Ripples of Resilience
Ripples of Resilience (TM) by Jana Marie Foundation provides parents, caregivers, and educators with practical tools and insights to support children’s mental health, emotional resilience, and well-being. Each episode covers strategies for fostering open communication, building resilience, and creating safe, nurturing environments where young minds can thrive.
Stay tuned, first episode will be released on September 10, 2025!
Ripples of Resilience
Mental Health Fundamentals: Beyond the Stigma
We've all heard the term "mental health," but what does it really mean for parents, educators, and the young people we care about? In this foundational episode, Dr. Peter Montminy, clinical child psychologist and mindfulness teacher, breaks down the essentials with refreshing clarity and compassion.
Mental health isn't simply the absence of illness—it's a continuum we all navigate daily. As Dr. Montminy explains, "We all have emotional and behavioral strengths and struggles," existing somewhere on the spectrum of "feeling good or not feeling so good." This perspective shift helps us move beyond stigma toward a more holistic understanding of psychological wellbeing.
For parents concerned about distinguishing typical adolescent behavior from potential problems, Dr. Montminy offers the practical "FIDs" framework—examining the frequency, intensity, and duration of concerning behaviors. Everyone experiences anxiety or sadness, but when these emotions become persistent, intense, or significantly disruptive to daily functioning, it's time to pay attention. His "psychological vital signs" approach provides a straightforward way to assess how well a child is feeling and functioning on a scale of 1-10.
The conversation culminates in a powerful three-step process for supporting mental wellness: pause, breathe, choose. By creating space between stimulus and response, we can meet challenging moments with what Dr. Montminy calls "compassionate curiosity"—approaching difficulties with genuine interest rather than judgment. "There's a way to say 'why did you do that?' that closes doors," he notes, "and a way that opens them."
Whether you're noticing concerning patterns in a child's behavior or simply want to build stronger foundations for emotional resilience, this episode offers practical wisdom for supporting mental wellness in the young people who matter most. Subscribe to Ripples of Resilience for more conversations that create waves of positive change in children's lives.
If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 for immediate support.
This podcast is brought to you by Jana Marie Foundation and A Mindful Village.
Jana Marie Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization located in State College, Pennsylvania which harnesses the power of creative expression and dialogue to spark conversations build connections, and promote mental health and wellbeing among young people and their communities. Learn more at Jana Marie Foundation.
A Mindful Village is Dr. Peter Montminy's private consulting practice dedicated to improving the mental health of kids and their caregivers. Learn more at A Mindful Village | Holistic Mental Health Care for Kids.
Music created by Ken Baxter.
(c) 2025. Jana Marie Foundation. All Rights Reserved.
This podcast was developed in part under a grant number SM090046 from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The views, policies, and opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of SAMHSA, HHS or the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services.
Music by Ken Baxter.
Marisa Vicere:Welcome to the Ripples of Resilience podcast by Jana Marie Foundation, where we dive deep into the heart of supporting young minds. I'm your host, Marisa Vicere, president and Founder of Jana Marie Foundation. Thank you for coming on this journey with us. We know that small ripples can create powerful waves of change. The Ripples of Resilience podcast provides parents, caregivers and educators with practical tools and insights to support children's mental health, emotional resilience and well-being. Each episode covers strategies for fostering open communication, building resilience and creating safe nurturing environments where young minds can thrive. Today, we're talking about something fundamental: Mental Health 101. What it is, why does it matter, and and how can we better support ourselves and those around us? I'm thrilled to be joined by our resident expert, Dr. Peter Montminy, a clinical child psychologist, certified mindfulness teacher and parenting coach from A Mindful Village. Welcome, D r. Montminy.
Dr. Peter Montminy:Thank, thank you, hi, Marisa. Glad to be here.
Marisa Vicere:Thank you so much for making time today. Let's start with the basics. Dr Montminy, how do you define mental health?
Dr. Peter Montminy:Well. The CDC defines mental health as including our emotional, psychological and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel and act, basically. It also helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others and make healthy choices. I summarize it simply as it's how well we feel and how well we function in our daily life.
Marisa Vicere:I know at Jana Marie Foundation we break it down to impacting the way in which we live, laugh, love and play. So our mental health really covers everything in our daily lives.
