45. The Invisible Stress Kids Carry

Even if we don't mean to do it, we're constantly telling kids that their emotions, their stress, their experiences are wrong. That they should just get over it. Then we act surprised when they shut down, melt down, or check out. 

In this solo episode, I pick up a thread from a recent conversation about Gen Z and Gen Alpha and go deeper into what overwhelm actually looks like in a child’s body: overstimulation, unprocessed emotion, and the subtle ways adults teach kids to distrust their own feelings.

It's a reflection of personal experience raising kids who are late elementary school and early middle school -- the reality of environmental overwhelm and constant overstimulation, witnessing our own conditioning and what we're passing on, and the role of what we're carrying from the generations who came before us. 

Also in this episode: 

• The concept of high sensitivity and why “more time to process” can be a genuine need, not a weakness. 
• A translation of “energy and vibration” into plain language with examples like resonance, and we call out spiritual bypassing that skips the hard work of feeling and integrating.
• School systems that still reward compliance over self-trust. 
• And perhaps most importantly -- what to do next, with two practical starting points you can try right away: invite more pauses into family life and get comfortable having the uncomfortable conversations that build resilient, emotionally honest kids.

If this resonates, subscribe so you don’t miss the next conversations, share this with a parent or teacher who needs it, and leave a review with the biggest stressor you think adults are overlooking.

If this episode spoke to you, it would mean the world if you took a moment to leave a review or share it with a friend who needs it. And make sure you hit follow so you never miss an episode of Conditioning to Consciousness.

You can connect with me on Instagram @jesscallahan_, join my Substack community at conditioningtoconsciousness.substack.com, or explore more of my work at jesscallahan.com.

My Back in the Body Nervous System Healing course is now available! Find it here.

Thanks for listening — I’m so grateful you’re here.

