Nicky & AJ Part 2 of 4: Stopping Generational Trauma

How do you deal with your child’s anger and defiant behaviors? One place to start is to look at what you as parents bring to the table and how that impacts your child.  This is the second session with Nicky and AJ who are seeking help for their 11 year old daughter Lily.  We cover a wide range of topics from the emotional topics of trauma and anger to learning some practical communication skills. 

Time Stamps

3:00 Pausing, listening, validating and being curious was effective for communication with their teen

7:08 The DBT GIVE skill - a skill to tend to the relationship (see handout below)

8:34 The DBT STOP skill (see handout below)

11:08  It's okay to say to your child “I don’t know what to do in this moment”.  Be honest

13:59 Trauma work for Childhood Trauma - chronic invalidation

• Trauma lives in your body (See Book Link below)
• 14:55 Definition of Trauma
• 21:55 Treatment options (See Handout below)

19:50  Parents who want to stop the the cycle of trauma, cycle of fear, the cycle of invalidation so it doesn’t get passed on to your child

20:20 Parents who want to do better, who need to do better so they can break that cycle

20:30 Every step makes a difference 

21:12  Talking about trauma alone does not treat trauma - Analogy to having a splinter and talking about the splinter

22:15  Mistaken Core Beliefs that develop with traumatic experiences - I am not safe, I am not capable, I am not loveable

25:00 Parents can take responsibility for their actions when you yell or invalidate their child

27:17 People/kids may shut down or get angry when they feel invalidated.  Ask the question, “What did I just say that may have been invalidating to you?”

28:44 The parenting dialectic:  I am trying my best AND I still need to do more

30:25 Three Step Apology to take responsibility when you behave in a way that is problematic

31;58 Assess the prompting events that lead to her emotional dsyregulation

34:10 Defiance and anger can be a secondary emotion to anxiety or overwhelm

32:41 Use context such as timing when trying to understand problematic behavior

40:49 Habituation is the act of getting used to something through repetition

41::00 Dialectic thinking to help her get into the shower (examples)

43:15 Parenting GOAL: Is to connect to your child by making sure they feel understood and respected.  

Leslie-ism:  Take a stand and STOP harmful generational patterns

Resources:  

The Body Keeps Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk, MD

The Three Step Apology by Leslie Cohen-Rubury

Dialectic Behavior Therapy: The GIVE Skill Handout and Practice Sheet by DBT.Tools

Dialectic Behavior Therapy.  The STOP Skill Handout and Practice Sheet by DBT.Tools

Trauma Treatment Resources: 

• Dialectic Behavior Therapy Prolonged Exposure - DBT- PE
• Prolonged Exposure
• Cognitive Processing Therapy - CPT

For a full transcript of this episode and more information about the host visit https://lesliecohenrubury.com/podcasts/ . You can also follow Leslie’s work on Facebook, 

Transcript

[Music: The Wilds Beyond by L-Ray Music]

[00:00:00] AJ: That's all I knew. Like, if I messed up, my dad was, it was zero to sixty, which is me. And I'm never going to understand her if I don't harness that. Because I should know how she feels, because I felt the same way as a child.

[00:00:21] Leslie Cohen-Rubury: The first step to making change is recognizing the pattern that needs changing. But that alone is not always enough, and sometimes you need help to figure out what that next step to making change is. This is, Is My Child A Monster? a parenting skills podcast where you get to listen in as real parents and caregivers share their trials and tribulations in coaching sessions recorded live. I’m your host, Leslie Cohen-Rubury. And no, your child is not a monster; and neither are you. 

Today is my second session with Nicky and AJ, who came to me for help with their 11-year-old daughter, Lily. I. But sometimes what happens in parenting is that our childhood wounds open up in big ways. For AJ and Nicky, that can happen while trying to get Lily in the shower or to do something she doesn't want to do.

AJ's reactions of anger and frustration give us a clear window into how he was treated as a child, and get in the way of actually helping his daughter. This is an emotional session. Both parents share incredibly vulnerable moments with tears and laughter; and sometimes that laughter is a reaction to feeling nervous or uncomfortable and is not a sign that someone doesn't care.

And they are also here to learn the Dialectic Behavior Therapy communication skills, and ways to turn those reactive moments into thoughtful responses. 

Now, as a reminder, all the names and identifying information have been changed, and though I am a licensed clinical social worker, this show is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for therapeutic intervention.

