Teens face a variety of problems, issues, challenges and conflicts as they make their way through life. Having the right formula for dealing with problems can make all the difference in the outcome of such events. This week we're taking a look at some common situations where problem solving skills could make a world of difference. We'll talk about the common steps to problem solving and learn the skills needed to help resolve any problem or challenge you face.
We'll also delve into some problems and challenges that Madison has faced and how she was able to cope with them with the proper problem solving skills and how some problems required her to learn those problem solving skills on the fly.
An original podcast by a husband and wife team of self professed pop-culture geeks. It is a discussion about all things entertainment from movies and music to television and pop culture. We examine some of the more obscure aspects of the entertainment industry.
Teens face a variety of problems, issues, challenges and conflicts as they make their way through life. Having the right formula for dealing with problems can make all the difference in the outcome of such events. This week we're taking a look at some common situations where problem solving skills could make a world of difference. We'll talk about the common steps to problem solving and learn the skills needed to help resolve any problem or challenge you face.
We'll also delve into some problems and challenges that Madison has faced and how she was able to cope with them with the proper problem solving skills and how some problems required her to learn those problem solving skills on the fly.
An original podcast by a husband and wife team of self professed pop-culture geeks. It is a discussion about all things entertainment from movies and music to television and pop culture. We examine some of the more obscure aspects of the entertainment industry.
Insightful pocket by informative insights, a podcast network.
Speaker 2:[inaudible].
Speaker 3:Welcome to insights into teens, a podcast series, exploring the issues and challenges of today's youth. Your hosts are Joseph and Madison, Whalen, a father and daughter team making their way through the challenges of the teenage years.
Speaker 2:[inaudible]
Speaker 4:welcome to insights into teens. This is episode 53 problem solving skills. I'm your host, Joseph Waylon and my intelligent and insightful cohost, Madison Waylon. How are you doing today? Maddie? Yesterday. That's good. Oh, I guess kind of a good thing. We have a bit of a misfire on the podcast. Last night we did do the podcast. Unfortunately we had some technical issues that uh, did not record it or broadcast it. Um, so we're doing it again today.
Speaker 5:I make just make sure that we're actually broadcasting.
Speaker 4:We appear to be broadcasting now I'm showing that we have a screen, a stream going and we'll even do this.
Speaker 5:Just an extra check
Speaker 4:Jonas to make sure we're going here and see, look at that. We're alive. We're actually watching ourselves live, which is kind of odd, but
Speaker 5:and yeah.
Speaker 4:Okay. All right. So we are good. So we are doing problem solving skills. Um, uh, we'll start off the same way we did yesterday and you tell me what you think problem solving skills are. Go,
Speaker 5:I think, well, I'm just going to start off with a clear definition of problem solving. Problem solving is a way of one handling conflicts and problems in their everyday lives in a way that that appeals to that certain person. And for problem solving skills is basically the ability to overcome problems using skills to using skills, um, available to them, um, to hopefully dial down conflicts and problems.
Speaker 4:Okay. That's, that's a very good definition. Uh, what we'll be talking about today, there's a definition that comes from a very well family, which we've used in the past as a resource. And they say problem solving skills refer to our ability to solve problems in an effective and timely manner without any impediments. It involves being able to identify and define the problem, generating alternative solutions, evaluating and selecting the best alternative and implementing the selected solution. Obtaining feedback and responding to it appropriately is an essential aspect of problem solving skills to which you do. After the fact. Um, so that's sort of the basis of what we're going to be talking about today. We're going to run through, um, why teens need problem solving. Really everyone needs problem solving skills, but we'll look at some specific examples. Then we'll talk about the actual basic steps of problem solving, emo related to some scenarios in which you've had to exercise problem solving skills in your arm, own life, uh, ready to get started. All right, so we face a variety of problems every day, ranging from academic difficulties to problems on the sports field. Yet few people have the formula to solve these problems. And we're in this case, speaking specifically of of teens and youth, um, and teens who lack problem solving skills may avoid taking action when faced with a problem. Have you ever encountered a situation where you didn't feel you were capable of solving a problem or dealing with an issue and you just tried to avoid dealing with it?
