Relevant Links
Maggie's Podcast
https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/parental-as-anything-with-maggie-dent
Maggie's Latest Book
https://www.maggiedent.com/shop/girlhood/
Episode Transcript
Maggie: I get a little bit worried when people say I'm just toughening them up. Actual fact that doesn't build resilience. Am I going to give my kids an opportunity to experience disappointment?
Do they feel secure and safe in that core relationship? We know that is the number one protective factor for every human. Do I have at least one person who loves me unconditionally, who I can lean on? That is the number one thing to resilience, which isn't what you necessarily hear.
Sharad: Hi everyone. Welcome to How to Live, a podcast that explores ways to live a good life. I'm Sharad Lal. This is episode 40.
How do we build resilience in our kids? How do we support emotional development? How much should we push our kids? We discussed this and more with Australia's leading parenting expert, Maggie Dent. Maggie has been working with children, teenagers, and families for 30 years.
She's authored nine books on parenting, many of which have become best sellers. She hosts the award-winning parenting podcast, parental as anything on a b abc. She's a sought after speaker, regularly featured in the news magazines and parenting shows. In our conversation, Maggie and I dig into the biggest challenges facing parents Today. We cover resilience, emotional development, toddlerhood, adolescents, and role fathers can play screen time. How much should we push our kids? And a lot more Maggie's warm and approachable style makes the podcast enjoyable and informative.
Whether you're a new parent or have been raising children for years, today's episode will be valuable to you. But before we get going, I'm extremely happy to share that the How to Live Podcast has now crossed hundreds of countries and thousand cities. It blows my mind to think that folks all over the world are tuning in to listen to.
We are also ranked in the top 5% in the world. Thank you very much for spreading the word and supporting us so well. We love hearing from you. Please continue to send us messages for new listeners. You can contact us by visiting howtolive.life/contact if you haven't already, please do consider subscribing. Please do consider Giving us a rating as well. Thank you in advance. Now, here's the conversation.
Sharad: Hi Maggie. Welcome to How to Live. Good afternoon in Su Sydney.
Maggie: Hello and thank you. Thank you for inviting me to have this chat.
Sharad: Congratulations on all the good work you're doing, all the content you're putting in. What are some of the challenges that you have seen parents facing nowadays in modern world?
Maggie: All right. The very first one, I think is that there's almost too much information for parents to navigate. So what parents tell me is sometimes when they have the two-year-old toddler who's, throwing that tantrum in the shopping center and maybe throws one over something that was completely in it through our adult eyes, quite ridiculous.
They'll think they're failing as a parent yet when we understand that's actually what they're supposed to do with their developmental capacity, and also that there's a way that we can help them get to understand and manage and navigate those things later in life with the way that we handle it. And that every single stage of parenting has a gift and a challenge.
Secondly, I think And it's been the digital world and the Insta world has actually, if you see images of parents whose children are beautifully well dressed and achieving well and winning awards and yours aren't it just makes you feel yuck.
So I feel that kind of, there's a lot more judgment than there was when I was raising my boys.
And then I think the other is, I'm still really crossed that we have decided that schooling and your education is the number one most important thing that you need to achieve as a parent for your children. And that we've pushed, formalized learning down.
We are testing kids with ridiculous levels that is contributing to the anxiety in our children. And I'm really, like I said, cross about that because I know we're shaping and raising a whole child. Just the same as we are a whole human, which means we have a mind, a body, a heart and a soul or a spirit that all of those things need to be nurtured.
And I worry that the innate things that help children grow is to grow in their own time. Having those pockets of pondering of quietness where they take 20 minutes to walk from the car to your door cuz you've got all these things to do. There's no question screens are the bane of parents' lives.
And then one of the layer, I think too, in that is something really beautiful. Our dads are stepping up to be the dads they yearned for when they were little boys and. I can pull a big crowd of dads and I help them make sense of some of the things that us women and mummies have a wiring towards and how do we do that as a team.
And when I find they come together as a team, I find the pressure on women and mums is less. And the kind of way that dads walk around in th world feeling, I've got, this is a great thing. So I think they're the things I would say in a nutshell that yeah, that we really need to embrace and I hope I shine a light in that space sometimes to help parents make some
Sharad: You sure do. In all the that you're putting up. And thank you for giving this wide array of issues and challenges that people are facing. And maybe we can double click into a few of these. I think the recent one you talked about is screens, which is a very interesting one.
At one hand, there is some positive to it. People are gonna be using screens than kids that grew up all their life. But at the second end, there is this anxiety that could come up. How do you advise people on screens with their kids?
Maggie: Yeah, look, given just how profoundly important the first five years or six years of children's lives are in terms of developing all of their attributes, emotional, social, cognitive, physical, all of those things, and they are all growing. That brain is doing a massive amount of growth and they're actually using all of their sensors to develop incredible pathways and maps in the brain.
as five-year-olds are turning up ready for formalized learning Gross and fine motor skills cuz they've been swiping and they're sitting on a screen. So they actually haven't got the capacity to be able to hold a pencil.
Their body is not strong enough to sit in a chair and they'll fall out of a chair. They haven't moved their body enough so that their proprioceptive awareness and their vestibular, which are really important sensory processing systems, are underdeveloped.
They're turning up with less words because they don't download language off screens until well over three.
So again, we've gotta get back to you reading and speaking more often to our children. children with an inability to initiate and an inability to play with other children. And that's a fundamentally big challenge by the time they get there, because schools are full of kids.
Even though it's still developing, they collapse over small things, and those meltdowns last a lot longer at five. So I am gonna say, oh, everyone's going, oh my god, no, I use your TV screen. Because a TV scream is a certain distance away. And if you have boys, they'll be doing some assaults and cartwheels and throwing cushions.
And if you've got girls, quite often they'll be doing something else while they're watching. And also they're, they're moving their bodies still. And I think that's the reminder, the delay that as much as possible. But however, fantastic to get wonderful things that you can enjoy online that are about learning.
There's some great musical things. I can show how to draw a unicorn thanks to a YouTube clip, so it's not all bad again. But we keep a balance between the green and the physical movement and online activity. But the TV go for that before you always hand over a screen. But if you are on a long flight, please make sure they have something so that you all get there without getting too growly.
Sharad: Yeah. That's such a common sensical. Balanced, that makes a lot of sense. Such a common sensical balanced approach. And I like this thought of TV because that, like you mentioned that there's a distance, people are doing other things, there's I know you've done a lot of work on resilience and I'd love to start from the beginning. How do you define resilience in kids? And then maybe we can touch upon what is the way that parents can help foster resilience in kids as they grow up?
Maggie: Yeah. , it's our capacity to successfully navigate life despite adversity and challenges that may appear in our path.
In other words, we don't just collapse and never get up. And I did start to notice it in my classrooms that there were just some kids who just moved through some things that others were just not coping with, and it wasn't anything to do. And I was really fascinated what that was.
What they've determined because we are a social species is that we can't be resilient on our own.
It is not a fixed, you just tick the box and I'm resilient. No, you're much more resilient after eight hours of sleep than you are after four.
And that your capacity to be able to overcome a significant challenge or adversity. Is determined by the systems you live within. So it's your family unit, your school unit, your faith unit, your whatever sporting club, your actual neighborhood, and then what are the resources available in those systems that you can reach out and seek in order to recover.
And the last biggie is do you ask for help? So the help seeking behavior is such an important message in terms of resilience. I think I get a little bit worried when people say I'm just toughening them up. Actual fact that doesn't build resilience. Am I going to give my kids an opportunity to experience disappointment?
And it's one of the challenges I think we thought that if we kept them happy all the time, they would end up okay.
And I'm gonna go back to that says, do they feel secure and safe in that core relationship? We know that is the number one protective factor for every human. Do I have at least one person who loves me unconditionally, who I can lean on? That is the number one thing to resilience, which isn't what you necessarily hear.
And then the second part to that is, as parents, I have a 10 resilience building block and there's all sorts of things you can do to build more strengths in your children. And sometimes there's simple things like Can they dress themselves? Can they clean their teeth early on? Are they able to make their own lunchbox at some point?