So let’s begin.

[00:02:20] Leslie: Hi, AJ. Hi, Nicky. 

[00:02:23] AJ: Hello. 

[00:02:24] Leslie: Good morning. 

[00:02:25] Leslie: All right. So, it's been a few weeks since your last session. I know I've got some things on my mind that I want to share, but that's not fair—I'm going to let you go first. And share with me anything that you would like to put on our agenda for today. I'd also like to take time to review homework and anything you practice from our last session. 

[00:02:53] Nicky: Okay. So I would like to share that, after our last session, I did really try and practice listening and pausing. And there was actually a very specific conversation that I had with Lily where she was talking about school and being picked on and kind of being bullied at school.

And usually I would try and help her solve the problem immediately. And this time I've really tried to sit back and listen and let her talk and just kind of reflect and empathize, essentially. Just, you know, that must be hard, what you're going through. Or, kind of just ask more questions, rather than try and solve the problem for her.

[00:03:39] Leslie: Mm hmm. 

[00:03:41] Nicky: And that was very helpful in that moment, to just sit there and let her talk and just ask some prompting questions; but not really try and solve the problem for her, which is kind of my go-to. 

[00:03:57] Leslie: And is it true that this new strategy of pausing, of listening, of validating, and being curious—I'm going to add that—is it true that in this situation she was more able to express herself? Because remember, last session we found that Lily, who's 11 years old, had difficulty. What you thought was that she wouldn't talk. She couldn't talk. We didn't know if it was an expressive language issue or if she just was refusing-to-talk-kind-of-thing. Do you feel like that sort of addressed that issue?

[00:04:39] Nicky: Yes. In this situation, absolutely. 

[00:04:42] Leslie: Wow. You used the strategy of pausing, of listening, of being curious, and in that approach she was more verbal and more able to express herself. 

[00:04:55] Nicky:Yes, absolutely. 

[00:04:57] Leslie: Great. It's a science experiment. Raising kids is, like, just experiment. Just see: does this work? And constantly ask that question: Does this work? And tweak it when it doesn't work. Don't throw away the strategy, just keep tweaking the strategies to see what works and what doesn't work. 

Okay, that's great feedback. So, AJ, did you have a chance to try anything? 

[00:05:23] AJ: Sort of. There are times where your old ways kick in, when you get angry or pushed, but I tried to do the pause thing. We did hang up the pause signs around. And there's a couple of times where, if there's an argument, just walking away, instead of just getting into it. Although I have gotten into it and then it's just sometimes frustrating because we're both so similar. 

I mean, she kind of opened up to me about the subject, about the kids at school. My answers to it were not great at the beginning because I was kind of mad about it. And then, I thought about it and then I tried to give her a little bit of advice, but not tell her what to do. She kind of opened up a little more. So, maybe she's not looking for us to tell her what to do. Maybe it's just to listen.

[00:06:19] Leslie: Yes. And believe it or not, I actually respect kids that if they want advice, what do you think they'll do when they want it? 

[00:06:27] AJ: They'll ask. 

[00:06:28] Leslie: Yes—they ask. We jump the gun a little bit and we try to offer, like you said, it's a natural tendency, Nikki to want to fix, fix, fix. It's ingrained in parents and it actually is something that gets in the way of raising our children, so that they can express themselves, figure out when they need to ask for help, figure out when they are actually asking for that kind of input. So, that's really good. 

Because you are doing it, I want to label the pieces of what you did as a skill that might help you. There's an acronym in Dialectic Behavior Therapy called the GIVE skill. The GIVE skill—it's an acronym—is when we want to tend to the relationship. So G is: be gentle. I is: act interested, be curious. Like, “Oh really? How did they say that? Has she ever done that before? When did this happen?” Be curious. V is: validate. Use validation in all different kinds of ways of, “Wow, I wouldn't want to be in that situation.” Just listening is validation. So there's six different levels of validation, which I can share with you. But for this purpose right now, I'm just going to say validate is the V. 

And E is: have an easy manner. Sometimes use a little humor. Sometimes, just be gentle and go with the flow and regulate your own nervous system. Trying to be easy, while she may be dealing with something that's not so easy. The GIVE skill. So you could put that acronym up and around. I love that you hung up little Post-Its that said pause. That's great. 

