Hi everyone, it's Keisunga.
Just a reminder that you can listen to all of our podcasts, add free on the Headspace app.
Hey folks, it's Rob in here and guess what?
It's late August and that means one thing.
Back to school is creeping up on us all.
Now we all know this can be a tough time for parents.
So we wanted to share with you our favorite deer headspace episode that's all about handling those issues that pop up around back to school.
We're talking about setting boundaries with kids friends and dealing with neurotic parents.
Then we also have a question about when you feel like you're just not enough.
So there's really there's something for everybody in today's show.
So here we go. Oh, oh, but don't forget we got new episodes coming back at you on September 10th.
Woo! Have you ever wished you had a wise meditation teacher on speed dial?
Someone you can call after a long day.
Someone you could lean on for their advice.
Someone to listen and help you to see things differently.
Welcome to deer headspace, a podcast where I sit with a meditation teacher and we answer your questions.
Hi friends, I am excited to be here with you for another episode of deer headspace.
Now today our questions are all about back to school and mindful parenting.
And I am so excited to have Sam here with me because she is an expert when it comes to kids and mindfulness based tools.
Absolutely. Happy to be here with you Robin.
But yeah, you're going to cover for me because we know that I am not an expert in mindfulness based tools for kids.
Well, you're an expert in many things about parenting as I've been able to deduce from your stories.
I mean, would my kids say the same thing?
All right, let's just roll right into our first question from Angie.
Okay. Here she is. Sounds good.
Hi, this is Angie from Minneapolis, Minnesota.
My daughter is 12 and she has a friend at school who is a lot.
It's really hard for us to keep boundaries and my daughter actually would like to spend less time with them.
But at the same time, my daughter is very concerned with making sure that she treats her with kindness and is considered for her feelings.
What suggestions do you have for setting boundaries with friends that really my kids don't want to be friends with anymore?
Thanks. Oh, that is a very tough question.
It is. Because you know your kids been that kid sometime.
Oh, yeah. Well, yeah, my stepdaughter just went through something like that.
She had this kind of best friend who is now in the foster care system in Sweden.
And she just stopped hanging out with her because she was getting into trouble and kind of hanging out with the kids that were doing stuff that were a bit dangerous.
And so, yeah, it was just for me, it's primarily about listening and just getting to know what has changed, making space for that, talking about like.
Do you mean with yourself or do you mean with that person?
With your child. Yeah, just like exploring what caused the change in.
In the relationship. In the relationship.
Yeah, and needing boundaries.
Because I think it's a great opportunity to talk about what you do look for in a friendship and what makes you feel safe and what allows you to trust your friends.
So that you start to look for the behaviors that you that are actually facilitating a healthy relationship.
Yeah. But yeah, talking about, you know, I remember leading this one workshop on how to be aware of when you feel like you're in a trusting safe relationship and what helps you to share vulnerable with people.
Yeah. And Brunei Brown has like incredible insights into this.
So I used her acronym, braving as a way to like structure the conversation.
I don't know that you got to tell me what that is.
I don't know if I remember all of them, but can we get the gist?
One of them is boundaries, be as boundaries, a is accountability, v is being a vault, meaning like whatever shared with you, you keep that a secret.
You don't, you know, gossip.
Yep. That's good. I is integrity.
So have what does it mean to have integrity?
And the fourth graders, like they were on board for this whole conversation.
I thought I might be boring them, but they really love this topic because friendships are incredibly important at this time in life.
And is non-judgment. And the g is generosity.
So being generous, not just the way we typically think of generosity, but being generous with our assumptions about other people.
So it's only what that means.
Yeah. So if someone's having, if someone's behaving in a way that's upsetting to you or it's causing you discomfort, instead of assuming that they're just being a jerk, it's better to assume and imagine what could be causing, like maybe they're having, maybe something difficult happening in their life, maybe their parents are divorcing, maybe they had a loss.
So you kind of explore all the reasons why their behavior tends to change.
Yeah. And that allows you to kind of greet the situation with more compassion instead of assuming that they're just a mean person.
Yeah. So that's really important to talk to kids about, too.
I remember doing this one exercise with this client I had.
I think it was like third grade.
And I asked him to show me his yearbook.
And I said, point, because his mom called me and said he was getting into bullying behavior with his friends.
And that was the main issue.
So I said, okay, let's look at your yearbook and tell me who's the weird kid in your class.
And I used that language specifically because I knew he would relate to it.
Yeah. Not that I would ever say that about a child.
But he immediately pointed to this one child in his class.
