? This kind of self doubt, self blame. We all know those stories, right? And so I just want you to remember that. The crying, the yelling, whatever it is, you're gonna be doing the best you can. Right, events like this, you know, whatever you do to try to take care of yourself,

• 16:49Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  that's critical. And still, in these awfully extraordinary circumstances, you know, your tears are gonna come, your yelling's gonna come, and then you're gonna, I hope, hear my voice saying, get good at repair. Just crush repair. Crush. Crush repair. And the only way you can crush repair is if you've already done something, you're not the proudest of. Okay, I'm not saying, you know, we of course want to minimize that, but after it happens, go repair and take responsibility.

• 17:18Speaker 01

  All right. Everyone's situation is a little bit different. What are the general principles that always help in these awful stages? As in, how do we approach this with our kids?

• 17:28Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  That's right. So I think, you know, right here, right, we have parents who've lost their homes, we have parents who've lost their communities, we have parents who've lost their schools, we have parents who, you know, don't know if they can go back to their house, we have parents who know their house is standing and have evacuated. There's so many different situations. And to me, what I find overwhelming as a parent is when I'm supposed to get, like, each specific scenario one specific way, then I feel like I have to, like, mimic someone else. I never want to have that impact on people. When I feel like, wait, there's some basic principles that can guide me, then I can also use my intuition, what feels right with my style and my kid. And to me, that's way more empowering.

• 18:10Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  So number one principle, it's not information that scares kids. It's the lack of information that scares kids. Now, this is not a way of saying we should flood our children with all the information we have. But children, even more than adults, are very perceptive to changes in their environment. They hear what you're saying on the phone. They notice how you're feeling. They notice, oh, my goodness, my mom or my dad is saying certain words over and over that I've never heard them say before. Right? They hear things like, "Oh, we don't know when school's gonna start again." Whatever it is, they already heard it. So when I hear parents saying, "But my kid's so young.

• 18:54Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Are they too young to know about this?" I feel like we're framing the question wrong. The thing already happened. They already overheard the thing. The only question is, do I provide them a story? Or do I leave them alone to make up a story based on their own devices? And I can tell you, your story to your child is going to feel a lot safer and better than the story a four-year-old or a 14-year-old makes up for themselves. And when kids don't have stories to understand that they act things out, their behavior gets worse. I often think of it's like work. Like, imagine you overhear your boss talking about layoffs or something, and then you're in your boss's office, you're like, "Did you say layoffs?" And they're like, "No, no, no, no, everything's good. We're good, we're good."

• 19:37Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And I'm like, "Well, pretty sure I said 20," whatever it was. You're spinning for the whole week. And you're reacting, "Oh, my God, is that, is that right?" You, you want someone to say, "You heard, you heard me say that. You were right to overhear that. Here's what we're going through." You want the truth. You want the truth. And the version of the truth you tell your kids, again, of course, it's dependent on a million factors, but let that be a principle that leads you. Next principle. It's okay to not know. Too many times, I hear that parents don't talk to their kids because they don't know the answer. It's actually really powerful to tell your kids, let's say it's this, "You might be

• 20:20Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  wondering what's happening with your school. I want to be totally honest with you. We don't know yet. We don't know when you're going back to school. And I'm figuring it out. We're all talking and different options. And I promise you, as soon as I know more, I'm going to tell you." You might also add at some point, "Oh, my goodness. It is so hard not to know about the things that really matter in our life. I wish I could tell you something that's like, this is what we're doing about this. This is the place we're going to live." And the truth is, I don't know.

• 21:03Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  What I do know is we're a family. What I do know is I will always be honest with you, and I do know...

• 21:14Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  That we are going to figure it out. That's what a kid needs to hear. The next thing I want to say is taking care of yourself is critical. It is not selfish. You're probably spending more time with your kids, right? It's probably, oh my goodness, my back in COVID days, right? Whatever you need to do, and you can hear from me, the TV, the iPad, to say, what is something that actually feels like taking care of me? You know, I often think about being on a plane and hearing a pilot say, "Don't worry, everyone, like, I love piloting.

