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greetings hello good day wherever you are in the world thank you for joining true Hope cast the official podcast for

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True hope Canada true hope car takes a deep dive into mental Health's many psychological and physiological aspects

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this is the show for you if you're looking for motivation inspiration knowledge and solutions and that really

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is what we're all about here at true hope Canada true hope Canada is a mind and body based supplement company that

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is dedicated first and foremost to promoting brain and body Health through non-invasive nutritional means for more

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information about it's about us you can visit truecotecanada.com today I welcome Lindsay Miller to the podcast now

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Lindsay Miller hosts the stress Nanny podcast and is the enthusiastic fan of thestressnanny.com her goal at the

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stress nannies to give parents and kids simple ways to communicate their needs during everyday moments and in stressful

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situations like family conflict divorce illness infertility loss Lindsay

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believes that mindful communication is an essential skill for modern families today we're going to be discussing

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mindfulness tools to help you and your kids worry less and play more enjoy the show alright Lindsay welcome to True

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hope cost thanks for being here appreciate your time how are you what is going well thank you thanks so much for

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having me Simon I'm so excited to be here I am Lindsay and I host the stress Nanny podcast and the stress Nanny

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website and I coach kids in mindfulness and what's going well right now is so many people in the world are choosing

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mindfulness as an intervention for kids and it's so encouraging because mindfulness is a simple intervention

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that has a big impact wonderful first of all I've got to know what is a stress Nanny it's a good

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question so a stress nanny is someone who helps you or family keep an eye on stress levels just like a regular Nanny

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helps you keep an eye on your kids and get them where they need to be a stress Nanny helps you keep an eye on development and helps your kids get

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where they need to be developmentally without letting stress derail them so anytime families have things come up

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they're stressful I provide them with mindfulness based and research-based tools to move through that stress in a

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way that honors development and helps families and kids Thrive do you do that like in person do you go to people's

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homes or is this on online thing you know it's a good question I have worked in in families homes but mostly it's

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virtual so I work with kids on Zoom I meet with them for 30 minutes once a week and we connect around fun

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activities and stories that are mindfulness related what age are these kids

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have kids anywhere from seven to six sixteen that I work with but

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there are so many things parents can do for a younger age range and an older age range but the kids that I work with yeah

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they're generally elementary middle and early high schoolers do you also work with like parents of like young kids

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because obviously you know there's no there's a certain young age group where it'd be quite difficult for them to sit

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down on a zoom call and have the communication to be able to you know talk and listen Etc a three-year-old boy for example

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like my son you know I think he you know he'd ask you the same question a million times he'd love it but you know I think

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it would be super super beneficial in regards to the stress piece but uh like do you work with the parents for those

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younger kids

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adults so a lot of times the parents who are interested in implementing mindfulness-based interventions for

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younger kids will come to my mindfulness and meditation class for adults we'll talk through and problem solve there but

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yeah I also do individual coaching with adults to help them troubleshoot problem solve mostly at that age what it looks

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like is helping them understand the ways that sensory development promote mindfulness and a sense of presence for

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kids and a lot of times with little kids there are already so many things that they're doing where they're fully

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present and we interrupt them so sometimes with parents of younger kids it's a function of helping them

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recognize when their child is already being Mindful and encouraging them to like not interrupt

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yeah that that non-interruption pieces is is interesting especially for parents

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us listening to um a Jordan Peterson podcast a couple of days actually ago actually and he's

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talking about how you know most people having kids like later on in their lives now when they're in their 30s where they

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might have a bit more money more resources more time to spend with the Kids attempting to fill their schedules

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of stuff to do and therefore not really allowing them to like go and play and

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how did he put it he's like and then there's younger parents like in their 20s they're still kind of like very much

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rooted in their teenage behavioral habits so they're you know not quite so not honestly not quite so adult but they

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basically aren't really adults yet I suppose um you could argue the other way I suppose but and he's saying that those

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like younger parents are more like helpfully neglectful

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in regards to this so they want to continue doing all the things that they've been doing in their in their

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like you know they've only just had their like adult Independence so they want to continue doing all those things so they're like a little bit more

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neglectful in a very helpful Way for their kids so that the kids learn to like play on their own and do these

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other things so that must be an interesting part of like the the kids that you work with and the parents and

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the experiences that they've had growing up already yeah yeah it definitely is and there are some there are some kids

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who were exposed to mindfulness you know when they were little but most of the time people who are parenting right now mindfulness is a novel concept to them

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and they're not as familiar with it but you're totally correct in that there are big generational

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um differences in the way we interact with our kids and in the knowledge we have around mindfulness and what is and

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isn't supportive to development um and it's really interesting to try to

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communicate and like work with all the different different types of parents we