Speaker 5:Well, I guess the best solution I could give you, even though it's not, the best example would be whenever one of my friends has a problem at home, I don't know how to handle those problems because I don't have that stuff going on. Like I, my parents, um, love each other very much. I'm a vet and I'm in a very good household and they treat me and you guys treat me wonderfully. Um, but I do have some friends who don't have that luxury and who are living in all Philly hard, um, lifestyle I suppose. I'm not going to name any names, but yeah. And whenever I want, I want to help them out. It's just, I don't know how to handle it because I don't know what they're going through and I can only offer what I would have would do in a situation.
Speaker 4:So what happens there? Like is that something where you'd sort of try to change the subject to avoid dealing with the problem or do you try and deal with it as best you can?
Speaker 5:Well if, well the first step for me be trying to deal with the problem, like offering what I would have done in that situation. Um, and then if that doesn't work, I'm move on to try to change the subject to get their mind off of it.
Speaker 4:So at that point in time, it's not for your own comfort. It's, it's really for their own solids so they're not dwelling on it. Yeah. Cause what happens is rather than put their energies into solving problems, many teens invest the time to avoid the issue all together so that they don't have to deal with it. Um, and a lot of times is this causes teens to fall behind in school and may cause them to struggle to maintain friendships. Um, do you see a situation where a lack of problem solving skills has affected you academically or socially?
Speaker 5:Um, I guess socially I could probably give a few examples. Like when I decided not to join any clubs, why the pro? Well, I guess if I had to come up with a problem for that, it would be that if I did join clubs I would get more social, but I didn't, which caused me to have social problems, which made me more, more isolated to everyone.
Speaker 4:So now your lack of an interest in joining these clubs. Was it an avoidance tactic so that you didn't have to interact with people or was there some other factor involved where you really weren't avoiding the problem? It was just a contributing factor?
Speaker 5:Well, I think it was mainly because I just thought that clubs wouldn't be, would like put me down and academic will put me down academically. And I didn't think of the social aspect until it started to happen. And then I realized that if I didn't join clubs, if I did join the clubs, I would probably be a bit more social.
Speaker 4:I see. Okay. Well that kind of makes sense. So other teens who lack problem solving skills spring into action without recognizing proper choices for these problems. So for instance, a teen may hit appear who cuts in front of them in line because they're not sure what else to do. Um, and these are kind of impulsive decision making processes where your problem solving skills aren't refined so you don't know how to make the right choice. Have you encountered a situation where your lack of problem solving skills at any point in time has caused you to make rash decisions or quick decisions? Not necessarily hitting someone but doing something and then after the fact, realizing that it probably wasn't the best thing to do.
Speaker 5:I guess that would be whenever I had like any sort of mood swing, like when I was in sixth grade, I would just be, I would just have had a terrible, been in a terrible mood and I would have just screamed at my friends because that was letting the energy out. And later on I would just realize that I shouldn't have done that. But then I would make up for it and make something for them or tell them I was sorry.
Speaker 4:That's a very good example. Now, some of the consequences from doing, from having these impulsive choices, uh, can cause problems further on down the line. Have you encounter any situations in which you had one of these incidents and then kind of had to do damage control afterwards? You know, snapping at someone or hurting someone's feelings or something like that.
Speaker 5:I mean, that happened when I was with my friends at after care a few times when like I would just constantly just snap because like I was just going through really bad, a really bad day. And then luckily I had, I had recess, I had recess and I would talk to my one friend Mariah and then I'd figure out how to fix it later. So, and it always normally worked out.
