Episode 52: Back to school anxiety, sibling rivalry, and setting limits. With Bette Alkazian, MFT

In this weeks episode of Ask Dr Jessica, Bette Alkazian joins to discuss common parent concerns.  In the area where I practice pediatrics, Bette Alkazian is well known as a family coach who provides thoughtful, compassionate and loving guidance.  With school start this week for many children, Bette joined the podcast to discuss strategies to help children adjust to school. We also discuss how parents might handle sibling rivalry and setting limits and boundaries with our kids.  Bette is the author of two books: Parenting Backwards (a true owners' manual for parents) and Potty Learning: The Do's Don'ts and the Oops of Poops. 

You can find out more about Bette on her website:
http://balancedparenting.com/
She is also found on instagram at "balanced.parenting".

Dr Jessica Hochman is a board certified pediatrician, mom to three children, and she is very passionate about the health and well being of children.  Most of her educational videos are targeted towards general pediatric topics and presented in an easy to understand manner. 

Do you have a future topic you'd like Dr Jessica Hochman to discuss?  Email your suggestion to: askdrjessicamd@gmail.com. 

Dr Jessica Hochman is also on social media:
Follow her on Instagram: @AskDrJessica
Subscribe to her YouTube channel! Ask Dr Jessica
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The information presented in Ask Dr Jessica is for general educational purposes only.  She does not diagnose medical conditions or formulate treatment plans for specific individuals.  If you have a concern about your child's health, be sure to call your child's health care provider.

Dr Jessica Hochman is a board certified pediatrician, mom to three children, and she is very passionate about the health and well being of children. Most of her educational videos are targeted towards general pediatric topics and presented in an easy to understand manner.

Do you have a future topic you'd like Dr Jessica Hochman to discuss? Email Dr Jessica Hochman askdrjessicamd@gmail.com.

Follow her on Instagram: @AskDrJessica
Subscribe to her YouTube channel! Ask Dr Jessica
Subscribe to this podcast: Ask Dr Jessica
Subscribe to her mailing list: www.askdrjessicamd.com

The information presented in Ask Dr Jessica is for general educational purposes only. She does not diagnose medical conditions or formulate treatment plans for specific individuals. If you have a concern about your child's health, be sure to call your child's health care provider.

Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

Hello everybody welcome to this week's episode of Ask Dr. Jessica I'm your host and paediatrician Dr. Jessica Hochman. Today you will hear my conversation with licenced Marriage and Family Therapist Betty LKC. In the area where I practice paediatrics video KZN is well known as an incredible parenting coach. So on today's podcast, you'll hear me picking Betty's brain about common parenting issues that come up this time of year, we talked about how to help kids adjust to the start of the school year. Strategies to handle sibling rivalry, and she offers practical advice so we can help set limits for our children. Betty is also the author of two books that I recommend parenting backwards, a true owner's manual for parents and potty learning, the do's don'ts and the oops of poops. Thank you so much for listening. If you are enjoying this podcast, I would be so grateful if you were to leave a five star review. And please follow me on Instagram at ask Dr. Jessica. Welcome Betty LKC. And so nice to have you here. Thank you. Great to be here. So tell the audience about yourself. Who are you and what kind of work do you do? So I'm a licenced marriage and family therapist. I have a private practice in Westlake Village, and I specialise in parenting I call my business balanced parenting, where I do speaking and writing and parent coaching for parents to kind of help them through all the bumps along the way to raise great kids. So when you say that you are your titles balanced parenting, does that tie in with your general philosophy on parenting? Can you explain where you get that title? That's a great question, actually. Because I don't really believe there is such a thing as balanced parenting. Which is, I guess, completely ironic, it's more about moving toward balance all the time, we're never actually in balance. We're always making adjustments to in the hopes of getting closer to balance. But especially nowadays, I think it's getting harder and harder to find that balance for a lot of parents. It's just so complex to raise kids in. First of all, in a post pandemic world in even before the pandemic, it was hard with online internet complications and all of the things that that we deal with. So my hope is that we're all kind of trying to figure this out, I have three kids of my own, who are adults now, but the parenting never ends. And so we're all kind of in the trenches together trying to figure out this life, and hopefully to be good models for kids and to help them and all of us navigate this crazy life. Absolutely. And I'm so glad that you acknowledge that it's impossible to really truly be imbalanced as a parent, because I think that's what so many of us struggle with, you know, between marriage and career and children. It's just so and so you know, now with all this talk about self care, when are we supposed to fit time for that in exercise, eating right? It just seems like such a daunting task. I like that you're giving permission that it doesn't, that there's really no such thing. There is an if anything, we have to be kinder to ourselves, because it like I said, the job has gotten harder in the last several years. And we really need to be kind to ourselves, and teach our kids to be kind to themselves, too. Right? It's all the our goal is to model for our kids figuring out the hard parts of this life, and even to expect life to be hard, and how to navigate that while being kind to ourselves along the way. Now, I'm just curious when you say Be kind to ourselves, is that something that you notice an issue with in your day to day practice? Could Could you tell the way I said that? Absolutely. I think parents are so we are all and I will include myself. We are also hard on ourselves. We all need to allow ourselves the space to make mistakes and to be imperfect. And to just be authentic. Really, I think our kids learn more when we make mistakes and say, Oh, I made a mistake. Okay, and then we do whatever it takes to make it better. rather than attempting some perfection that doesn't exist. I think it's so tricky because you know, you want your kids to think that you're that you're perfect, but the truth is, they probably appreciate it when you can acknowledge that you make mistakes. Exactly because Who can live up to that. And in fact, I work with a lot of people in therapy who think that they had a perfect mother or father and they, their whole lives, were striving to accomplish that, when in reality, if their parents would just show their imperfections, more readily, and honestly, then the child wouldn't have felt like they had to chase some unbelievable goal. Right, let alone expecting perfection from themselves, which is not going to happen. And perfectionism is actually a function of anxiety anyways. That's interesting. How do you so tell me how you how you connect those two? So anxiety is, it's I always say it's like this little gremlin that's super sneaky, that shows up in 1000 different ways like perfectionism, worry control? How else does it show up? Having a hard time sleeping? It shows up in all these ways, or even meanness. A lot of times people will come in and say, Why is my kid so angry? Why is my kid so mean to other kids. And then when we drill down and really figure out what's going on, what we realise is that their child is really just anxious and doesn't know what to do with it. So we have to then educate kids about what they're experiencing what to call it, and then what to do with it so that they don't have to act it out. They can actually use their words and say, I'm feeling anxious about this. That's so interesting. I agree with you. I do think that anxiety manifests in so many different ways. Myself, for example, I like to think of myself as type be relaxed, not very anxious. But what I noticed that I do have anxiety is that I'm a terrible sleeper, and I recognise it when I'm going to bed at night. And I keep thinking of things. And I'm not I'm not good at getting a good night's sleep. And I know that no, I definitely have anxiety underlying that, for sure. And there's so many as a doctor, I'm sure you see so many physical complaints, right? A lot of kids will complain of stomach aches, or headaches or other kinds of physical symptoms that are actually just how their anxiety showing up. No, absolutely. I think, I think