Are they able, so in other words, constantly upgrading life skills, builds in our children what I call mastery, which is the second top one of them. Therefore, their need of you is less. In actual fact, to be a really resilient building parent, we want you to recognize that you wanna raise your children so they don't need you, and you do yourself out of a job.
Right? That's really how we raise resilient kids even. And every now and then, I'll say, if you're still count carrying your son or daughter's bag into a classroom in year four, stop it. By that age, some of the little ones, the bags are so heavy, I would be carrying it. But we have to recognize, I, you might think you're doing that out of love, but what are the messages your child's getting right in that moment?
So can they share a story?
I think this'll resonate. Okay. So I had a couple come up to me after one of my seminars and said, look Maggie, we've got a an eight year old boy and he's heard daddy say he, when he was a kid, he would go to the local milk bar, delicate test and whatever you wanna call it, local shop to get milk and bread with no growing up.
And this boy is going, so why can't I do it? Why can't I do it? Anyway, when I checked in with him, the deli was at the end of the same street so he wouldn't even have to cross a street. Whereas dad said I had to cross two busy roads. And I said, so what are your fears? And of course what are the fears that every parent has is someone's gonna pick 'em up, someone's gonna hurt them, there's something's gonna happen.
And I said, and how realistic are the chances of any of those when he is walking 400 meters on the same side of the road? And then I said, okay, so let's prepare your son, right? You're gonna walk that journey to make sure, and you're also gonna mention to the neighbors, he's gonna be walking to the shop to get milk.
You'll talk to the people in the shop saying, my son's gonna be able to, we just set up a little bit more of predictability. Yep. And then if they're really still terrified, I always recommend, and the same with the first time they walk home from school, get a really loud whistle around their neck. Cuz what we know is sometimes if you blow a really loud whistle, people will come.
Because sometimes if someone may be wanting to do something unpleasant to your child, children freeze, but they can blow a whistle. So that's actually for the parents, probably not for the boy. So it gives them another sense of security. Anyway, they went through it all, talked to the boy, handed in the money and he's out the door.
And then he is turned around just a little bit up the track and mom and dad are standing on the footpath and he's gone. No, get inside cuz that doesn't count. they're back inside and they later on told me it was the longest 10 minutes of their life. And when their son opened the door and swung the door open and the bread and the milk and the change, he had been transformed and they couldn't believe it, that it's like a month later and they just throw money at him and off he goes.
So sometimes the stretching and growing challenges us. Equally, and I keep talking about having tight knuckles while they climb higher and higher up the tree. That's one of the hardest things you can do as a parent. But I'm gonna say you're giving your children a gift because they actually have an early warning system and if you don't interrupt it, they'll get to a point and go, nah, that's probably enough today.
Their foot goes up and down on that ladder or that branch and I go, yeah, no, that's enough. But when we say Get down, it's too high and it wasn't, then we mess with the ability for them to use the early warning system in the way that Mother Nature intended them to be. So I hope that I just a lovely story because it every parent can recognize how hard it
Sharad: Absolutely.
Maggie: the more we hold them back, the less likely they're gonna grow their wings to
Sharad: As you told the story, I was feeling as nervous as those parents were while they were going and, and I like whole independence with guardrails. Where you're telling the neighbors, maybe you're giving them a whistle, so you've given them the guardrails.
They can still explore and be able to be independent. And once that independence comes, that develops self-esteem, which develops resilience and they know then they can independently work. I love that. And I also love the initial thought that you had, that yes, there is independence, but you also need to be a safe, secure seat, especially to begin with.
So you provide the safety at the same time you provide the independence. And there's a fine balance of doing these two things,
Maggie: One of the challenges I think that has happened for parents is we're still in schism, which says, when children don't behave how we want them to, you punish them.
And magically they'll behave better. But what we do is a couple of things. One is we damage the relationship, which is the fundamental driver of what raises our kids to feel confident, happy, and capable. And two, we actually haven't invested any energy in teaching them how to make a better choice. We are just trying to stop that one.
So again, I think we've, that's one of the other challenges. We are forever bribing our kids or sticker charts and there's, we actually know it. They're actually not successful at all. Guess what is the most important thing to have your children do what you want them to do, that they feel loved and safe with you?
They're much more motivated to do what we want, if it's reasonable and requested with great respect and love, cuz no one likes being told what to do. That is your highest chance of what we would love is that sort of compliance of children. They do what we want.
Sharad: Very powerful, Maggie. As we talk about how the brain develops of the kid. And I wanted to talk that in relation to managing emotions. So of course at a toddler, they just don't know how to handle the emotions and that's the part of growth.
And as they grow up, there's other challenges. Maybe the amygdala develops, and the other challenges in managing and regulating emotions. And I think only at the age of 25 does your prefrontal cortex fully develop. So as a parent, how do you support your kids in emotional regulation, in managing emotions so that they don't succumb to it and are able to, build awareness and manage it?
Maggie: All right. The very first thing is you have to reframe that when your child or teen is having really big feelings that they're not. Being naughty. They're not deliberately trying to do that because they have literally been flooded with too much cortisol in the brain, which is a stress hormone. Now for some it can be in the spur of the moment, but for others it's a buildup of lots of other things that have been going not very well.
And then the end, there's nothing left in my goodness cup. So again, what we now know from the science of child development is that for a child to learn how to regulate those big feelings they need a big, safe growing up, especially in the first five years of life, who can co-regulate with them? One of the things again, I keep on saying to people is, if you see your toddler having a meltdown in a shopping center you or yours is, one of the things you can do is say, oh, a lot of cortisol discharging out brain right now look kicking, screaming, bit more cortisol.
Yep. I'm just gonna keep them safe. That's our job. Because they can run on a road and destroy things or punch walls. Our job is to keep them safe. Yep. And then, oh, little bit more cortisol and eventually it's gone. So it's the glitter jar. I want you to keep that metaphor in mind as a parent and as a partner.
Until all the glitters settled, they can't respond from that place of logical reason. I can't hear you. Can't even hear you. And so when we get to understand that, I'm just gonna create this safe space for you, and when you are ready, I'm still here for you.
And as they get a little bit older or maybe timeframe that prefrontal grows a little more, especially after four and five, we're able to say, it gets really, isn't it yucky when we feel really disappointed, isn't it yucky when we feel sad? Isn't it yucky when we are just exhausted?
The body budget is this is Lisa Barrett Leonard's work and she talks very much that the body from the get-go children are learning how to manage.
How their body works and that they need a certain amount of energy at any point in time to not only play nicely, but the body is working out. How much energy do I need to digest that lunch? How much energy do I need to make sure I renew the skin cells around that scrape on the arm? How much do I need to keep the blood healthy to keep the lungs moving?
So in other words, there's a body budget that works, but some children deplete their body budget by being too active or. As my granddaughter. She's sound sensitive, so when the classroom's very noisy, her body gets drained and so she comes home blue crabby. Now no one's done anything wrong cuz she's only six.
However, when they can read the facial expressions for her, they often put her headphones on in the car just so she can't hear any more noise on the way home. And when she gets home, she's very much a tactile girl. They don't ask her what she wants. How was her day? They refill her cup with energy through a healthy snack and a cuddle.
And when she's ready she's able to go off. And so once again, if we keep that in mind cuz it's like the amygdala as you said, the threat center says, mark, we're really at nu we are. Watch out. This is potentially lethal, right? It's not, but it feels awful for kids. So often we have the meltdowns in the car after school.
And I keep on saying, it's not necessarily that something awful happened at school. Your child's left everything on the park, nothing left to get in the car. And so they're gonna need a grown up who can help them move from that negative cortisol place into the more positive neurochemicals. Serotonin, which is a calm one, so often having calm music in the car or a favorite nursery rhyme, you might hum to them in the car.
We know those things soothe immediately. Then there's a dopamine one, which is that fun one. What can you do that, can create some fun, but not too soon? You gotta be able to do that each time it can be different. And then endorphins, they come from laughter, lighteners, hugs, smell of good food. We have to give them a sense of their predictability has returned in their world and now as they get a little bit older, I'm gonna say eight to 10 year olds, they can have the same depletion of their body budget without even being aware of it.