• 21:54Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I have not slept in 10 days because I just love piloting planes so much." I mean, if you're like me, you're like, "I'm getting off this plane." Like, I don't want my pilot to run themselves in the ground in the name of being super pilot. Super pilots have boundaries. I mean, we're really going to get to it. Pilots actually have laws, that mandate that they rest, right? We don't have that for parents, and probably we should. And definitely in a time like this, I want you to think of a pilot who would mandate self-care in order to be the best pilot they could for all the passengers. The other thing I want to add, and Raina really shared this with me from her experience,

• 22:38Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  is that when she was going through being, you know, her experience being a total loss survivor is moments of joy felt very different, almost like guilt, like, should I be, should I be feeling this way? I'm laughing, like, oh my goodness, I lost everything. Joy does not invalidate grief. Joy matters. And joy really matters, not just for your kids, for you. And that doesn't mean, oh my goodness, is this some toxic positivity? You have to go find joy? No, I'm just saying, allow yourself to be open to it if it finds you. Joy, I've learned from one of my friends, joy is fleeting. Joy is very different from happiness. Joy is fleeting. It's like these spikes.

• 23:21Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And it might find you when you see some meme or when your kid says something funny. And...

• 23:29Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Remind yourself that that doesn't mean you're not thinking about other people, or the seriousness, or yourselves, or your problems. I think a big principle at Good Inside is two things are true. I don't think anything anyone here could ever do will ever invalidate what you know about this reality you're going through. Moments of joy, they matter. And I want you to just keep the door open in case one finds you, and allow it to be there.

• 24:03Speaker 01

  Amazing. Are my kids going to be traumatized forever? This is something that I definitely wondered about myself.

• 24:11Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I'm curious how many people have this question, or if this is even a loud question. Is this one of the loudest questions? Oh, my goodness. Are my kids going to be traumatized forever from this experience? Trauma is something else I think that has been misunderstood, and again, has lost the nuance of what it really is. Trauma is not an event. Trauma refers to the way an event gets processed in the body. And the way I think about it is, trauma is an event that has a lot of big emotions around it that gets stored in a state of aloneness.

• 24:56Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  There's two components. The event, and I'm a straight shooter. Do some events have more trauma potential than other events because of how out of control and big feelings? Yeah, they do. Okay? But it's not the event itself that is traumatic. It's an event. And let's think about a kid. All these big sensations. I was at my house. I left. Oh, my goodness, a rush. I didn't go back. What else could be different in my life? And could anything else change overnight? And what can I count on? Yes, that is definitely the stuff of this event for a child. But that's not trauma. Those sensations and fleeting thoughts and feelings,

• 25:41Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  what's trauma is when that gets stored in a state of aloneness. It gets this free-flowing nature because there's no container, there's no connection, and there's no story.

• 25:55Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Now, this does not mean you should sit your child down and say, "We're gonna talk for three hours about everything that happened." Time is really important. Things don't need to get processed so quickly. But when I think about saying to a kid, and the stories, I'm gonna model one for you, if it's relevant to your situation. Everyone's is different, but just about how simple it can be.

• 26:21Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  "We packed our bags so quickly.

• 26:25Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And I was yelling, 'Get into the car, get into the car,' right? And then we got in the car. We're in traffic. And now we're here.

• 26:36Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  We're not sure if we can go back.

• 26:41Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Oh. Things really changed quickly. We are safe.

• 26:49Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And things in our home, we're just not sure about." Okay, I'm gonna zoom out from the role play.

• 26:57Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  What I'm doing with that story, again, only in a moment that only you know is kind of coming up anyway,

• 27:05Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  is what I'm doing for my kid with all their sensations is instead of these things flowing here and here, I'm kind of like threading them together. Right? Humans need stories.

• 27:21Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Humans learn from stories. We make meaning from stories. Stories add coherence to things that felt chaotic and incoherent. And it's actually the sensation and the chaos and the incoherence of what lives in our body,

• 27:37Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  that's what's not great as we get older. But I want you to know that not just today, you have weeks, you have years with your kid. There's no rush, and this is definitely not the more the better at all, okay?

• 27:49Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  But that connection and that story from you and not being afraid to name the truth,

• 27:57Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  that's what makes me know, no, your kids are not going to be traumatized forever. Now, your kids, if we all kind of have this story of our life,

• 28:09Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  they have a chapter that a lot of kids don't have.

• 28:16Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Might you notice that showing up over the next couple of years? Sure, the things that happen impact us as we would want them to. They're just part of our story. But that is very different than being traumatized forever. Now, I see coming in and I just want to be able to approach the kind of this, one of this ultimate wordless situations. What if I lost everything? What do you say?

• 28:44Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  You say that.

• 28:48Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  You say some version of what I said. And we found out that our house burned down. You pause, you see what your kid says. They might say nothing and that's all. I wouldn't be surprised if they say something that seems trivial like, so my teddy bear? Or something that you're like, right? Yes.

• 29:14Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  We don't have your teddy bear anymore.