Speaker 4:So yeah. So you've encountered situations like that where cause you weren't able to cope with the issue at the time, you may have done something hastily that you wouldn't normally have done and it may have caused some friction and you kind of had to go patch that up afterwards. So these are some of the reasons why problem solving skills are important. Not only can they affect you academically in school, they can affect you socially and they can, they can have further reaching emotional consequences if you can't deal with your problems. So we're going to come back, we're going to talk about some of the basic steps of problem solving. Teens who feel overwhelmed or hopeless often won't attempt to address a problem, but when you give them a clear formula for solving problems, they'll feel more confident in their ability to try. Do you think that's a fair statement that in the past when you couldn't deal with issues having learned problems, have solving skills as you have, that you have a, a new sense of confidence when you're, when you're facing problems? Is that true?
Speaker 5:Yeah, that I've definitely, once I was introduced to problem solving, I definitely think I took that approach more than just being irrational and just lashing out.
Speaker 4:Now I, I'll be the first one to admit that, you know, you know, I have my emotional outbursts and usually mine come from a sense of frustration and things. Um, I'll work on something and I'll know how to fix it or something. A computer incident. I was working on the access points this morning as a matter of fact, and I know how to fix it, but for some reason it wasn't working. And I get frustrated with it and I'll emotional and I'll oftentimes yell at inanimate objects, uh, until you or mommy or you know, I even come to my own senses and realize I'm being an idiot at that point and I stop and I have to take a step back. So the first step in problem solving that they talk about is identify the problem. Now sometimes the, we identify symptoms, it's kind of like when you go to the doctor and you tell the doctor, Oh, my arm hurts. Well that is a symptom of a problem. The problem itself is what's causing the pain. So sometimes we have a tendency as human beings to treat the symptoms and not the problem. So the biggest step in problem solving is sifting through all those symptoms and tracing them back to what the actual problem is. Once you do that, then you can apply problem solving skills. Now have you ever had a situation in which you've been faced with an issue but you weren't really identifying the problem and treating the problem? Correct.
Speaker 5:Mmm. I guess we can go to a summer reading example even though I kind of, yeah,
Speaker 4:I think your summer reading was an, was a good example of how you actually did identify the problem I think because everybody can relate to that and everyone gets summer reading. Right. And what happens with summer reading, you know, you get a book to read, you get three months or whatever it is for the summer to read it. And then there's some type of test where you have to regurgitate your knowledge when you start school.
Speaker 5:Yeah. And some students, um, just decide that the problem is that they have to read the book. So they read the book and like the first week and then by the time the test comes, they probably forgot about it.
Speaker 4:Right. They just want to get it over with and read the book. And by the time school starts, it's been three months since you read it.
Speaker 5:Yeah. Just getting the book done is basically just one of the symptoms of the problem. The real problem is how are you going to remember it in the span of the weeks, which is exactly what I think about. Right. So when I do my summer reading, I break up the book in the, I take the books, number of pages and I'd take the number of days, summer break lasts, I divide them and then I figure out how many pages I read per day.
Speaker 4:In this way you space out the reading of the book through the whole summer.
Speaker 5:Yeah. And although, um, I still have to read the, although the book, um, takes longer to finish, I'm able to remember it more and it doesn't take as long to read the book each day.
Speaker 4:Right. So in this case, the problem is not really a problem. It's the task at hand is being able to pass whatever quiz or, or whatever knowledge test there is when school starts. That's the task. Reading the book is just a method of getting to that point. Um, when I was in school, uh, what we used to use were called cliff notes or CliffsNotes and these were summaries of the books themselves. So the kids who didn't want to read or were in my case too lazy to read, we wait until the end of the year. We'd get the cliff notes and then we would use the cliff notes to answer the knowledge stuff at the beginning of the next school year. Well that only lasted for a little while before the teachers caught onto that and they started asking tat they would read the cliff notes themselves and would have questions on the test that weren't covered in the cliff notes. So now you have to read the book. So in the case of may, if I read the book earlier in the year or you know, when I first got in the beginning of summer, I'd read it and get it over with and then I'd completely forget about the book. I did it the one year I read a, I think it was the crucible we had to read. And I took it with me on vacation. I read the whole book for a week on vacation, finished it like at the end of June or beginning of July. And when school started, I didn't know anything about the book cause I didn't retain any of the information from the book. Uh, so your approach there is a great example of problem solving, but it's also a great example of identifying the real problem.