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that are out there right because we're all different in our own way when it comes to Parenting but mindfulness is something we can all Implement in our

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own you know in our own families in our own way in a way that works for us and it's one of the reasons I think it's such a fantastic intervention and a

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place family should kind of start when they're looking for like something to help them manage stress like start with

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mindfulness because it is so flexible it can look so many different ways in family life and it's super easy to

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implement do you think that we just as a culture like obviously we have our biological

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evolution which works a lot slower than our cultural evolution do you think we've just forgotten how to

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be mindful or be forgotten the practices that allow us to be a bit more present and aware because I imagine that there

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was a period in human history where we probably might not have needed a mindful coach because it was much more of like

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an everyday normal biological thing yeah yeah I think that

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the pace of modern living definitely is something that invites us to kind of

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recall some of those earlier relaxation skills that we have right as part of our DNA like there was a time when

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relaxation was something we continually practiced and was built in if we were in you know a more privileged sector of

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society that was the case for us but um the pace of life has gotten to the point

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where it's kind of like our brains aren't sure what to do there's so much information coming in and our brains our

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brains are like you said catching up from an evolutionary perspective to process this much information and I

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think sometimes the result is that they feel like we need to be like go go going you know like getting all the info all the time I'm doing something all the

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time and we're it's learning to filter that so I feel like in some ways mindfulness is a skill that it is

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crucial for common living no matter what because of the sheer quantity of information that's coming our way we have to have a filter like we have to be

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able to sift through the thoughts in our brain and choose the ones to act on instead of just like coming with you

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know go in with whatever thought makes its way to the front so in that way it's a skill that is modern but in other ways

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in terms of just being present and relaxing and being more meditative or just having a lot of calming influences

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in our day I think there are definitely claims you could make that that's something we've maybe forgotten or

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that's gotten Left Behind as Society has evolved so quickly over the last you know 20 years

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certainly and I'm sure most people agree with me here that you know most adults

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parents are you know quite stressed out in regards to not just like the the the standard things that we need to take

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care of if like you know working and money and bills and stuff like that but we obviously have the constant external

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stimuli coming in from all over the place that in so many cases we can't control a lot of it's quite addicting so

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it can be very hard to even control the management of those things but what about kids are kids like do you think

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kids are more stressed out now and what's the primary root of that

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I'm going to stop at that because I had about four questions so I'll stop there yeah yeah so I I think you're right that

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there's again so much information and I think sometimes with kids what we're

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seeing we're seeing like overwhelm I'm seeing a lot of emotional overwhelm and so because there's so many things flying

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at us all the time our systems are running at like such a high Pace that it

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we're we're hitting overwhelm frequently right and we don't know kids don't know what to do with like all the emotional

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data that's getting kicked up right like social referencing especially with teenagers like the amount of social

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referencing they're able to do now versus kind of what we did when I was a kid it's massive right like what they're

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aware of what they have to filter and process and so for for teenagers I would say the biggest stress is being able to

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filter out what's important to them and then being able to connect in

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meaningful ways so being able to kind of monitor the the activities that are available to them and then zero in on

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the ones that are important for them to be a part of and then focus on the ways

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those are meaningful so that they can kind of ground in themselves right and they're not kind of Awash in all the

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things they're missing out on or all the things they could be doing that aren't doing or all the things they aren't doing well enough like they're grounded

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in the things that are important to them and then for little kids yeah I think the the primary stressor that comes with

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emotion is in the way that we talk about it like emotion itself is not a problem right we've had emotion for ages but if

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we can learn to think of emotion as information and teach kids that it's information we can teach them to be

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problem solvers and know what to do with it right but a lot of times what happens is we as parents we weren't taught that

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emotion was information we were punished for emotion you know it was kind of just something that was a hazard or nuisance

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as part of our day and we didn't use it as information and so for kids what's stressful is that they're living in a

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time in a place where emotion is high like we are especially a pandemic right like post-pandemic living everyone's

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running with pretty high emotion if we if they're not literate in Emotion they're drowning in it and as parents

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it's really hard because we if we haven't been taught the skills we're trying to like scurry and learn how to

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manage emotion and then teach our kids while we're trying to do it simultaneously and they're just a lot of kids that are kind of falling through

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the cracks there because they don't have someone kind of guiding them in how to read the emotion and work with it

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it must be so difficult for teenagers to I mean without support or working with

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someone like you to actually recognize what is important to them as like an

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individual rather than oh my gosh like what's what do I have to focus on what's important for me to fit into these

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Social Circles as so viciously um they're very important obviously for for

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a teenager yeah because of the like the the school environment and peers and

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social groups and sports and all those things like this I I I'd hate to be a teenager today I'd hate it but like how