sometimes when parents come with their kids, and they have complaints, especially we see it physically in the in the head and in the stomach. You know, stress, kids will put their stress on their belly, they'll put their stress in their heads. And I think, I think sometimes parents, they recognise that, but it's it's hard to think that it's not something actually physical happening, like there's not a physical reason causing those physical complaints. But it's so true that the mind and the body that are very connected, in the mind can absolutely cause we call them somatic symptoms or physical symptoms very common. Absolutely. And I think it's hard for a lot of parents to want to admit that their child is experiencing anxiety, mostly because anxiety is often hereditary. And so it might be the parents anxiety to have, oh, my gosh, maybe I'm not being a good enough parent. And so they really want a pill that makes it all go away. Because then they don't have to, you know, admit that maybe they need to address their own anxieties first. That's so true. I think, as a parent myself, when I think about my kids worrying, I do think that I do something wrong. Could I have done something better or different? So I think you're absolutely right. So now going back to what you're saying about children and anxiety, I do feel like this is something that's been so pervasive, it's always been an issue with children, but I definitely see an increase since the pandemic. And I'm just curious, do you have any general advice for parents that have kids that are anxious and a first steps they should think about? Yes, what I often recommend is first and foremost, to really meet your kid where they are, and don't feel like you have to solve it or fix it for them. But to just join them and recognise it, and kind of be willing to sit in the discomfort with them. Kind of like if you can picture like your kid is uncomfortable, and you sit down with them. And you say, I can see that you're really uncomfortable, right? You're, I can see that you're scared, I can see that you're worried whatever you think that they're experiencing, and then just be present and just sit there and say, if, if I'm expecting you to tolerate it, I'm going to tolerate it right here with you. You're not alone in this. And then it's beautiful. What it does is because when they're anxious, their nervous system is hijacked, right. So what We want to do is kind of join them, let them know they're not alone. And then when their nervous system can calm down even just a little, because they don't feel so alone, then you can problem solve it and engage the brain to do figure out what you want to do about it. But really what they need is for us to be present and to love them in spite of being nervous, worried, scared, whatever it is. And then they can figure out how to fix it themselves. We don't have to fix it for them. We just have to love them through it, if that makes sense. Absolutely. It's sort of like, what I imagined. Well, I'm just I'm wondering, maybe we could roleplay here. Like, let's say, this is something that's come up a lot this week, because kids are going back to school. And I've heard from multiple parents that their kids are feeling some trepidation about going back to school, they're worried they don't want to go back to school. So let's say I said to you, you know, let's say you're my mom, and I said, Mom, I just don't want to go back to school. I don't like school, I don't want to go back. Can't I stay home and do zoom classes? How should a parent respond to that, instead of addressing the words, what I recommend to parents is to address the feelings. So what we really want to do is say, Wow, it sounds like you're really feeling nervous about the new school year. And get to the truth, just don't be afraid to say it. So often, parents are afraid of saying the truth for fear that they're wrong, that they'll actually plant the idea in their kids. But the truth is, if you're wrong, they'll tell you, they're that you're wrong, you're not going to give them a worry, they didn't already have. So then just address that feeling. And say new things are hard, I get it and then maybe even share an experience you've had when something was new and scary. Or I remember, I used to get really nervous and get stomach ache and diarrhoea before the first day of school, or I couldn't sleep the night before, or whatever it is. And to let them know, they're not crazy. It's normal. So we're normalising their experience, we're giving them a word for it and saying, Yeah, that's called anxiety, everybody gets nervous when something's new, or all the kids are are having anxiety before school starts. And to really make help them feel like they're not crazy, or different in some way. Because there's nothing pathological about anxiety, we all have it, we're all hardwired for it. But some of us just feel it more than others. And so then we say, You know what I do when I'm feeling anxious about going into a new situation, I take a deep breath, and I focus on my belly. And I think about all the things I'm looking forward to, or whatever, you know, use a tool that has worked for you. Or you can say, I'm really nervous, too. What should we do and help brainstorm, let's go for a walk, maybe looking at the flowers and the trees will help us feel better. And to just, you know, don't be afraid to let them be uncomfortable. But then to brainstorm with them and let them know they're not alone in their discomfort. I love this because I think it's so easy as a parent to just want to change the subject or tell you know, not talk about it, because it can be uncomfortable to have these conversations. But I absolutely think you're right, just sitting with the discomfort for a little bit, knowing that it will pass eventually, I think is really helpful for kids. In fact, it will pass quicker if you address it directly, right? When you avoid it, and you're teaching your kids it's that you're not a safe place for them to share those feelings. And so you really want them to feel that you're a safe place to land. And that they can speak the truth. So when you speak the truth, you're paving the way for them to speak the truth too. I also like what you said about sharing a personal story because I I do find like I think about my own childhood and when my my dad and my mom would share a