transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] At Great Wolf Lodge, there's adventure for the whole family. I remember my kids when they were little, going to birthday parties there, and we took a family trip one weekend. It was so much fun. The kids were so busy. If you've got kids, you can let them go on the waterslides. They can splash away in the indoor water park. It's always 84 degrees. There's a wave pool, a lazy river, and a bunch of massive waterslides, including ones your family can all enjoy together. It's just fun. It's active. They'll be happily exhausted at the end of the day. Isn't that the side of a great family outing, is that everybody's happily worn out at the end of the day? They even have adventure-packed attractions from MagiQuest, a live action game kids can play throughout the lodge, to the Northern Lights Arcade. There's also a bunch of great dining options and complimentary daily events like nightly dance parties, all under one roof. With 22 lodges across the country, you're always only a short drive away from adventure. So bring your pack together at a lodge near you. Learn more at greatwolf.com and strengthen the pack. That's greatwolf.com. This is just a rule in terms of swimming lessons. If you've got a kid who's resisting swimming lessons, do not say, it is really important that you learn to swim, because if you don't know how to swim and you fall in the water, you will drown, because all you're then doing is upping the ante of saying getting in the water is dangerous. You want to say, swimming is a skill that we should all have. It is fun to swim. You can do it with other kids. You're going to get invited to pool parties. We might go on vacations where they have lazy rivers or swimming pools. You might want to go swim in the ocean. Learning how to swim is a skill that all people should have and that you as my child are going to have, period.

Speaker 2:
[01:53] Welcome to Season 8 of Flusterclux With Lynn Lyons, where we talk about managing worry, anxiety and all the other emotions too.

Speaker 1:
[02:00] I'm Lynn Lyons. I'm an anxiety expert, author, speaker and mom. I've been a therapist for 35 years and I'm still in the trenches with families, helping them navigate daily struggles and big problems. Parenting can be a Flusterclux, but we tackle the serious stuff without being too serious.

Speaker 2:
[02:17] I'm Robin. I'm Lynn's sister-in-law and co-host, and I'm here to ask your questions.

Speaker 3:
[02:21] And I met the producer of Flusterclux.

Speaker 1:
[02:23] And my brother.

Speaker 2:
[02:24] And my husband.

Speaker 1:
[02:25] Anxiety is a family problem with a family solution.

Speaker 2:
[02:30] Hi, Lynn.

Speaker 1:
[02:31] Hi, Robin.

Speaker 2:
[02:32] How are you today?

Speaker 1:
[02:33] I'm pretty good. Can I tell you a funny thing?

Speaker 2:
[02:35] Sure.

Speaker 1:
[02:36] So you know how I work out that gym that I go to, that I've been going to for a long time?

Speaker 2:
[02:39] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[02:40] Somehow it came up during our workout, and it's just a few of us that work out early in the morning with our trainer, and it somehow came up like about being a teacher's pet and then bullying. And so I said, well, you guys all know that in fourth grade, I got a letter from my whole class that, and they just listed all the things that they hated about me, right? They sent it to me in the email. And the two women in the class were like, oh, that's so sad. And my friend Ross, who I've worked out for 20 years said, well, you know, if it was the whole class. He said he went home that day and he felt kind of bad, which is like, he never feels bad. So he said, the next time I saw him, he was like, I feel bad. I said, oh my gosh, no, I laughed so hard about that. I said, honestly, nobody had ever set forth that perspective before. That was a very interesting framing of the problem. Yeah. But the way he said it just totally deadpan. Well, if it was the whole class.

Speaker 2:
[03:41] That sounds like something Ed would say.

Speaker 1:
[03:43] I know. It was very Ed-ish. Yeah. Very good timing and just delivered in that dry way. That was super funny, but he could have a point. So how are you?

Speaker 2:
[03:52] Good.

Speaker 1:
[03:52] Good.

Speaker 2:
[03:52] We have two listener questions.

Speaker 1:
[03:54] All right.