While I'm at it, I might as well teach you another acronym, also from DBT, called the Stop Skill, which you can remember as pause, which is fantastic. Or you can actually use the acronym STOP. So that one, the S stands for stop, but I want you to think of it as: freeze. Don't move a muscle, just freeze. Even if you need to hold your breath for a second. Anything to get you to stop, because when we are in emotion mind, it's often an impulsive, strong urge that makes us say things that we later regret. Or get involved and give advice and we jump the gun and we get too excited.

So practicing freeze. And you might go around the house, when I did kids groups, I would often just say, “Freeze.” And kids love to play freeze games. So I would say that, just so that they could practice the STOP skill; so that as an adult, they'd remember, oh yeah, freeze. And so try that with the S. S is: freeze, stop.

T is: take a step back, take a pause, or take a breath. Now you want to take that breath, or you might literally take a step back. And if she's standing in the kitchen with you, you go sit at the kitchen table, you sit down, or you step two steps back. Or you just remember to take a breath. So the T is: take a breath, take a pause.

The O is: observe what's going on inside and what's going on outside. So we want to observe, Wow, I just got really upset. Or, Wow, she looks like she's red in the face, or She's starting to close down or observing what's going on inside or outside. You can even observe, Wow, there's a lot of noise in the house. The music is going and the kitchen, there's noise in the kitchen. And all of that could be something that you notice as well. 

And then the P, after you've done a little observing, is: proceed mindfully. Take a moment. Move from your emotion mind to your wise mind, which is the prefrontal cortex, to say: how do I want go forward? What's going to work in this situation? And sometimes what works is saying to Lily, “Hey, I don't know what to say right now. Right now I need to regulate my own emotion.” 

That got you, AJ. Why are you laughing on that? 

[00:11:16] AJ: Because sometimes when stuff goes like that, we don't know what to say. [Laughter]

[00:11:19] Leslie: That's true! I have said that to my children when I was raising them. It's like, I don't know what to do here. I don't know how I want to deal with this. I need a moment. It's totally fine for you to say that. 

[00:11:32] Nicky: I feel that way often. 

[00:11:34] AJ: I think we've looked at each other and been like, I don't know what we're doing right now.

[00:11:39] Leslie: Okay. Say it out loud. You're being honest. You're being vulnerable and you're teaching her that it's okay not to know what to do in a moment. Especially if you can take a pause around that not-knowing. Because what we do is we panic. When we're in that not-knowing, and then all of a sudden our nervous systems get very aroused because not knowing feels very uncomfortable.

[00:12:06] AJ: That is true. 

[00:12:07] Leslie: We just want to say, “I don't know,” and then regulate our nervous system to take a breath and reduce some of the tension in our body. Because then most likely, we're going to stick with, I don't know what to say right now, so I'm not going to do anything. What's that old adage? If you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all. There's nothing wrong with that. Take a moment. Take a breath. 

[00:12:37] AJ: I definitely need to hear that one. 

[00:12:39] Leslie: Okay. 

[00:12:40] AJ: Sometimes when we get angry with each other, Lily and I, we just start shouting at each other…instead of just stopping, walking away, taking a breath. 

[00:12:54] Leslie: So AJ, between last session and what you're saying now, it sounds like that this is a common behavior for you and you don't like it. You don't like when you get…you know, your body reacts in such a big way. Is that true? 

[00:13:10] AJ: Yes, it's very frustrating for me. And sometimes it just happens. And it has probably nothing to do with Lily and everything to do with how I was raised and how it's just coming out as an adult. And I don't want it to be that way. I need to figure out a way to change that. 

[00:13:39] Leslie: So, I want to validate the fact that—I hear it loud and clear— it doesn't feel like the person you want to be, and it doesn't feel like the behavior, the way you want to parent your child.

[00:13:54] AJ: I do not. 

[00:13:55] Leslie: Okay. So I'm going to introduce a topic that sounds scary, but is really some of the most amazing work that I've seen as a therapist. And that is understanding how—if we've been traumatized as a child, if we've experienced trauma, and I want to explain how we even define that—that sometimes it lives in our body. 