story about their own childhood. It definitely helped. You know, definitely how to know okay, this is something that other people went through other people that I'm close to went through and they're okay. They got through it. Yeah, exactly. And I remember my kids saying to me before bed, mommy, tell me another story about when you were little, like they love to know that we were young to and that we were kids once and that we went through the first day of first grade too, and that we have been where they are because I think that helps them to feel like we get it. Absolutely. Absolutely. It's always I always like telling stories with patients as well. I think it really helps connection. Agreed. And that cannot Oh, you bring up the most important piece connection is really what kids need to feel from us. We don't have to fix all their problems, but if they feel connected to us, then they will have the confident confidence to fix their own stuff, problems, issues, whatever. So connection is the key to what our kids really need from us even more so than discipline. Yes, yes. Especially as parents, I know, when kids have conflict, or their struggles, it's so easy to want to say you want to take away a privilege or take something away, rather than work through the issue. Right, but think about if we punish a kid who is acting out because their nervous system is hijacked from anxiety, or stress or frustration, whatever the big feeling might be, and we punish that we're saying your feelings aren't okay, what we really want to do is figure out what's really going on here. And if their nervous system is being hijacked, then we want to help them get a handle on that better. And then they can figure out for themselves, right, like, what we want to do when they're adults, right? When they're having a hard time. We want them to say you know what, I'm really having a stressful day, I'm gonna go for a run, or I'm gonna go get on my bike, or I'm gonna go to the gym or whatever it is. Because that is a helpful tool that then helps us relax and get our thinking brain back. Working, right? Identifying and recognising the feeling. And then from there, you can say, Okay, I remember when I was anxious last time, I exercise and I felt better, I called a friend, and I felt better meditated, and I felt better. I agree, recognising it's half the battle, and then you can take action from there. Right? Just gonna say when we punish a big feeling, what we're saying to them is, number one, I don't get it, I don't get what you're going through. And number two, we're saying you're not allowed to have your feelings, which doesn't make them feel safe. So where I struggle with this, as a parent with a punishment is when my kids are fighting with each other? Do you have any advice? When kids fight? Like, how should parents handle this? I never know when to intervene, when to let them work it out themselves. I'm trying to let them work it out themselves more the older they get. But what's your philosophy on on siblings that fight. So this is a really hard one, because it is so uncomfortable for parents, right? They don't want their kids to be fighting beat. Number one, it's loud, it's uncomfortable to witness other people fighting. But what I often encourage parents to do is to remember all that our kids learn from having sibling relationships, and even from the fighting parts, right. So what they learn from each other is conflict resolution. Because the truth is, they might fight. But then a minute later, they want to play with each other. Right? So they also learn resilience. Because that minute later, they want to play with each other. And then so there's conflict resolution, there's resilience. They are learning, unconditional love that I can be really mad at you and want to play with you the next minute. And that we're family and we have each other's backs. And I might be mad at you. But if somebody else gets mad at you, I'm going to defend you. Right? So it's sort of that team player kind of philosophy. So I encourage parents to stay out of it. It's also not your relationship. Right? Can you imagine I my favourite example is, imagine if your neighbours heard you and your husband fighting right in the kitchen window. And they came over and they're like, I know how to fix this, right? You go to your room and you go to that room, and you'd be like, what get out of here, it's sort of the same thing, even though you've been a part of their relationship their whole lives. It's not your relationship. So you don't know if they're fighting about something that really happened two minutes ago, or two days ago, or two weeks ago, or two months ago, even right? So it's not your relationship. So you definitely want to stay out of it. And you never want to point fingers, even if you know who started it, or you think you know who started it. You don't know, again, it's not your relationship, you don't know the parts of the relationship that we're not privy to. And so if you're going to make a comment, like whoa, I don't care for how the two of you are speaking to each other. That's okay. Because now you're making a global statement and you're not pointing fingers at any one person. Because if you're blaming one child, then that child feels that you've turned against them in favour of their sibling, but you are that child's parent too. Yeah, so what they really need you to do is keep it fair Are, which means Whoa, you're violating our family's values right now the way you're treating each other, and I don't care for this, you can take it outside. But I don't care for this in my home, that's okay, then you're defending your family's values. But you never want to point a finger or blame one child over another. And you can say, it sounds like you guys need some time away from each other. Again, it's kind of a socialist thing that you're, you know, everybody has the same impact. So I have to be honest, that probably the least favourite thing in my day to day is when my kids fine. It just bothers me so much when they're getting along. Well, it's the My favourite part of my day, I love it so much. It's the best when I see my kids getting along and sharing and loving each other. But the opposite emotion comes out when they're fighting. And I just, I want to fix it. And especially if the youngest will say to me, or one of the kids will come up to