Speaker 2:
[03:55] Then we're going to go over. One of them is very timely because as we're all starting to fantasize about summer, what is about swimming?

Speaker 1:
[04:01] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[04:02] No, it isn't really about swimming, right? But a lot of parents have the frustrating experience of getting their kids solid with swimming skills. We have another listener question as well, of a teenager who's got OCD and tends to panic. She's also got emetophobia. Parent has another interesting question on how much do we push our kids to really do their therapeutic exposure therapy when we can tell they're really struggling with it?

Speaker 1:
[04:27] Okay. Two good questions.

Speaker 2:
[04:29] All right. Let's start with swimming.

Speaker 1:
[04:32] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[04:33] Listener writes, due to the group, love the podcast. Any advice on supporting her son who had really bad experience at the pool when he was four? He was dunked while crying by a new instructor he didn't know. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1:
[04:48] Dunked while crying?

Speaker 2:
[04:49] By a new instructor. Yeah. I hope that instructor is schooled by now, long gone. Since then, he's been resistant to any form of swim instruction. And he'll get in the pool and play in the shallow in so he has some exposure, but will refuse or begins to cry when I bring up lessons or learning how to swim. And then he'll shut down and won't even talk about it. And I've tried validating the fear he has and how awful that experience was, which tends to make it worse. My talking about it is upsetting him. And I found a one-to-one instructor to try lessons again, but I'm afraid to pitch it to him. Any tips on how to frame this? And we tried two rounds of lessons after the incident, and both times he sat on the edge of the pool, refusing to even put his feet in. And any other helpful resources around picky eating. We saw a feeding specialist and did some OT, but my son was resistant to it the whole time, barely participated. And I've read about the space program, and I don't think my child has ARFID. We are identifying ways we have accommodated him and are trying to change that. So Lynn, let's just go over a couple of words in this question that might not be familiar to all the listeners.

Speaker 1:
[05:55] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[05:56] So one of them was ARFID.

Speaker 1:
[05:59] So ARFID is, and we actually did a podcast, Mindy and I did a podcast, what, like a month or two ago at this point? Yeah, just very recently where we talked about ARFID, and ARFID is a restrictive food intake disorder. It is a description of kids that are super picky eaters and who tend to eat very few foods. And I know in the podcast, actually, Mindy said it was six foods or less, and I've talked to her since then, and she was like, it is very limited foods. So these are kids that maybe will just eat chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese or apples and hot dogs. I mean, they really, really limit the foods that they eat. Oftentimes, it's put in the context of sensory issues. But one of the things that Mindy said on that podcast, and I highly recommend, mom, we'll get to your swimming question in a minute, but I highly recommend that you go back and listen to that RFID podcast. The way that Mindy described it is that it's an anxiety issue, an anxiety disorder that grabs on to food, which is a really, really good way of looking at it. The SPACE program, it is a program based on the research of a psychologist from Yale named Eli Leibowitz, and he's done great work in actually focusing on working with parents to not accommodate anxiety. So it's really a manualized program. There are a lot of therapists that go and get SPACE training and do the SPACE certification so that you can then do the SPACE program. Eli also has a book that he wrote about it, which is really helpful. So it's all about reducing family accommodation. And the premise of it is that you can't really force your kid to do anything. But oftentimes, what keeps the anxiety going is the parent's either inconsistent approach to managing the issues, the things that your child is anxious about, and the very natural but unfortunately counterproductive tendency to accommodate the anxiety in your child, which over time makes the problem worse. It's a very steady and supportive way to give parents the confidence to pull back their accommodations and really support their child stepping into discomfort. That's what the SPACE program is.

Speaker 2:
[08:30] It's also great that when the more recent SPACE program and this book came out, it really validated so much of what you and Reid wrote about in your book about the importance of working with the parents because we say even on the podcast, anxiety is a family problem with the family solution. I think a lot of people when they ask us about and they ask you how do they find someone, if someone has done the SPACE program training, they are more likely aligned with you than not.