And it feels like we can't do anything about it, because it just shows up. It just is there. And you've used little lines:  I can't help it. It just…my body. It sort of takes over. It controls me. And that's something to look into. I'm not diagnosing you as having PTSD or been traumatized. But with your history of what you grew up with, there are two possibilities. And the reason why I'm offering this to you as a possibility is because trauma is often misunderstood. but what we want to learn is that experiencing trauma is not the event itself. Many, many people think that if I go to war, I'm going to be traumatized. I mean, war is traumatizing, rape is traumatizing, car accidents are traumatizing. All those big things are traumatizing. 

And the definition of trauma is not the event itself, but our response to the event. So if, as a child, you were not understood. There's trauma that's called chronic invalidation. And if you felt nobody got me, they don't understand me—and you didn't understand yourself—but if no one understood you, that chronic invalidation can actually be traumatizing.

And it affects your nervous system. There was physical abuse, there was yelling, your dad reacted to you in a scary way. And remember, you can look back and say, “Yeah, well he just had a temper.” But for a 5-year-old, it's not just a temper—it's really scary. The second point is, one is our response to the event, and the second is that it becomes imprinted in our nervous system. And you can't just will it away. 

[00:16:20] AJ: I tried that. 

[00:16:22] Leslie: And you've been trying that. You're trying so hard, and that's what I see. I see how hard you're trying to stop it. And actually that's when I share with clients: let's do some trauma treatment. And trauma treatment is also…

…You okay, Nicky? 

[00:43:44] Nicky: Yes. 

[00:16:44] Leslie: Let's pause a minute. I'm sorry. I'm just noticing you're getting really upset. 

[00:16:49] Nicky: No, that's okay. I just feel like my biggest fear is that we are doing this again to our own child. And I'm trying so hard to try and explain to him that I think he needs help. We need help. We need to address it. And I think it's just so ingrained in him that you just don't go to therapy.

So this is just huge. The fact that we're even here, and then for you to say that and address it in such a manner that I think he really can hear and understand isn't coming from me. I just hope that this is just the beginning of where this can go. Sorry. 

[00:17:53] Leslie: No, please never apologize for being honest, being vulnerable, sharing feelings in a very effective way. Are you okay there, AJ? 

[00:18:04] AJ: Yeah. Yeah. Um, it's…I mean, what you said about being scary to the 5-year-old, so to speak. And now it's like, we've kind of had that when I would get angry before, Nicky would be like, your getting mad, like probably scares her. And in the heat of the moment, you don't think that. And then I think there's a couple of times where that hit home, when we were, like, before we were arguing or if I raised my voice and you can…you finally realize, you see them get kind of scared.

And that's sometimes when I just, like, take a minute. You're like, Oh my God. What am I doing? It hasn't, it was more before, like, way before—it hasn't been like that in a while. Because I'm trying to not really go hard or anything like that, because unfortunately, that's all I knew. Like, if I messed up, my dad was, it was zero to sixty, which is me. And I'm never going to understand her if I don't harness that. Because I should know how she feels, because I felt the same way as a child. But for some reason, in the heat of the moment, processing that is just so difficult.

[00:19:48] Leslie: Of course. Again, it's totally understandable. I hear your desire to do it differently. And as you just said, Nicky, you want to make sure the cycle of trauma, the cycle of invalidation, the cycle of fear doesn't get passed onto your daughter; and you're upset because it feels like you've had experiences where she may have felt the same way. You are doing your best as parents and we know you want to do better, and you need to do better. So we can break that cycle.

[00:20:24] Nicky: Absolutely.

[00:20:25] Leslie: It's really hard and you are here and every step you take makes a difference. You followed up on that homework. You put the pauses out there. And that's why I wanted to explain how trauma can live in your body, because it doesn't just go away because you want it to go away.

Treatment…and Nicky, you shared some insight that it might be hard for AJ to think that therapy is necessary. And I'm not telling you it's a necessity, or you have to. I'm going to present it as an option, because once we are aware that it lives in our body, there are many approaches to the trauma treatment.

But talking about trauma. “Well, my dad yelled at me. I get it…da, da, da.” Talking about it, talking about it, talking about it does not treat the trauma. If I've got a splinter that's infected, just talking about the splinter that's infected will not treat the infection. You need treatment.

And as a therapist who's been around for 40 years, we didn't know that in the beginning. Trauma treatments have come out with evidence-based that says this is the way we treat the trauma that lives inside of someone's body. So, there's many, many, many kinds. I am certified in two kinds, which is Dialectic Behavior Therapy PE, Prolonged Exposure. And another kind, which is called CPT—Cognitive Processing Therapy. And there are many other kinds of trauma treatments: Somatic Experiencing, EMDR—these are other treatments as well. So, basically the treatment is to help shift a perspective of your core beliefs like, the world is not safe, I'm not lovable, or I'm not capable.