me and say, Mommy, you know, Can you can you help? You know, she took my thing, or he wasn't nice to me. And so it's hard not to intervene us. But you're right. I think letting them resolve it on their own is the best path forward. Right. And we can really create resentment in our kids against us. If we're especially you know, oh, but my little one needs to be defended, right? That kind of thing will make the older one resent you. It's like, well, why does she Why do you always defend her? That's not fair. Every kid needs to feel that you have their back. And that you love them just as much right? Every kid worries about not getting their fair piece of the pie. And so it's you. That's why you send them back to each other to go resolve it right? Like, I'm sorry, you guys are having a hard time getting along. But I trust you. You too can figure this out together, and then leave them to do it. I once read an interesting article in NPR, about siblings, and how about two thirds or so two thirds, even more of adults will when you ask an adult who is their best friend over two thirds, will say that one of their siblings is a best friend. And when they the interesting part here is that when they asked the adults who did not list a sibling as a best friend, the most common reason that they listed for why that's the case was perceived parental favouritism. So I thought that was so interesting that basically the idea is if you have more than one kid, you're very likely to be giving them a best friend. And for those that didn't view their sibling as a best friend, there was somewhere in there, they thought the parents were playing favourites. So I think that's such a, you know, for what it's worth, I took that as a reason to really try to let my kids believe that, you know, everything is the same between them that I don't that I don't have a favourite, which I don't, but that they really believe that and feel that. Yeah, that's why I always say, Don't ever, you know, choose one over the other for or blame, even if you think you know who started the fight because they perceive even if they're totally wrong, they perceive that favouritism, and it really does grow a lot of pain over time, if it continues, now, what about the kids that that really push us? That really push us like I find that a lot of parents, I don't know if it's because of the pandemic and we feel sorry for them things that they've missed out on their sports, school, things like that. But I find that parents, there's a common theme where we're having trouble setting limits, setting boundaries with our kids saying now, do you have any general advice for parents that are listening who struggle with this? Oh my gosh, we have to be willing to say no to our kids, because we have to communicate to them that we know better for them than they know for themselves. And that begins at six months old. Right? We know when a tire baby needs to go to sleep even though they don't want to miss the party. Right? And, and every stage beyond that. So we have to be able to teach our kids obviously right from wrong healthy habits, things like that have to be willing to, for our kids to be uncomfortable. And we we have to help them crave. Again, using the word balance but it's not really balanced. It's you know, faux balance, like we were saying earlier, that if they've been indoors maybe on their tablets for a period of time, then it's time to go outside for a while and after you've been outside for a while it's okay to come in and have some quiet downtime, that kind of thing. Or maybe even if you're dealing with too much screen time, which is a really hard thing to to set boundaries around for a lot of parents to just say, for every half hour of screen time, you have to have two hours of outside time or whatever ratio parents are comfortable with. So it's really just about saying, hey, it's my job to teach you healthy habits and how to be in this world. And what's important in this world. You know, I often talk to parents about using your values really as the place to come from, when you're setting boundaries. And that is in our family. schoolwork is really important, or in our family, telling the truth is really important. Or being responsible with our stuff, or being kind or whatever your values are. They might be different from my family's values, but live by them. And, you know, make sure that you're reinforcing them, and modelling them every day, I think you make a really good point about modelling because I think what's so hard for a lot of parents is we want to limit their screens, we want to limit their desserts. And we partake in those things. And even though, you know, and then we're on their feelings, and then we're on our phones, right? Yeah, right are last night my husband was we told them, you know, that was enough for dessert. And then they want an ice cream. No, no ice cream tonight. We had enough, you know, last weekend. And then my kids found my husband in the kitchen, you know, eating ice cream. And so it's important. You got caught in the act. So I think it's important that we are role models. So it's hard for us. For all of us. It's hard. But we have to remember that kids are paying more attention to what we do than what we say. That's a good point. The actions matter more than they notice actions more than words. They trust them more. Right? If we say it in your if we say to kids is so important to exercise that will fall on deaf ears. But if they see that you're an exerciser, that's part of your life. You integrate it every day or a few times a week, they'll likely follow suit. Well, okay, this has been so helpful. I love I love the topics that we've talked about. Where else can parents find you if they want to talk to you? Thank you so much. Um, I can be found on Facebook, balanced parenting is the name of my page or on Instagram. I'm balanced dot parenting. I'm just trying to keep it all as uniform as possible so you can find me and I also have a website balanced parenting.com We've helped. You've helped so many people and I'm so grateful to know you to connect with you. And thank you so much for your your really helpful advice. My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of Ask Dr. Jessica. If you have an idea for a future ask Dr. Jessica episode, feel free to email me at ask Dr. Jessica md@gmail.com See you next Monday.