And I said, what is, tell me what it's like when he walks in the room?
How do you feel around this person?
And we started to talk about it.
And we basically got to the point where he said what makes him most uncomfortable about this one child was that he didn't know what his behavior would be like.
And he gave a day. Interesting.
He was unpredictable. And I said, yeah, so let's explore some reasons why he might have this unpredictable.
Yeah. Yeah. The way of being.
Like, and I talked to him, that's where some psycho education can come into.
Yeah. Like, so to go over all the different reasons why mood changes drastically behavior changes drastically.
And I didn't really know if things were changing with this client.
He wasn't very talkative.
But his mom called me like a week later and said, what are you doing with him?
Like, what are you doing?
It was scary. Really? Yeah.
Is everything okay? She's like, no, he's stopped.
He stopped the bullying behavior.
He's hanging out with different kids.
And I told her what we did.
And I encouraged her to keep exploring like how he fell around different compassion.
Yeah. Just breaking it down.
Because first you want your child to start to understand, you know, what's going on in everyone's psyche.
Yeah. Like their own, but also other people have different things that they're grappling with that are invisible.
Yeah. And helping them to become compassionate people through using these situations as an opportunity to talk about mental health and getting in touch with their own feelings and needs around what they need and want in a friendship.
Okay. I love all that, but I want to ask you this side of it.
What if you're at a point where you no longer want the friendship and there's judgment or there's feelings of guilt about separating what's your advice for that?
Yeah. Well, I think first and foremost, just honoring their feelings and where they are just saying, it's okay that you don't want to spend as much time with them.
Yeah. And I can help you figure out how to do that gracefully.
Yeah. Right. So I think about the public spaces that their child might share with this person, right?
Like recess, lunch, and the importance of being kind in those moments, even if you've decided not to spend time as much time with them outside of school, but just to treat them with kindness and respect in those public areas so that the, you know, you don't start to see those avoidance behaviors or ignoring them or, right?
Right. Because that can feel like the easier option.
Like, oh, just knowledge.
I mean, a lot of adults do that.
Right. Right. My friend bar trademarked it, the slow fade.
And you don't want to fret, the friend, anybody anymore?
You just slowly fade them out.
Yeah. I mean, we're all, we all do that.
So it could be helpful to roleplay too.
I love roleplay. Yeah. Love it.
I love roleplay. I love roleplay.
First we do so. So yeah, you play the friend or as the parent, you know, and imagine what you would do.
Okay. What feelings are coming up as you see her on the playground?
What do you want? What's the urge?
Like, is the urge to run away?
Okay. What can we say instead?
Yeah. Like, oh, good to see you.
I'm going to play with so and so like, or I'm going to go have lunch here.
Just communicating what you're doing, which is being polite.
And kind. Yeah. But not feeling coerced or like you have to force yourself into hanging out with them.
And I don't know if there's a kid way to be like, I'm really over scheduled right now with a lot of after school activities.
And I mean, it's a little bit skating up to not being truthful.
Yeah. And then that it is lying.
Well, it depends on how old the child is too, right?
Like you wouldn't expect a five year old to be able to negotiate that.
I think as a parent, you got to kind of step in.
Yeah. So you're coordinating those play dates, parent to parent.
But yeah, when they're around eight, seven, eight, nine, you know, then you can have that conversation and start to rehearse ways that feel comfortable.
Yeah. It's maybe not going to ever be comfortable, but maybe a way that you can stomach.
Yeah. Because then you'll help them figure out what it is that's causing the need to pull back.
Yeah. And encouraging, I think kids need this more than ever because they're so used to texting everything.
Like as much as you can, encouraging an actual face to face conversation or a phone call at least just a voice.
Yeah. You're not just low fading.
Yes. Exactly. Sam, I'll tell you what, if after this, you aren't available to me, I will know what's going on.
And I will always available.
Okay. Thank you. And that is what I needed to hear.
I will not make a fool out of you ever.
Thank you. Thank you. And Angie, thank you so much for your question.
That was a really, that was a really great question.
I was. Great question. Let's move on to our next question from A.
Leighne. All right. With the kids getting back to school soon, I'm mostly worried about how do I not react to the neurotic parents who are wanting to overcommit themselves, overcommit their kids and the pressures around comparing myself and my kids to that.
It's just a place I'm not looking forward to getting back to.
I just kind of balance myself again and how do I not react to that?
Oh, that's such a good question.
It's like the parenting rat race of like what, keeping up with the Joneses and all of that.