• 29:17Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Right? And you can kind of meet them where they are. And then what's going to feel extremely ungratifying, and I promise you is so important, is as you're saying nothing, what you're doing for your kid is you're, you're that container for them. And you can follow their lead. You can also share, I'm not a fan of making things rosier than they are. It's kind of confusing to a kid. Oh, I lost everything and I'm supposed to look on the bright side? Like, what? Right? Doesn't really make sense to a kid. You can always differentiate, right? Our home burned down. And if this is true for you,

• 29:58Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  me and you and mama are still together. Our family is safe.

• 30:07Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Kids who are very young sometimes need to be incredibly concrete. Never thought about this before, but I'm going to say it here. It's like, our family did not burn down.

• 30:19Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Our house and everything in it burned down. I'm crying. Yes, that's what you say and then you pause. And then I wouldn't be surprised if the next thing your kid says is, can I have my snack? And so easy after that to say, oh, my goodness, I tried so hard that it didn't hit them. It did. Honestly, it's probably like what all of us want to do when we're in the midst of this intense conversation. Where's my snack? I want to do something that's logistical. Sometimes when kids say that, it's their way of saying, this is a lot. Can I just titrate this for a moment? I think you can say back, absolutely, I'll get you those pretzels.

• 31:03Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  The truth is, this is something we'll have short and long talks about for a long time. So sure, we can move on to pretzels. Honestly, you know, I'll get some for myself, too. But don't think that means it doesn't matter. It does.

• 31:17Speaker 01

  My kid asked me if he had to brush his teeth that night. Right after the conversation. So that is exactly right. I'm going to skip to a different question. This is actually community, but I think it kind of shows the flip side of what you were just describing. This is about how if somebody did not lose their home and how they want their kids to feel. So our home is still standing and our kids are happy about that. How do we hold that alongside with the sadness that we're feeling about our community being devastated and just all the emotions that come with that?

• 31:49Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah. And I think I hear this, I've heard this a lot from parents I've talked to. I want my kid to feel empathy. My house did not burn down. Like, yes, her life is extraordinarily disrupted, but I like my kid, it seems to almost be like jumping for joy, like, yay, my house didn't burn down. It's like, seems so awful. The first thing I want to say is, I think, and I do this too with my kids, obviously in different situations, is we could put a very adult lens on these moments. And I think sometimes we want something of our kids that they're not really developmentally capable of, and to some degree, maybe even represents like our own conflict that we like want to resolve with our kids. Right?

• 32:31Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  If your house did not burn down, and a lot of people in your communities did, it's natural for you to have a lot of conflictual feelings. It's okay that you're happy that your house didn't burn down. I want to say that because I think, again, this relates to this two things are true situation. That doesn't mean you don't have deep empathy and care for the people who had it worse off. And what we choose to share with other people, the nature of our conversations are obviously something different. But when I think about young children, first of all, empathy takes, takes time to develop. It's definitely not something you can force. And if I know anything about that from my own backfired experiences as a parent, the

• 33:16Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  more you try to make your kid feel anyway, the more you learn, oh, my goodness, my road is longer there. Because now all of a sudden, I'm kind of trying to control something that did live naturally in my kid, and I've just kind of put up more blockers because I've gotten into a power struggle. We can't force our kids to feel anything. Definitely not something as sophisticated as empathy. And if your kid did not have their house burned down, but they did have kind of the infrastructure of the life they knew be kind of wiped off the map, no matter what they say, even if it's I'm happy about my house that it's still there, I promise you inside, they're, they're, they're trying to make sense of something they had never considered before. Right?

• 33:59Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And so I think what you might be seeing as a lack of empathy is actually just a kid's very normal and developmentally appropriate struggle to make sense of what just happened.

• 34:12Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  You know, I always say that the blocker to empathy is actually regulation of our own difficult emotions. When we're overwhelmed with distress or difficult emotions, it's really hard to have empathy because the empathy is kind of underneath our own distress. I think kids going through this, they have a lot going on. And I think shifting your framework, how do I make them feel empathy to, first of all, just what is my own range of feelings? I can have empathy and I don't need my kids to feel or do any certain thing. There's nothing performative that needs to happen right now. This is way too serious of a situation. And I actually think if you back off, and if it does feel right to

• 34:54Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  you or important, every once in a while, you think, here's what's changed, you know, or here's, here's what we missed and here's what we're grateful for. Right? Oh, and some people don't have the things on their grateful list as we do. Oh, right? You can't make them feel empathy, but in this way, you're modeling and setting kind of the foundation for that to more naturally emerge over time.