It might have been with the week of big testing. So you can see with kids who have too much testing, the energy is depleted during the day. So when they come home, how have they got the energy to do the chores? How are they gonna be really sweet to their brother or their sister? There's nothing left. And I think when we get to understand that, we reframe how we see children and then of course we get into puberty.
Oh, it's such fun. Okay. So the big one there, the stress level for our tweens and teens is because there's so much change going on that they are not even aware of, let alone being in a big high school with lots more subjects, five different teachers, pressure of testing. What do I have to remember? It puts a lot of pressure, so therefore their body budget depletes much more quickly.
And then the lovely limbic brain does some wonderful growing, which means all the feelings in those years are far more intense than they are before puberty and after puberty. So that is where you get the slam doors, the screamy voices. It sounds like you've got a toddler on steroids. And really we have to understand this is all developmentally explained.
We know this is what's happening. And while we want to say, don't you speak to me like that is so disrespectful. And I'm gonna say it's just like the toddler and they've just flooded and it's coming out, and I'm gonna say in some. If you're able to recognize their discharging cortisol like that, if you can either step to the side and imagine the words go past you or you go, I know what's going on here.
I've got you right now, I'm gonna be safe. I'm gonna stand here silently while all this comes out, cuz it's just gotta come out. You actually could be helping them reduce the chances of intentional self-harm because intentional self-harm has just gone through the roof where teens
deliberately hurt themselves, cut themselves because that they feel is the release of all those big feelings.
So I want you to see it through that lens so that we are the supportive people. And after it's all happened, the glitter settles. Remember same metaphor, they head to their room, then I'm gonna tell you the most powerful way in that moment that you can support your teen. And that is a gesture of kindness. I had the same with one of my fiery sons. 20 minutes. I always left at 20 minutes before I went down. I knocked always knock on your teens door, remember it's their boundary and it's respecting them. And then I opened the door and I said nothing. I would've, there were a few words that would, I said nothing cuz I can remember being that child.
I gave them a cup of hot chocolate, shoved a couple of home baked cookies in and shoved the dog in. Then shut the door because I wanted my son to know that even though that's all happened, we are still okay because that's what they have to know. Can you still love me when I can't love myself and I behave in a way that even I don't understand?
And that's a really powerful message in that space.
Sharad: That's a really powerful visual as well, Maggie. Just, I can imagine you knocking on the door leaving that yeah, it got a little misty eye there. So it's a very powerful message and you described it so well, and I know in one of the podcast episodes you'd also talked about sometimes telling the kids about this process that this is what's happening to you, if you describe the process to them, they know what's happening and then their learning is better.
Maggie: If I can jump into, around the difference with girls emotions, I think that's another one, which I had written all my, lots of my books. Only two were about boys. But when my granddaughters arrived, holy heck, I suddenly saw a whole different world unfold because, I am a girl, but I'd forgotten.
So the emotional world of girls is so much more complex and intense. Then our boys, our boss boys, will often blow up. They often use their physical body to get rid of that anger in his, whatever. And then they're done, right? Not girls. And some of their tantrums can last an hour. And sometimes some of the things that other educators have suggested oh, just, say to them, oh, you look like you might be frustrated.
That could last, that could trigger it to last another hour. Cause I don't agree with you. Oh my goodness. So I do need to bat again for anyone who's raising girls at any age, their emotional intensity is Yeah. And really the same, it's a slightly different thing. So when they discharge, they often use words.
So one of the things that came outta my research is when the limbic brain is fired up in girls and women, the next center in the brain to fire up is the word center. And they often vent really quickly. So in boys and men, it's the limbic brain fires up, then the body fires up. And probably 12 to 24 hours later, maybe they can access the word center.
And again, That means it's, we need to keep that in mind when we're helping them through one of those tough moments. And girls often wanna talk and they might go over things over and over, but we need to make sure they feel heard while they are venting and processing, using the verbal context to make sense of their own feelings. They can get stuck in ruminating loops more likely than boys.
So they'll all feel I'm really dumb and stupid and nobody, and or they rehash something that happened, which they've misinterpreted and put through the negative bias, which of course is a tendency for all us humans. And they get stuck in it. So in other words, the emotions just keep on resurging back up.
I encourage parents, let them ruminate for a period of time, and then we need to help them work out a strategy. That is able to interrupt the ruminating loop. So it might be that you have something funny on a YouTube channel whatever funny cat video, funny dog, one that you go to every time that starts to bring them back to laughter.
But you don't do it too quick because the rumination is her going to different levels of that in big feelings that she has.
So Girlhood was interesting as I dived into writing that it was only up to girls, up to eight. That's when we realized that we need to focus on some of the natural strengths of most girls.
And that is their memories are amazing and they have a great capacity to problem solve options More than boys we know. No, I don't know. Girls can go straight there and I think that course left and right brain and come on online. At the same time, boys are in one who the other. And I think when you respect them and say, so what do you think we should do?
So this is what our plan is today, what are your thoughts about how that could work best? And you've already
just given a great big dose of love and self-worth into a little girl.
Sharad: I'm a father of two girls, so that's extremely good advice. And I like what you said about fathering earlier how fathers are now getting involved. And I was wondering, as a father, how do we bring in some of our masculine energy into bringing up kids without it being the patriarchal kind of energy?
What's the good masculine energy we can bring in?
Maggie: Oh look, I think there's, it's just huge. And the research, has been so overwhelming. I was fascinated when I first discovered that, particularly for girls. So you're in the right seat. The more warm and connected her dad remains to her daughter all the way through her life. But particularly up in, into the adolescent years, if you can stay there is she will menstruate later.
She will actually become sexually active later. She actually has a stronger and more grounded sense of her own self. She also has an ability to see that more pragmatic way. Dad's a much more pragmatic sometimes than us mamas. They're also use less words and the capacity is cuz we can be very verbose.
The girls can use too many words and everyone just glazes over. So that influence is profound. And I think one of the things you need to keep in mind is that she, you are her first love in terms of a male. So she will be looking for aspects of you if she is, heterosexual and going in that direction later in life.
And you are setting up a template in a way, but I think what's a challenge today is we have to pull away some of the unhelpful messages that some, you know, dad's co. She's my beautiful princess and I'm gonna call her that forever. You can overextend the, your, my beautiful princess stuff and you keep forgetting that we don't want her defined by her appear. Because that's definitely a pathway to a bumpy ride that we are going to keep recognizing her strength and her courage and her creativity and her gutsiness and her grit. So when we affirm those things as well, we are giving her a chance to be not dependent on how pretty I look at any moment, even though it's still okay to tell her she is.
And second. We don't wanna tell her that I'm always going to protect you because I have held teenage girls in my counseling room who sob, who have experienced sexual violence from teenage boys and they would sob and say, dad said he would always protect me. And so we can't always, so what we are going to be doing is we're going to talk to them about how you can tell the difference between good men and ones who are not so good.
So that she recognizing, that there are both in the world and there are far more good men than there are nasty ones. However, she needs to have a voice in those moments. If she doesn't feel comfortable, if she has uncomfortable feelings, then you are always available. Have, make sure if you've got a teenage girl, what is your code for safety that you'll get her out of there.
She sends you a special thing on the phone. You call and say, quickly, there's something going on in the family. I've gotta pick you up. And you will always say to her, look, I'm always, I will you reach out for me. I'll always be there. The biggest message I think for all dads, what I want them to be is that if your son or your daughter gets into a really difficult spot as a teenager, I want their first thought to be. I want my dad not God. I hope my dad doesn't find out. That is the way, I think the benchmark they want. We want them to turn to us instead of fearing our our Roth or our anything else. And that's shaped over all these years. And I just have to say on my hand, on my heart that I have to leave the room sometimes when I'm watching my boys with their daughters.
I've seen them pla hair, I, the things I've seen them do that their own dad never did. So it's a beautiful time to be a dad and dads seriously matter. And it's okay. You don't have to be a perfect dad. That's, that's just probably not gonna happen. But at the same time we just keep reminding them how much we love them and that there's nothing they can ever do that will ever stop us loving them ever.