Dr. Peter Montminy:Yeah, beautiful, absolutely.
Marisa Vicere:And I know, when we think about our mental health, it's something that we all have and it's something that we have to nurture and think about every day, just like our physical health. But sometimes, when we think about the word mental health, it automatically gets associated to a mental illness. So how do we differentiate between mental health and a mental illness?
Dr. Peter Montminy:Yeah, absolutely. And I think the most important thing is to realize that it's not a dichotomy. It's not you either have the health or you're ill. It's on a continuum.
Dr. Peter Montminy:So if we can just think that we're all on the continuum of having mental and emotional strengths and struggles and I like to talk about mental health differences we all have different tendencies to be a little more anxious and cautious or a little bit more impulsive and lively, so we have mental health differences. And then, to the degree to which we maybe have those characteristics and they start kind of causing us more discomfort or more difficulties in our daily lives, then we could say we have maybe some mental health difficulties and if they get persistent enough and significant enough, then eventually maybe they're diagnosable and become what we call officially mental health disorders. But it's, I think, much more useful to say we are all somewhere on the continuum of feeling good or not feeling so good and doing well or not doing so well in our daily life and to really normalize this idea that it covers the whole range of human experience for all of us.
Marisa Vicere:Yeah, just like our physical health. So often we need to make those comparisons. It's just a reminder that this is just part of our health and our everyday experiences that we have.
Dr. Peter Montminy:Absolutely, and in fact it's funny in our Western society we've gone and made this split between mind and body but we're eventually I think we're coming back to a more holistic, integrated view that we know mind and body but eventually I think we're coming back to a more holistic, integrated view that we know mind and body are fully integrated. Our physical body, when it's feeling broken down or tired or ill or feverish we don't think as well, we don't feel as well, or if we have a lot of worrisome thoughts, those stressful thoughts and the way we think and perceive things can actually start to break down our body cellularly too. So I really want people to kind of get more comfortable, kind of not only looking at. There's not a dichotomy whether you're mentally healthy or mentally ill it's not really a big dichotomy between physical and mental health.
Dr. Peter Montminy:to me it's really an integrated mind-body challenge for all of us.
Marisa Vicere:That's a great point to make, dr Montminy, and I think that there's still a lot of misunderstanding around the idea of mental health, and that can lead to people feeling more isolated or even more worried about reaching out if they are worried about themselves or somebody else. So what are some important truths about youth mental health that you would like to share with us today?
Dr. Peter Montminy:Sure, well, like I said, the first one is that it's not all or none. You have it or you don't. But we think on this continuum. It's also that we have these strengths and struggles. So I like to say, look, what are some of my emotional and behavioral strengths, what are some of my struggles? And that's how I talk to kids and parents about it all the time.
Dr. Peter Montminy:The other thing is that it's not like you have it and then you have it for the rest of your life or you have it a certain way all the time. We have, again, fluctuation or variability across time and place, so I might be able to focus and concentrate and do well in one area of my life and be very distracted or distraught in another part of my life. Right, so we just can kind of like take the wind out of the sails of it being this big label or diagnosis and say let's just look at it more through a common sense lens, if we can.
Dr. Peter Montminy:And the other big point is that it's always affected tremendously by the amount of stress we're experiencing in our environment. We can feel pretty robust with our thoughts, feelings and behaviors when we're under very little stress. The more stress we have, obviously all of us start to kind of break down with some of that, yeah.
Marisa Vicere:Thank you so much for sharing some of those truths that are out there and, again, just normalizing this conversation that it doesn't have to be this big scary thing that we're talking about, but instead it's just something that we are all on this spectrum for, or this continuum for, and something just to be aware of when we're not feeling so great or when we're starting to have that impact in our life in some kind of way.
Marisa Vicere:exactly.
Dr. Peter Montminy:You know it's really big the anxiety and we'll talk more specifically about different things like childhood anxiety in other episodes, but let's just take that example.