• 35:18Speaker 01

  Great, thank you. Okay, what about things that we don't know yet? Like when schools will open back up or where we'll land in terms of housing, et cetera?

• 35:30Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah. So I want to share like one of my favorite ways of starting a sentence with children. Honestly, it's something I say at work too, to the people who work here when you're going through something with uncertainty. We like when things are categorized for us. We all do. We like to have kind of containers and boxes and files. And actually the structure, here's what I know and here's what I don't know, is a really powerful way to communicate with your kid, with employees, right, with anyone, when there's a lot of uncertainty. So let's say the thing you don't know is like, I don't know when we're going back to school. And I remember this event where it's like, just because I don't know, that doesn't mean I can't say that to my kid. Okay, I don't know that. Let's

• 36:15Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  say that's it. Maybe some of you say, I don't know when we can go back to our home. Okay. Hey, sweetie, I want to tell you, with everything going on, here's what I know and here's what I don't know. Here's what I know. And you can make it concrete, literally make a list. And if this is true, again, it's not true for everyone, our family is safe. We're alive and we're together.

• 36:40Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Here's something else I know. You know, a family member who's staying in the house with you. It could be anything, just helpful to have that list. Here's something else I know. One day, you will go back to school. Here's what I don't know. When that day will be. Here's something else I don't know. When we'll go back to our house, or what will it look like? Here's something else I know. I love you. I'm going to be honest with you. And as I get more information, I'll share it with you. And we're going to get through this together.

• 37:25Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  If you notice what I often come back to is the ultimate thing we know is that we can connect to our kids. Aloneness is always the enemy when it comes to trauma, when it comes to feelings, when it comes to difficult situations. Aloneness is when our feelings don't have kind of an eggshell around them. They don't have a container, so it just spills everywhere. And then for kids, it comes out as more tantrums and more rudeness and all this stuff. When you are willing to tell your kid even here's what I know, here's what I don't know, and what I really know and ultimately is true, as I'm here with you, and I love you, and we are still a family, our kids can tolerate a lot more of what they don't know. And so that's something I would, I would really put into practice.

• 38:10Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And what's really interesting, and I'm curious, you can feel free to give me feedback later, hearing yourself use that structure is remarkably grounding. You know, when you say to someone, here's what I know, and here's what I don't know. Hearing you yourself assert what you don't know, your mind is something weird. You're like, oh, I don't know the thing, but it is in my I don't know bucket. It's been categorized. It's been filed away. I'm on top of it. And so that thing becomes a little more manageable even to you when you kind of categorize that. One more thing that's kind of like a list that I just want to share because I think it's so powerful in any transition. And definitely this is, transition is like the worst freaking word. I mean, this is, you know, it does no, no justice. A list of same and different is remarkably grounding to kids.

• 38:53Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Let's say you're staying somewhere that's completely different than where you were sleeping two weeks ago, right?

• 39:00Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Let's make a list of same and different. It is so helpful to know when so much has changed. What's different and what's the same? You can do this with your kids. And you can start. What's the same? You know, and maybe I'm making this up, but maybe there's some book you read to your kids that like either you did bring with you or you got because it's such an important part of the bed. It's something, okay? What's the same? Every night I read X book before you go to bed. What's different? Right? I'm sure you have a whole list, but you could just name one. Here, you're sharing a room at night with A, B, C people. And at home, you just shared a room with your brother. That's different. Okay. And then ask for your kids. What else is different? And they'll probably say, again, really concrete things. That's so fine.

• 39:45Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  It's actually, again, them making sense. It's making a story. Right? The event now has more of a coherent narrative and it's literally organizing something. Right? And you can still do this with teens. The way I'd introduce it to teens is always different. Hey, I want to do something that I think was really helpful even for me. And I'm going to say it. I'm just going to say, you're going to roll your eyes. Right? You're going to roll your eyes because you're going to think it's stupid. And I'm going to say, oh, you're rolling my eyes, but then we're still going to do it because I think it's important. Right? Just like, just give them the eye roll. It's a whole nother topic, but we take eye rolls so seriously. I think sometimes teens roll our eyes as a way of saying, I'm an independent person and I kind of agree with what you're saying, but I need to roll my eyes to push what you're saying a little far away so then I can take it in and still feel like the independent

• 40:30Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  16-year-old I am. And then we get in a fight with them about rolling their eyes, even though underneath they're like, I was just trying to do this to like agree and take in your advice. So just let it go. Okay? And I think the ultimate thing on the same list is your presence. Kids need to hear, I will be here in the morning. Right? That is the same. Right? They need to think, here, things are on continuity that you probably think are obvious, but to them, after this massive violation of expectations and they have fewer years of lived experience than you do, so, so helpful. So a same and different list, like I actually have seen it be as helpful for a two-year-old as it is for a 30-year-old, arguably as it is for all of us at our unnamed ages. It's a helpful activity for adults as well.