Sharad: Such a lovely message. Thank you, Maggie. Moving on, In the modern world, sometimes both the dad and the mother are both working and it's difficult to, like some of the things that you talked holding, self-management, holding our space to be able to manage the emotions, to be able to help our kids be more resilient.
Having the patience for that, it's difficult to manage all that. So what's your advice on balancing work, parenting, and self-care for parents where both are working and really busy?
Maggie: I don't think there is a balance.
Sharad: Yeah.
Maggie: I have way too high a bar. Who's gonna balance that? That's wrong and I think then we learn that.
Sharad: Yeah, totally. That's just ridiculous.
Maggie: Get rid of that one. Okay. So my, my tip is I ended up doing a lot of webinars during Covid for working parents, who are home and, kids were doing remote learning and I just, first thing I said is, you can't do this.
It won't work. But I'm gonna give you some tips on how you can get some of it done. And I think this is the same thing. Obviously we need to work, hello. We can't survive without having to work. I am gonna say if there's any way you can have one parent around more often when children are under three, I would strive for that.
Whether it's working different hours, but the more time you spend with children under three the better it is for your children. Okay, the next one is our children need to understand once again that we are a part of a. And that the system works best when you have enough money and finances to be able to make choices that you all would like to do.
So we wanna eat, we wanna have a good bed to sleep in. We wanna be able to have the staff, we wanna be able to do extracurricular or do our music and get a new guitar, whatever. So that requires parents to do everything they can in that space. So there are times that we have to say to our children, these are our work hours, so we can't get to every assembly.
What we are going to do is we're going to make sure we get to, every one of us will get to every second assembly. So in other words, your kids go, okay, I'm not having it all, but I'm still having some. So that's a really simplistic example. It says, and check on your school diaries. It's really great if you've got an idea when those sports carnivals or those important things are.
And again, you won't be able to go for the whole day, but you may be able to get a half a day and you'll catch up some work later. So can you see again, I think kids need to recognize we are doing the best we can in an imperfect world. And in the second one, I wanna come back to that place too about the pressure for extracurricular and how much we put on ourselves.
Cuz I'm going to say that I do believe our expectations are depleting our children's body budgets as well as our parents. So how many things can you definitely put around the edges of parents who work full-time and children who wanna do lots of stuff if you don't have either grandparents close by or a nanny who's supporting you because.
It's gonna turn everyone into shouty. Horrible humans. And so my challenge is we have parent, we have a family meeting and says, okay, so I wanna know in order, what would you, what are your extracurricular choices? What would you really love to do? And then we look at it at what time of year because it's very different.
So in the middle of winter it's not much fun picking up kids in the dark from all these things racing home. Yep. And then trying to get a healthy meal on, which will have broccoli of course. And then they're gonna get their homework done and then they're gonna have a gentle, calm bath bed to, it just won't work.
And then so we choose, okay, so you can have maybe two each. Choose your chop. I'm sorry, we can't do more than that, but we wanna make sure we still are happy humans at home. And we'll do our best to add something. Yep. And then we'd look at how we make that work?
Is there anyone else in our little tribe who we can help as well? So therefore we know, my daughter's best friends mom, she also works on ours. So this day I'm gonna take you to netball or music and she will take you that day. So I think we've gotta work out some really rational plans, cuz when I see parents desperately doing it all themselves, it becomes just literally unsafe because, we are stressed, like mad racing around and who can factor in traffic.
So again, I think that's the realism. You don't sit there and co-parents going, okay, this is what we can do. No work with your children. How can we make this work? Cuz again, we want them to be the problem solvers.
We want them to be able to feel heard, and we want them to be able to have some agency in what they choose in that space.
Sharad: Thank you for that. there's something very interesting in Asia you might be aware of. A lot of us have grown up in developing countries where the path to happiness lay in working hard and changing the trajectory of the family path.
For me, it was like my parents pushed me. My narrative in my mind, which I think is probably true, that unless they pushed me, I don't think I would've performed this well and gone ahead. So with that background, I have the natural tendency to try and push kids, let them be ambitious. And I'm wondering what is the way to think about this and what's the balance between ambition and just accepting kids for who they are.
Maggie: Oh, great question. And it's interesting cuz I have worked with a number of Asian young lads who had experienced exactly what you experienced and it had ended up being completely estranged from their families. That would just cause scarred them deeply.
So one of the things to factor into it is how loved and secure did you feel around it? Or did you just feel obligated that if I didn't perform that I wouldn't get love? So when lover is conditional plus the. It can end up in not the space you want. However, if we've got that sense of you, your family are striving because they've, they're making up for something they haven't had, but you still feel loved, you've still got those great rowdy big meals together with families and you feel loved then, absolutely encouraging them to do the best they can is not gonna end up with the same kind of demise at the other end.
There's a cultural definite thing in there. And we do know that kids burn out too. There is, that extra, if they've added more layers of testing on them when you were there. It's untenable. And at the end of the day, kids shouldn't happen to be studying from the time they leave school till 10 o'clock at night.
Because where's their social stuff? Where are they learning and growing? Where are they connecting with friends? Where are they having fun? All of the other things that make us mentally fit and healthy, we've got to make sure we've got opportunities for that. Like I said to you before, mind, body, heart, soul. If we're nurturing all levels, then that ends up being the probably the best outcome for everyone.
Sharad: Love that, with love and safety they can go and explore and I was fortunate to have that and in countries like India where I was from in a lot of developing countries, now there are many opportunities to have a great life and also do well not only if you do well academically, you could be a cricketer.
There's so many things that have opened up, which then reduces the pressure.
Maggie: And then we have neurodivergent kids. Like at the end of the day, our kids can have additional challenges. So putting pressure onto a child who has dyslexia or A D H D instead of helping them manage to be that child within a world that expects them to be atypical, you will get more when you help them work out.
How can you be you? And how can you find what you've come here on this earth to do while others can't see it through the same lens? It'll be lovely if we're all academically capable and we learn to read easily, but it's not that for all of our children. So being able to love them, that's the core again, of a child that will thrive later in life.
I'm loved, even though I can't read very well, even though I struggle with math, I am still loved.
And that's really, that's the key.
Sharad: A wonderful message. Maggie, as we close out we've had such a wonderful conversation. Maggie, what's the one piece of advice you'd give to all parents?
Maggie: Yeah, I just think it's that, your capacity to love your children fiercely and unconditionally. Right through life. I believe that is the greatest gift any parent or grandparent can give to children.
And that's really the one I aspire to the most. And yeah, fiercely is the other one. When the world's saying they're not enough or they've done something wrong, can we fiercely love them in those moments?
Because really that's what really makes the difference.
Sharad: Thank you Maggie. So much wisdom. We've covered so many areas today and this is going to be extremely useful for my audience. I was already taking notes for myself so I know people listening to it many notes many notes to take. Thank you very much for making time Maggie, and thank you very much for sharing your wisdom on our podcast.
Maggie: And all my very best wishes for all your listeners. And just remember every single day we do the best we can. There's no perfect parent, and we get back up tomorrow and have another go. See if we can do a little bit better tomorrow.
Sharad: Thank you Maggie, for such an interesting and useful conversation. For more on Maggie, you can check out her latest book, girlhood that's available on Amazon. You could also follow her podcast Parental As Anything. I subscribe to it and find it very useful. Here's an action step all of us could consider to help build resilience in our kids.
Can we help them feel independent in a task they felt like doing, but we've been scared for them. Maybe it's going to the neighborhood to buy milk, like the example Maggie gave. or here in Singapore, taking the r t Or dressing up on their own, even if it takes a lot of time. What guardrails can we create so they can do the task by themselves and still be protective? And how can we be their safe seat with unconditional love? Again, let's not mistake projecting our fears and worries as love, but being that safe seat and allowing them to be independent.
That's how we build resilience.
Best of luck as you try this with your kids. That's it for today's episode. I hope you enjoyed it. We will be back with another episode two weeks from now on May 9th. Hope you join us for that. Till next time, have a wonderful day ahead. Bye-bye.