Speaker 5:Yeah. And there's also other kids that wait for like until the final week of summer break and try to finish the book at that point. Now that can work, but it's probably not the smartest decision because you don't know how long it will take you to read the book because all books have different lengths and everyone has different, um, perspectives of how long they will read the book for
Speaker 4:sure. And something might come up where you're going to maybe take a weekend trip away that you weren't planning on and you're not going to have that time that you thought you'd have. Yeah. So time management is a great skill to learn when it comes to problem solving skills too.
Speaker 5:Yeah. Like at one point when I, um, wasn't able to take my, um, one book to where we needed, we were, I think it was like during the summer when, when we would go into a convention and I prob, and I didn't think I'd have enough time to read the pages at home. So what I did was I actually took pictures of them with my phone and then I read the book basically digitally.
Speaker 4:Oh, that's funny. I didn't realize you did that.
Speaker 5:Yeah. I don't remember why I had to do that. It's just I couldn't bring the book someplace. I don't remember where, but
Speaker 4:that's a great idea. Yeah. So the next step to problem solving once you identify the problem is to develop a few possible solutions. Uh, and you know, I've said in the past, the one reason I don't like math is cause there's really one answer to every problem. And I kind of like coming at problems from different angles and finding different solutions. So the suggestion here is, all right, well maybe there is one really good solution to the problem, but there might be four other okay. Solutions to solve that problem and it might require less time, less resources, less money, less whatever. So the idea here is, well, let's identify the problem and then let's come up with a few different ways that we can solve that problem. And immediately following that step is identifying the pros and cons of each of those solutions. Um, we had talked about your, um, your ELA menu menu. So why don't you tell us about some of the, some of the approaches to that because there's different ways to solve that problem.
Speaker 5:So my AOL, my ELA menu is a marking period menu where, um, there are different tasks that you can do, um, that relate to what we're learning. Um, at the time in school and depending on how easy or hard, um, the task is, you get a certain number of points for it and you have to make the points add up to 120 by the end of the marking period.
Speaker 4:So you have different ways to earn those points. Yes. And you have some points that are hired difficulty or more time consuming maybe, and they're worth more points. Yep. So it's up to you to figure out what ones work for you and what ones will get you the points that you need in the time that you have to do the work. So that's a great example of figuring out what you need to do and and coming up with combinations or different solutions and measuring those solutions. I mean, in this case there's an actual defined point value to it, which makes it pretty easy to figure out what the best path is for you. So once you do that, you implement that solution. After you identify it, you pick that solution, you run with it, and then you test that solution out for the first marking period. And you may find out some of the choices that you picked might be a little bit harder for you to do and might be a little more time consuming. So the next marking period you can look at what those options are and figure out if you want to do it the same way or do a different. So that's that feedback that they were talking about. You're providing feedback to yourself at that point. So identify it, develop some solutions, figure out the best solution, pick that solution and implement it and then get feedback on that solution when it comes in. Now outside of the topic or outside of these steps, the one thing that I will say is my philosophy about problem solving. My number one philosophy work the problem. So for instance, you had an issue just this past week getting into the house with a lock on the door. Yep. So tell us about that incident and how you went about solving the
Speaker 5:Alrighty. So basically I had had my keys with me when I was going in with a house and when I unlocked the top, it didn't unlock and I was a bit upset. So I began to sort of, um, get angry about it. Um, but then I took a step back, calm down, and then figured out that I had turned it the wrong way and I turned it the right way and then got in.
Speaker 4:Right. So in that case, the problem wasn't that the door that the lock was broken, it was used simply a turn of the Roy. Now when you did this, where you distract it, where you're on the phone with someone.