Speaker 1:
[08:58] That is absolutely 100% correct. Yep. Because if you've done the SPACE program, then you buy into or you embrace the idea that you got to work with the parents. It's interesting. I mean, I just put something up on my Instagram a few weeks ago. It baffles me that so many therapists with anxious kids don't work with the parents. People still get pissed off at me. They're like, nope, that's not how that works.

Speaker 2:
[09:23] It is how it works.

Speaker 1:
[09:24] Yes. So if somebody has the SPACE training, that means that they have really good training and approaches to helping parents with their anxious child, which I 100 percent endorse.

Speaker 2:
[09:38] We'll take a break and we come back. Let's talk about how we're going to get this kid swimming this summer.

Speaker 1:
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Speaker 1:
[12:45] Okay, we're back.

Speaker 2:
[12:46] Okay, so let's get this little boy into swimming lessons. And this can come up in so many ways with other families, where the first time was a really bad experience, and now there is no interest or willingness to try again.

Speaker 1:
[13:00] Yes, and it comes up with a lot of things, not just swimming.

Speaker 2:
[13:04] Of course.

Speaker 1:
[13:04] But the reason that we want to talk about this issue with swimming is because I think we would all agree that teaching children to swim is a really, really important skill. And in fact, kind of non-negotiable, particularly if you're a family that's around water. Giving kids the gift of swim lessons, making sure that you know how to swim, is something that I just think like it's not up for debate. They got to know how to swim. And we're a family that's around water, and we live in New England and there's water everywhere. I would imagine if you live in the desert, it's less of an issue. But it's just such an important skill to have.

Speaker 2:
[13:41] Right, it's true. It's a safety thing, not teaching your kids squash or pickleball.

Speaker 1:
[13:47] It's a safety thing for sure. Also, it's just a pretty universally social thing. Having a child who doesn't know how to swim means that if there's a pool party, as they're going through their life in their kid years and their teenage years, not knowing how to swim sort of eliminates you from a lot of social activities that revolve around getting in a pool or going to the ocean or that kind of stuff. It's both a safety thing and a social thing.

Speaker 2:
[14:15] Who wants to miss out on lazy rivers, man?

Speaker 1:
[14:17] I know. Exactly. See, there's lazy rivers. This little guy, four years old, has a bad experience at the swimming pool. Now, what struck me about this, what I paid attention about when I read this is then they also say, and also he's a picky eater, he doesn't eat, so he might have arfid. This is a kid who gets overwhelmed, it sounds like pretty easily. This is a kid who temperamentally probably has a hard time when facing new things or when things go a little south. It seems that that's what we have here in this little boy's temperament.

Speaker 2:
[14:54] His anxiety makes him extremely rigid.

Speaker 1:
[14:57] Correct, yep. There's two things we really, really want to pay attention to. The way the mom talks about this or the parents talk about this is really, really important. She did mention in this question that she doesn't even want to talk about it or when she brings it up, he gets really upset. Right now, if it is described, framed, repeated as a trauma, and I'm not saying it wasn't traumatic for this little guy, but if it's framed as a trauma, that means that everybody's going to approach it with hesitancy.

Speaker 2:
[15:32] And delicacy.

