Eps 126: Tina Bryson is teaching us about nurturing a YES BRAIN

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Casey O'Roarty 0:00
Joyful courage. Parenting Podcast, episode 126,

woohoo. Welcome to the show, my friends, my new friends, my old friends. It's me, your host, Casey overrti. I am a positive discipline trainer. I'm a parent coach, and I am in love with bringing you this show each and every week. What you'll find here on the joyful courage podcast are interviews and solo shows that dig deep into the topics that are important to you. We get courageous, we get bold, we get real, we get authentic. Nothing is off limits here on the show. So I'm so glad that you're here. I'm so grateful that you're listening, and I am so proud to bring you this episode of The joyful courage podcast. So sit back, relax, or maybe fold some laundry, do some dishes, drive your kids somewhere and enjoy the show.

Tina Bryson is back on the podcast today. You all remember Tina from episode 100 which happens to be the most downloaded show to date of this podcast, Tina co authored two of my favorite parenting books, the whole brain child and no drama discipline with Dan Siegel, and she is back on the podcast today to talk about her new book, The yes brain I am thrilled that Tina is back on Welcome back to the podcast.

Dr. Tina Bryson 1:43
Thanks so much, Casey. I'm so excited. We had so much fun talking last time, and this is really my first podcast where I've devoted it pretty much the main focus to the new book. So this is really fun for me, and we're just a few days away from it coming out. And so I'm just really, really excited about this book and the ideas in there. I

Casey O'Roarty 2:03
know I really leveraged that launch date when I was like, come

Speaker 1 2:06
on, come back on my show. Come on. Timing is perfect. It's great.

Casey O'Roarty 2:10
Will you share with the listeners? Just remind them a little bit more about what you do?

Dr. Tina Bryson 2:16
Well, the first thing that I think is most important is that I'm a mom, so I have lived in the trenches, you know, in the parenting trenches. My boys are 1714, and 11, so I've kind of, you know, I've parented this way for a good while now, but not always, not from the very beginning. And so I've kind of tried lots of different things. I'm also a licensed clinical social worker, so I've done a lot of clinical work with kids and teens and families, and a lot of parenting consultations. So I've gotten the privilege to work with lots of families who struggle with a variety of things, and so that's pretty exciting. And I have a clinical practice in Pasadena, California that is an interdisciplinary team, so that we can really be curious, to peel back the layers of what is really going on with a kid.

Casey O'Roarty 3:08
Oh, I love that. And I, you know, I love what you said that this hasn't, you know, you have, I think a lot of us in our, you know, the parent experts, we have a lot of knowledge. But then there's the practice of living and loving our own children, right? And even when we know what to do, our emotions get the best of us. Does that, of course, because

Dr. Tina Bryson 3:27
we're humans, yes, yes. And that's one of the things that's Oh yeah. I mean, really. And in in the other books, Dan and I both share times that we lose it, you know, as parents and so anyway, one of the things that I'm really excited about about the yes brain is, of course, we're talking about how to build a kid's yes brain, how to help them have a yes brain. But the book is very much about how we have yes brain approaches as parents and no brain approaches as parents, and that the way we parent is either a yes brain way of parenting or a no brain way of parenting in the moment. And the good news is that even when we have no brain moments as parents, we can, you know, the yes brain moments can come back. It's not a permanent state of stuckness,

Casey O'Roarty 4:13
yeah. Can you dig even a little bit deeper there? When you say yes brain and no brain, what do you mean?