Maggie: I get a little bit worried when people say I'm just toughening them up. Actual fact that doesn't build resilience. Am I going to give my kids an opportunity to experience disappointment?
Do they feel secure and safe in that core relationship? We know that is the number one protective factor for every human. Do I have at least one person who loves me unconditionally, who I can lean on? That is the number one thing to resilience, which isn't what you necessarily hear.
Sharad: Hi everyone. Welcome to How to Live, a podcast that explores ways to live a good life. I'm Sharad Lal. This is episode 40.
How do we build resilience in our kids? How do we support emotional development? How much should we push our kids? We discussed this and more with Australia's leading parenting expert, Maggie Dent. Maggie has been working with children, teenagers, and families for 30 years.
She's authored nine books on parenting, many of which have become best sellers. She hosts the award-winning parenting podcast, parental as anything on a b abc. She's a sought after speaker, regularly featured in the news magazines and parenting shows. In our conversation, Maggie and I dig into the biggest challenges facing parents Today. We cover resilience, emotional development, toddlerhood, adolescents, and role fathers can play screen time. How much should we push our kids? And a lot more Maggie's warm and approachable style makes the podcast enjoyable and informative.
Whether you're a new parent or have been raising children for years, today's episode will be valuable to you. But before we get going, I'm extremely happy to share that the How to Live Podcast has now crossed hundreds of countries and thousand cities. It blows my mind to think that folks all over the world are tuning in to listen to.
We are also ranked in the top 5% in the world. Thank you very much for spreading the word and supporting us so well. We love hearing from you. Please continue to send us messages for new listeners. You can contact us by visiting howtolive.life/contact if you haven't already, please do consider subscribing. Please do consider Giving us a rating as well. Thank you in advance. Now, here's the conversation.
Sharad: Hi Maggie. Welcome to How to Live. Good afternoon in Su Sydney.
Maggie: Hello and thank you. Thank you for inviting me to have this chat.
Sharad: Congratulations on all the good work you're doing, all the content you're putting in. What are some of the challenges that you have seen parents facing nowadays in modern world?
Maggie: All right. The very first one, I think is that there's almost too much information for parents to navigate. So what parents tell me is sometimes when they have the two-year-old toddler who's, throwing that tantrum in the shopping center and maybe throws one over something that was completely in it through our adult eyes, quite ridiculous.
They'll think they're failing as a parent yet when we understand that's actually what they're supposed to do with their developmental capacity, and also that there's a way that we can help them get to understand and manage and navigate those things later in life with the way that we handle it. And that every single stage of parenting has a gift and a challenge.
Secondly, I think And it's been the digital world and the Insta world has actually, if you see images of parents whose children are beautifully well dressed and achieving well and winning awards and yours aren't it just makes you feel yuck.
So I feel that kind of, there's a lot more judgment than there was when I was raising my boys.
And then I think the other is, I'm still really crossed that we have decided that schooling and your education is the number one most important thing that you need to achieve as a parent for your children. And that we've pushed, formalized learning down.
We are testing kids with ridiculous levels that is contributing to the anxiety in our children. And I'm really, like I said, cross about that because I know we're shaping and raising a whole child. Just the same as we are a whole human, which means we have a mind, a body, a heart and a soul or a spirit that all of those things need to be nurtured.
And I worry that the innate things that help children grow is to grow in their own time. Having those pockets of pondering of quietness where they take 20 minutes to walk from the car to your door cuz you've got all these things to do. There's no question screens are the bane of parents' lives.
And then one of the layer, I think too, in that is something really beautiful. Our dads are stepping up to be the dads they yearned for when they were little boys and. I can pull a big crowd of dads and I help them make sense of some of the things that us women and mummies have a wiring towards and how do we do that as a team.
And when I find they come together as a team, I find the pressure on women and mums is less. And the kind of way that dads walk around in the world feeling, I've got, this is a great thing. So I think they're the things I would say in a nutshell that yeah, that we really need to embrace and I hope I shine a light in that space sometimes to help parents make some
Sharad: You sure do. In all the that you're putting up. And thank you for giving this wide array of issues and challenges that people are facing. And maybe we can double click into a few of these. I think the recent one you talked about is screens, which is a very interesting one.
At one hand, there is some positive to it. People are gonna be using screens than kids that grew up all their life. But at the second end, there is this anxiety that could come up. How do you advise people on screens with their kids?
Maggie: Yeah, look, given just how profoundly important the first five years or six years of children's lives are in terms of developing all of their attributes, emotional, social, cognitive, physical, all of those things, and they are all growing. That brain is doing a massive amount of growth and they're actually using all of their sensors to develop incredible pathways and maps in the brain.
as five-year-olds are turning up ready for formalized learning Gross and fine motor skills cuz they've been swiping and they're sitting on a screen. So they actually haven't got the capacity to be able to hold a pencil.
Their body is not strong enough to sit in a chair and they'll fall out of a chair. They haven't moved their body enough so that their proprioceptive awareness and their vestibular, which are really important sensory processing systems, are underdeveloped.
They're turning up with less words because they don't download language off screens until well over three.
So again, we've gotta get back to you reading and speaking more often to our children. children with an inability to initiate and an inability to play with other children. And that's a fundamentally big challenge by the time they get there, because schools are full of kids.
Even though it's still developing, they collapse over small things, and those meltdowns last a lot longer at five. So I am gonna say, oh, everyone's going, oh my god, no, I use your TV screen. Because a TV scream is a certain distance away. And if you have boys, they'll be doing some assaults and cartwheels and throwing cushions.
And if you've got girls, quite often they'll be doing something else while they're watching. And also they're, they're moving their bodies still. And I think that's the reminder, the delay that as much as possible. But however, fantastic to get wonderful things that you can enjoy online that are about learning.
There's some great musical things. I can show how to draw a unicorn thanks to a YouTube clip, so it's not all bad again. But we keep a balance between the green and the physical movement and online activity. But the TV go for that before you always hand over a screen. But if you are on a long flight, please make sure they have something so that you all get there without getting too growly.
Sharad: Yeah. That's such a common sensical. Balanced, that makes a lot of sense. Such a common sensical balanced approach. And I like this thought of TV because that, like you mentioned that there's a distance, people are doing other things, there's I know you've done a lot of work on resilience and I'd love to start from the beginning. How do you define resilience in kids? And then maybe we can touch upon what is the way that parents can help foster resilience in kids as they grow up?
Maggie: Yeah. , it's our capacity to successfully navigate life despite adversity and challenges that may appear in our path.
In other words, we don't just collapse and never get up. And I did start to notice it in my classrooms that there were just some kids who just moved through some things that others were just not coping with, and it wasn't anything to do. And I was really fascinated what that was.
What they've determined because we are a social species is that we can't be resilient on our own.
It is not a fixed, you just tick the box and I'm resilient. No, you're much more resilient after eight hours of sleep than you are after four.
And that your capacity to be able to overcome a significant challenge or adversity. Is determined by the systems you live within. So it's your family unit, your school unit, your faith unit, your whatever sporting club, your actual neighborhood, and then what are the resources available in those systems that you can reach out and seek in order to recover.
And the last biggie is do you ask for help? So the help seeking behavior is such an important message in terms of resilience. I think I get a little bit worried when people say I'm just toughening them up. Actual fact that doesn't build resilience. Am I going to give my kids an opportunity to experience disappointment?
And it's one of the challenges I think we thought that if we kept them happy all the time, they would end up okay.
And I'm gonna go back to that says, do they feel secure and safe in that core relationship? We know that is the number one protective factor for every human. Do I have at least one person who loves me unconditionally, who I can lean on? That is the number one thing to resilience, which isn't what you necessarily hear.
And then the second part to that is, as parents, I have a 10 resilience building block and there's all sorts of things you can do to build more strengths in your children. And sometimes there's simple things like Can they dress themselves? Can they clean their teeth early on? Are they able to make their own lunchbox at some point?