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do you how do you go about helping them recognize what's important to their life I want to say true authentic self rather

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than the personalities and identities that they feel they need to um fit into

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in order to like you know guide themselves through society and keep basically other people happy rather than

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really focusing on their own happiness yeah that's such a good question and I you you nailed it when you said that it

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is important to recognize that social referencing is the thing that they do at that age right learning to connect socially it's a it's the developmental

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stage that they're moving through so we're not fighting it as much as we're working with it and saying like Okay in

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this setting if connected with other people is important to you let's make sure the people you're connecting with are the people you want to be around who

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are the types of people you want to be around who are the types of people who make you feel capable who make you feel

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confident you know it's building self-awareness mostly around like how they feel in certain settings and does

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that feel is that the kind of feeling you want to have you know like do you feel will one of the activities that we

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do is like a candle activity and I think it was brene brown and she talks about like be around people who fan your flame

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and don't blow it out right and so do you feel creative do you feel open do you feel adventurous like is the part of

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your brain that's ready for life turned on when you're around these people or do you feel small do you feel like you want

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to you know kind of cower do you feel hesitant and some kids they're just going to be a little bit more quiet right and it's going to be harder for

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them to kind of put themselves out there but even with those kids they usually have a sensitivity where they can

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recognize like I don't feel comfortable in this situation but maybe they're there because their friend is there and

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wanted them to be there or they think they should be in this club or they you know and so I think it's really about helping them find the places they can

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Thrive because then when they make those connections the connections are meaningful they're based on values that

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that child wants to perpetuate in their lives versus feeling pulled apart because they're in a situation where the

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values don't match what they're trying to be yeah that makes total sense obviously this is the relationships that you

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um create be that with that peers or teachers or even with your family

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members so important and valuable to recognize yeah what is of value I think

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a lot of adults seriously struggle with that and they don't ever really get out of the patterns of their like Teenage High School

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nurse when they're you know trying to you know just trying to get on with life

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and you know kind of make other people happy rather than recognizing like what's kind of like true to them and are they you

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know in circles of individuals that you know Enlighten them and motivate them and support them and care for them

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rather than just trying to like satisfy this role that we believe we need to to

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to facilitate super interesting do you have any examples of where like you're working with

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um you're working with kids and they end up really teaching and teaching their

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parents about like how not just like how the kid is experiencing like their

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stress or how they want to deal with it but like opening the parents eyes up to this whole this whole process of

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um you know using you know sensory development and all these other like tools to be able to

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to develop with that that kind of mindfulness in the home yeah yeah that's

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another good question so one of the things that I tried to do uh with the kids that I work with is make them the

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mindfulness expert in their home so we gear the activities toward being family

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friendly something they could share with their family or talk about with their family so one example that I can share

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is the empathy flashlight so I have these little finger lights um and I'll send kids a package and

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we'll have activities based on these small act you know we'll do something on the call based on the things I send in

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the package so this activity is called the empathy flashlight and first they Shine the Light on themselves to see

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what's going on with themselves so like what am I feeling right now what's going on with me then they Shine the Light

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outside of them like what relational things are going on right now what's happening in my home like the environment that I'm in or school and

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then make a choice on purpose from there so what's going on inside of me what's going on outside of me make a choice on purpose so in Family Life what that it's

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been interesting because kids can use that empathy flashlight example and they'll they'll be like I think you need

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to get your empathy flashlight out or you know they can hand the parent the empathy flashlight and say like can you

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just listen to me right now because sometimes as parents this can be easy for us to kind of gloss over kids worries or you know make it seem like

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it's small in comparison to what we're worried about but for kids these worries are a big deal you know and if they're

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feeling frustrated or angry or upset then it's a opportunity for them to hand over the flashlight and ask the parent

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like please have empathy for me right now like shine this on me let's focus on what I'm talking about so that's one

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that's fun and that kids have used in family settings to kind of just perpetuate this culture of mindfulness

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where we we take seriously what other people are expressing and communicating we don't judge it we're neutral with it

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and gentle with it and then we make a choice on purpose given everyone's different perspectives and needs

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um so in family life that's really fun because a lot of times parents they

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resonate with that too right like adults having an empathy flashlight sometimes we get burned out we need to turn our empathy flashlight off for a while you

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know and we need to just um have a minute where we we don't have it on and we're not constantly worrying about other people so mom's moms will

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really connect with that one and be like Oh I'm on empathy flashlight or not right now I need a break

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yeah and it's just you know like we're talking about like young humans that are

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having to deal with huge big emotional states and like you know I'm I'm 38 so I have 38 years of experience with

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happiness with anger with Rage with you know judgment you know like all of these