Dr. Tina Bryson 4:19
That's a great place to start. Okay, so a yes brain, and so let me say it this way, a yes brain is basically two things. It is a mindset or approach in the world. So this is basically like a yes brain approach in the world, is really saying yes to the world with open arms and curiosity and being willing to be connected and open in the world, whereas a no brain mindset or approach in the world would be defensive, shut down, fearful, reactive, those kinds of things. So it really is sort of a way we are, or a way we think, a mindset or approach in the world. But the second thing a yes brain is, is as at. Actually a neurological state. So it's basically where the frontal lobe of our brain, our prefrontal cortex, is working, and it's integrated and kind of being in charge of the more reactive primitive parts of our brain. So it's a mindset or approach, but it's also a neurological state where our brain is really integrated and linked up together that helps us really approach the world with openness and resiliency and authenticity, and then over time, this mindset and this neurological approach become hardwired. So a yes brain can become who we are. So just to kind of differentiate kind of what a no brain and a yes brain feels like. A Yes brain, like I said, is receptive, whereas a no brain would be reactive. A yes brain would be really being connected to what's happening inside of ourselves and connected to other people in the world, whereas a no brain would be shut down, guarded, defensive, not listening, not interested in connecting. Yes, brain is flexible and adaptive and sees obstacles as challenges, and be is willing to explore and be curious and all of those things, whereas a no brain would be more in kind of a fight, flight, free, stubborn. Could look like perfectionism or fearfulness or anxiety, but it's more attacking and rejecting, as opposed to kind of being balanced and and open. So this is really a contrast. So you can see this can be either approaching the world or really kind of what our brain state is like in the moment and over time.

Casey O'Roarty 6:35
Yeah. And so I'm thinking about our kids, yeah. I mean, we could talk about us too, but thinking about our children and how their brains are in development, is there one way or another where they naturally go?

Dr. Tina Bryson 6:47
Yes, we have kids, you know, it has a so, you know, when we think about kind of, so let me, let me kind of give a big picture here, and that is that the so when Dan and I were writing this book, we were like, Okay, we were so it actually started Casey with us thinking about how frustrated we were with such a narrow definition of success, and what like it is for a kid to be good or to be successful. And really this book was an answer to the question that Dan and I get asked kind of all the time, like, what are the skills or qualities my child needs to really be successful in the world. And we wanted to move beyond kind of like academic success and gold stars, kind of thinking, which is what our society is so entrenched in. And so when Dan and I started trying to wrestle with that question, what is it a child really needs to be successful in the world? We basically said they need an integrated brain. That is, you know, really what we talked about a lot in the whole brain child that is really with a strong functioning middle prefrontal cortex, which does all these amazing things that allows us to be successful. And as we wrestled with the functions of that part of the brain, we basically created four fundamentals of what a yes brain is. And so the four fundamentals in this book are balance. So that's about emotional balance, and we can talk a lot about that resilience, that's about handling adversity and bouncing back. Insight, understanding yourself and empathy is really sort of feeling for other people, with other people and being connected to other people. And so when you think about those four things, balance resilience inside and empathy, which the way I remember is it's brie, like cheese, you know.

Casey O'Roarty 8:30
And I know how you guys like those acronyms, well, Dan

Dr. Tina Bryson 8:33
especially, but it helps me remember things. But when you think about those, definitely kids come into the world with some of those skills more naturally than others. And there are all kinds of things that can get in the way of a kid having a yes brain. Now, obviously one of those would be developmental aid. You know, developmental age, a three year old is much less likely to have a yes brain when they come up against something not going their way than an 11 year old would. So we know that part of that is just normal, typical development and age and all those things. Temperament obviously plays into that. There are all kinds of things. And one of the stories we tell in the book actually in the empathy chapter, and I don't name which of my children, just to protect, protect them, but I have three boys, as I mentioned, and two of our boys were born very naturally empathetic. In fact, one of them cares too much for other people and doesn't consider himself enough. But one of our sons seemed like he had no empathy and he was not on the spectrum. It wasn't like he didn't see other people's minds or didn't couldn't read emotional information, but he he just, you know, and I have people, have parents who say that all the time, like, I think my kids a sociopath, and the answer when I asked them they're how old they are is always there, like, three, two or three. And I promised them, you know, that's really less than 1% of the population. It's probably fine. I. Yeah, but one of my boys just didn't seem to he didn't mind that other people were upset. And he would go, he would like, clock some kid on the head with a toy, and didn't seem to ruffle him at all. You know, it wasn't like he seemed to bother him. So one of the things I knew from my my work and my studies was that that the brain develops based on the kinds of experiences we have, and that what parents give attention to what we emphasize in our interactions, creates new linking connections in the brain. And so we really can have a huge impact on who they are becoming. And so we spent a lot of time talking about and valuing and emphasizing, how does that friend feel? And when we're reading books or watching a show, we say, you know, what do you think she's going to do next? Or, you know, what does she How do you think she feels? Or what would she have felt like if this had happened, or even being out in the world, we had a really rude waitress one time, and I remember kind of starting to get a little, you know, ruffled myself. And I remember really sort of getting calm inside myself, and then being able to use it as an opportunity, and saying to this son, you know, she's not being very nice. She's kind of rude, isn't she, and that frustrates me, but I'm gonna offer her some compassion, and I'm gonna just, I wonder if she's had something really hard happen to her in her life today. And my son said, yeah, maybe her mom's sick or her dog died. And I was like, Oh, we're getting there. And he now, you know, as an as an older child, is such a caring, empathetic human being, and so we just we know that even if emotional regulation or resilience or insight or our empathy are not skills, our kids are necessarily good at even more, we need this approach so that we know we can build those skills through Where we give our attention and what we value well, and what