Speaker 5:I was only talking to mommy that I, when I normally do it, and I think that might've been it or because I, I honestly don't regularly unlock the top lock. So, and I tried going the way that I normally go with the bottom lock and it didn't work. So I think that was the problem. Well, one of the ways on how the problem was caused, right?
Speaker 4:So that was one of those situations where you started to get upset and you kind of had to dial it back a little bit and you know, calm down. And that's really what I think probably one of the most important things of problem solving is, is when you're solving a problem, you have to kind of divorce your emotional side from it. When you do problem solving, it has to be done in a logical, intelligent, non-emotional way. And a lot of times that's hard for people to do. And then, you know, I could admit that because I can get frustrated and do things. Um, but there are situations where you're going to be faced with very difficult problems to solve and being emotional is going to be something that is not going to help you. And I'll give an example of that. Um, when my mother was sick, um, we had to face the decision of whether or not to take her off of life support. And strangely enough, I'm the youngest of four brothers and they were all looking to me for the solution because my mom had talked to me about what her wishes were when she was under those conditions. So I had to make the decision of whether or not to basically pull the plug and that you couldn't expect a more emotional. And when you have a loved one who is sick, she wasn't really in pain, but she was sick, she was unresponsive and she was in a vegetative state. Um, and I knew, she expressed to me multiple times that she didn't want to live like that. So it was up to me to make the decision to pull that plug. And I had to weigh all the pros and cons and I had to figure out what the consequences were going to be and I had to make that decision and I had to turn my emotions off. And you kind of have to one of those circumstances. Um, and we'll talk about a couple of other scenarios here in a little bit that you've encountered that, that I'd like to hear about. Um, but from a problem's strictly problem-solving standpoint, it was one of those highly emotionally charged situations where I had to turn those emotions off or else I wouldn't be able to make the right decision because emotionally you don't want to lose your mother. You don't want to, you don't want to make that decision from an emotional standpoint to give up on someone. But once you turn those emotions off, logic dictated that I had to do that because we knew she wasn't coming back from it and we also knew that she didn't want to live like that. Um, so that's, that's one of those situations where emotion really would have gotten in the way of making the right decision. Um, so those are the basic steps of problem solving, but most importantly is work the problem and try to turn back that emotional side of things when you're trying to apply logic to a problem. We'll come back and we're going to talk about some problem solving scenario. So you've had a few incidents in the past where you've faced problems, some of which you were equipped with problem solving skills. Um, some you learned on the fly and others you didn't have problem solving skills on. So I'm going to throw three different scenarios out there and I'd like you to tell us how you did or did not apply. Problem solving skills. So the first one is the organized scenario. It's a lot of school projects like this. I deal at work projects like this that are organized scenarios. So the one that I wanted to talk about was the careers project that you had to do where you had to do the 10 careers and, and your math class and how they applied math and so forth. So explain that project and the problem solving skills you used for.
Speaker 5:So the way the project worked was that you had to pick 10 careers that involved math and then you would have to describe how, um, that career used math and give examples and show a picture of each. You also had to have a list of it explaining two ways on how they used it and the two way and this specific two ways. Um, and then you had to show that in the document as well. So, um, this was new, our vacation trip and I brought my laptop with me so I could work on it. So I had had my 10 careers listed by now. Um, I had all, I had the two ways they use math in each one and what, and the first thing I did was that I created the slide show and I created all this and I got all the slides. So then I created the title slide and then I worked on the others. So I decided, I made the first career and the way, and I started to do a rough draft. I included what I needed to include. And then later on I'd go more specific about it. And I did that for all the slides and after a little and after about, I think it took two days to get the rough drafts all done, then I went back and give that, gave them a bit more detail. Um, so I basically described the ways on how they used it, fixed up the sentences to make it sound more formal. And I also, um, just made sure that they looked better. So that took about two or three days. Then I had to check them all, which took about, mm. Maybe one or one and a half days to do that. Then I added the pictures for each and at one point I couldn't find some pictures for it. So I ended up having to go on a mommy for it. But after she helped me, I was able to get on. And then she, and then the last thing to do once everything was done was to take a picture of the, um, the one paper and she was, and I ran into a bit of troubles with that because mommy had take to take it on her phone and then she had to, to send it to me. But the thing was, I used my school document, but she was emailing it me to my Gmail document. So that was a whole nother thing. But eventually we were able to get it done and then the whole pro and then I was able to turn the project in.