Are they able, so in other words, constantly upgrading life skills, builds in our children what I call mastery, which is the second top one of them. Therefore, their need of you is less. In actual fact, to be a really resilient building parent, we want you to recognize that you wanna raise your children so they don't need you, and you do yourself out of a job.
Right? That's really how we raise resilient kids even. And every now and then, I'll say, if you're still count carrying your son or daughter's bag into a classroom in year four, stop it. By that age, some of the little ones, the bags are so heavy, I would be carrying it. But we have to recognize, I, you might think you're doing that out of love, but what are the messages your child's getting right in that moment?
So can they share a story?
I think this'll resonate. Okay. So I had a couple come up to me after one of my seminars and said, look Maggie, we've got a an eight year old boy and he's heard daddy say he, when he was a kid, he would go to the local milk bar, delicate test and whatever you wanna call it, local shop to get milk and bread with no growing up.
And this boy is going, so why can't I do it? Why can't I do it? Anyway, when I checked in with him, the deli was at the end of the same street so he wouldn't even have to cross a street. Whereas dad said I had to cross two busy roads. And I said, so what are your fears? And of course what are the fears that every parent has is someone's gonna pick 'em up, someone's gonna hurt them, there's something's gonna happen.
And I said, and how realistic are the chances of any of those when he is walking 400 meters on the same side of the road? And then I said, okay, so let's prepare your son, right? You're gonna walk that journey to make sure, and you're also gonna mention to the neighbors, he's gonna be walking to the shop to get milk.
You'll talk to the people in the shop saying, my son's gonna be able to, we just set up a little bit more of predictability. Yep. And then if they're really still terrified, I always recommend, and the same with the first time they walk home from school, get a really loud whistle around their neck. Cuz what we know is sometimes if you blow a really loud whistle, people will come.
Because sometimes if someone may be wanting to do something unpleasant to your child, children freeze, but they can blow a whistle. So that's actually for the parents, probably not for the boy. So it gives them another sense of security. Anyway, they went through it all, talked to the boy, handed in the money and he's out the door.
And then he is turned around just a little bit up the track and mom and dad are standing on the footpath and he's gone. No, get inside cuz that doesn't count. they're back inside and they later on told me it was the longest 10 minutes of their life. And when their son opened the door and swung the door open and the bread and the milk and the change, he had been transformed and they couldn't believe it, that it's like a month later and they just throw money at him and off he goes.
So sometimes the stretching and growing challenges us. Equally, and I keep talking about having tight knuckles while they climb higher and higher up the tree. That's one of the hardest things you can do as a parent. But I'm gonna say you're giving your children a gift because they actually have an early warning system and if you don't interrupt it, they'll get to a point and go, nah, that's probably enough today.
Their foot goes up and down on that ladder or that branch and I go, yeah, no, that's enough. But when we say Get down, it's too high and it wasn't, then we mess with the ability for them to use the early warning system in the way that Mother Nature intended them to be. So I hope that I just a lovely story because it every parent can recognize how hard it
Sharad: Absolutely.
Maggie: the more we hold them back, the less likely they're gonna grow their wings to
Sharad: As you told the story, I was feeling as nervous as those parents were while they were going and, and I like whole independence with guardrails. Where you're telling the neighbors, maybe you're giving them a whistle, so you've given them the guardrails.
They can still explore and be able to be independent. And once that independence comes, that develops self-esteem, which develops resilience and they know then they can independently work. I love that. And I also love the initial thought that you had, that yes, there is independence, but you also need to be a safe, secure seat, especially to begin with.
So you provide the safety at the same time you provide the independence. And there's a fine balance of doing these two things,
Maggie: One of the challenges I think that has happened for parents is we're still in schism, which says, when children don't behave how we want them to, you punish them.
And magically they'll behave better. But what we do is a couple of things. One is we damage the relationship, which is the fundamental driver of what raises our kids to feel confident, happy, and capable. And two, we actually haven't invested any energy in teaching them how to make a better choice. We are just trying to stop that one.
So again, I think we've, that's one of the other challenges. We are forever bribing our kids or sticker charts and there's, we actually know it. They're actually not successful at all. Guess what is the most important thing to have your children do what you want them to do, that they feel loved and safe with you?
They're much more motivated to do what we want, if it's reasonable and requested with great respect and love, cuz no one likes being told what to do. That is your highest chance of what we would love is that sort of compliance of children. They do what we want.
Sharad: Very powerful, Maggie. As we talk about how the brain develops of the kid. And I wanted to talk that in relation to managing emotions. So of course at a toddler, they just don't know how to handle the emotions and that's the part of growth.
And as they grow up, there's other challenges. Maybe the amygdala develops, and the other challenges in managing and regulating emotions. And I think only at the age of 25 does your prefrontal cortex fully develop. So as a parent, how do you support your kids in emotional regulation, in managing emotions so that they don't succumb to it and are able to, build awareness and manage it?
Maggie: All right. The very first thing is you have to reframe that when your child or teen is having really big feelings that they're not. Being naughty. They're not deliberately trying to do that because they have literally been flooded with too much cortisol in the brain, which is a stress hormone. Now for some it can be in the spur of the moment, but for others it's a buildup of lots of other things that have been going not very well.
And then the end, there's nothing left in my goodness cup. So again, what we now know from the science of child development is that for a child to learn how to regulate those big feelings they need a big, safe growing up, especially in the first five years of life, who can co-regulate with them? One of the things again, I keep on saying to people is, if you see your toddler having a meltdown in a shopping center you or yours is, one of the things you can do is say, oh, a lot of cortisol discharging out brain right now look kicking, screaming, bit more cortisol.
Yep. I'm just gonna keep them safe. That's our job. Because they can run on a road and destroy things or punch walls. Our job is to keep them safe. Yep. And then, oh, little bit more cortisol and eventually it's gone. So it's the glitter jar. I want you to keep that metaphor in mind as a parent and as a partner.
Until all the glitters settled, they can't respond from that place of logical reason. I can't hear you. Can't even hear you. And so when we get to understand that, I'm just gonna create this safe space for you, and when you are ready, I'm still here for you.
And as they get a little bit older or maybe timeframe that prefrontal grows a little more, especially after four and five, we're able to say, it gets really, isn't it yucky when we feel really disappointed, isn't it yucky when we feel sad? Isn't it yucky when we are just exhausted?
The body budget is this is Lisa Barrett Leonard's work and she talks very much that the body from the get-go children are learning how to manage.
How their body works and that they need a certain amount of energy at any point in time to not only play nicely, but the body is working out. How much energy do I need to digest that lunch? How much energy do I need to make sure I renew the skin cells around that scrape on the arm? How much do I need to keep the blood healthy to keep the lungs moving?
So in other words, there's a body budget that works, but some children deplete their body budget by being too active or. As my granddaughter. She's sound sensitive, so when the classroom's very noisy, her body gets drained and so she comes home blue crabby. Now no one's done anything wrong cuz she's only six.
However, when they can read the facial expressions for her, they often put her headphones on in the car just so she can't hear any more noise on the way home. And when she gets home, she's very much a tactile girl. They don't ask her what she wants. How was her day? They refill her cup with energy through a healthy snack and a cuddle.
And when she's ready she's able to go off. And so once again, if we keep that in mind cuz it's like the amygdala as you said, the threat center says, mark, we're really at nu we are. Watch out. This is potentially lethal, right? It's not, but it feels awful for kids. So often we have the meltdowns in the car after school.
And I keep on saying, it's not necessarily that something awful happened at school. Your child's left everything on the park, nothing left to get in the car. And so they're gonna need a grown up who can help them move from that negative cortisol place into the more positive neurochemicals. Serotonin, which is a calm one, so often having calm music in the car or a favorite nursery rhyme, you might hum to them in the car.
We know those things soothe immediately. Then there's a dopamine one, which is that fun one. What can you do that, can create some fun, but not too soon? You gotta be able to do that each time it can be different. And then endorphins, they come from laughter, lighteners, hugs, smell of good food. We have to give them a sense of their predictability has returned in their world and now as they get a little bit older, I'm gonna say eight to 10 year olds, they can have the same depletion of their body budget without even being aware of it.