Casey O'Roarty 12:03
I'm hearing you say as well is not with your words, but what I'm pulling out of what you're saying is there's also a space for us trusting,

right? Trusting that when we point these things out, it's going to make a difference. And I, you know, the parents that I work with, I think that the, well, I won't say the ones that have the toughest time. Now that I have a child in high school, I can no longer say that. But those early years, I think one thing that's so challenging for parents is sometimes it seems like, you know, we are we so want it to just, quote, work right away. Whatever it is what works, right? And so to to offer these approaches and say, you know, trust, trust this process. Trust that over time, it's going to be helpful to your child. You'll see results eventually. That can be, there's a rub there, but I'm hearing that's, but that's what you're saying. You know, be the model pointed out that's

Dr. Tina Bryson 13:07
so important. And, you know, I was just talking with someone a couple days ago, and what I said, and it was, it was someone I had a close relationship with, so I could just, I didn't, I wasn't playing the clinician role. I was sort of just giving friend advice. But I said, I said, what I'm hearing from you is a lot of fear based parenting, and I want to tell you that you can trust development to unfold and that your child will build these skills just as development unfolds, but also trust that what you're doing and what you're investing will pay off, and that, you know, the time we spend with our children and how we handle their emotions. And, you know, like, one of the things that happens a lot is that when kids have big feelings, right? So let's talk about balance for a minute. Balance is really about emotional stability and the ability to kind of regulate our brain and our body, so that would be like pausing before action, thinking, considering being adaptive to feel our feelings. So it's not about not feeling it's about feeling our feelings and appropriately expressing them. So and we talk, we use different color zones to talk about different states of regulation, which is really helpful. But you know what we often do when our kids have big feelings is sometimes preemptively before they have big feelings, we want to bubble wrap them and prevent them from, you know, protect them from discomfort, distress, you know, challenge that actually makes them more fragile. But when we distract them from their feelings or deny their feelings or shame them or blame them for their feelings, we're actually punishing them for feeling healthy human emotions and expressing them, and it kind of teaches them, like not a good idea to share. You really are much better off to be alone with your feelings, right? And, oh,

Casey O'Roarty 14:55
man, we need to do better with our boys, especially on this one. Right?

Dr. Tina Bryson 14:59
Serve, especially for our boys, you know, culturally, that's the message that they're given. Yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 15:05
they don't need mom and dad giving that same message too. That's