Speaker 4:So that's a great example of problem solving because you took what the assignment was and then you broke it down into logical steps and those logical steps, that was your approach to solving it. And then you worked each of those steps progressively until you were able to move on to the next step. And, and you have what are called dependencies in there. Like, you couldn't move on to step three until step one was done. So you worked your, um, previous steps to get through. So each of your dependencies was set up. So that was a great example of organized problem solving. Um, the next scenario that I wanted to talk about, and you're going to probably grumble at this, it's the traumatic one, the one that kinda catches you off guard that you get hit and you're immediately emotionally and you have to overcome that emotion. And I think this is a great example of that. And that was when you got lost in Disney world.
Speaker 5:Oh great. This is going to be traumatic.
Speaker 4:So no, I think you did a fantastic job here because you didn't have the benefit of problem solving skills training at this point in time. You were never introduced to it, but ultimately you developed them on the fly. So tell us about that scenario.
Speaker 5:Okay. This is a fun story that we're going to talk about. Again, I'm pretty sure most of our viewers know about it, but basically in short, we were at Disney world and I hadn't gone on space mountain before. So I decided that although it was dark and you were probably back at the resort, it was just me and mommy. We decided to try it out. Now mind you, neither of us had been on it. So that'll come into play later. So I got on the show, she walked me up and she would meet me by the exit. Cool. So I was on the ride and it was, and it wasn't terrifying. It was actually a pretty fun ride. So once I had gotten off, here's where the problem began. So there were two ways I could have gone one way where there was like you could get your picture with your magic band and the other way where it was, there was the moving sidewalk going up and it was broken. So at one point, um, I just saw people getting on there and I'm like, okay, I guess I go over here. So I go up and it leads to the store. Okay. So I look around for mommy. I call her out nowhere. By then I start, then I run outside. And by this point I'm sort of panicking. Um, I call her out again, and then she doesn't reply because she was at the egg. She was at the other exit because neither of us knew that there were two ways to get out. So I was panicking at this point. I was too young to have a phone so I couldn't contact her at all. And I was kind of panicking. Luckily, this one woman and her daughter, um, uh, noticed me panicking, um, and went up to me and asked what was wrong. I told them in the best way I could, that I lost my mom and I didn't know where she was. So she immediately took me up to, um, the, um, cast member running, um, the cash, uh, the cash register, I think. Um, and th and the best part about it was that I actually knew my mom's phone number. If I didn't know her number, it would've taken a lot longer to find her. So I told them, um, I told the, um, lady, her, um, my mom's number and she called it no replies. So at this point of antiquing, I'm still panicking. It's snuggling, betters. So she leaves a voicemail message and the lady and her daughter are trying to get my mind off the situation. Luckily after a few minutes, um, mommy shows up, she was able to get the voicemail and realized that they would do exits. Well thing is she was also worried because she, she had told me that like she had saw people get off the ride and she was thinking, shouldn't my daughter be off by now? And then she realized she had got a missed call. Then she listened to the voice message and it was basically like the lighting saying, Hey, Michelle Whalen, um, we have your daughter, a parent and then eventually sleep out me.