Transcript

A Painful Wake Up Call

High Sensitivity And Home Tools

Screens And Constant Overload

Energy Frequency Without Bypassing

How We Condition Kids Emotions

Epigenetics And Inherited Trauma

School Compliance Culture Exposed

Two Takeaways For Real Change

Closing And What Comes Next

Allegra Chapman 0:02

Hey guys, welcome back to the Conditioning the Consciousness podcast. Today I want to revisit something that we talked about in last week's episode with Rashad Young. Um I just want to expand on that conversation a little bit. Something, something came up this week in one of my conversations with my kids, and it brought me looping back to part of this conversation that we had. So Rashad is a school counselor and a therapist in training, and we talked a lot about generations like Z and Alpha. And like, you know, at one point we talked about how they get this like bad rap for being lazy. And Rashad mentioned that they're not lazy, they're overstimulated and they're overwhelmed. And so, okay, this week one of my kids was telling me about a comment that one of their teachers made, um, one of the teachers in their schools. And the comment was basically like, the only thing that you guys have to stress about is getting your homework done on time. And it was just like, you know, minimizing everything else that kids carry. And I think that there is like this attitude, I guess if you're not tuned in, that like, you know, kids don't have to worry about bills and they don't have to worry about, you know, managing a household and, you know, all of the stuff that as adults we have to carry. And and yeah, like that's more or less true for most kids, right? But I think it's really, really important that we do take some time to recognize what kids these days are facing. Like they're not growing up in the same world that we grew up in. They're not facing the same things. And so when we dismiss their struggles as not being as valid as ours, you know, I think that we're setting them up for a life of like hardship and um, you know, being being dismissed, dismissing their own feelings. Like that, there's just a huge, huge compound effect. And so I want to dive into that a little bit in today's episode. Um, you know, Rashad gave us a list of some of the things that kids are facing every day, and I want to expand on that. I've been studying and researching emotional suppression for a decade at this point. Um, I've been doing my own work around nervous system regulation and energy healing for years, um, not only as a way to understand and live better with fibromyalgia myself, but um also through the lens of the grad program that I'm working on through transpersonal personal psychology and consciousness. Um, and I've been in the trenches raising my own kids who, you know, happen to carry the trait of high sensitivity, which is um, I'll dive into that a little bit more too, but you know, something that a lot of us have to navigate. And I think, you know, overall the world is just inherently overwhelming right now. I think as adults we feel it. And we have more or less like, you know, we've either developed tools, coping mechanisms, crutches, healthy or not, to figure it out. But kids are just so sensitive to energy and to, you know, all that, all that it is that we're living through right now, that there is this like compound effect on their system. So, um, yeah. So I want to just, I wanna dive into that. So whether you are, you know, a parent, a caregiver, none of the above, and um, you know, just interested in a perspective on what the younger generations are experiencing, um, you know, hopefully, hopefully you will um, you know, get something from this conversation. It's really, I'm approaching it from a place of still working through it myself. I think it is something that I have to make the choice to show up and work through every day because the world is always pushing against it, pushing against that work. And so, yeah, there's, you know, tools that I've figured out that work really well for me, work really well for my family, have worked really well with for people that I've worked with. Um, but it's by no means an exhaustive list, and I by no means approach any of this from a place uh claiming perfection. It's really, I think, just an opportunity to process some of what's been coming up. And um, you know, I just I kind of hope that some of that processing will land with some of you too. So as I was thinking about this, I was recalling the first time that I think I really realized how much of an impact that like unprocessed emotion and environmental stimulation over stimulation were really having on like my own life and my kids. Um, it was about 10 years ago. My youngest was three. So um just under, just under 10 years ago. And he was having these like really bad stomach pains. And over time, um, you know, we were monitoring them. They were getting worse and worse. We called his pediatrician. Um, you know, nobody wants to to diagnose anything without seeing him, but it was like all of the um all of the symptoms were pointing towards needing to get like checked out for appendicitis. So we brought him into the emergency room. He's doubled over, he's in excruciating pain. They're taking his pain like really seriously as we are um, you know, checking into the emergency room and they're, you know, coming for early observation and definitely concerned and pushing through to like to the other testing. And and so we finally start to get the test results back. And I will never forget the doctor walking into the room and really casually, like, you know, a couple minutes before it seemed like the doctor was really preparing us to be prepared for surgery, you know? And then the doctor just came back in and was like, Well, the tests show it's not appendicitis. None of the tests came back with anything, so you guys are good to go. And and he was still in this like crazy amount of pain. And I was just like, What? Like, that's it. And there was nothing that they could do. There was nothing that, you know, Western medicine at that time could do. And I remember thinking, like, wow, we are really on our own here. Like, we've got to figure this out. And so, um, so really like from that point on, I became a student of figuring this out. And, you know, I