Dr. Tina Bryson 15:08
right. And I think, you know, back to what you were saying. I think, you know, what we often do is we just sort of want to, like, you know, fix the behavior, right, right? And what happens is, when we do that, it's usually because we're focused on a behavior. We're focused on sort of the external behavior, and we're not really tuning in as much to the child's inner world. And so, you know, we like, I was telling someone, you know, who was saying, you know, I feel like I give ultimatums all the time, or I give that forced choice thing, which worked really well when they were toddlers, but now that they're older, you know, it's like, well, you can pelt, but that's going to mean we're not going to get to go. And, you know, I said, Well, what if, you know, and that's, that's a terrible parental response. That's factual information. But what if instead, we tuned into the child's feelings and say you're feeling really disappointed right now, and then just stop, like, don't see anything else, and be be, have a calm presence in that moment, and then allow the child to see what they can do to kind of move beyond that and to really give support to our children as they practice tolerating difficult feelings. And in that moment, we can really communicate with them. I can handle your big feelings even when you can't, you know. And so these are the kinds of things that, instead of fixing a behavior, or kind of, you know, in the no drama discipline book, we talk a lot about how we have, like, this extinction model, like, we just want a bad behavior to go away. Like, I wish my kids stopped throwing tantrums, or would stop getting so anxious about everything the new that they try or be, you know, more willing to make mistakes or to, you know, try new things instead of thinking about what we want to fix or get it go away. Maybe we can think about it in terms of, what skill can we build, or what can we what kind of strategies or skills can we add to this child to give them sort of more agency in the world, to allow them to be more resilient.

Casey O'Roarty 17:01
Oh, I love that, and I love what you said, that they are in the practice of tolerating difficult feelings. And I think that what gets a lot of parents into mischief is one day, they their tolerance level is a lot higher than maybe the next day, and we feel like, Wait a minute. I thought we had this handled, right? So expect that, expect that there's an ebb and a flow to all of this. Yeah. Well,

Dr. Tina Bryson 17:29
just like we can't be patient every second of every day, they can't be fill in the blank every second of every day. And I think that's just something good to know about ourselves and our children, is that just because they can at one moment doesn't mean they can all the time, and that our capacity to tolerate difficult things, or what my co author Dan calls beautifully, the window of tolerance, sometimes our window of tolerance is really narrow, and that has to do with sleep or, you know, With development, or just normal human emotion. And I think to know that just because our kids can sometimes doesn't mean they can all the time, but also to really teach our children that, you know, we don't want to say like the world's a scary, terrible place, but we can say to them, you know, you can sort of expect that sometimes there are difficult things to have that happen in life, and sometimes life is not easy. And like, I remember one night my son was really disappointed because he had to go to bed when his older brothers had friends over, and they were staying up later, but he was little, and he needed more sleep, and so, you know, just lying with him and he was crying and kind of yelling a little bit, and I was like, You're just so disappointed. And sometimes we are going to feel disappointed, and that's not a fun feeling. But I'm right here with you, you know, just sort of like, you know, normalizing. And I think, you know, especially when you think about the rates of anxiety and depression in our adolescence, I think people are so hypersensitive that that people don't understand a lot about, you know, if you have a test and the stakes feel high, of course you're going to feel some anxiety that is natural and healthy, and so then you you can have a response to it. And that's really kind of what this whole yes brain approach is about. Is a no brain approach to the world and in our internal state is where we are victim to our circumstances and victim to our emotional chaos and what's happening inside of ourselves, whereas a yes brain is saying, I acknowledge that that my circumstances may not be great right now, or I'm feeling really chaotic or I'm feeling really fearful or angry or whatever it is, but I don't have to be at the mercy of my circumstances and my feelings. I can pause and choose how best to respond. That's really kind of the essence of why this leads to so much resilience. Love it.

Casey O'Roarty 19:57
Hey, friends, sorry to in. Interrupt the interview, and I wanted to show up here and remind you that this month, I am highlighting a very special offer for all of my listeners, called Journey to joy. This is a three part offer. This is a really safe and small way to take a baby step into the work of joyful courage, right? So sometimes you might hear about the membership, or you might hear about coaching, and I know that those are big steps to take. Journey to joy is designed to support you in taking a baby step into this work, simply getting familiar with the patterns and the beliefs that perhaps are keeping you stuck and making you feel like you just can't put this parenting work into practice the way you want to. I've created it for you. All right, so head on over to www. Dot journey to joy.com/joy. Super easy to remember. Journey to joy.com/j. O, y. You can find out more, and you can purchase the program. I can't wait to hear how it changes your life. All right. Back to the show. You so if so, Tina, can you share maybe two or three, really simple put them into practice today, kinds of tools from the book that listeners can can play with.