Speaker 4:So that was a situation that you weren't equipped for? Nope. You didn't know. I mean you kind of knew where to find mommy, but it was a scenario that we didn't know there were two exits. So that was one of these ones where you are immediately overwhelmed emotionally by it. Um, yet you managed to work the problem and you stayed with the cast member and the problem was solved. Um, and since then we've taken precautions. So you've got a cell phone now and we've got, you know, when we're at the parks, we know there's a place to meet if, if we get lost or something like that. So we've, mommy and I have learned our lesson to um, for better ways to solve that problem. But I think what you did was okay, you didn't like, you know, go running and crawl no corner, you know, bawling your eyes out or something like that. You, even though you panicked, you were still able to work the problem. And that's important. One more scenario and this one is, uh, probably not as emotional but, but still emotional. And this one is another one where it's emotionally charged but for a different reason. And we talked about this one yesterday in our, in our rehearsal podcasts. But tell us about last year, aftercare having to deal, you know, you were one of the upperclassmen, you had to deal with a lot of kids that were younger than you and in aftercare you had to do your homework and you being very diligent about making sure that your homework is done, wanted to work on that rather than play. And you found it very difficult to work in a distracting environment with a lot of loud kids. So tell us what your problem solving skills did for you there.
Speaker 5:Well, in the first part of the, in the, in the beginning of the year, I didn't, I wasn't equipped with it, so I would just constantly be ignored by them and that would sort of trigger most of my mood swings. So yeah. But eventually we were able to develop different techniques of how to handle it. So the first technique was to try to ignore them. Unfortunately that did not completely work. So the next step was to try and get away from them. That started to work, but um, still wasn't good enough. Then we decided to get a bit technical and use noise canceling headphones and that was the situation that worked best.
Speaker 4:Okay. So we tried a couple of different techniques, you know, mental exercises to try to avoid them. Then we try to isolate you and then we threw some technology at the problem. So that's a very good example of trying different solutions, coming up with different solutions and looking at the pros and cons of each. Uh, but ultimately you were able to work the problem and find a solution to it. Are there any other, uh, examples that you can think of, of scenarios where problem solving skills has worked for you?
Speaker 5:I guess the best way I could think of was a sort of example that you would given with your mom and how you had to come between the line of figuring out if you're going to pull the plug or not right now. Um, this was when our cat fluffer had died and I was grieving pretty hard. Honestly, when I was at this point in my life, I was surrounded by a lot of deaths. My uncle Mickey had died. My, my final grandma, my final grandmother had died and flop for died. So I was sort of surrounded by death in a way. Um, pretty hard time.
Speaker 4:Yeah. And, and you know, and they say desk tend to come in threes unfortunately, and not, I'm not really sure why that is, but that always does seem to be the case.
Speaker 5:Yeah. So you mean trigger point was fluffer I think she was the final death before everything stopped, so I don't flip for, for pretty much my entire life at that point. And she was one of the cats who, um, she's basically Dorian for me. I was really close to her and I hate, and I was pretty young when she died. Um,
Speaker 4:and she was, she was an old cat, you know, just like durian she was up there in age and I don't know, maybe it's a sense of a motherly wisdom that you get from the older cats or something like that. I don't know that you've seen them migrate towards the older,
Speaker 5:I don't know. Um, well it was a pretty bad time for me. The day she died. Um, well, the day we had to have her die. Well,
Speaker 4:we had that
Speaker 5:we had to have her put down because she was suffering. Um, we had Molly had, Oh man, I work, mommy was going to make me some breakfast. And when we went into the kitchen and we saw her lying on the ground and she was completely in pain, I could tell mama was shocked, but I had no idea what was going on until later on that day. So I had gone back. So mommy had to stay home that day to take care of fluffer and get ready for when the vet was going to come. And technically you guys had to make the hard decision on whether to put her down or not, and ultimately decided not to let her suffer. Right, right.