Dr. Peter Montminy:We know that anxiety and depression in youth is really kind of skyrocketing right now and what I want to do is take it both seriously but also take a deep breath and say look, we all have anxiety. It's a normal emotion, right? There's productive worry I care enough about this, I worry about getting it done and getting it done well or taking care of this. And then there's unproductive worry where we exaggerate, catastrophize, ruminate, distort and it starts not serving us. So the other thing I think is really important is to say how does this emotion or how does this behavior, how is it being helpful and serving me right now, how's it working for me or how's it being unhelpful and working against me, and really just gauge where am I again on that Maybe continuum of this is helpful or not helpful right now.
Marisa Vicere:I don't know if I've ever really looked at mental health in that way of taking a second to reflect. How is this emotion being helpful and beneficial and encouraging me to be productive and fruitful in my activities, versus when is it starting to really hinder? And I think that's a nice way of really breaking it down.
Dr. Peter Montminy:Yeah, exactly, I talk a lot about when is this characteristic of this kiddo an asset and when's it a liability? Like well, the kid has ADHD. Well, what does that mean? He's distractible, he's impulsive. There are venues where his spontaneity and creativity is an asset and there's times where you need to be buckling down and grinding through mundane, tedious work where that's going to be a liability for them. So, again, it's matching up. When is this a strength or working for me? When is this kind of biting me in the butt? And then how can I manage it better?
Marisa Vicere:Thank you so much for sharing that great insight with us. And we can think about that in terms of ourself, of when these emotions are helpful or when they might be more distracting for us. But how do we know this in our children? you know, what are we really looking out for that might be that warning sign or that idea that maybe there's something more than just typical adolescent behavior or just a small period of time that they're going through?
Dr. Peter Montminy:Yeah. So I'm going to break this down a little bit in terms of some of the emotions and behaviors in just a minute. But the overall way I want us to think about it is the FIDs - the frequency, intensity and duration. How often is this happening, how intensely is it happening and how long is it lasting when it happens, or how long has it been lasting over time? So if you really think about our physical habits, for example, everyone has a bad night's sleep, but do we have chronic sleep problems? Or sometimes we don't have so much of a good appetite or we do comfort binge eating a little bit, but again, what's the frequency and intensity of that before it starts becoming more of a problem?
Dr. Peter Montminy:We can look at the mental or cognitive functioning Again, the degree to which we're able to focus and sustain our attention, versus we're distracted a little more distracted today, or we're daydreaming or we got something on our mind A little bit, a lot. It happens frequently or intensely. Take a look at that in terms of FIDs, Intrusive or negative thoughts. We all have, again, some negative thoughts that pop up in our mind. In fact, the average person has 60,000 thoughts a day. So I say to my kiddos and parents. Some of them are bound to be distracting. Some of them are bound to be disturbing. Some of them are bound to be disturbing.
Dr. Peter Montminy:You know, part of our brain is a thought generating machine. All the time. We can just notice, oh, there's a random thought, there's a bothersome thought. But if it keeps repeating or we get stuck on it or it's too intense and loud in our mind, then it starts being a sign of maybe a bigger concern where we're going into difficulties or disorders. Right? In the emotional realm, do we have persistent anxiety or sadness or anger or irritability, right? So it's that again, that FID dimension of it that starts to say this is really uncomfortable, it's not going away. Let's see what we need to do about this, including maybe getting some help.
Dr. Peter Montminy:In the social realm, withdrawn, disinterested or conflicts more and more for the kiddo.
Dr. Peter Montminy:Behaviorally, do we have tantrums, defiance, aggression starting to pop up, sometimes thoughts or actions of harm to self or others? Certainly, we'll talk more about that in another episode. So again, the degree to which you either see high FIDs of these problems or, last thing I'll say, you see significant change in the person, right, they're having more of these emotional and behavioral difficulties and that's a real change from how they typically are, then we want to be maybe a little more concerned about looking into it. Make sense.
Marisa Vicere:That does make sense. So, thinking about our thoughts, our feelings, actions and appearances and seeing if we're noticing shifts and if those shifts are impacting the way in which we live, laugh, love and play. If we're seeing them frequently or we're noticing that it's lasting a longer time than what we would expect to be typical behavior.
Marisa Vicere:yeah, no, perfect, beautiful, beautiful.