So in those moments, when your daughter is screaming at you and she's dysregulated, do you feel the world is not safe? Do you feel not safe? I don't know how to handle this. If it's, I don't know how to handle it, it's the I'm not feeling capable. Or is she talking to me in a way that makes me feel I'm unlovable? Again, these are old messages that are inside of us—we call it a prompting event when she does something that can make us feel like we were when we were five years old. 

[00:23:10] AJ: Definitely have those moments. 

[00:23:12] Leslie: Right. So treatment helps us change that. I have seen remarkable shifts in people's nervous systems, in their perspective on themselves, on the world of relationships. It's very profound. Would you be willing to maybe do a little research for yourself? See if there's something. You are working so hard and I feel badly that you're working hard, hard, hard, and not getting the results you deserve. Perhaps working differently might actually be the thing that might help here.

[00:23:47] AJ: Yes, definitely.

[Music: Stand in the Forest by Olexy]

[00:24:11] Leslie: Now I want to address for the two of you what, Nicky, you were so upset about a minute ago, which is: are we doing this to our child? 

[00:24:23] Nicky: Yes. 

[00:24:24] Leslie: So, she may be scared. I would agree that she is scared when you yell. For a highly sensitive child, that yelling is really scary. And what does a child think when they're being yelled at? 

[00:24:38] AJ: That they're not okay.

[00:24:40] Nicky: I was going to say that they did something wrong or that it's their fault. 

[00:24:43] Leslie: Great—that they did something wrong. There's something wrong with me. It's my fault that Daddy's getting upset. What else, AJ, were you going to say? 

[00:24:50] AJ: I was going to say, they hate me or they don't love me type of feelings.

[00:24:56] Leslie: Exactly. Here's how we help her. You take responsibility for your actions. And going to therapy, treating the trauma—that is a huge responsibility. That is being very responsible about who you are and how you want to be in the world. And it's also possible for us to take responsibility when we do make mistakes, when we do yell, when we do get emotionally dysregulated.

And you know what? Even if you don't do it as much, you can say, “Growing up I did a lot of yelling.” And have a conversation. “What did that feel like? I can imagine that you…,” and then repeat the things you just said. “I can imagine you felt like it must have been your fault, that you did something wrong, that you may be broken and that we don't love you. Those might be things that you felt when I yelled at you.” Now, it won't change it like that on a dime, but for her to hear you take responsibility, that you understand the impact it had: how do you think that's going to make her feel? 

[00:26:06] AJ: I think she'll definitely feel relief. 

[00:26:09] Leslie: Yes. She'll feel relief, she'll feel understood, and she will feel connected to you. So this will break the chain or the generational cycle because you are saying, Wait a minute, this is going to stop, and I understand this impact on you. Trauma becomes imprinted in our bodies when it doesn't get treated, as I said. There is a timeframe, she might have that core belief; but the more you speak to it, the more her perception will change, and in essence, you are helping her change her perception in those areas, I am unloved, the world is not safe. And you start working on those perceptions by saying, “In that moment, I'm sure you felt that, and I'm going to do something different.” 

[00:27:06] Nicky: Okay. 

[00:27:07] Leslie: And even when you…so AJ, you get taken off the hot seat for a second…[Laughter] Nicky, when you are questioning her and wanting to fix her social problems, and you're fixing, and fixing, fixing, and she just either shuts down or she gets upset with you, that's also invalidating. You don't understand me, nobody understands me—that's the feeling she might have in those moments. So if you see it happening—believe me, I still do it today when I see my children shut down or get upset or raise their voice, I go, “Whoa, something I just said must have been invalidating to you.” 

It wasn't my intention to invalidate my child, just like it's not your intention to validate or hurt your children. Sometimes these things happen unintentionally, so we take responsibility for it. It's okay. We take responsibility for it. 

[00:28:06] Nicky: Yes. 

[00:28:07] AJ: Okay. 

[00:28:08] Leslie: And that's the work you're doing, which is, “Wow, I forgot. I'm trying to fix your problem. First, I want to listen and understand. Let me do that again.” And you can do that in the moment, and you can do that a day later and you can do it five years later. 