knew um early on just that it just felt like there was something that stuck, something that needed to be released. He's always been, you know, my kids, I think we all have this trait of like high sensitivity, but um he's always been like a deep feeler and um just like you know, constantly like processing the big emotions of the world. I bought a book right away. This is, I think, the point that I discovered this trait that you know we call high sensitivity. I bought a book called The Highly Sensitive Child. And I remember starting to make shifts right away, and the the shifts were having a really big impact, and they were all pretty much geared towards like having this overabundance of energy of like um not like just like bouncing off the walls energy, but like needing to process, needing more time to process in a world that is inherently overstimulating. And, you know, some of those early shifts were like having conversations about being sad, frustrated, angry, and that like it's okay to feel these things. Um, we started offering like various activities to help release that emotion. So like jumping on one of those little mini trampolines helped a lot. Um, we used to get these like silicone chew necklaces, and honestly, like you know, it was many years ago at the time, it seemed fine. I don't know if they're good or bad right now, but I do know that they really helped during the daycare years uh with releasing some of that pent-up emotion. And um another one was just like being really cognizant of our reaction to, you know, emotional expression or sensory overload, um, you know, doing our very best to break the patterns of like wanting to resist or change those expressions, to shame them, you know, any of those to really like tune in and figure out how we could make sure we were not um passing along shame in those areas. The other thing that we did was offered more downtime, like throughout the day. So my kids are all really, really active, like very active children. Um, but just because they're active, it doesn't mean that they can just like go, go, go. We found that they really need downtime. And so early on, we started working in downtime into their lives. And I think that that's been just a really big factor for us, um, just in helping us regulate energy in our home. So we call it their like energy in time and and we use like the, you know, the times outside of like those, those uh micro moments to help them understand the balance between um like what they can and can't watch, right? Or or that we want them to read or watch a show. Um, you know, not like those short the short form shows, um, but like they could watch a longer show on Netflix or they could read a book. In the moment when they're needing that downtime, we're not like fighting with them about reading or watching a show, but using the time outside of that to build those habits. But um anyway, and at the same time, I think I started to recognize the high sensitivity in myself and do my own work to figure out like my relationship with emotion when I was getting environmentally overstimulated and how I was processing that myself and then modeling, you know, better management of that in myself to my kids and having more open conversations that are like age appropriate as they got older. And so all of these things collectively really have had a huge impact on our lives. And, you know, in my family's example, I'm using this trait of high sensitivity. And and Elaine Aaron coined the term years ago. It's a trait that's said to impact like 15 to 20% of the population. And it really just means that 15 to 20% of the population like process um sensory and emotional information more like deeply or sensitively. And, you know, the more I think about it and the more I research emotion, the more I wonder like, is it is it that 15 or 20, 15 to 20% of people have this trait? Or are we so collectively emotionally disconnected that is it really like 80 to 85% of people lack this trait? Like, you know, it is um high sensitivity does present as like feeling overwhelmed, but among other things, like that's one, you know, that's one way that you might tune into the fact that you have it, but that also means that you're feeling, and I think the alternative sometimes is like numbness. So I don't know, up for debate for sure. Um, but I don't think you have to have high sensitivity for any of this to be true. Um, I think that's just the way that overstimulation was manifesting in our lives. But, you know, there's there's so many other ways that kids are like feeling overwhelmed in so many things that they're juggling today, that that, you know, that was just that was really just like the first time that I was aware of the depth of this overstimulation. But like, okay, think about everything that kids are juggling today. Like, just okay, let's start with environmental overload. Think about screens. Think about, even if you are somebody who does a good job of managing screens with your kids, right? How many screens do you have in your house? Think about how many times there's more than one screen running at a time. Kids are doing their schoolwork on screens, like they're spending like a significant amount of time on screens. Like at school, they're doing their homework on their iPads. They're bouncing, depending on you know what devices they have access to. And and kids like, you know, kids have there's there's like really valid reasons for kids to have access to these devices early on. This is really just a matter of like it's it is the world that we are living in. You know, it's not, I don't think, a matter uh of taking the devices away. This is actually another point that Rashad doubled down on last week. Like this is their reality. So it's not a matter of just taking them away. I think it's more a matter of like meeting them where they're at. Um, how many of you have been driving in a car with when there's been more than one device playing audio at once? Um, you know, I know like sometimes on long drives, our kids will have their iPads and they'll be watching a movie. And if somebody doesn't have headphones, you know, they might try to play it with the volume on. And I am really like sensitive to uh overstimulation in that way. And so that usually gets like the kibosh pretty quickly