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Because that is really hard.
Like I live in New York City and all the things I said I wouldn't get bunched up about, you know, like the high school choice and like elementary schools and like cut to me with spreadsheets, paying experts to be like tell me which school I should send my kid to.
It was like I was an insane, but I said I was not going to do that.
Right. And then the back and forth of like, okay, no, I'm not doing it.
I'm doing it. I'm not doing it.
It was like you don't want to break your kid and you want to make sure that they have every option available every as I was listening to you.
I'm just thinking, yeah, of course, of course you want the best for your child you want to and we're wired to look and see what others are doing.
I mean, that's the advice that we've got.
We trust the most. Yes, yes.
Just looking and seeing what you're actually doing, right?
If someone's giving you advice, you're like, okay, that's well and good.
But if you see where they're putting their child, what they're investing in, yeah, that's the thing you're going to trust.
So just to say that behavior is coming from a place of love and care.
You want to optimize. You want to make sure you're doing your best because you have a limited time frame in that early childhood education is really, really important.
Yeah. So, yeah, of course.
We don't want to break our kids.
So go ahead. So, so, so, so, Elaine, what we heard was just because it's crazy as possible and just befriend all of them.
Good luck. Thanks for calling.
Elaine, we're just kidding.
Don't do that. No, no, there's more.
We'll say more. But, yeah, but just so when you notice your mind starting to do that because I heard you say that you're not looking forward to the start of the school year because all that starts up in you again.
It's like an engine that revs up and we're like, oh, God.
Now what do I do with all this?
It's an added stress. So, you know, when we're meditating, for example, we notice, we try to greet each thought the same, the most stressful thoughts and the most mundane thoughts, right?
So when you notice your mind comparing, you can label it comparing.
Oh, that's my mind comparing again.
Okay. And to do it with a sense of kindness and from that place of compassion, knowing that, like what I said just now, that it's coming from a place of care.
So you can say, Alien, I'm doing my mind, you're doing this because you care.
And what that does is it prevents it from spiraling out of control.
And then if something comes up over and over, well, then write it down, you know, journal about it and say, okay, I really want her to learn how to write a horse.
I don't know why. It just seems important to me.
And that brings me to something I did at a family retreat that I think is really a beautiful practice to do as a family, to give you kind of a compass for your family.
And that's creating a family mission statement, which is a collection of values that you have.
Right. So let everyone go around the table and you can even print out lists of value words.
And come up with a mission plan, a mission statement as a family.
And then talk about how you can take action that aligns with those values.
And that'll keep you coming back to that North Star.
That way, this is what we're about.
And it can change, right?
As you get older, as your priorities change, your values might change.
So that's okay. But it gives you a road map so that when you feel that confusion or that compare comparisons start to happen, you can go, okay, horseback riding.
How does that tie into our values?
Yeah. Am I doing it because Linda's family is horseback riding?
Or is it because it's something that I want for my kid in X, Y and Z is the reason?
Exactly. Exactly. And then everyone can create their own individual mission statement too.
Yeah. Everyone has a family.
What are our collective values?
Or where do they overlap?
But what are our individual values?
And then your child will have that list to come back to or that statement.
And you can do it with art.
If your children are young, you can have them draw about their values and paint and put it up on the walls so that you see it and you come back to it.
Yeah. And that gives us this deep sense of confidence in who we are or who we're becoming.
You know, it's like this is.
I think that's fantastic.
Right. Because if like relaxation is one of your family values, it's like, you know, it's like, oh, we're over scheduling.
So that's going to interfere with our value of relaxation.
Right. So and maybe you guys love going, you know, a mile a minute and it's just exciting to stay busy all the time.
And that's one of your values.
That's amazing. And then you know, it just gives you like, it gives you like hard parameters to know like what you're doing.
There's actually a guided, because I got obsessed with this idea of a personal mission statement.
But if you Google it and Stephen Covey, yeah, I think his name is Stephen Covey.
The family that wrote seven habits of highly effective people.
But there's a guided process that like these questions that guide you into identifying your values and helping you craft a personal mission statement.
And they're great. They're really even just standalone.
The questions you can use as like dinner table conversation and take it at your own pace.
You know, they're great.
I feel like we're, I'd be remiss if we aren't talking about there's a mindfulness component to this.
And then you do a stressful time like to kick in that practice if you're not regularly practicing.
Absolutely. Because everything we do in meditation is like concentrated lab time.
That's how I think about it, right?