It might have been with the week of big testing. So you can see with kids who have too much testing, the energy is depleted during the day. So when they come home, how have they got the energy to do the chores? How are they gonna be really sweet to their brother or their sister? There's nothing left. And I think when we get to understand that, we reframe how we see children and then of course we get into puberty.
Oh, it's such fun. Okay. So the big one there, the stress level for our tweens and teens is because there's so much change going on that they are not even aware of, let alone being in a big high school with lots more subjects, five different teachers, pressure of testing. What do I have to remember? It puts a lot of pressure, so therefore their body budget depletes much more quickly.
And then the lovely limbic brain does some wonderful growing, which means all the feelings in those years are far more intense than they are before puberty and after puberty. So that is where you get the slam doors, the screamy voices. It sounds like you've got a toddler on steroids. And really we have to understand this is all developmentally explained.
We know this is what's happening. And while we want to say, don't you speak to me like that is so disrespectful. And I'm gonna say it's just like the toddler and they've just flooded and it's coming out, and I'm gonna say in some. If you're able to recognize their discharging cortisol like that, if you can either step to the side and imagine the words go past you or you go, I know what's going on here.
I've got you right now, I'm gonna be safe. I'm gonna stand here silently while all this comes out, cuz it's just gotta come out. You actually could be helping them reduce the chances of intentional self-harm because intentional self-harm has just gone through the roof where teens
deliberately hurt themselves, cut themselves because that they feel is the release of all those big feelings.
So I want you to see it through that lens so that we are the supportive people. And after it's all happened, the glitter settles. Remember same metaphor, they head to their room, then I'm gonna tell you the most powerful way in that moment that you can support your teen. And that is a gesture of kindness. I had the same with one of my fiery sons. 20 minutes. I always left at 20 minutes before I went down. I knocked always knock on your teens door, remember it's their boundary and it's respecting them. And then I opened the door and I said nothing. I would've, there were a few words that would, I said nothing cuz I can remember being that child.
I gave them a cup of hot chocolate, shoved a couple of home baked cookies in and shoved the dog in. Then shut the door because I wanted my son to know that even though that's all happened, we are still okay because that's what they have to know. Can you still love me when I can't love myself and I behave in a way that even I don't understand?
And that's a really powerful message in that space.
Sharad: That's a really powerful visual as well, Maggie. Just, I can imagine you knocking on the door leaving that yeah, it got a little misty eye there. So it's a very powerful message and you described it so well, and I know in one of the podcast episodes you'd also talked about sometimes telling the kids about this process that this is what's happening to you, if you describe the process to them, they know what's happening and then their learning is better.
Maggie: If I can jump into, around the difference with girls emotions, I think that's another one, which I had written all my, lots of my books. Only two were about boys. But when my granddaughters arrived, holy heck, I suddenly saw a whole different world unfold because, I am a girl, but I'd forgotten.
So the emotional world of girls is so much more complex and intense. Then our boys, our boss boys, will often blow up. They often use their physical body to get rid of that anger in his, whatever. And then they're done, right? Not girls. And some of their tantrums can last an hour. And sometimes some of the things that other educators have suggested oh, just, say to them, oh, you look like you might be frustrated.
That could last, that could trigger it to last another hour. Cause I don't agree with you. Oh my goodness. So I do need to bat again for anyone who's raising girls at any age, their emotional intensity is Yeah. And really the same, it's a slightly different thing. So when they discharge, they often use words.
So one of the things that came outta my research is when the limbic brain is fired up in girls and women, the next center in the brain to fire up is the word center. And they often vent really quickly. So in boys and men, it's the limbic brain fires up, then the body fires up. And probably 12 to 24 hours later, maybe they can access the word center.
And again, That means it's, we need to keep that in mind when we're helping them through one of those tough moments. And girls often wanna talk and they might go over things over and over, but we need to make sure they feel heard while they are venting and processing, using the verbal context to make sense of their own feelings. They can get stuck in ruminating loops more likely than boys.
So they'll all feel I'm really dumb and stupid and nobody, and or they rehash something that happened, which they've misinterpreted and put through the negative bias, which of course is a tendency for all us humans. And they get stuck in it. So in other words, the emotions just keep on resurging back up.
I encourage parents, let them ruminate for a period of time, and then we need to help them work out a strategy. That is able to interrupt the ruminating loop. So it might be that you have something funny on a YouTube channel whatever funny cat video, funny dog, one that you go to every time that starts to bring them back to laughter.
But you don't do it too quick because the rumination is her going to different levels of that in big feelings that she has.
So Girlhood was interesting as I dived into writing that it was only up to girls, up to eight. That's when we realized that we need to focus on some of the natural strengths of most girls.
And that is their memories are amazing and they have a great capacity to problem solve options More than boys we know. No, I don't know. Girls can go straight there and I think that course left and right brain and come on online. At the same time, boys are in one who the other. And I think when you respect them and say, so what do you think we should do?
So this is what our plan is today, what are your thoughts about how that could work best? And you've already
just given a great big dose of love and self-worth into a little girl.
Sharad: I'm a father of two girls, so that's extremely good advice. And I like what you said about fathering earlier how fathers are now getting involved. And I was wondering, as a father, how do we bring in some of our masculine energy into bringing up kids without it being the patriarchal kind of energy?
What's the good masculine energy we can bring in?
Maggie: Oh look, I think there's, it's just huge. And the research, has been so overwhelming. I was fascinated when I first discovered that, particularly for girls. So you're in the right seat. The more warm and connected her dad remains to her daughter all the way through her life. But particularly up in, into the adolescent years, if you can stay there is she will menstruate later.
She will actually become sexually active later. She actually has a stronger and more grounded sense of her own self. She also has an ability to see that more pragmatic way. Dad's a much more pragmatic sometimes than us mamas. They're also use less words and the capacity is cuz we can be very verbose.
The girls can use too many words and everyone just glazes over. So that influence is profound. And I think one of the things you need to keep in mind is that she, you are her first love in terms of a male. So she will be looking for aspects of you if she is, heterosexual and going in that direction later in life.
And you are setting up a template in a way, but I think what's a challenge today is we have to pull away some of the unhelpful messages that some, you know, dad's co. She's my beautiful princess and I'm gonna call her that forever. You can overextend the, your, my beautiful princess stuff and you keep forgetting that we don't want her defined by her appear. Because that's definitely a pathway to a bumpy ride that we are going to keep recognizing her strength and her courage and her creativity and her gutsiness and her grit. So when we affirm those things as well, we are giving her a chance to be not dependent on how pretty I look at any moment, even though it's still okay to tell her she is.
And second. We don't wanna tell her that I'm always going to protect you because I have held teenage girls in my counseling room who sob, who have experienced sexual violence from teenage boys and they would sob and say, dad said he would always protect me. And so we can't always, so what we are going to be doing is we're going to talk to them about how you can tell the difference between good men and ones who are not so good.
So that she recognizing, that there are both in the world and there are far more good men than there are nasty ones. However, she needs to have a voice in those moments. If she doesn't feel comfortable, if she has uncomfortable feelings, then you are always available. Have, make sure if you've got a teenage girl, what is your code for safety that you'll get her out of there.
She sends you a special thing on the phone. You call and say, quickly, there's something going on in the family. I've gotta pick you up. And you will always say to her, look, I'm always, I will you reach out for me. I'll always be there. The biggest message I think for all dads, what I want them to be is that if your son or your daughter gets into a really difficult spot as a teenager, I want their first thought to be. I want my dad not God. I hope my dad doesn't find out. That is the way, I think the benchmark they want. We want them to turn to us instead of fearing our our Roth or our anything else. And that's shaped over all these years. And I just have to say on my hand, on my heart that I have to leave the room sometimes when I'm watching my boys with their daughters.
I've seen them pla hair, I, the things I've seen them do that their own dad never did. So it's a beautiful time to be a dad and dads seriously matter. And it's okay. You don't have to be a perfect dad. That's, that's just probably not gonna happen. But at the same time we just keep reminding them how much we love them and that there's nothing they can ever do that will ever stop us loving them ever.