Speaker 1:
[15:33] And delicacy, right? It's like they're going to be walking on those eggshells and sort of like, this was really hard for him, it was really traumatic, we don't want him to be traumatized again at the pool. And I think it's really, really important that the mom makes sure that her facial expression, her tone of voice, everything about talking about swimming lessons is super matter of fact. And look, it's really important that you learn how to swim. So we're going to go to swim lessons so that you can learn the skill of swimming. And I would even say, but again, following the rule of talk 85 percent less. Now, we don't know how long ago this happened, but it sounds like it was some years ago based on the question. And you can even say, you know, when you were four, you had that really lousy experience at swim lessons. It was really, oh, it was a bummer, right? I wouldn't say, no, you remember when you had that traumatic experience at the swimming pool. You just say you had that really lousy experience when you were little. Now you're older and you've learned how to handle things. And one of the things about learning something new, be it swimming or riding a bike or doing your time stables, is that it feels uncomfortable at the beginning. Now we are going to go to swim lessons. And I know that you get in the water and you have fun playing in the water. We're going to bump up your skills. And it's probably going to feel a little uncomfortable. And it might even feel a little weird, might even feel a little nervous. That's okay because you're learning a new skill. And then I would say, the thing about learning to swim is that it is a really important skill that everybody have. So I'm sorry, but it's not up for debate. We're not going to decide whether or not you learn to swim. We're going to figure out how you're going to learn to swim. So we're going to do some lessons. We've hired a person, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You're not asking him permission for whether or not he learns to swim. You're going to differentiate between what happened in years past or what happened at that other pool. That was unfortunate. That was a bummer. But we are going to learn to swim. We are going to go to the swim lessons. We're going to hire somebody who's really good at teaching kids how to swim, and we're going to take it step by step because you're going to learn how to swim. Now, say she says this to him and he freaks out, I'm not going, I'm not doing it, I'm not blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You say, just very calmly, you say, this isn't something that you're choosing to do, this is something that is really important for you to learn how to do. Now, here's the thing you have to be careful of. Do not say to any child, this is just a rule in terms of swimming lessons, if you've got a kid who's resisting swimming lessons, do not say, it is really important that you learn to swim because if you don't know how to swim and you fall in the water, you will drown. And I don't want you to not know how to swim because it is very, very dangerous to go into the water and not know how to swim. Do you understand me? Because all you're then doing is upping the ante of saying getting in the water is dangerous, which is not what you ought to say to a kid who says it to get in the water. You want to say, swimming is a skill that we should all have, it is fun to swim, you can do it with other kids, you're gonna get invited to pool parties, we might go on vacations where they have lazy rivers or swimming pools, you might want to go swim in the ocean. Learning how to swim is a skill that all people should have, and that you as my child are going to have, period.

Speaker 2:
[19:19] That sounds so different than the mom I observed. I've referenced this on the podcast before because it was probably the most, oh my gosh moment. I'm in like toddler swimming lessons with my daughter, who's maybe 18 months or two years old. The lady next to me, her son, escapes from her arms and tries to swim to the wall of the pool. She grabs him and says, don't you ever do that. You're going to drown and end up dead like your uncle Harold. This was like before we did the podcast, and I didn't know anything, but I was like, damn, OK. OK, that's laying it on a little thick, and that is just not going to end well.

Speaker 1:
[20:01] That's not going to end well. That's the thing, is that when we're trying to teach kids things that truly are for their own good, that truly are about safety, you have to be really careful that you don't say the reason we're learning this is so that you don't drown like Uncle Harold, or you have to wear your helmet when you ride your bike, because if you fall off your bike without your helmet, your head's going to crack open and you're going to fracture your skull like your cousin Tommy. We have to make sure that we talk about building the skills without using the scare the bejesus out of you in order to get you to do the thing. Some parents will say to me, look, my kid is so stubborn that the only way I get him to do things is by telling him all the bad things that could happen if he doesn't do the thing. I'm like, well, then you don't have a temperamentally anxious kid. Maybe you have a kid that you need to rein him in a little bit because he's so risk-taking. We want kids to learn the things that they need to learn, stay away from the danger talk, stay away from the safety talk, and just talk about skills. Then you're going to find somebody who knows how to teach kids how to swim, who's going to make it playful, who's going to take it a step at a time, who isn't going to force them to do things and shove them under the water when they're not ready. There's a big difference between somebody who's a skilled swim instructor and somebody who's not, just like there's a big difference between somebody who's a skilled ski instructor or a skilled nursery school teacher. So find somebody that's skilled, get some recommendations for other parents and go to the swimming lesson. If it takes a few sessions for them to warm up and they have to put their feet in the pool and all that stuff, any swim instructor that's worth their weight knows that there are some kids that take longer to acclimate, and there are some kids who you just take right into the water and they think it's great. My son just walked into the pool one time when he was a toddler, fully clothed. We got to the town pool and Concord has a lot of great pools to bring kids to, and he was probably two, and he just walked right in, just walked off the deep end in all his clothes, just walked into the water, not scared at all, scared me.