So every time you sit in meditation, you're labeling thoughts, labeling planning, comparison, remembering, whatever it is, that skill and that habit will come into practice in your daily life.
You'll be better able to catch when your mind's doing that.
A lot sooner than if it just, you know, the train's already like miles out of the station, right?
So everything you're doing in the meditation is your practice time for real life.
For Linda. For when you need it the most.
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.
All right. Well, good luck, Alene.
You're going to nail it.
We have confidence. Yeah.
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All right. So let's go on to our next question from Luca.
All right. This is Luca from Germany.
I've been meditating with that space for more than four years now.
It's already helped me in many aspects of my life that would just take too much time to mention them all.
There's one aspect where I don't see the progress that I wish for and that's when I'm feeling restless or stressed.
I have a lot of things in my life, like my wife, my job, my son that I love dearly.
I wouldn't want to change or miss anything in my life right now.
But there's just always a lot to do, a lot to keep in mind.
And I tend to put a lot of pressure in myself to keep in control of everything and yeah, I get stressed.
I see what's happening.
I start judging myself for being stressed.
It's just thoughts like, okay, if you're meditating for so long now you shouldn't even get so stressed.
I get stressed about being stressed and then you know, I get more stressed and I judge myself for that.
Yeah, I think you see the cycle and I was just wondering, how am I just being unrealistic or should I just be more patient or do you have any other advice for me on this?
I would be really grateful to hear from you.
Thank you. First of all, thank you, Luca, for this question.
It's not directly a parenting question, but I do think this is something a lot of parents go through as well.
I think this fits nicely in with our whole theme, but I'm hearing perfectionism out the wazoo in this question.
Yeah, yeah. And that very familiar feeling of restlessness and you know, the energy sometimes when you sit down in your mind is racing and meditation also feels like the last thing you can do in that moment.
Yeah. So first, I want to just say that there are other options for seeding, acceded meditation.
And in this situation, Luca, what you're describing, it seems like walking or standing would be a great modification.
Yeah. Not even a modification, so it's a different choice.
Yeah. I'll give you an example.
Like this morning, I was, I am very restless in the mornings, like I just want to go, go, go.
Yeah. But I meditate in the mornings.
But today, I started with six minutes of walking.
So I walk very slow and I think of the words I have arrived.
I have arrived with each step.
Oh, I love that. Yeah, it's a great, just like here I am.
This is now. This is my life.
And you go as slow as you need to to feel the sensations in your feet.
And that's, it's a really great measure.
Yeah. Because you know when your mind has left your feet, you know for sure.
You just know you can feel it.
You know the moment it happens.
So you go, I go like pain, if anyone saw me, I mean, it would probably relax them because watching someone move very slowly can be very relaxing.
Like doing the Tai Chi version of walking.
Exactly. Exactly. I'm doing it with my hands right now, but like the heel, arch toe, heel, that's my favorite part of the walking meditation is like feeling your heel, feeling it roll into the next foot.
Exactly. Like I love that.
Yeah, it's under, under taught, I would say, or people think it's like not as effective as a seated meditation, but it really is.
And combining them, that's why I did six minutes of walking.
And then I have a nice little alarm that tells me, okay, your next 10 minutes will be seated.
But playing with it, you know, starting with the, with the walking and then sitting or doing the whole time, standing or walking.
But the tool of slowing down, I cannot emphasize of not, it helps me immensely.
It's something I've teach to children.
One of the first things I teach is like slow walking, which as you can imagine for kids are so painful.
Yeah. They're like, what are you doing?
Why do you make us do? I use drawings and stuff.
I'm just picturing kids just like dancing as they're trying to slow down.
Exactly. Exactly. Kids are so ants in the pants.
Yes, yes, exactly. The other part I was hearing is about stress and our relationship to stress.
And I've been listening a lot to Kelly McGonigal lately.
Have you heard of her? She's a Stanford researcher, psychologist.
But her research is really valuable.
And it talks about how to reframe stress because the stress, we're trained to think that stress is very bad for us.
That there's all these physiological effects from cancer to, you know, shortening our lifespan.
Yeah, yeah. But the way we frame stress can actually affect the way our body feels from it.
So it's really important to stop and go, okay, I feel stressed because I care, because I have meaning in my life.
Right? If you didn't, it's like that when I was saying in the beginning, if you don't have meaning in your life, you don't have things you care about, people you care about.
Yeah, you might have less stress, but you'll be just hopelessly depressed, right?
Sure. What is life? What does it mean?
What is it all for? Why am I here?