• 41:15Speaker 01

  I think one thing that might be helpful is how might somebody use or remember to use these exercises when everything feels overwhelming?

• 41:24Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Totally. I mean, look, I want to go back to what I said, that, you know, in times of horror, struggling is the best any of us can do. And so when I'm sharing these ideas, no part of me thinks, oh, my goodness, tomorrow's going to be amazing for the people I'm talking to. No, it will not. Today's not amazing. Tomorrow's not going to be amazing. There will be one day when there's like a bigger sliver of amazing than there is today. And I don't know when that day is, but it's probably further than we want it to be. And it will come. I think the thing we can do, maybe everyone can write this down, actually. I think there's something really beautiful about writing it down. Of all the things we talked about today, what is the one thing that's loudest in your mind as something

• 42:07Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  that resonates with your heart and is something you could see yourself doing? One thing. One thing. Write it down. I'm just going to share some. Joy doesn't invalidate grief. Saying, here is what I know, and here is what I don't know. Saying, our family didn't burn down. Aloneness is the enemy. It makes sense that you feel. It makes sense that I feel.

• 42:43Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Repair. Tell a story about what's been happening. Regulate myself first. Mandate self-care. I love the strength of that verb. Mandate self-care. We can still make music. Tell the events. Talk about the sadness. Aloneness is the enemy. These are such beautiful, single things. And I want you to know, do not doubt for one second that this one single thing will have a massive impact on your child and on yourself.

• 43:31Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I want to transition with a grounding exercise. I think it's hard sometimes to go from connected events like this where we're a little dropped down and slow to the rest of our day where it's full of logistics and taking care of others and it's frantic and there's lists. And that transition is hard and honoring it with an exercise is important. So I'd love you to make sure both of your feet are pressed into the ground.

• 44:13Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And what I mean by that is just make sure both feet are flat. And after such a violation of expectations, after an event where it feels like your life was just taken from you under your feet, pressing your feet into the ground and letting your body get that sensory experience of there is something beneath me is really, really important. I like to put a hand on my heart, but there's nothing magic about that. I just like to, in a moment of transition, try to connect more to my body. Other people kind of cross their arms like a hug to themselves.

• 44:56Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I know people who put a hand on the back of their neck and a hand on their forehead. And just so connect to your body, it could be a hand on your thigh, or if that doesn't feel comfortable, nix it, you know yourself best. I want you to remind yourself, it makes sense to be feeling all the feelings I'm experiencing. None of them are wrong. All of them matter and deserve my validation and compassion.

• 45:40Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  There are a million moments when this will all feel like too much.

• 45:46Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And every day, there will be one, single, additional moment

• 45:56Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  when I realize I'm going to get through this.

• 46:01Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And I want you to just hear my voice saying, "I see you."

• 46:09Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  You are a brave, sturdy pilot in the ultimate turbulence.

• 46:17Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And I believe in you and in this amazing community supporting each other.

• 46:24Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And I'm just giving you a huge hug. Connect with you all again soon, I hope. Bye for now.

• 46:41Dr. Becky Kennedy?

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• 47:24Dr. Becky Kennedy?

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• 48:02Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  You know that feeling when your brain is at full capacity, right? I mean, you have a reminder from the dentist in your email, a birthday party invitation on the fridge, and your kid just texted you about a soccer game they forgot to mention until that moment, and you just cannot remember one more thing.

• 48:18Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  That's where Skylight Calendar comes in. It's an all-in-one digital smart calendar that syncs with Google, Apple, and Outlook to help your whole family see the days and weeks ahead. And I really love the Tasks feature, which is designed to help your kid build routines around things like homework and chores. And when your kid can do those things independently, it's a huge win for everyone in the family. Skylight Calendar is so much more than just a calendar. It's something you can add to your routine to help your family work together. And right now, Skylight is offering our listeners $30 off their 15-inch calendars by going to myskylight.com/becky.

• 48:58Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  That's M-Y-S-K-Y-L-I-G-H-T.com/ V-E-C-K-Y for $30 off your 15-inch calendar. myskylight.com/becky.