Dr. Tina Bryson 21:37
Yeah, so one which seems really simple, but is hard to do is to make sure our kids are getting enough sleep. I know that sounds really I'm

Casey O'Roarty 21:47
gonna make my teenager listen to this. And you're like, I

Dr. Tina Bryson 21:50
don't so dr Rowan, listen well, you know, I just clinically have had so much experience with kids who literally met diagnostic criteria for a mood disorder or or something along those lines, you know, oppositional divine disorder, whatever, and when, and the child was not getting enough sleep, and once the sleep got back on board, the child would, you know, was a completely different child would not meet that. You know, that diagnostic criteria. And I think you know one of the things that's super important to know is that when we sleep, the brain literally freshens up or cleans up the toxins of the daytime's neural firing. So we sort of start with the clean brain. So people, some people, call it sleep is brain hygiene. And what's so important about that is that it just allows us to have a yes brain, and allows us to have a wider window of tolerance. So, you know, our teenagers need, you know, eight to 10 hours minimum. And we actually have a chart in the book that talks about that, and it's just really a super important thing for ourselves and for our kids. So that's that's a super practical one. But you know, not that, not that mind blowing. We all know that we need more sleep. So let me say, you know that one of the things I think that is really exciting about this book, and really why I think it's such a important thing for parents to think about is that it's, you know, a lot of the stuff I'm talking about is about thriving and doing well in the world, and sort of how we're wiring our kids brain. But this approach is also very much about having a stronger parent child relationship and surviving the everyday moment. So it's really it's not just about the kind of thrive stuff. It's really about the survive stuff. Too great. And one of the things that helps us survive battles with our children, whether it's over screen time or homework or whatever those battles are, it helps us be intentional about the way that we can build skills. Now, all of our children, in some way or another, because their brains are still developing, deal with emotional dysregulation, or what we would call in the book with this is really what we talk about, about balance. And so there are really two things I think kids need most when we see that they are struggling with that emotional balance, and this is a huge one, and it's very much me and my stuff. So those of you who know my stuff, this won't be surprising when kids are at their worst. That's when they need us the most, and because their brains are still developing, and they don't have that strong middle prefrontal cortex that helps them regulate their emotions and their bodies,

that what they need most is one, what we call co regulation, and this is really the idea of a soothing presence. It's where their emotions are running really big. They're kind of feeling out of control, or really angry or fearful or whatever it is. And we kind of create, we use our own upstairs brain or middle prefrontal cortex to communicate, you're safe, I'm here. And through these overwhelming feelings, you know, I'm right here. Now, we do this really well when our kids are physically hurt, you know, when they're physically hurt, we do a really good job of, like, soothing them and saying, you know, you're safe, I'm right here. Or, like, I think about times my kids have been in the hospital for various reasons, and you know, they're they're in terrible pain, or they're going through a procedure that's really scary. And what we do in that moment is where, like, I'm right here, you've got this, you know, and we just soothe, soothe, and if we can kind of harness that and bring that to emotional upset, that can be really, really powerful, because it allows their brain to develop the ability to regulate themselves.

Casey O'Roarty 25:57
So like, when my daughter says, Mom, when we're having a conversation about sometimes her emotional teenage angst that shows up, she said, I she said to me recently, I just need you to be nice to me when I'm acting like that. Okay, yeah, I hear you, and I will do my best.