Yeah, exactly. So I would say in those moments when you're feeling stressed to go, to stop, take a breath, slow down, and then to say, I am feeling the stress because I have meaning in my life, because I care about what I'm about to do, because I care about my child, and I want them to be, I want them to thrive.
And also she also talks about taking stress and utilizing the energy that it gives us.
Right. So when we feel acute stress, that, that fight or flight response, we feel our heart racing, we'll feel our attention becomes focused, but we're energized.
I mean, we can get through, I think of times where I didn't have sleep, and I had to do a whole day of like paying attention to someone and being very on.
And because I care so much, and because I had the stress and the adrenaline, I was able to do it.
I was able to meet the demands of the day.
So there's nothing wrong with you because you're feeling stressed.
It's part and parcel of a full meaningful life.
And you can take that energy and when you're feeling it and say, okay, I'm going to use this to mobilize myself instead of ruminating or trying to suppress the stress.
Because that's what makes everything worse is when we say stress is wrong.
I shouldn't be feeling it.
There's something wrong with me.
I have to get rid of it. That's the recipe for things getting worse.
So instead do the opposite, right?
Go, this is normal. I have it stressed because I have meaning and I care.
And I'm going to use this energy in my body to mobilize myself into action, put myself into action or look at what is causing it and how it reflects something I care about.
Or maybe something that needs to be changed.
We feel stressed sometimes when something we care about is under threat.
So it's like, let's look at what could potentially be under threat and how we can fix it or make change or take action.
That's so interesting.
Luca, just good luck. And do all the things Sam said.
I mean, really, I think that's it.
Just do all the things Sam said.
I support that. I'm going to title this episode.
Do all the things Sam said.
And be kind to yourself.
We end every episode saying this, but we can't say it enough.
Please be kind to yourself and just know that you're not doing anything wrong by stressing.
The stressing is there.
It's part of life. But if you can take that energy and let it fuel you and realize that it means that you love care, want to be the best version of yourself for everyone in your life, that is a beautiful thing and that can open your heart to compassion.
That's all we're trying to do.
Right? Just do the best we can.
And I'm going to be taking home so many of the tips that you gave today and I'm going to try them with my kids.
I'm going to fail, but then I'll bring them back to the next episode.
Bring them back. All right, Sam, I just, I say wish me luck.
I think we all know that I am going to need it.
Yeah, well, we have a parenting course, a mindful parenting.
It's actually a collection.
Wait, are you saying I'm going to need it?
No, just kidding. Oh, wait, go ahead.
Yeah, you go ahead. I mean, we can all use it.
It's going to be good. It's nice for a collective wisdom.
Yeah. We'll hear from, in the collection, you hear from all the teachers and it's just like this treasure trove of lived experience, knowledge and wisdom coming from the lived experience, but also what we know from science, what we have from research and of course the world of mindfulness.
I mean, in all seriousness, I mean, that'll think there's a parent in the world that doesn't think that that would be helpful in all seriousness.
All right, I want to give a very special shout out to our callers today Angie, Alene, and Luca.
I mean, these were such thoughtful questions.
And you know, if you are at home or maybe you're on the treadmill right now, I don't know what you're doing, but you're listening and you're thinking to yourself, gosh, I have a question that I'd like some wisdom on.
I'm here to tell you all you have to do is click the link in the show notes or you're going to go to say hi dot chat slash to your headspace to record your question.
And as they say in every preschool known to man, easy, peasy, lemon, squeezy.
I don't know where that came from, but it sticks.
I do have to tell you if we use your question on the show, you're going to get three months of headspace for free, which is awesome.
Yeah. And then as you know, each week, we'd love to leave you with an opportunity to pause and reflect on what you just heard, what we just talked about and just to give yourself space to digest all this, all this good stuff.
And it's a time for you to transition from this moment into the next part of your day.
And so as you listen to the sounds of this lovely waterfall in the distance, just let your mind do whatever it wants to do.
Until next time, stay happy, stay healthy, and please be kind to each other.
Bye. Dear Headspace is a Headspace Studios original podcast.
It's executive produced by Morgan Celser and Sarah Cohn and produced by Taylor Jennings Brown.
It's hosted and produced by Robin Hopkins, Rosie Acosta, Kessanga Gaskone, Dora Kamau, and Eve Lewis Prieto, host production by Dan Crowell, music by Scott Sorenson and Chris Mergea.
It was developed by Ash Jones, Scott Sorenson, Robin Hopkins, and Baron Farmer.
And a special thanks to Danny Kirstamy and Colleen Lutz.