Dr. Peter Montminy:In Fact, If I may, I boil all that down to what I call the psychological vital signs. Like you go to a doctor again for your physical health, they always take your blood pressure, your temperature, your pulse. Those vital signs, very simply, I say look, psychological vital signs are how well is the kid feeling on a scale of one to 10? Absolutely terrible the pits, to totally awesome. And how well is the kid doing? How well are they doing their job, academically, behaviorally, socially, in life overall?
Dr. Peter Montminy:Just think how well is my kid doing and functioning in the world for a kid their age? One, absolutely terrible, the pits. Ten, totally awesome, perfect. One to ten. So let's say they're at a six on how well they're doing and they're at a five on how well they're feeling. Well. Let's take a look Where's the 60% that they're doing well, where's the 40% they're not doing well? And then follow the FIDs of that and if it's concerning, then that gets us to do I need more help or not
Marisa Vicere:Yeah, and it's important to be watching this on a pretty regular basis, because early intervention is key.
Dr. Peter Montminy:Is that right, Dr. Montminy? Absolutely, absolutely. We don't want to be overreactive, right, and obviously we don't want to kind of be missing things. So tending to this when it's a smaller problem and starting to make corrections when it's kind of an emotional or behavioral difficulty, before maybe it gets to the high FIDs where we might turn it, decide it's actually a disorder. I love people getting help amongst themselves or with professionals. When it's a difficulty, maybe even not fully diagnosable yet, let's try to nip it in the bud and be more preventative and proactive, absolutely.
Marisa Vicere:Thank you very much for that additional insight about just reaching out, if we have those concerns, even if they are early, because we can be preventative and hopefully lessen that impact that they have later on in life.
Dr. Peter Montminy:Yeah, and I want to really encourage parents, educators, listeners have confidence in your gut, right? We don't always need a professional and expert to tell us this or that. Pause, breathe. Common sense says my gut says this doesn't feel right, let me talk with my kid about it. Or this pattern in our family right now doesn't feel right. Let's pause and talk it out and make some course corrections along the way. Again, we don't have to pathologize or demonize these mental health challenges. I want to normalize them and say you have more tools in your toolkit than you think. Believe in yourself and trust your gut.
Marisa Vicere:Yeah, I love that, and at Jana Marie Foundation, we believe that small, consistent actions like having a safe space to talk or express ourselves or even just be, can ripple out into that real resilience that we're talking about here on our podcast, and I love that you said there's always these self-care methods that we can use first. So we can have a conversation with our kid if we're noticing some things that might be off. We can read some different books or articles from experts that may be able to give us some ideas of things to try or even ways to have those conversations, and we can even work with them in building those coping strategies if we're noticing certain times of days that they're having difficulties. Who do we go to, though, if we're noticing that this might be beyond just our own family and being able to navigate the difficulties that we're experiencing?
Dr. Peter Montminy:Yeah, sure. So certainly, if you do notice, we're getting real changes that are concerning, they're lasting, they're more frequent and intense than we would like. We've tried to talk it out, some on our own, we're trying to work it out. Then there are plenty of right, helpful people out there your pediatrician, your pastor, your counselors and, yeah, your child psychologists, absolutely that specialize in really helping with these types of problems. So we talk a lot about it takes a village I say it takes a mindful village to raise our children the way we want to, and that we're all in this together. So then we need to say it's not a sign of weakness to ask for help with a professional, it's a sign of strength. Again, I say to kids listen, you want to learn how to use the tools and resources around you as well as the resources within you.
Dr. Peter Montminy:We'll get to that in resilience, but so being able to say, hey, it is a village. Let me reach out to counselors. Start with my family physician or pediatrician if I want to, start with a school counselor and teacher if I want to, and see if they have some additional counselors or psychologists they might refer us to.
Marisa Vicere:Thank you very much, and I know we started by talking about prevention, even, and that we're all in this continuum. We tied it into our physical health and how we do all these things to take care of our whole self each and every day. So let's talk a little bit more about that. When it comes to our mental health, what helps protect it and how can we continue to enhance those protective factors?
Dr. Peter Montminy:The key to me is to take again a mindful approach to it. Mindfulness big buzzword in the world these days and I'm again very much into mindfulness, for good reason. We'll talk more about that in another episode too, specifically. But what does mindful mean here? It means pausing and just paying attention and noticing, consciously waiting on what's going on. So it's literally.