Sharad: Such a lovely message. Thank you, Maggie. Moving on, In the modern world, sometimes both the dad and the mother are both working and it's difficult to, like some of the things that you talked holding, self-management, holding our space to be able to manage the emotions, to be able to help our kids be more resilient.
Having the patience for that, it's difficult to manage all that. So what's your advice on balancing work, parenting, and self-care for parents where both are working and really busy?
Maggie: I don't think there is a balance.
Sharad: Yeah.
Maggie: I have way too high a bar. Who's gonna balance that? That's wrong and I think then we learn that.
Sharad: Yeah, totally. That's just ridiculous.
Maggie: Get rid of that one. Okay. So my, my tip is I ended up doing a lot of webinars during Covid for working parents, who are home and, kids were doing remote learning and I just, first thing I said is, you can't do this.
It won't work. But I'm gonna give you some tips on how you can get some of it done. And I think this is the same thing. Obviously we need to work, hello. We can't survive without having to work. I am gonna say if there's any way you can have one parent around more often when children are under three, I would strive for that.
Whether it's working different hours, but the more time you spend with children under three the better it is for your children. Okay, the next one is our children need to understand once again that we are a part of a. And that the system works best when you have enough money and finances to be able to make choices that you all would like to do.
So we wanna eat, we wanna have a good bed to sleep in. We wanna be able to have the staff, we wanna be able to do extracurricular or do our music and get a new guitar, whatever. So that requires parents to do everything they can in that space. So there are times that we have to say to our children, these are our work hours, so we can't get to every assembly.
What we are going to do is we're going to make sure we get to, every one of us will get to every second assembly. So in other words, your kids go, okay, I'm not having it all, but I'm still having some. So that's a really simplistic example. It says, and check on your school diaries. It's really great if you've got an idea when those sports carnivals or those important things are.
And again, you won't be able to go for the whole day, but you may be able to get a half a day and you'll catch up some work later. So can you see again, I think kids need to recognize we are doing the best we can in an imperfect world. And in the second one, I wanna come back to that place too about the pressure for extracurricular and how much we put on ourselves.
Cuz I'm going to say that I do believe our expectations are depleting our children's body budgets as well as our parents. So how many things can you definitely put around the edges of parents who work full-time and children who wanna do lots of stuff if you don't have either grandparents close by or a nanny who's supporting you because.
It's gonna turn everyone into shouty. Horrible humans. And so my challenge is we have parent, we have a family meeting and says, okay, so I wanna know in order, what would you, what are your extracurricular choices? What would you really love to do? And then we look at it at what time of year because it's very different.
So in the middle of winter it's not much fun picking up kids in the dark from all these things racing home. Yep. And then trying to get a healthy meal on, which will have broccoli of course. And then they're gonna get their homework done and then they're gonna have a gentle, calm bath bed to, it just won't work.
And then so we choose, okay, so you can have maybe two each. Choose your chop. I'm sorry, we can't do more than that, but we wanna make sure we still are happy humans at home. And we'll do our best to add something. Yep. And then we'd look at how we make that work?
Is there anyone else in our little tribe who we can help as well? So therefore we know, my daughter's best friends mom, she also works on ours. So this day I'm gonna take you to netball or music and she will take you that day. So I think we've gotta work out some really rational plans, cuz when I see parents desperately doing it all themselves, it becomes just literally unsafe because, we are stressed, like mad racing around and who can factor in traffic.
So again, I think that's the realism. You don't sit there and co-parents going, okay, this is what we can do. No work with your children. How can we make this work? Cuz again, we want them to be the problem solvers.
We want them to be able to feel heard, and we want them to be able to have some agency in what they choose in that space.
Sharad: Thank you for that. there's something very interesting in Asia you might be aware of. A lot of us have grown up in developing countries where the path to happiness lay in working hard and changing the trajectory of the family path.
For me, it was like my parents pushed me. My narrative in my mind, which I think is probably true, that unless they pushed me, I don't think I would've performed this well and gone ahead. So with that background, I have the natural tendency to try and push kids, let them be ambitious. And I'm wondering what is the way to think about this and what's the balance between ambition and just accepting kids for who they are.
Maggie: Oh, great question. And it's interesting cuz I have worked with a number of Asian young lads who had experienced exactly what you experienced and it had ended up being completely estranged from their families. That would just cause scarred them deeply.
So one of the things to factor into it is how loved and secure did you feel around it? Or did you just feel obligated that if I didn't perform that I wouldn't get love? So when lover is conditional plus the. It can end up in not the space you want. However, if we've got that sense of you, your family are striving because they've, they're making up for something they haven't had, but you still feel loved, you've still got those great rowdy big meals together with families and you feel loved then, absolutely encouraging them to do the best they can is not gonna end up with the same kind of demise at the other end.
There's a cultural definite thing in there. And we do know that kids burn out too. There is, that extra, if they've added more layers of testing on them when you were there. It's untenable. And at the end of the day, kids shouldn't happen to be studying from the time they leave school till 10 o'clock at night.
Because where's their social stuff? Where are they learning and growing? Where are they connecting with friends? Where are they having fun? All of the other things that make us mentally fit and healthy, we've got to make sure we've got opportunities for that. Like I said to you before, mind, body, heart, soul. If we're nurturing all levels, then that ends up being the probably the best outcome for everyone.
Sharad: Love that, with love and safety they can go and explore and I was fortunate to have that and in countries like India where I was from in a lot of developing countries, now there are many opportunities to have a great life and also do well not only if you do well academically, you could be a cricketer.
There's so many things that have opened up, which then reduces the pressure.
Maggie: And then we have neurodivergent kids. Like at the end of the day, our kids can have additional challenges. So putting pressure onto a child who has dyslexia or A D H D instead of helping them manage to be that child within a world that expects them to be atypical, you will get more when you help them work out.
How can you be you? And how can you find what you've come here on this earth to do while others can't see it through the same lens? It'll be lovely if we're all academically capable and we learn to read easily, but it's not that for all of our children. So being able to love them, that's the core again, of a child that will thrive later in life.
I'm loved, even though I can't read very well, even though I struggle with math, I am still loved.
And that's really, that's the key.
Sharad: A wonderful message. Maggie, as we close out we've had such a wonderful conversation. Maggie, what's the one piece of advice you'd give to all parents?
Maggie: Yeah, I just think it's that, your capacity to love your children fiercely and unconditionally. Right through life. I believe that is the greatest gift any parent or grandparent can give to children.
And that's really the one I aspire to the most. And yeah, fiercely is the other one. When the world's saying they're not enough or they've done something wrong, can we fiercely love them in those moments?
Because really that's what really makes the difference.
Sharad: Thank you Maggie. So much wisdom. We've covered so many areas today and this is going to be extremely useful for my audience. I was already taking notes for myself so I know people listening to it many notes many notes to take. Thank you very much for making time Maggie, and thank you very much for sharing your wisdom on our podcast.
Maggie: And all my very best wishes for all your listeners. And just remember every single day we do the best we can. There's no perfect parent, and we get back up tomorrow and have another go. See if we can do a little bit better tomorrow.
Sharad: Thank you Maggie, for such an interesting and useful conversation. For more on Maggie, you can check out her latest book, girlhood that's available on Amazon. You could also follow her podcast Parental As Anything. I subscribe to it and find it very useful. Here's an action step all of us could consider to help build resilience in our kids.
Can we help them feel independent in a task they felt like doing, but we've been scared for them. Maybe it's going to the neighborhood to buy milk, like the example Maggie gave. or here in Singapore, taking the r t Or dressing up on their own, even if it takes a lot of time. What guardrails can we create so they can do the task by themselves and still be protective? And how can we be their safe seat with unconditional love? Again, let's not mistake projecting our fears and worries as love, but being that safe seat and allowing them to be independent.
That's how we build resilience.
Best of luck as you try this with your kids. That's it for today's episode. I hope you enjoyed it. We will be back with another episode two weeks from now on May 9th. Hope you join us for that. Till next time, have a wonderful day ahead. Bye-bye.