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very very powerful things that can change our biochemistry instantaneously

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um I have a bit you know I have quite a lot of experience with those things and about the three young

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human being let's just like basically just running on frequency and energy anyway to experience those things and

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not have the um the tools to be able to like recognize understand and digest

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those things like without that support so so challenging and I love the I love

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that you said you want the what did you say you wanted the the children to become like the mindfulness expert in

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the house like I just well I all I hear when you say that is like responsibility and I think that's so unbelievably

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valuable and important for you know at any age but especially like it seems like kids are able to actually start

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taking um responsibility within within the household is that something that you you

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attempt to um instill in in this program yeah I

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definitely do um because a lot of times the kids that find me tend to be or the families that family they'll have a child who tends to

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be a bit more sensitive so like we we're just talking about how emotions are running High anyway for any child

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anywhere but for kids who tend to be more sensitive it's like turning up the volume you know times nine right and the

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emotions are just like flying through them and they're feeling all of it all the things you're feeling are coming to

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them all the things you know in the world or kind of finding them and they're just like velcro for anything

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that's any emotion you know and so for those kids a lot of times emotion is something they struggle with because

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they're easily overwhelmed they usually have meltdowns and it's something that emotion is a feels like a weakness and a

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vulnerability and one of my goals whenever I'm working with kids is to help them transform those weaknesses or

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perceived weaknesses into strengths so we talk about that we talk about how what's the flip side of this sensitivity

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look like for you it means you're extremely compassionate it means you really know your body it means you can

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connect with other people with ease so let's harness the good things about being sensitive give the strength about

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being sensitive and let's focus on those and use mindfulness to help us move through the parts that make you extra

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vulnerable and so we we openly have conversations around that so that they feel like this isn't something that's

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wrong with me right and I think a lot of times in mental health we've given kids this picture that if you struggle with

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emotions something's wrong with you if you aren't you know if if you get angry all the time something's wrong with you

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and it's really just a matter of like you said not knowing how to manage that much emotion and so if we can say hey

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this is actually a strength you having these qualities means this this and this we're going to focus on harnessing those

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strengths because those are important and you need those in your life and as a world we need you to show up with those

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you know like those are going to be things that are going to help us innovate they're going to create more compassionate solutions that you know in

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workplaces they're going to create more connections and friendships like those are qualities we need as a people so

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let's not let them get buried under like just this overwhelming emotion that actually just comes with them so because

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emotion comes with let's figure out how to manage that so that these qualities can be what shines and kids resonate

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with that because they don't want to feel overwhelmed and they don't want to feel weak and they don't want to feel like something's wrong with them so if

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we can help them to reframe it and see that this is actually just a byproduct of you having these other strengths then

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we can help them leverage mindfulness in a way that lets the strength shine yeah that's just awesome I love that

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everything that you're saying right now so so cool do you find that a lot of parents

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um struggle to find the time to work on these things like like my wife and I have decided that we're going to I have

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a one and a one and a half and a three-year-old so I'm like in it it's hardcore it's like serious I've just got

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these two beautiful small emotional agenda benefit people

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right and it's hard it's difficult because I've obviously got my we've got our own stuff going on and I really want

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to make sure that you know I'm taking care of myself as an individual I'm taking care of my marriage but I'm also trying to be a parent and I've got these

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hats and we made this decision we're going to do this like gentle parenting technique you know because I recognize

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that my three-year-old is just like you know he doesn't have the experience with emotion that I do and like he is going to have rage and anger in ways that you

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know he's going to express himself when when it just like gets too much you know and that's and I've just reckoned that's

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okay that's part of development that's part of process and the worst thing I can possibly do is match that rage and

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anger with my own rage and anger because my expectation of him dealing with the motion should be the same as a you know a middle-aged man like it's absurd

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absurd but we like 99 you're his dad well thanks but like 99 of parents like

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hold these small balls of Madness uh to the to the same standards that that they

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would like their best friend or something you know it's mad and it's been difficult to like make that

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transition because you know when you're tired and you you know you you you're unable to like be mindful and you're

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unable to be like in the present moment and maybe select a different thought process or a different emotional state

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it can be very difficult and I don't think anyone does it perfectly all the time so we should have some self-forgiveness there but like

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I find it difficult to sometimes find the time to match my this approach of

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being a gentle parent and being there for my child and being um super super patient with him them and

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um just trying to find the extra time to help educate myself to like how I can

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progress and develop like I just really struggle to find the time to be able to add that extra layer of education on the

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process that we've decided yeah 100 and you're I mean you're like 99 of the

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parents out there who are trying to change their parenting right now it's hard you know and not to negate the

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struggle on your you know like on your end but that's there's so many parents trying to learn it and teach it and live