in our car. But if you're not as sensitive to that level of overstimulation, is it something that possibly happens, but like somebody else is getting overstimulated or overwhelmed by it, right? I don't know. Um if you have looked at like YouTube recently, um, we do we try to limit YouTube. There are times that our kids are like, uh, what do they say, like heat seek-seeking missiles? Actually, I don't know that I really like the missile analogies anymore right now, but you get the point. Um they find YouTube however they can because it is, it's exactly that. It's addictive. And of course we teach them about, you know, regulating it themselves. But either way, neither here nor there. I there was a video. I walked in and saw my daughter had had found the YouTube on my TV and was watching a video of some influencer. And the girl like has generally okay messages. Um, they're fine. Like she's she's fine. Uh she's she herself had been pre-vetted, but um the her style of video had changed. And one half of the screen was this girl, you know, doing her normal like face-to-video message, you know, whatever. And then on the other half of the screen, it's like it was like that ASMR content, that like satisfying content, you know, where they're like there, it's just like a close-up of hands playing with slime or like cutting kinetic sand. And so not only have we moved from like, I mean, think about like when we grew up, it was like, you know, TGIF, or like you'd watched full sitcom shows that came on once a week. And and I'm dating myself here, right? Because so some of you didn't grow up under these same terrible conditions, right? But I'm co I'm joking, but like you watch a show uh Friday night, you wait for the show, you've got commercials that you have to sit through, and like that's the viewing experience. And so not only have we moved to like Netflix where you can watch something on demand, but now we've moved to shorts where our attention span is shrinking and shrinking. And now when we watch the shorts, we can't even just watch a short. It's like the short plus the ASMR video at once. And I walked in and I saw that and I was like, absolutely not. And you know, it took did like a hunt for every device that we're connected to to permanently remove YouTube. Like, this is insane. Um, but anyway, like that's just another way that they are constantly being overstimulated and like, okay, so they're constantly connected, whether that's through us and other people, if they're like young or if they have um their own phones or their own devices, they are um they're spending less time in nature. So, you know, a lot of us will talk about how we grew up outside. And there's a lot of reasons that we've shifted away from kids playing outside as much. The screens are are a big part of it. I think that there's also, you know, conversation about not spending time, too much time in the sun because it's dangerous for your skin. Um, playing in the woods or the kids gonna get ticks and then get a disease, or you know, whatever it is. Like there are just all of these narratives and and reasons that kids are not playing outside as often. Also, like they can't just wander every neighborhood isn't safe for a child to wander in, right? Like there are real, real reasons. Um but they're spending less time in nature, which means they're getting fewer of those like grounding and regulating benefits of the sunshine, of bare feet in the earth, of climbing trees, and just like that connection, that grounding connection that comes from time spent in nature. And then, and then think about the like the political tension, the the huge polarization that's happening, not just politically, but also morally right now. Um, kids feel it, even if we don't talk to them about it, even if they're too young to talk about it, or we think they're too young to talk about it, they still feel it. Like there's still an energy that they're absorbing. And without regulation tools, they're becoming that vibration. Like they are living, breathing, and attracting everything at that lower frequency that they're absorbing just like just from the environment. Um, and I think I guess I want to take like a quick aside to talk about the energy because I think that I think like a lot of spiritual communities have shifted the way that we think about energy and vibration. And I think that those terms specifically have been used to do a lot of like bypassing, and you know, it's like you just have to like raise your vibration and you'll be fine. And I do think a lot of like damage has been done there. So let me just take a quick, I guess, second to explain where these worlds meet, like the science of it and the like woo-woo spiritual side. Um if you know me, you know that I loathe that anything is considered like woo-woo in the first place. I just think that we've been like systemically disconnected from our intuition for centuries. And I think, you know, we've gone into a place where we are way too rationally minded, logically minded. Anything that is true has to be validated through empirical data, and like we've just totally dismissed this like inner form of knowing. So my approach is really a balanced, like science meets spirit approach. But here is like here's what we're actually talking about when we talk about like frequency and vibration. So, okay, look at your hand, and it probably looks pretty solid, right? So if you zoom all the way into like the atomic level on your hand, um, to the like to the atoms, you will see that atoms themselves are mostly open space. Like 99.99999% is empty space. But like the rest of that, like that empty space isn't nothingness. It's like it's a field of electromagnetic forces, like charges, energy interactions. And so it's actually like these forces at play that give it the experience of being solid, but really it's energy. So everything is made up of energy. Um, the energy of emotion, though, it doesn't organize in the same way. So um, you know, it doesn't organize in a way that you would experience it as solid. Instead, it would be experienced as sensation, impulse, feeling. It's energy in motion, right? E motion, energy in motion. Um, quantum physics has proven that energy affects other energy. Okay, so say you have several tuning forks and you hit the one