Speaker 1 26:15
She can tell you that that's so great, and she knew that that

Dr. Tina Bryson 26:20
would help her. Besides that, co regulation, is to build skills to help them regulate themselves. And one of the things that we talk about in the book, that I'm so excited and I've actually been talking about it out in the world, as I've spoken for a number of years, and it's based on multiple people's work and tons of science is what we're talking about in the book here about the green zone. And one of the things that we can do is to teach kids about their own brains. That's really practical, because it helps them have a language and an awareness. It builds insight, it helps them build empathy for others. And so the Green Zone just really quickly and simply is the idea that we have these different branches to our nervous system. One branch, the sympathetic, that kind of elevates our nervous system arousal, or like the gas pedal that revs us up, and then the parasympathetic, which is like the brakes, that helps lower our states of arousal, say, for instance, to help us fall asleep at night or to calm down after we're upset, and when those two branches are balanced, we are we have a yes brain. We are resilient, we are insightful. We can handle difficult things. Our emotions are balanced. Even if we're afraid or angry or whatever it is, we still handle ourselves really well. But if we get too upset or too fearful or whatever it is, too reactive, we go into a no brain state, which can either be the red zone, which is where we act out, and we have a lot of kind of intensity around our emotion, or the opposite of that, the blue zone, which is where we kind of collapse and shut down. And so, you know, in the book, we have little cartoons like we typically do, where we can read it to kids about the red volcano, the green meadow and the blue iceberg, and different ways that they can think about that. But one of the ways that I think is so helpful, or why I think this is so helpful, is because we can talk to kids like, Okay, what helps you get back into your green zone, and what kinds of things send you outside of your green zone. And then, as parents, we can start asking questions about, you know, How frequently does my child go outside of the Green Zone? How long do they stay outside of the Green Zone? What helps them get back in and always, the answer is, typically connection or safety from a parent, but just teaching them some of those things to understand themselves will be such a huge, important, powerful way for them to not be victim to their circumstances and their their internal states.

Casey O'Roarty 28:53
I love that. And listeners, if you want to know more about what Tina was just talking about, that's pretty much, that's what we covered in episode 100 so yeah, so listeners, there'll be a link in the show notes, or just search joyful courage Episode 100 and you'll find that show great. Okay, so the very end of the book, there's your last chapter. Is this whole idea of rethinking success? Is that basically what you were saying at the top, which was, you know, thriving in the world, success in the world is bigger than, you know, etiquette, being polite and getting good grades.

Dr. Tina Bryson 29:29
Yeah, and I think it's really hard for us as parents, you know, with all of the all of the enrichment opportunities that are so wonderful for our children, we can get so attached to outcome and achievement and the gold stars and all that. And, you know, you and I, with having high schoolers, you know, I have a son who's applied for colleges this year, and so we're very much sort of in that world. And, you know, I just, I think oftentimes we feel like the stakes are so high we have to really control all of. And then we sort of take away kids' autonomy. But I think the way we're really wanting we're sort of defining success as really where a child knows themselves and has an authentic self that they can trust they have, you know, with a yes brain, they develop an inner compass. And so the focus really moves into the journey as well as the destination we want. You know, this is not about saying there's not room for external achievement and gold stars, that's important. You know, that's great. Those are wonderful things. That's Not to disparage that, but it's bigger than that. We really want to keep in mind the long term goal of developing that internal compass that's based on this balance resilience, insight and empathy and helping them, you know, really develop a rich life of connection. You know, there's this ancient Greek word called eudaimonia, and it's really its meaning is that we have happiness that comes from meaning, connection to ourselves and others, and having peaceful contentment. And I love that so much. I mean to me, that's what success is really about, is to have an inner spark within, you know, I think all of our children have this inner spark, their little personalities and their their their passions and their talents, and oftentimes, what schools and what parents do is, instead of, you know, stoking that in our Spark, we we throw fire on it, you know, I mean, we throw water on it, and we dampen it. And so what this is really about is, for me, success in this book is really about that eudaimonia, happiness coming from meaning, connection and peaceful contentment. And what's so cool about this too, is that this, this approach to the world, really becomes cyclical, because a yes brain allows us to be more balanced and resilient insightful and empathy and empathic, which allows us to approach the world more in that way. And then that leads to more integration, that allows us to have, you know, that approach more and more. And I think one of the things that I think is really important is we reflect on what it is we're really focusing our attention on, and what is it we're valuing, and what definition of success are we sort of operating from, even without our awareness. One of the things I noticed, and there's actually a whole page in the conclusion where we ask, it says a final yes brain question, are you stoking your child's inner fire? And there's about 10 questions there that are just questions for reflection about our family's day to day life, including with this one that I noticed, we might say that we value our child's inner life and we value peace and time for, you know, family connection and free time for our children to just play and explore. We may think we value that, but if we really look at what we spend money on, what our schedule looks like, and this is a big one, what do we argue the most with our kids about? Oh, man, those questions are really powerful in helping us get a true look at what we're really emphasizing, what we're really valuing. And so this is so exciting, because regardless of where our kids are in development, these questions in this approach allow us to parent with from a yes brain approach, in a way that allows us to be more intentional and helps us kind of have a bigger definition of success and to really honor and nurture who our child really is and help them become the best versions of themselves as possible.