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it at the same time and it is rough and one of the reasons like I have my podcast the stress Danny podcast is to

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give little Snippets like little tools every week that you can use you know just to take this tool and use this or

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take this conversation and take something from it and make it so that you can have one more thing in your week

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that makes that process a little bit smoother but I think one thing that I always encourage parents to do and this

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is probably something you've adopted in your own life but just take two minutes to Breathe Right like wherever you are

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like in the morning when you roll out of bed maybe you got a crying kid and you can't do it right then maybe it's on

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your way to work maybe it's you know before your breakfast you just sit and breathe for a couple minutes whatever

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time you can fit it in try to find a consistent time to just take the two minutes it makes such a world of

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difference and a lot of parents are like two minutes like the problems that I have the stress that I'm facing two minutes is gonna do nothing for me like

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this is a ridiculous solution but the Simplicity of it it it's like a gift so

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take the Simplicity not as a as a sign that it doesn't work but as a gift for busy parents like it's so easy to just

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breathe for two minutes and just let that nervous system settle because really what we're trying to do in those

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moments and what we're trying to do over the life of our children right is we're trying to be the strongest nervous

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system in the room so if we can help to to like bring our nervous system down I

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like to do in the morning because it makes me start from a calm space and for me it's easier to find calm throughout

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the day if I've accessed it early so if I can breathe and settle my nervous system and get into parasympathetic

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dominance is what that's called first thing I can find parasympathetic sympathetic dominance later on with with

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some breathing um but if the day starts and I'm just like in complete you know like fight or

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flight mode and I'm just running around and my kids are crying and I feel like I've got 15 things to do and I'm

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supposed to be here 10 minutes ago and I haven't even eaten breakfast yet or drank a drink take a drink or water water like if all those things are

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weighing on me it's harder to find that steady state but it's kind of like there's a graphic I love where it's this

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big wave so if our kids are these emotions these big waves we're like the calm water so if we can be the calm

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water and then these big waves hit the calm water they're gonna even out right and so just do a few things a day to

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help yourself be the calm water and that's going to do wonders for you in

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your ability to respond with calm and patience because you're you know you're hacking your nervous system you're getting to a place of a parasympathetic

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dominance and um and then like Let The Experience be the teacher but if we're

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just trying to read and we're like I have to read more about mindfulness I can't figure I gotta listen to Lindsay's podcast so I can learn more like you'd

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be much better served if it's a choice between listening my podcast and breathing for two minutes go breathe for two minutes and it's gonna do a world of

26:42

good yeah I think for me as a solution I think podcasting is certainly the way to go like uh it's something something that

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my wife and I can do together or even separately or you know kind of you know she listens to one I listen to another

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and we can like talk about it like yeah I think that um there's always really

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the time there to do it it's just like you know gotta take you've got to make these little kind of sacrifices I suppose uh in your day yeah I don't

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think I don't I don't feel like anyone's too busy to really do that type of thing especially when it's obviously so

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unbelievably valuable or important and you are you know setting helping your children set their like foundational

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nervous system response yeah response being the key word rather than reaction right so that's obviously a big thing in

27:29

your experience with like the school system and school structure and School curriculum

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um do they do they fail do they succeed in regards to like empathy development

27:43

um mindfulness support like these things are obviously so so important

27:48

um you're asking such good questions uh you know it it depends on the setting I would love to be able to say that as a

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worldwide culture we're knocking it out of the park when it comes to teaching kids mindfulness at school I don't think that's the case I think there are places

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where mindfulness is being taught and implemented in really effective ways I think the Trouble Comes

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um and this is probably the majority of cases unfortunately when the people teaching mindfulness aren't also

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practicing it and kids have a big big like fake meter

28:21

right like they can read fake really quickly so if you're if you're um in a

28:26

setting where there's a classroom I was talking to some kids the other day and the teacher had said um

28:33

oh stinks to be you you really did bad on that test to one of the kids

28:38

and I was like and is that T I mean you know that teacher may have been having a bad day whatever but that I don't

28:44

believe in treating children that way and so if that teacher was then at the end of the day encouraging the children

28:50

to have a mindful moment where they could cultivate empathy and compassion like we're not actually teaching

28:56

mindfulness right if we're not if we're not walking the Walk we're like talking to talk doesn't matter and so I think

29:02

what we're doing is well intentioned in schools in large measurement we're trying to give them information but what

29:08

they need is experience they need experience with mindfulness and that's where I think we're failing them

29:14

yeah I mean because like teachers could go I'm sure there are many schools around the world that get people in to

29:19

educate the teachers in regards to what they can do or what they can say or what they can present to kids to help open up