with the little mallet and it's a it's a um tuning fork at a frequency of 128. The others will start to vibrate at that same frequency. It's called resonance. And it's also like the idea of the universal law, the law of attraction. Um, it's it's where it's related to that idea, at least, right? So you hit the tuning fork at a frequency of 128, and the others start to resonate at the same frequency. The law of attraction says that basically when you are resonating at a certain frequency, that's what you're you know, attracting back into your life. So think of like the scale of emotional frequencies. Each emotion operates at a different frequency, and you know, higher frequencies are going to be emotions like love and joy and peace, and lower frequencies will be like anger, fear, and shame. And I think it's important to note that just because something is at a lower frequency, it doesn't make it bad. Like every emotion is, you know, important and valid and part of the human experience. So, you know, lower vibration emotions don't mean that they're bad. They are just like technically operating at a lower frequency. So if you are vibrating from a state of fear, your frequency is literally lower. And that is what you are then going to attract back the experiences and the people who are operating at that same frequency. And so when our kids are absorbing the energy of their environments, it has just This compound effect because they don't have the tools to lift their own frequency, right? They're more sensitive to energy. And so they're absorbing all of these energies around them. And they don't have the toolkit to do anything else about it. They're kind of just stuck operating in that place. And so, you know, beyond a chaotic environment, which is what we've just covered, there are a couple of other major factors at play that are impacting how our kids are being shaped. Um, think about behavioral conditioning. So, since we're talking about emotions here, we'll stick to that. Um, okay, think about this. How were you taught to like process and experience emotion growing up? Was it safe to express emotion? What happened when you were angry or sad? Were you raised to have difficult conversations? Or were you raised to like shy away from those? And then which of these patterns are you passing on to your kids? Like if your child has a tantrum in a grocery store, what's your first reaction? Is it to like shush them, tell them to stop? And if so, why? You know, if that's it's an emotional experience that they need to work through, even if you don't agree with it. Um, you know, a child who's just come home from daycare has had a really busy day and they're now with their safe person, and they might have some things that they need to release and it might not be convenient for you. It might feel embarrassing for you. But when you tell them to stop, you're like dismissing their emotional expression. Um, you know, it doesn't mean that you always have to have the tantrums in the grocery store, but maybe there's other ways to start to work through some of that energy before going into the grocery store, right? Um what about when they cry? Like, especially if they cry about something that you think is like maybe unworthy of tears? Um, do you still create a safe space for those tears? What about when they get overstimulated? Can you recognize that in them? And what about when you get overstimulated? Can you recognize that in yourself? And do you have the toolkit yourself to figure out how to work through that? Because, you know, they're watching us, like they're they're adopting our behaviors, they're seeing, they're modeling their worlds like around what we do, you know? So um, the last factor I want to touch on if we're talking about patterns across the generation, um, is epigenetics. So this is basically it's a growing body of research that shows us that we carry the trauma of our ancestors in our DNA. It doesn't change the DNA, it changes like how we express our DNA. But basically, like we're carrying the unprocessed trauma of our ancestors in our bodies. And it's still like pretty new research. Um there's, you know, consensus is basically that we carry at least three to four, we can carry at least three to four generations of trauma. Um, but some studies go far beyond that, like 14 generations. Some go much higher than that. So for our kids, right now, like three to four generations maybe takes them back to like the early 1900s, 1930s. So they wouldn't just be carrying what we've lived through, right? Like in our own lifetimes, war, COVID, 9-11, all the things that have been going on, you know, beneath the like public eye. Um, but think about like what our grandparents and their parents went through, like World War I, World War II, the Great Depression, Vietnam, the influenza pandemic. Um, during this time frame, women were like systemically silenced and suppressed, maybe not burned at the stake, as was the case like a couple centuries before, but nonconforming women were institutionalized. They were separated from their kids, they were experimented on medically. Speaking of witch trials, so if epigenetic research does go back, say 14 generations, that would bring us back into that, you know, that chapter when non-conforming women were targeted as part of the witch trials. So you think about like the the trauma that we carry, like to be carrying trauma, you don't have to have just experienced like big T trauma yourself. I think that we have a habit of dismissing our own trauma. And like that's not to minimize the big trauma that some people do experience. Um it's to say that it's to validate that if you if you feel it or if you if you don't think that you're carrying any trauma, if you don't think your kids are carrying any trauma, um, it's just worth reconsidering, you know, that perspective. Um and I could go on and on. These are just patterns again. So it's not even touching on that very real trauma that many kids are facing themselves every day. Not just the stuff that we're hearing, you know, about across the globe, but like, you know, stuff like bullying, um, especially in this like politically and morally polarized world, but like abuse in its many forms, hunger, violence, like there are so many other things that kids can be hearing