Speaker 2:
[22:10] I know we're not supposed to talk about the content, meaning this isn't really a swimming topic because this is really about the anxiety that the swim experience started and how do you work with kids. But here is a question that I have. So say this happened to one of my kids at four. Part of me is also like, you know what, this happened, let's say this happened in June. It was not a good experience. Is there any validity to, you and I both agree that a kid needs to learn to swim. I'm not disputing that, of course. But sometimes there's like a time and place that's going to make that a lot easier. Wouldn't you like get them a good set of swimmies, like whatever these things were called that are so great, right? They're like they're wearing their like inflatable device. Let them have fun in the water this summer and try again.

Speaker 1:
[22:56] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[22:57] Wouldn't trying to push this too quickly after a bad experience just backfire? Don't you have to give the kid, if you can, a little more time to have positive experiences in the water to want to try again?

Speaker 1:
[23:10] Yeah, but you want them to have positive experiences pretty quickly and so very soon after that, so say that happened to the four-year-old, I may not push the swimming lessons, although there is something to be said for getting back on the horse.

Speaker 2:
[23:25] Right. I know. That's why I asked, is it's not so black and white?

Speaker 1:
[23:29] It's not so black and white, but you want them to have positive experiences in the pool. The thing that happens is that if a long period of time passes and that story is retold and it becomes a part of this kid's identity that, oh, remember the time when you were four and you went to that swimming lesson, then that becomes a pattern. When we look at anxious temperaments, when we look at people that tend to lean anxious, what they do is they take a bad experience that happens and then they generalize it or globalize it and that becomes the way it is. Say you've got a kid who's learning to ride a bike and they fall and they skin their knee, don't get back on the bike, they don't try it again, they don't have another experience, then the story, the narrative of the bad, fill in the blank experience becomes a part of the way you talk about it. So, well, remember the time I fell off the bike and, or remember the time he went to the swim lesson and. This happens with school. So, if you look at school avoidance, oftentimes if a child has a bad experience, maybe they threw up at school and they were embarrassed or they went to school and they went to the bathroom and they couldn't find their classroom when they came back. And then there is this narrative that starts to happen about the traumatic experience that happened. And the story, memory is interesting, right? Every time you tell a story, every time you have a memory, you sort of lay down another layer about it. And it really is important when something bad happens, that you as a parent pay attention to whether or not you're expanding the narrative into a place where it becomes globalized and permanent, which are two things we don't want to have happen. So we went to that pool and you choked on the water and then you were really scared to go back in the water. And so what we're gonna do is we're gonna have to go back in the water because we want your brain and your body to learn that even after something scary happens, we can learn how to do it in a way that feels good. The way the human brain works is that it grabs on to something that was scary or traumatic and then it hangs on to it. That's what the amygdala does. It has a strong emotional memory. So sometimes the sooner that you can overlay with positive experiences, the better.

Speaker 2:
[25:58] I remember something, maybe I was four, but I would say I was probably three. We had neighbors, Ruth and Pete, and Pete, to teach me. They had a pool in their backyard. Pete just pushed me into the deep end.

Speaker 1:
[26:11] Oh, Pete.

Speaker 2:
[26:12] Yeah. So that was kind of like a more like the Gen Xers out there, like, yeah, I hear you. Right. Because that's not really done anymore. I wasn't having it. That was not cool. I don't actually remember that much about it. But my mom was smart, but by luck about this. When she told the story, it was really all about Pete, but it wasn't about the swimming. You don't have to swim at Pete's pool again until you're a master swimmer. And wasn't that a dumb thing Pete did and you didn't like it?

Speaker 1:
[26:45] Yes. And good for your mom. And the thing that she did, and the thing that you're describing is she made that bad experience specific to Pete, and not to global about swimming.