29:26

the idea of mindfulness and de-stressing and all these things but yeah you said

29:32

it perfectly in regards if the if those teachers aren't actually like they shouldn't be showing the information they should be doing like a weekend

29:39

class where they're doing it for themselves where they're able to actually recognize and do the practices

29:44

and and see and feel how it actually works and changes that sounds like the

29:52

the much more effective approach yeah yeah and to be fair there are some

29:57

teachers who are doing an incredible job of this I mean I've seen I've seen teachers who I just I mean it's really

30:03

truly a work of art you know their classroom environment the culture they're creating so I don't want to downplay at all the teachers who have

30:09

really like you said taken it and run with it and implemented it from like an experiential in an experiential way

30:15

um because they exist and I'm so fortunate you know when I run into them or when my child is with them or you

30:21

know in different settings where we find them and I think those teachers need to be elevated to a status of training you

30:27

know hosting the weekend workshops for their school or their District or you know having having a leadership position

30:34

so that that kind of influence has a trickle-down effect into all the other spaces that the kids occupy in the

30:41

school setting I mean have you seen examples of teachers or schools creating maybe like

30:47

departments where they do have like a good way to help kids deal with those

30:52

stressful moments and there are there any like say for example you're the headmistress of the world and you can

31:00

create like a department for this is there like so I don't say like quick fixes but they're like things you could

31:05

get in there now like a real sit like breathing for example would be a real simple way to get that in so do you have

31:10

any lucky examples for that yeah 100 um there are spaces in schools in some

31:17

schools where they have like a yoga room so if if at any point during the day the child is feeling overstimulated

31:23

overwhelmed they can go into this yoga room there are like cushions mats

31:29

pillows there's some meditation like a little corner with meditation cards um you know we have things like little

31:36

sand timers and things like that like just soothing kind of activity or experiential

31:42

um tools you can use to settle and giving kids the autonomy to access

31:47

spaces like that is important and there will be some kids who will maybe test boundaries around it but for the most

31:53

part kids recognize that that place is a privilege and they don't want to mess up being able to access it right yeah so

32:00

having a space like that having it manned with someone who has mindfulness skills who could offer you know support

32:06

at that time I think that that those are fantastic spaces I've seen ones that they have books for the kids you know

32:13

and they they recognize they have to you know make up whatever work they miss if they step out of class for a moment to

32:18

go into that room but if they're dealing with something really heavy like someone a grandparent has passed away or you

32:25

know their parents are getting a divorce there's just stuff coming up for them that they can't control when that you

32:30

know when it hits them if they have a space they can go to process it it's not going to be like trying to hold a beach

32:35

ball underwater for the whole rest of the day right they're going to be able to move through it um so I think that's fantastic I've seen

32:41

schools do groups which I think is wonderful too where there's group based opportunities for kids to get together

32:47

especially in those middle school and high school years to discuss mindfulness principles and how they apply so giving

32:54

them the chance to say like this is our worry group if you if you feel like worry is kind of overwhelming you and

33:00

carrying you away a lot come to our worry group and we're going to share some tools that you can use to help help

33:07

you manage that and again it normalizes it helps them see other kids have worries too and it's just a matter of

33:13

figuring out how to work with it so I think creating like a space case either in the classroom itself I've seen

33:18

classrooms have like a calm down corner where kids are able to go and just kind of take a minute if they need it in the

33:25

classroom sometimes that's hard because there's other stuff going on and if they really need the isolation and like the sensory deprivation for a minute it's

33:32

helpful to remove themselves from the room but even something as simple as that um it gives kids a chance to to take a

33:39

minute I I have mixed feelings about doing breathing with kids like on a large scale because I think there are

33:46

some kids who really embrace it and love it but if the teacher tries to like tell everyone to do a specific breathing

33:52

exercise at the beginning of class like it's I don't know how it's going to go but if she says hey you know we're going

33:59

to take two minutes do the do the thing in these next two minutes that helps you relax and feel calm Within These

34:05

parameters right like boundary the the experience but find here are a few breathing options for you if you know if

34:12

you want to try out breathing because I think sometimes what we do too is we make mindful is really prescriptive and

34:17

we say this is this is a thing that's going to help you for sure now I mean I can look at the nervous system and say

34:22

breathing and calming down your heart rate and your stress response that's definitely going to help you right but

34:27

for kids teaching them the awareness like what works for you that is helpful and it gives them ownership and

34:33

Independence to to use the tools in a way that works for them and to recognize when they need them and what works you

34:38

know at a certain time yeah and just for the kids to just know that there is a space that they are supported they are

34:45

like being listened to um not just verbally but they're like their body language and their emotions

34:51

are being like catered to as well so important and you know if if I was involved in an