[00:28:25] Nicky: That's good news. 

[Laughter]

[00:28:26] Leslie: Alright. Start now. You're here now, and you are going to make a difference in your child's life. 

[00:28:33] AJ: Well, luckily we started earlier than we probably…than our parents never noticed it, so… 

[00:28:38] Leslie: Exactly. So there's the dialectic, AJ: You know what? I'm aware of this and I want to change this, and I still need to do more. So the fact that you are aware of this, the fact that you are here, it's unbelievable. 

[00:28:57] AJ: Well, that's good to hear.

[00:29:03] Leslie: Exactly. Okay…So that quiets the room down, right? 

[00:29:10] Nicky: Yeah.

[Laughter] 

[00:29:12] Leslie: It's really intense to hear that. And, when offering this information means that you can feel differently, you can act differently. That's really good news. 

[00:29:26] Nicky: Yes, it is. 

[00:29:27] Leslie: So, we can continue to talk about that. I want that to settle in.We did the STOP skill, which when we talked about that, that gives you a chance to notice your system is aroused. So even without the trauma treatment, with your STOP skill, you can start to regulate the feeling that your body is taking over in anger. You can stop by taking that step back, and doing that Pause. That's a very, very effective skill to help you deal with the moment; not everything has to depend on this trauma treatment. No. There's lots of skills that you can use to help you in the moment when, like we said, we can take responsibility for it and tell her, “Wow, I just yelled at you.”

That's the three step apology I do, where I notice my behavior, I observe what I just did, I state the impact. First, I state what I did: “I yelled at you. I screamed really loud. I came close to you in your face. I told you that you're being disrespectful.” You can say all that, which is what you did.

The second step is to describe the impact that it has on her and on you. “That probably makes you feel like I don't love you, makes you feel like you've done something wrong.” And you take responsibility. “And the impact on me is that I don't feel good about myself. I don't like behaving that way. I want to do different.” And the amends is, “I want to do something different. Let me do it again.” 

So we have the STOP skill. We have the three-step apology to take responsibility for your action. There's something that's also really important for both Lily and either one of you. I did give you another homework assignment you might have forgotten about, which was what I would call prompting events or, what are the situations that get her really upset? Do you remember that question? And if you don't, that's totally fine. 

[00:31:44] Nicky: I do, not offhand, but I definitely know some situations that get her very upset. 

[00:31:50] Leslie: Okay, let's go over those for a moment. They're called prompting events. What are the prompting events that get her very upset?

[00:31:57] Nicky: One is in the morning, just having to get ready for school. She just struggles with getting ready for school. She's always upset about it. She says, “School is boring. I hate school.” So that is one. One is getting a shower. She hates getting a shower. It doesn't matter the day, the time—she hates it and she just fights it. She argues, she whines, she complains, she does anything to try and prolong it.

[00:32:37] Leslie: Mm hmm. 

[00:32:38] Nicky: I mean, we're at the point where it's like you’ve got to give her a day warning and it's still just isn't enough. 

[00:32:45] Leslie: Okay. 

[00:32:45] AJ: She spends more time arguing with us about it than the actual shower would take. 

[00:32:50] Leslie: Right. Okay. Those are two great examples: getting ready in the morning, going to school, and taking a shower. In terms of getting ready for school, do you see her do the same behavior of having difficulty getting up, getting dressed, coming downstairs, whatever, on a weekend? Or is it just the weekdays? 

[00:33:13] Nicky: Just the weekdays, unless it's an early cheer event. And then we see similar tactics, similar stalling, whining, saying, “I'm tired.” But if it's just a normal weekend and we don't necessarily have plans right off the bat, she has no problem getting up and going downstairs.

[00:33:38] Leslie: Okay. So what does that tell you? 

[00:28:14] Nicky: She's struggling, I think, with cheer comps. I think she's anxious about the comp—the competition. 

[00:33:50] Leslie: Mm-hmm. 

[00:33:51] Nicky: So we know that and we try and work through it. But we don't seem to have the skills that she requires. 

[00:34:04] AJ: She gets kind of mean sometimes with it.