Speaker 2:
[27:04] Not to global about swimming, but the funny thing is, so here's where it became the funny story. Ever there was a party and there was Pete, and I would see him years later.

Speaker 1:
[27:13] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[27:14] I would be like a dog going, grrr. Like it's stuck with me.

Speaker 1:
[27:19] Would you actually do that? Would you go grrr?

Speaker 2:
[27:22] I would like just look at him. Everyone would start laughing, oh, you don't like Pete. And I just like stare at him with my eight-year-old eyes. I don't trust Pete.

Speaker 1:
[27:32] Yeah. Well, maybe you shouldn't trust Pete.

Speaker 2:
[27:34] So it did globalize, but fortunately, it was so much better to globalize Pete than globalize swimming.

Speaker 1:
[27:40] One of the things when we're talking about trauma, and there's a lot of talk about trauma these days. I just saw somebody on Instagram, a therapist on Instagram saying, you're all going to hate that I say this, but not everything is trauma. But we talk about trauma a lot. We use the word trauma, trauma, trauma, trauma, trauma. If you have a bad thing that happens to you, one of the things that's really, really critical to you being able to move forward, if you've got, you know, this boy had this experience getting dunked, Pete pushed you in the pool, is the ability to differentiate between then and now. And that's the opposite of globalizing, and that's the opposite of defining your future responses based on a bad experience. You know, I use the example of being afraid of dogs all the time, so somebody gets bit by a dog, and then of course, they're going to be hesitant to go around dogs. But what happens is then you don't get the opportunity to differentiate between a friendly dog and a not friendly dog. And also, the reality of it is that bad things happen sometimes. And how do we recover from those bad things in a way that allows us to build our skills, to recognize what went wrong, to maybe recognize that we were a little kid and now we're a big kid? When a traumatic thing happens, when a scary thing happens, the thing we don't want our kids to do and we don't want to do as parents is to globalize that thing across a range of experiences. You know, if you were taking the school bus and there were some mean kids in the back that were being mean to you, well, then we don't want all school buses to be bad, nor do we want all kids that sit in the back of the bus to be bad, nor do we want all kids that are older to be bad. We want kids to learn how to tell the difference. And that's what we have to make sure that this mom, if this child, it sounds like, has sort of globalized a little bit that swimming is dangerous. What your mom did is your mom made like pizza jerk for pushing you into the pool. And this swimming instructor didn't know what he was doing and he dunked this kid. And I don't even know if it was accidental or intentional, but we want to be more specific with it rather than more general or global. And this mom can be very clear and very consistent that we're going to go learn to swim. And however she can differentiate between then and now is going to be helpful to her son.

Speaker 2:
[30:17] What do you think if the mom were to say to the son, we have found an instructor for you and we have explained that no dunking is allowed and you don't like it?

Speaker 1:
[30:26] Yeah, totally fine. There's going to be no dunking. To even say, you know, to get dunked when you're a kid, when you're learning to swim, that's scary. And I don't think that instructor should have done that. That was a scary thing for you, wasn't it? We're going to learn to swim and we're going to learn to swim without dunking. Yep, just be very clear about that. But it's not up for negotiation. I want this mom to be not so scared of bringing her child to swimming lessons because she's afraid that she's going to upset her child. You've got to be able to tolerate your child's distress. You've got to be that steady, consistent, firm, but warm and loving parent that says, this is really important. I really want you to be able to swim. And so we're going to learn and we're going to have you learn from people who are good teachers. We're going to take it a step at a time. I know you can do it. Even though you're nervous, I know you can do it. That's the approach that I would take. 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Speaker 2:
[36:30] We were talking about swimming in this listener question because I think we all agree that swimming is a safety skill.

Speaker 1:
[36:36] I'm going to call it a life skill.

Speaker 2:
[36:38] A life skill, right? So there are other things though that now that we're talking about summer and activities and parents are making decisions with or without their kids on what to do. We just sort of review that a little bit. I have a couple of questions. Well, the first question that I have, it's a big question.