individually. But if we're looking at the patterns specifically, you know, just these three, there, there are more, but like just these three impact our kids every single day and what they're facing, you know, the the three being um like massive environmental overstimulation, behavioral conditioning, and epigenetics. So, you know, it's that there is, there's there's so much more, you know, to say that kids are that the only thing that they have to stress about is the getting their homework done on time. Like they the ki kids might not even realize the stress that they're carrying. But I could tell you in the reaction of my kids as they were telling me that story, it was like they were appalled. And I don't even think that they could specifically name the the other stressors that they're carrying and that their friends are carrying. They did end up going down, you know, a little bit down that road and talking through some of the stressors that they think their friends are facing. And really, like, I was um, I think my heart just broke a little bit about the very real stressors. But um, you know, these are the things that they can't even, can't even name that they're carrying. And um because we, you know, their parents were most likely never taught how to regulate our own emotions, our own nervous systems, how to ground ourselves, how to process difficult experiences in a healthy way. We're probably not passing on the tools that our kids like need to regulate themselves. Like, you know, we're talking about tools like mindfulness practices, um, like living in in silence. The Dutch have this concept called Nixon. Um, it's N-I-K-S-E-N, and spelled, you know, I don't know if that's just the English translation. Um, but basically it's the art of doing nothing, not even like mindfulness or meditation. It's just doing nothing, letting your mind just sit in emptiness. And it's usually in those times that like unprocessed emotions and unprocessed, like the residual of conversations and situations that are maybe still sitting with you. It's like when all of that stuff gets processed in the back of your mind. It's just creating space for the integration of some of what we just like live through on a day-to-day basis, what that happens, but we're so used to filling the time with stuff, with space, with, you know, devices, conversations, sports. Um, we're just going and going and not just allowing our thoughts to process. Um, it's also having hard conversations with our kids, acknowledging when we don't know the answers and inviting them in on our own processing, like demonstrating imperfection. Um, there, you know, there's actual like grounding tools that we can be teaching them, breathing exercises, those, you know, those same activities like jumping on a trampoline to like process anger or frustration, journaling, using music as a tool for processing, um, and validating their experiences, especially, you know, if it's not something that feels like it warrants the emotional expression that they're giving it, it still requires an acknowledgement from us that their experiences are real and valid. And, you know, again, I say all of this like from a place of still figuring it out myself. Um, none of this is a one-time fix. I think more than anything, it's about changing our own habits, changing the conversations we're having with our kids, even when, especially when it feels uncomfortable, um, you know, interrupting some of the patterns that we're passing on so that we can equip them with the tools for change. It's it's not, you know, it's not a once-and-done thing because the world is constantly going to challenge them. It's gonna constantly provide them with new information and experiences that challenge the conversations you're having, the tools that you're giving them. And so it's really a matter of just continuing to circle back to those tools um to put them in place. And I think that in my for my own kids, like, yeah, I mean, like we we have our, we definitely have our share of challenges at school. Um and I think that it helps them redirect more easily and more like they're more attuned to like whatever the learning situation is, like whatever like lesson it is, I guess, that we're talking through together, they're able to really work through it better because I think they have this like deeper level of self-awareness. But I think that like raising emotionally feeling and independent thinking kids in the world right now is it's a really unforgiving but important process. Um, you know, I think especially at school, um, schools really aren't weren't built for kids to be independent thinkers. And so that is that's a challenge, right? But but that's you know, the school wants conformity and obedience. Um, you know, you have teachers still who say the things like you have nothing to stress about other than getting your homework done on time, or um, you know, I I teach my kids that they are inherently equal and worthy that all people from any walk of life, uh all people are inherently worthy and equal. And then, you know, there are teachers who who then say, How can you even think that we're even remotely close to equal? You know, teachers saying that to student. And of course, they have to understand authority and respect, but you know, a message like that is not the right message. Um it's like that's just so wrong on so many levels. Um you know, the teachers who say boys will be boys, um, teachers who dismiss a parent's concern, you know, of focus in a classroom because uh a lack of focus is just a girl being a girl, right? Um in the schools, we have this environment where like the kids are made to sit still for weeks of testing, literally. Um, you know, where we are, we're just finishing the state testing, weeks, weeks of testing, of like multiple hours per day. And then we punish the kids when they get wiggly. Like it's yeah, it's just it's a process, it's an open dialogue. It is, you know, a matter of talking to kids like about like the rules of the school and how sometimes those rules are different and we just have to abide by them. But even if they don't feel right or make sense, like how do we find, how are we constantly finding that balance between like not disconnecting them from their inner authority, um, you know, empowering them