34:57

educational institute that was really really dedicated to educating children and getting like you know results it

35:03

would only make sense to me that there would be practices in place whether that would be a space or a practice in the

35:09

classroom which allows children to get into a particular

35:15

mental state that is beneficial for learning because you know if a kid's

35:20

stressed or a kid is thinking about the school bully or is thinking about the

35:25

big game at the weekend or something they're just not going to be present they're not going to be able to learn and it's literally a complete waste of

35:31

time to try and educate those individuals in that space so yeah I love the idea of like a teacher giving

35:37

everybody the a couple of minutes to like transition from you know like

35:43

whether it's the first class of the day or the fifth class of the day whatever like I have to I have to transition from

35:48

family time to come into work because like it's I have to spend I have to do something it's usually an ice cold bath

35:54

or something usually for me um but like so important to be able to like have that that process so it's so

36:02

we're not just like viciously overlapping all of the stuff that happens to a kid during during a school

36:08

day yeah there's clearly some very simple ways that we can we can benefit and yeah I mean I've not been in school

36:14

for a long period of time I suppose a preschool teacher about 15 years ago but I don't know what they're doing these

36:20

days but it's um yeah I hope that there's a little bit more um uh focus on

36:26

on creating these like good good educational nervous system spaces and also teaching them about what the

36:32

nervous system is properly and how you can regulate it and what it does what it's there for like you know like it's

36:38

mind-blowing to me the amount of conversations I have with adults that couldn't tell me like what anything

36:44

about their nervous system they could probably say brain or whatever but like to be able to explain like how it works

36:49

and like you know maybe your vicious uh

36:55

work schedule and all these things that you're trying to do it's got something to do with the fact that you've got

37:00

digestive issues and you can't sleep and you know like putting these things together but like so I'm not sure like

37:06

how they're teaching this in like in biology but certainly connecting the dots in regards to

37:12

thoughts emotions taking that mindfulness practice and like what that actually means within

37:18

within your biology yeah yeah I I hope for that also I'm not

37:25

seeing that as much as I would like to that synthesis yet

37:30

um and I love yeah like I love the way that you you highlight those different things you know in in your show and in

37:36

the the work that you do because I think that bringing bringing a a more holistic view of the body and the Brain online is

37:44

crucial to to these conversations with kids because a lot of times we're trying to manage or control behaviors that have

37:51

other um Roots right like there's root cause that's going completely unaddressed and

37:57

we're trying to mandate a behavior or you know Band-Aid something that that could be resolved in a much more

38:04

efficient way yeah and if I'm an adult and I'm struggling to have empathy and patience and space for my child then I

38:10

try and go and educate 30 people who aren't my family like it's gonna be very difficult for me to get into the mind

38:16

frame to have empathy for 30 different individuals you know it's it's almost an impossible task

38:22

um I want to ask you I've got so many questions I'm gonna I'm gonna go with the do you with the

38:28

parents and like resistant parents to like the whole process you get a lot of

38:33

that is it usually like one parent is like you know not quite on board in

38:39

regards to or my kid doesn't need to like meditate or be mindful they're just seven and mentally like you know what's

38:45

how like do you have like resistant parents yeah for sure and a lot of times

38:51

I think you know it and I like to say they're Discerning right I mean because if you're going to invest time energy

38:57

and money and something you want to make sure that it's a good fit and so I think that being Discerning about mindfulness

39:03

is always a good idea I think the resistance often comes in lack of understanding and and most of the time

39:09

once we can address all the different ways that mindfulness supports healthy development we get a little bit more

39:16

buy-in from parents so when we talk about it in terms of like so this 12 year old that you have now who's

39:23

constantly having you know altercations with siblings at school like that 12 year old is gonna you know in six or

39:29

seven years be going to get a job or going to college mindfulness is um an intervention that is shown to

39:36

support you know solid relationships support Collegiate learning support workplace success right like these are

39:44

these are skills that your child is eventually going to need now you can put up with this behavior for now and just

39:51

it can drive you crazy for the next six years and then you can leave your child to kind of sort through it on their own when they launch or we can start to help

39:58

them work through tools now you can be an active part of the process of teaching this and prepare them for these

40:03

moments that are inevitably going to come with the tools that they need to be successful in those moments and a lot of

40:09

times once parents see it in more of a big picture way they can access um you know a different level of support

40:15

for it because mindfulness I mean again and again the research is showing so many benefits to it and with very few

40:24

drawbacks right very few side effects there are some kids for who mindfulness is not a good solution but it's a very

40:30

small sub-sector of the population and so there's a lot of research that that

40:36

points to mindfulness is a fantastic intervention and one's parents kind of attuned to that and get away from like

40:41

thinking it's kind of a woo-woo spiritual practice only and we can connect to the nervous system and all