Speaker 1:
[36:56] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[36:57] I feel like in the past, the kind of parenting advice you have said is parents who are always trying to make their kids aficionados, you're not so into that.

Speaker 1:
[37:06] I'm not. I find it annoying. Well, I'll tell you why I find it annoying, right?

Speaker 2:
[37:13] Tell us why.

Speaker 1:
[37:14] Like having sat on the sidelines of many of these games and things like that, I feel like the parents that are way into it, I just want to turn to them and say like, get over yourself. He's 11. There are certain kids in our town that you know are kind of going to be a star. They're very few and far between. The rest of us, like some of our kids were good. Some of our kids were better. Some of our kids were pretty athletic. But the parents that are just so into it, I just feel like it's this like, not to use an overused word at this point, but I feel like they're trying to just fill up some sort of narcissistic need and having their kid be good at something. Like just get over yourself. Your kid's not going to the NHL. Your kid's not going to play in the NFL. We would have already known that by now. By the time they're 12, we can tell. So just chill.

Speaker 2:
[37:59] Okay. So you're saying to chill. Let me ask you this. From the perspective that you have, having treated so many families, is it fair to say there's a big range though, of all the clients and families you see, some families might be the really type A pushing, and then isn't there the other extreme, the really hardcore avoiders?

Speaker 1:
[38:22] Yeah, okay, so there's the families where they are absolutely convinced that they need to spend an extraordinary amount of time and money and energy creating the next star. There's one family I'm thinking about, where their kid could be the next star, but they've got such a good attitude about it. They spend a lot of time and energy getting him to where he needs to be, but he's legit pretty awesome. But most families, it's like they're just so into it, and it's like, oh, come on. It becomes out of balance. Then there are the families where there are activities, and they're into it, and the kids really love it, and it's fun, and it becomes part of the family life. Like for us, when I was growing up, I loved playing tennis, and I would go and play tennis, and my parents would take me to my tennis lessons and tennis tournaments. We also had courses. My sister is still an equestrian, and we loved that. It was fun. I played basketball, like I did a lot of different sports. I, as a kid, and I know my sister, we were just into it, and it was kind of a family activity, and it was totally cool. It's the way that I see my family with little league and baseball. Neither of my kids were going to be a star. My husband was a little league coach. It was fun. I think that's the majority of experience that families have and that they should have. Then there are the families where stepping into any new activity or trying something just becomes so overwhelming. And they worry so much about how it's going to go and whether or not they have the right equipment and is their kid going to be able to do it and do they have the right coaches. And so the experience of enjoying this enjoyable activity just becomes this anxiety-fueled situation where they're just so nervous and worried about the activity that it's not so fun. Those are kind of the three main categories that I see families in, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[40:23] But I would say that one of the things that I've so valued from the podcast and learning from you, and really aligning our parenting compass to emotional development, even over academic development, even though you and I are definitely into the academic stuff, we still really prioritize emotional learning. I think that continuing to choose experiences that are supporting emotional development are really ultimately those skills that are going to pay off in life later.

Speaker 1:
[40:54] Right.

Speaker 2:
[40:55] Not being really awesome at Russian math lessons in middle school.

Speaker 1:
[41:00] Right.

Speaker 2:
[41:00] And I think that it's important to share with your kids that truth, too, so that they get it.

Speaker 1:
[41:07] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[41:08] Part-time jobs, volunteering, all of those things have such a more profound impact on the development of life skills than these activities. So again, as we're talking about summer and what to do, it's like a big conversation to have. It's perfectly great to help them continue to build proficiency in a skill of an art or a sport. It's also okay to just make them awesome people.