to speak up and not just obey, because that's how kids are groomed, right? When they're just obedient, when authority is like is the final say, but that's that is how schools were built. They were literally built for obedience and compliance. They were built like where everyone is expected to fit the same mold. There's no room for deviation on how children learn, move, or regulate themselves. We take recess away as punishment, like the single outlet for physical and emotional release is removed when a child needs it the most. Um, there was another example recently, a competition for perfect attendance. A friend, a friend who's been on the podcast in the past posted something about how her daughter was, their class was like um competing for perfect attendance and how anyone who didn't come to school, like they'd basically be like letting the class down. And like, wow, what a way to like disconnect your child from their like their body and their inner authority if they're sick, if they're like if they really like need recovery time for themselves, like let's push through it so we can get this like perfect attendance. That's um that's like the aftermath of the industrial revolution era factory worker compliance mentality that we are like fully still living in. Um my gosh, do you remember Pavlov's dog? I promise I'm gonna wrap up here in a minute, but like in my research recently around emotional suppression, this study just this study came up. Okay, Pavlov's dog. So this is the experiment where Pavlov trained his dog to salivate at the ring of a bell. So basically, he associated the sound of the bell with food and the dog would salivate. And eventually he was able to remove the food altogether so that he could just ring the bell and then produce the same physiological response in the dog of the salivation. So it was basically demonstrating behavioral conditioning, how easily dogs, and it was, you know, later proven in humans as well, how easily we can be conditioned to do something. And so it is no coincidence that Pavlov received the Nobel Prize in 1904 for this experiment. And then the bell was introduced in the schools in 1907. Um, so I yeah, if that one's going over your head, I think I'll post a carousel about that because it's just like super fascinating. Um, okay, 1909, Woodrow Wilson said this in a speech to the New York City High School Teachers Association. And in this quote, he refers to two classes. He's referring one class is like the wealthy students who attend preparatory schools, and then this the other class is just everyone else who would be attending public schools. Um, this is like during public school reform. So he says, we want one class to have a liberal education. We want another class, a very much larger class of necessity, to forego the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific, difficult manual tasks. So basically, like we want the public school system to train people for difficult manual labor, right? Um, factory workers where they needed compliance and obedience. Um, 1912, a letter from the General Education Board. Uh, here in the letter, they're quoted saying, So we shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or men of science. Um, the quote goes on a little bit and then says, The task we set before ourselves is very simple, as well as a very beautiful one, to train these people as we find them to be a perfectly ideal life just where they are. So, anyway, definitely a tangent, but that is um, that's the premise that public schools were built on. And and our public school systems are they are full of very well-meaning and hardworking teachers, and they are underpaid, underfunded, um, facing ridiculous regulations. And like the people that are living in the front lines are, you know, they are they are saints, but they're also not always, you know, working themselves with the best tools to be passing on to our kids, like the the messages that we want them to learn. I mean, they're doing, like to think that most people are doing the best that they can with with what they have to work with. And so um I just think it's really important for us to to tune in, to tune into what our kids are learning, um, to tune into what we want them to learn and and you know, whether we want them to be independent thinkers, whether we want them to um, you know, how we want them to manage their own energy and regulate themselves and to recognize just where our kids are, what they face on a day-to-day basis, and validate what they're facing and like just to help provide them with the tools that they need to work through all of the hard shit that life is already throwing at them, you know? So okay, anyway, those are my two cents on um how hard it is for the kids. And as I say that, like I know that we all have enough on our plates. It's like one more thing, you know, like it's so it's so hard to fit anything else, fit us anything else on our plates because I think so many of us are just drowning in in life right now. Um, and so I think like if I were to narrow all of this down to like you know, to to a takeaway, something that you could do to just start to make a change, I think it would be to two things. I think it would be to invite more pauses into your life and the lives of your kids. I think like that the Dutch are onto something with that idea of Nixon um quiet time not filled, I think is really important. And then I think also just getting comfortable with being uncomfortable, having those conversations with your kids, talking more openly and um just you know, modeling vulnerability in a lot of ways, just showing them that like we're not perfect, but we hear them and you know, we're we can trust that we can do the next best thing with the information that we have in front of us. And so if we just commit to listening and to showing up and to really hearing what it is that they're facing and what they're needing, um you know, I think we'll we'll find the path from there. So all right, guys. Um, until next time, I'll see you guys next week. I have another awesome interview coming your way. We are going to shift a little bit to purpose for the next few episodes. Um, I've got some really cool interviews uh in line for you guys. So I'm just excited to share those. All right, I'll talk to you soon.