[00:34:07] Leslie: Mm hmm. Mm hmm.  Okay. That defiance, that getting mean, that getting angry. Anger can often be a secondary emotion to anxiety or overwhelm. So if, remember I talked about going below the surface, um, when we have anger as a secondary emotion, there's something that came before it. But it's much harder and much more uncomfortable to express, “I'm nervous about cheer. I'm upset that I have to go to school. I don't like getting in the shower.” Those things, those uncomfortable feelings are harder to express and she may not even notice it. All she notices is the anger. “No, I don't want to do it. Because it's protecting her. It's keeping her from doing what she needs to do.

What our job as parents is to catch that anger and actually go back and take a moment and say, “Wow, I hear that you don't want to get dressed and go to cheer. Is it that you don't want to go? Or is it that the anxiety about the competition is really uncomfortable?” So I, again, I want to go below the surface and see: is it her anxiety about the cheer?

Now you guys guessed it and that's great. There are many things that if I said to you, let's guess what's going on before she gets in the shower? Or getting in the shower, what do you think is going on? Do you know your child? But we don't verbalize it. So what do you know about your child and this problem of getting in the shower?

So the problem behavior is getting in the shower—we'll call that the problematic behavior, the avoidance of getting in the shower. The prompting event is when you announce, “Hey, it's time to take a shower.” Now you see all these things, all these links between you telling her to get in the shower and her not getting in the shower. What's going on? 

[00:36:15] Nicky: I don't know what's going on. [Laughter] I try and ask, what is it about showers? And she says, “I don't like to get wet.” And I don't know what to do with that information. 

[00:36:31] AJ: But the funny thing is, after she does it, she's fine. And I think it's the whole process, maybe, that just might be…I don’t know if it's overwhelming or if it's because it’s one other thing that we're telling her to do. I don't know. She does have a process when it comes to showering and when she has to set certain towels up, and it's got to have the music going and, like, it's a whole thing. But once she gets it all arranged, it's fine.

Sometimes we have to then tell her that she's been in there too long. So I don't understand. We never understand what the disconnect is from just getting in and doing it and then coming out. There's something going on beforehand, and we could never figure out why it is. It’s like Nicky said, it could be any time we tried to set up, “Okay, these are the days you’ve got to do it.” And even when it comes to those days, it's like, “I don't want to do it,” even though she knew it was coming and it was scheduled, so to speak. Because she usually does better with things that are scheduled or laid out for her.

[00:37:49] Leslie: Okay. I totally get it. I just want to take a moment before we wrap up to say that your honest answer of, “I don't know what's going on,” makes it difficult for you to help her. And AJ, you started to get close to it when you said she doesn't want to get in, and then she sets up all her towels and this and that, and then she doesn't want to get out.

Even though you and I might say taking a shower is really easy, it may not be really easy for the highly sensitive person. For her, I'm hearing, I'd have to assess more, but it sounds to me that it's all of the sensory experiences that are overwhelming her, which is something you said, AJ. Getting undressed means I have to put a lot of effort into taking off my clothes.

It isn't always easy to take off a pair of socks, and then once I'm undressed, I have to feel the cold air or the hot air. And now that's a change: I'm comfortable, I've got my clothes on, and now you want me to be uncomfortable. I don't want to be uncomfortable. So there's the second difficulty.

And then moving from there is, I've got to stop what I'm doing. And I've got to go to the shower, and then I have to get in a shower where, when it first touches my skin, it could feel—I don't know, we'd have to assess it—it feels like there are needles hitting me, or sometimes it's too cold or sometimes it's too hot.

Every single aspect of getting in the shower could be like climbing Mount Everest for her. That's why she refuses to get in the shower,when you say, just go take a shower. And then getting out is the reverse of the same process. Now I’ve got to turn the water off and I’ve got to stand there, cold, before I get my towel, and then I've got a towel off, and then I want to take the towel off and put on…It's like every step can be overwhelming because she has a sensory experience that is actually intense for her. She is feeling very, very strong, sensitive physical sensations that overwhelm her. 

[00:40:04] AJ: That kind of makes sense because when she gets out, it's like she gets under one towel and lays another one out and curls up in a ball under it because I think she's cold. Whether she does it in the bathroom or she runs to her room, she'll go in, throw a cover on for a while. And I think finally when she gets comfortable. After she gets out, you never know when it's going to be. She's going to come back downstairs, we might have dinner going. Like, “Okay, when you're done with your shower dinner will be ready.” And then we're waiting on her because she… 

[00:40:36] Leslie: …it took her so long, yes. So she's developing a system to help her handle it. I'd want to recognize that. And we do want to teach her two things. One is, the more she does it, the more she will actually get used to it. It's called habituation. It's exposing yourself over and over and over again.