Speaker 4:And it's tough. I mean, that was the same type of situation I ran into with my mom where my mom wasn't suffering, but when she had gotten sick as a result of, uh, complications from diabetes, um, she had the flu and she had low blood sugar and breathing issues. So she was hypoxic. So she lacked, um, oxygen to the brain overnight. And as a result, she had suffered brain damage and clinically she was brain dead even though her body was still working. Uh, the doctors said that she wasn't going to, you know, wake up. She wasn't. And even if she did, she wouldn't be who she was. Um, but at the time they were keeping her alive on the machines. And you know, my mother, she would have the discussions with us, with me specifically, uh, for years before that about, you know, what the do when her time came, how she wanted to have the funeral and she didn't want to be hooked up to a ventilator. And my mom was the mature one in her family who was the one that dealt with all the other deaths, you know, all her brothers or her mother, her father, you know, she was the one that was there to make sure all the arrangements were made. And as sad as it is, she was very good at it and very organized about it. You know, that was, you know, her problem solving skills cause she had so much experience and she, uh, kinda wanted me to be that person for her. And you know, when your mom's alive and healthy and she wants to have these discussions, it's not a comfortable discussion to have. So a lot of times I didn't want to have that conversation with her. Um, but she kinda forced it on me. And, and in the end I was kind of grateful that she did because it allowed me to be prepared at that point in time. Um, had her and I not had those discussions, I'm pretty sure my emotions would have won out in that case and I wouldn't have been able to make the decision. But, uh, she had clearly expressed to me that that wasn't how she wanted to live. And, you know, my brothers didn't have a clue. You know, they never had that discussion with her. So it was up to me at that point in time to make that decision to do the right thing in, in her eyes. And, uh, all those uncomfortable conversations that we had before he, and kind of prepped me for that. So that was, uh, that was kind of where the, that problem solving came from. But with fluffer, you know, mommy had gone through, uh, you know, she's had cats pretty much her whole life. And, and the sad thing about pants, and we talked about this in our, in our pet podcast, um, the sad thing with pats is most of our pets, we tend to outlive them. So we repeatedly go through the process of mourning our pets because human life expectancy is much longer than most domestic animals. Um, which is why I didn't have a pet for the longest time cause I grew up with a dog that, uh, I had when I was a kid and, and I went through a very rough time when that dog went down. But you know, when it was, when it was fluffers time, mommy did the right thing. She had, you know, as emotional as it was, mommy had to kind of put those emotions in check because at that point in time, if you don't do that and if you don't make the right decision, like we talked about consequences before, you know your decisions and how you solve a problem has consequences. And if you let your emotions get the better part of you in a situation where you have a pet or a loved one who's suffering and you don't want to let them go for selfish reasons, for your own self, then that makes them suffer. So the right decision is the decision that's best for that person. Not best for you sometimes. So, and that's kind of the, you know, the outcome we have to deal with in problem solving. Sometimes it's a tough decision and, but we have to do the right thing. So, so let's come back. We'll have some closing remarks and a shout outs if you have any shout outs.
Speaker 5:Okay,
Speaker 4:go for closing remarks. That's okay. I was hoping all that talking. I did. What would have given you time to compose yourself?
Speaker 6:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Do you not want to have closing remarks? I can make it quick. Okay.
Speaker 5:She one marching problem solving skills are going to be used throughout your entire life or the year seven, whether you're 13 or whether you're 50, you're going to have them for your entire life because you're always going to have problems in your life. And the best way to avoid, well to stop or control those problems would be to, um, include yourself and problem solving skills to, um, find the better solution of the problem and the better outcome of each.
Speaker 4:That was short, a much shorter than than our closing remarks from yesterday that we're going to be short and sweet and we're neither short nor sweet. Uh, so before we go, we do want to remind you, uh, we would love to hear from all of our viewers and listeners. You can email us at comments, at insights into things.com. You can get us on Twitter at insights underscore things. You can catch all of our videos on www.youtube.com/insights into things. You can catch our audio versions of the podcast@podcastdotinsightsintoteensdotcomyoucangetusonfacebookandfacebook.com slash insights into things podcast, and our website has links to all of our videos, audio as transcriptions, and show notes for all of our shows at www.insightsintothings.comrosserontwitchattwitch.tv/insights into things.
Speaker 5:And don't forget to check out our other two podcasts and said entertainment hosted by you and mommy and incenting them tomorrow. Our monthly podcast hosted by you and my brother, Sam.
Speaker 4:Okay, I think that's it. Bye.