40:47

the implications of having a mellowed out nervous system then they're like oh yeah this does seem like a good solution

40:53

you know yeah because I mean there's so I mean the whole like generation the different ways you were parent from

40:59

generations to generation and we're still trying to break and crack through that right in regards to especially like

41:04

with with men and emotions and not beating and not showing them you know like I feel like I think we're Like

41:10

Making Waves but like it's taking a lot of time um what does the actual science say in

41:15

regards to to mindfulness and kids specifically is there been like a lot of research done

41:21

yeah you know it's a growing body of research there Dan Siegel is one of my favorite researchers for mindfulness and

41:27

he's done a ton of work around mindfulness to our kids Mark Brackett has uh research on emotion which is

41:33

fantastic but yeah Dan Siegel his work it shows you know kids can improve in Focus they can improve in self-awareness

41:39

their relational skills are heightened their communication skills are enhanced like mindfulness can bring online like

41:47

um their whole brain so when we're when kids are super emotive and frustrated and overwhelmed they're only working

41:52

with like the part of their brain that manages that but when we can help them tether to the logical part of their

41:58

brain and then use their prefrontal cortex we really do bring on all their problem-solving abilities and we help

42:03

them make decisions with like the entirety of their brain and so if your little one is struggling do you want

42:09

them to just be making decisions with this like out of control you know feeling part of their brain that has very limited experience with management

42:15

or do you want it to be Tethered to the prefrontal cortex where all of their managerial capable abilities come online

42:22

and so um yeah the research shows that when we can practice mindfulness and

42:27

really bring that prefrontal cortex online kids make better decisions and they have better relationships because

42:32

they're in a place where they can they can connect intentionally like use them in for use emotion as information and

42:39

then keep moving forward instead of getting stuck and kind of just like rolling you know getting on a hamster

42:46

wheel with it and just spinning in the same emotion over and over again they can like shift it into momentum forward

42:51

beautiful you mentioned a couple of authors there do you have any like um like podcasts and certainly talk about

42:59

yours as well and podcasts or books to like recommend there's like a starting

43:04

point for this yeah there are so many Dan seagulls the whole brain child book is fantastic

43:12

um if you're a parent looking to try to implement some more mindfulness into

43:17

your world there's um there's the Institute American Institute of stress has a great podcast

43:24

um yeah there's my podcast the stress Nanny there are a lot of parenting podcasts uh designed for parents who are

43:29

trying to break generational patterns so they're if you search that you can find

43:35

quite a few in that genre um there are the mom hour is a great

43:42

podcast to listen to they're also um a lot of apps that are helpful one

43:48

app that I really really love and it's only available on Apple right now is called how we feel and it's by Mark

43:54

Brackett and he's a leading emotion researcher the app is free and it allows you to just go in and like twice a day

44:01

you go in and select the emotion that you're feeling you say who you're with what you're doing how much sleep you got

44:06

how much exercise you got and then um it gives you analytics so it'll

44:12

analyze like oh it looks like when you get more than seven hours of sleep you have higher energy emotions or it looks

44:18

like when you're around these people you're having lower energy emotions and so it's a really quick way you know it

44:24

takes 30 seconds to check in it'll send you a notification you check in once a day twice a day and then you get the

44:29

analytics from it that can inform your decisions moving forward in a really really powerful way so I would say if

44:36

you're gonna spend again it's 30 seconds twice a day so one minute spend two minutes breathing spend one minute on

44:41

Mark brackets app and those three minutes will change your life oh that's so good um thank you so much

44:47

for those recommendations that's really cool can you let us know how people can connect with you please yes so again my

44:53

podcast is the stress Nanny it's available on all podcast platforms I have an Instagram at the stress Nanny

44:59

and my website is thestressnanny.com I work with kids and adults to implement solutions that are mindfulness and

45:05

research based to manage stress more seamlessly and skillfully um and yeah I have different workshops

45:12

that I do and I'm working on online course right now but it's not live yet but each week I have a meditation and

45:19

mindfulness class for adults where I teach like how to meditate how to use mindfulness in a really practical way in

45:24

an adult life so that you can then feel a little bit more taken care of and confident about you know approaching

45:30

mindfulness with your kiddos Lindsay you're awesome thank you for coming on the show thank you so much for

45:37

having me Simon it's been a pleasure and thanks for all the work you're doing in the world I appreciate it thank you so much well I will make sure that all

45:43

those links to connect with Lindsay are in the show notes some some super information available I'm also going to

45:50

put some links to some books and the app as well so you can get quick access to that but that is it for this episode of

45:57

True hope because the official podcast for True hope Canada we'll see you next week foreign

46:05

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