Also, we might want to give her some dialectic thinking around it. I don't like this and I can do it. I don't like this, and it will pass. This feeling of being cold and uncomfortable will pass. So we want to teach her the dialectic that I don't like this—that's the validating part—I don't like this, this is painful, this is difficult and I can handle it and it will pass. But what some kids try to do and what she's trying to wait till she doesn't feel that. She doesn't want to get in the shower because she doesn't know that she can work through that. 

And so teaching her the dialectic skill of flexible thinking, of saying, I can't do this and I can do it. I don't want to do this, and I actually enjoy it once I'm in the shower. So there's a lot of validating here as well, teaching her dialectic thinking, and teaching her that it will get easier the more she does it. So as an adult, there are many kids who felt that way and they've gotten much more comfortable.

[00:42:07] AJ: That makes sense. As I'm hearing you talk, I don't know if, when I was a kid, like, with going to get a shower, it was kind of like that. I don't know how my daughter was feeling, but I know a lot of times with me it was because you were, like…She's the same way: she's doing something and then it's time to do that. It's like, you're interrupting. You're just interrupting what your expectations are. That's the other thing with her: expectations. If we alter her expectations and it changes, that's another where some of the triggering events come with her. 

So maybe that the shower wasn't in her expectation of what she wanted to do, and then we're altering that. And then that's part of the struggle too. So I kind of get where she's coming from, now that you're saying that out loud. When I was a kid it was more like—because we're trying to handle her better than my parents did—it was like, get in the shower or else type of situation. Or get a bath or whatever it was. 

[00:43:14] Leslie: And we don't want to parent by fear and that is why you may have done what you needed to do, but it wasn't easy for you. And you brought up a very good point about expectations. I'd love to bring that up next time. 

So for now, practice some of this. Again, when you understand her, she will feel like her parents, that she's very connected to you and she's going to feel respected and she's going to feel understood. I say it over and over again: that's the parenting goal, to feel like you are being understood, even if you still have problems, and even if as parents, you still can't figure it out, and it's still a struggle, that connection of being understood. You may have trouble for the next five years or ten years getting her in the shower. And if she understands herself and you understand her better, that gives her a chance to be able to work on those problems. 

[00:44:13] Nicky: Yes. 

[00:44:14] Leslie: Good. Thank you both for being so vulnerable, so willing to learn.

[00:44:19] AJ: Absolutely. Thank you. 

[00:42:22] Nicky: Thank you.

[Music: Acoustic Folk Music Guitar by ArtMusic ]

[00:44:28] Leslie Cohen-Rubury: There's no prescriptive way that you have to do this thing called parenting. And I love my job of parent coaching when I get to help parents have a greater understanding of their child. And in this episode, I also help Nicky and AJ have a greater understanding of what they bring to the table—their strengths, their childhood wounds, and their parenting struggles.

A lot of aha moments happened in this episode where AJ felt understood. He felt validated because his anger and frustration can really make him feel like a bad person. But when we talk about the context of where it's coming from, that's validating. And it identifies a starting place to make change.

I did recommend trauma work, and he could work on his anger through other means as well. There's a dialectic statement, right? You don't need to, and you shouldn't have to wait for your trauma to be healed, to improve your parenting. They can happen in tandem. Remember, facing your own behaviors means that you can stop the generational cycles of abuse.

You can make a difference in your child's life. So this week, remember, take a stand and stop those harmful generational patterns.

[Music: The Wilds Beyond by L-Ray Music]

To learn more about the DBT skills I covered in this episode, including the STOP and the GIFT skills, check out the show notes. And join us next week for an emotional conversation between Nicky and AJ about what it means to seek help and why some people want to avoid it all together. 

You can subscribe to Is My Child A Monster? wherever you get your podcasts. And please rate and review to help spread the word. You can also find a full transcript of this episode or sign up for my newsletter at ismychildmonster.com. The Is My Child A Monster? team is Alletta Cooper, Camilla Salazar, and me. Special thanks to Eric Rubury. Our theme music is by L-Ray Music. I'm Leslie Cohen-Rubury. Thanks so much for joining me.

Transcribed by Eric Rubury