Dr. Peter Montminy:I have a three-step process in what I call the mindful solutions approach, where we focus on our awareness of the issue first, our acceptance of the issue second, and then stepping into aligned action. Action aligned with our values and our awareness, that is, wisely responding to the situation rather than just reacting to it. And we can think of these steps as, simply, let me pause and see clearly what is here now and name it. We talk about name it to tame it or sometimes we say, anything that's mentionable is manageable. So let me first pause and see clearly what is here now and name it, and then let me breathe, literally take a slow, quiet breath or two to make peace with. Okay, this is what's on my plate. Okay, this kid is tantruming right now. Okay, this kid is crying right now. Okay, I'm about to tantrum, or I am tantruming or crying right now Pause, breathe, it is what it is. Can I bring a compassionate heart? So we talk about the two-winged bird of mindfulness, wise awareness and compassion, the caring heart.
Dr. Peter Montminy:And we bring both head and heart to the situation to then say, okay, how am I going to choose to respond thoughtfully to this rather than react emotionally to it? So you can remember all that with these three words pause, breathe, choose.
Marisa Vicere:Wonderful, it seems so easy to be able to do. But it's so much harder in real life especially if we're working with our kid who might be tantruming, and we're noticing that we're escalating as well that it can be hard to remember to take that moment just to breathe and reflect and then respond in a more helpful and compassionate type of way.
Dr. Peter Montminy:Absolutely. And we're on this treadmill of rapid everything, demands, demands, demands, information, age, things coming at us all the time, things coming at our kids all the time and we think, well, I don't have time to pause and breathe. What are you talking about? The time we need to relax the most is when we feel we don't have the time to relax. So we have a choice here Either keeping part of the problem and keep reacting stressfully and emotionally, or start to model for our children and attend to our children in a more reflective present way Pause, breathe, make peace with what's here now and then choose to respond wisely rather than react emotionally. And when we do that, we are both helping our kid directly and we are modeling and teaching for them self-regulation skills, emotion regulation skills. That's also in an upcoming episode.
Marisa Vicere:Yes, so be the calm in the chaos that's happening.
Dr. Peter Montminy:Love it Perfect. Be the calm in the chaos that's happening.
Marisa Vicere:wrap up, Dr Montminy, what's one message you'd want everyone listening to take away from today's episode?
Dr. Peter Montminy:Yeah, Related to that pause and breathe part of my mindful solutions approach. It's really about showing up to whatever's here with another key phrase compassionate curiosity. So when we can meet our children, meet the moment with compassionate curiosity, that is a universal salve or comfort for anyone's distress, especially our children. There's a way to say why did you do that? Or we could say, huh, wow, hey, why did you do that? Same words, different attitude, different energy. One is a door closer with our kids, One is a door opener, One is an escalation, One is a de-escalation. Why did you do that? Or, hey, buddy, wow, what's happening? Why are you doing that? What's going on for you? So if we can show up, pause, breathe and show up with compassionate curiosity, choose love, a loving presence, we'll be able to get to the problem solving a lot more productively. Yeah.
Marisa Vicere:Excellent, thank you. For me, my takeaway from today's conversation is that small conversations with our kids or with others in our lives can create big change. So we all have the power to make a ripple of resilience in someone's life, starting with our own. And so thank you, dr Montminy, for joining us today, and thank you to everyone who is listening. If you'd like to learn more about mental health, check out the resources at janamariefoundation. org. And until next time, make sure you take care of yourself and others.
Marisa Vicere:In our next episode, we'll be diving into what resilience actually looks like in everyday life and how you can start building it with the young people around you, no matter their age or stage. Thank you for joining us on Ripples of Resilience. This podcast is brought to you by Jana Marie Foundation, where we're dedicated to opening minds and saving lives through conversations that matter, and by A Mindful Village, where Dr Peter Montminy provides holistic mental health care for kids and their caregivers. If today's episode resonated with you. Share it with a friend and don't forget to subscribe so you never miss a ripple. Together, let's keep showing up, speaking up and supporting the young minds who need us most. Remember, even the smallest actions can create waves of change. [music by Ken Baxter]