Speaker 1:
[41:34] Yeah. And this is a content versus process discussion too, right? So the content of what you do, the specifics of the activity that you participate in, I think this is the point you're making, which I agree with 100 percent, less important than the process of being involved in an activity. So if I think about me playing tennis, I wasn't going to become a pro tennis player. But when I think about all the experiences that I had on the tennis court, including going on my first date with my mixed doubles partner to see Urban Cowboy, which is just like, we were talking about trauma, a traumatic experience for me this first date. But so important, like I don't think about, oh, it was so important that I practiced my backhand. But I do think about all the things that I learned emotionally and socially, while participating in this event. So the tennis or the trombone or the soccer or the whatever, those are all arenas, those are all opportunities to develop what you're saying, these emotional skills and these social skills too. Because that's what really a lot of our early experiences are about. I think parents get too invested in the outcome, rather than in the process. The other thing I think about too, is when your kid is learning an instrument. Now, they may find an instrument that they love, but what if they play the piano and then they want to learn the guitar, and then somebody gives them a trombone? I think Ed learned to play a bunch of different instruments, didn't he?

Speaker 2:
[43:13] Same. I hopped around a lot.

Speaker 1:
[43:15] Yeah. I hopped around a little bit. I settled on the trumpet, but I learned how to play the piano. I took guitar lessons. I played the trumpet. So when we think about summer activities, it really is to step back and think, what are we going to learn from participating in this activity? What are the bigger skills, emotional and social, that we're learning, that are more important than the specifics? Because not many of us are going to take those summer activities and become virtuosos in them.

Speaker 2:
[43:48] Okay. Please tell me what the trauma was from your Urban Cowboy date.

Speaker 1:
[43:54] So I was going into 10th grade and Steven Gallo was going into 9th grade and we were buddies. And so then he started getting a little weird. I remember we walked up to the net after a match to shake hands like you do, and he put his arm around me. Oh my God, cringe. It was just so awful. And then he asked me to go to the movies with him. Then his mom picked us up and drove us home. And the way our house was, she drove up to the driveway, to the back door. He got out of the car to walk me to the back door. She backed out of the driveway so that she couldn't see us anymore. At which point he planted a kiss on me. And I didn't have any experience in this regard. It was so awkward. I walked into the door. I was crying before the date, by the way. I walked into the door, burst into tears. And my mom said, how was your date? And I was like, it was terrible. And she said, Linnie, you don't have to marry him. Which was exactly true. I did not have to marry him. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[45:00] What would you tell yourself now, at whatever age you are now, which I can't do the math really fast in my head, would you have just said like you shouldn't have gone on that date? You just want to be friends?

Speaker 1:
[45:11] Oh, you mean what should I have said to him then?

Speaker 2:
[45:13] Yeah, because there's a lot of tears that I'm trying to figure out the source of tears. You were uncomfortable. You were awkward.

Speaker 1:
[45:20] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[45:21] You didn't really want to go.

Speaker 1:
[45:22] No, I didn't want to go. I wanted to be friends with him, but I didn't want to hurt his feelings. And I didn't know how to say, oh, can we just be friends and keep playing tennis together? And then after the date, then I had to tell him that because it was clear based on all the crying. It was clear.

Speaker 2:
[45:40] The question I asked Lynn before we even start recording today was like, hey, have you watched Love On The Spectrum Season 4 yet?

Speaker 1:
[45:48] I should have been on it. You know what? No, no.

Speaker 2:
[45:52] What I love that show and you love that show because it's all about learning the social skills of dating and communication and everything. They always say like, I think we should just be friends.

Speaker 1:
[46:02] Yeah. I know at the end. I know they say like, well, would you like to, I think we should just be friends. I know. It was all just the learning curve. I was like a little nerdy girl and I think I got along with the boys because I was kind of like the boys. But yeah, so I kissed him. It was terrible. Then the next person I kissed was my husband and then we got married. No, I'm just kidding. There were a few more in between. That was-

Speaker 3:
[46:26] You're not kidding.

Speaker 1:
[46:31] Thanks for listening. If you found this podcast helpful, please give us a five-star review on Apple Podcast. It helps other people find this information.

Speaker 2:
[46:40] If you'd like to dig deeper on any of these topics, we have specialized playlists on our Spotify profile, and the link is in the show notes. Topics like teens, depression, and OCD. Bye, Lynn.

Speaker 1:
[46:50] Bye, Robin.

Speaker 5:
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