Casey O'Roarty 33:38
Yes brains for everyone. That is what I'm calling away.

Unknown Speaker 33:43
Like all our books, there

Dr. Tina Bryson 33:45
are sections at the back of each chapter that are about our own Yes, we can't develop yes brains in our children if we are mostly living with no brains. And so we, you know, we just like when I think about if I were to show you a picture of what would represent, like a yes, brain, it would be a kid standing like on a cliff overlooking the world with their arms wide open, with just this, like curiosity and enthusiasm for what's coming, and just kind of a sense of awe and peace in the world, like that's What we are going for, but we have to nurture that in ourselves. To do we

Casey O'Roarty 34:24
have to be willing to stand there as well exactly love it. Oh my gosh, thank you. I cannot wait to get my hands on this book, and I know it's gonna be the latest that I'm saying. Everyone read this. So thank you for the work that you do. Will you just really quickly remind listeners where they can find you and follow your work.

Unknown Speaker 34:41
Yes, so

Dr. Tina Bryson 34:42
it's very simple. My website is Tina Bryson, b, r, y, s o, n.com, tinabryson.com and you can find me there. And there on that page are links to my Facebook and my Twitter page and all the other places, including the link to my clinical practice, where I have a team of about 25 people who are. Approach kids and families with this lens as well. So there's lots of great ways to connect with me. Yay. Thank

Casey O'Roarty 35:06
you so much. Tina,

Unknown Speaker 35:07
Thanks Casey.

Casey O'Roarty 35:14
Joyful courage. Community, you're amazing. Big. Thanks and love to my team, including my producer, Chris Mann at pod shaper, be sure to join in the discussion. Over at the live in love with joyful courage group page as well as the joyful courage business page on Facebook and Instagram. Subscribe to the show through Apple podcasts, or really, anywhere you find your favorite podcast, you can view the current joyful courage swag over at the web page, intention cards, bracelets. E course offers the membership program, one on one coaching. It's all waiting for you to take a look simply head to www dot joyful courage.com/yes. That's joyful courage.com/y. E, S, to find more support for your conscious parenting journey. Any comments or feedback about this show or any others can be sent to [email protected] I personally read and respond to all the emails that come my way, reach out, take a breath, drop into your body, find the balcony seat and trust that everyone is going to be okay.

Prompted by “what are the skills my child needs to be successful?” – Tina and Dan Siegel wanted to go beyond academics and gold stars

They need an integrated brain that has a strong/functioning prefrontal cortex

Yes Brain has 4 Components:

Balance

Resilience

Insight

Empathy

Developmental brain/age/temperament matters

Tina shares a story about her own son who seemed to be lacking empathy at a young age

Brain develops through experience – What we emphasize (as parents) in our interactions create new linking connection in the brain.

Use books, shows, and real world experiences to model and draw forth empathy in our kids

Trust development, trust that what you are doing will pay off

Supporting our children in feeling their feelings – support them as they practice tolerating difficult feelings

Normalize difficult feelings…

2-3 tools to put into practice:

Sleep!!!

When we sleep the brain LITERALLY freshens up

Survive emotional dysregulation

When kids are at their worst is when they need us the most

Co-regulaton – a soothing presence to communicate “you’re safe, I’m here”

Build/teach skills to help them regulate themselves – GREEN ZONE

Check out Eps 100 to hear Tina dig deeper into this

Teach them to understand themselves

Rethinking success

Our children having an authentic self that they can trust

It’s about the journey and not JUST the destination

BIGGER than gold stars and academics

Eudaimonia – happiness comes from meaning, connection and peaceful contentment

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