But I think we have to teach emotional vocabulary at a very young age and

help our kids understand that there's a reason why

when we feel angry, there's a reason we feel angry and

it's okay to feel angry. It's not a taboo thing if

we're frightened, there's a reason we're frightened, but we

have to take them through understanding what scared frightened worried

means. Yeah those signs and those

symptoms that you're showing right now show me that you're afraid let's

talk about why you're afraid and then they have to identify

what that trigger was if we can help them just have

those basic conversations at a very young age. They can

use and not just happy sad mad. We need

to teach more extensive emotional vocabulary if

they can identify why they're feeling

that way and it's okay to feel

that way. Then the next step is to take them into the problem solving

thing to say now, what do I do about it? I think I think

we can move our kids into an amazing place of proactivity if

we can just help them do those three things right

from the beginning.

Hello, good day greetings, wherever you are in the world. Thank you for joining true.

Hope car see official podcast or truth. Hope Canada true Hope

cast this podcast takes a deep dive into the

many physiological and psychological aspects that

make up mental health. This is the show for you.

If you're looking for motivation inspiration knowledge and solutions and

that's what we are all about here at Terre Haute

Canada and true. Hope Canada is a mind and body-based supplement

company dedicated first and foremost to promoting brain and

body Health through non-invasive nutritional means for

more information about us. You could visit true. Hope canada.com

today on the show though. I welcome Lynn McLachlan

to the show Lynn served on three different school boards

as a superintendent of Education a principal or

vice principal and educational consultant as an

award-winning and bestselling author Lyn has published both fiction and

nonfiction books and is now co-authoring our

children's book series with her niece, which is titled. The power of

thought Lynn is passionate about giving children evidence-based

strategies that they can

use in their daily lives to build emotional intelligence.

Lynn is the host of a podcast which is called taking the helm. It's in

its third year and has over 100 guests sharing courageous

stories of Triumph after suffering crisis in

people's lives today. I want

to show we're going to be discussing children's emotional health and well-being.

Enjoy the show. Okay. Good

morning Lynn. Welcome to True Hope cast. Thank you for being

with us today. How are you? What is going well?

for having me

you know you wake up every morning and just count your blessings and

be thankful for

For all the people and the love and what's around you what you've

got in your life. Yeah, love it. That's a

really important start to the day. Like we can certainly just wake up and slip

right into our subconscious patterns and

forget to be conscious and aware of all those amazing things

that we do have and that's a really energetic powerful way

to to start the day for sure. So that's great

good for you. And can you just give us a

little introduction please who you are and what it is that you do.

Sure.

tired four years ago with from a 31

Career career in education and

I was I served in every role you can imagine in that

world from teacher to program consultant

to vice principal the principal and I ended my careers

as superintendent of Education responsible for special education

services, which obviously had an envelope

around mental health as well. So what I'm doing now

brings that educational experience, I'm also

teaching still in post-secondary part-time. So

I've had students who started college after

two years of grade 11

and 12 and being online and that first year in college

was really something so experience that transition. I'm a

mom of three adult kids and my whole

premise right now is all around children's mental health

and what we can do as adults

to learn for ourselves how to model and

teach appropriate skills so we can move into a proactive

mode as opposed to waiting until people

get so close to the ledge or the cliff that it's becoming

Crisis response so I have a podcast just

like you Simon every time

I interview someone else. I'm just inspired to keep going

and tell their stories and my niece who's

also a social worker and I have launched a children's book series. So those

are my two main Foci right now on is

is getting people talking about proactive as

opposed to reactive.

such a huge point and I think I talk about this every other

podcast at the moment is talking about how we can best serve

our children and even ourselves

as adults as parents as individuals, right how we

can best serve those individuals to

Really?

Proactively get involved way before

the Tipping Point of trauma

or disease or some sort of situation that

happens and it's honestly like the big big

question. Like, how can we really get to these individuals

in a wholesome manner

so they don't have to unnecessarily suffer for you know

sometimes

Decades and lifetimes so it's such a huge topic and

I'm so glad that they're you know, it's also inspiring for

me because having these conversations each week knowing that

there are people out there who are you know out there trying

to do something about it and using their years and Decades of

experience to to do that. How how long

were you involved in like education like as a

teacher and as a head teacher and as a superintendent like

how how long was that career?

well

it's sewing because I'm

Aging part-time. So I guess I'm on 35 years. Okay. Yeah,

and I want to bring a personal experience in here

too. So I've got the education educator hat but I also have

an adult daughter who is doing remarkably. Well right now

but we had a year and a half of he double

toothpick where we were afraid for her with debilitating anxiety.

So all the lessons I learned as a

mom at that time and my husband as a father of what we shouldn't

have been doing and what we could have been doing and I I

also bring to the table for an open conversation, so

so as as a head teacher as a

teacher doing that 35 years of experience what

support of you had from your

superiors and from that's a you know,

the government Education Services, like what services have

they provided or support or education during

that 35 years. Like is it like

just starting to come good? Has it

been poor the whole way is it been non-existent for

30 years like Carol? What's your experience been with that support element?

I

Say about 10 years ago about

10 years or so. The mental health piece is really come into

it slowly but surely in Ontario. We

have 70 something school boards, and we're all

under the same curriculum. We all you know, we do it that way

the mental health supports we have we have

mental health supports in every single school now and I want to go

back five six years that started and in

my role is a superintendent of education. So we have educational

support staff. We have social workers. We have psychologists. We

have these people who are implied by the board and I would

say the professional development that was done over the last 10 years

and continues to be done was it has been

pretty exemplary based on where we were at that time when I

was a superintendent the and it's still

the case. I mean, we've done a literature literature review on

the levels of anxiety in Ontario in Canada

and around the world and it's growing exponentially. So we

we move to put child youth workers in

almost. I think they're in every single School.

In my previous School Board now that serves 35,000 students

and see whyws are trained specifically on

how to support children who are having mental health

needs and it may be a safe person to check in with every day.

It may be somebody who just understands that they need a break or

they need to, you know, do something or only take three courses

in high school instead of four courses in high school. I'm I

I mean, I'm not saying it's perfect. I think

we still have a lot of things we can do proactively. I

would love to see mindfulness activities happening

in every single classroom. I'd love

to see meditation taught in every single classroom. I'd love to

see us move into a proactive place and

we do teach emotional vocabulary in early

years, but I'm not sure we're doing enough and teaching

specific evidence-based strategies to our children. It's sporadic

and it's not consistent.

Mindfulness is being taught in some classrooms, but that's my teacher

choice, right? Yeah, that would be such an incredible way

to

even just start class or start school in like a, you

know coming into the class and having a transitional

period from you know,

Being asleep being, you know being awake

and then moving into a classroom setting.

What?

in kids in particular in school

Why do you think when we

can say this about a small community or the province you're

in or the country that you're in a worldwide but like

specially within kids like why do you think?

School kids and this level of anxiety is

just like is just rising and rising

and Rising all the time. Is there any particular things that you

think because you think that like

The better we get at no innovation as

a species as a culture like things should

get easier and things should be getting better. Whether that's like

within the technological standpoint within

learning within you know medications within

Healthcare and nutrition and food,

like all these things that we know so much about all of these things but we

see rises in not just anxiety within

teens, but we see roses in just like literally all disease. So

is there any particular that points for

the those school kids and that rapid increase or

because we see around the world like this. There's no hard. Yeah. Yeah. Oh

boy. Well, we may not have enough time but in this

might not be popular, but I'm just gonna say it. We're the biggest

problem is adults. We really are. I mean look

around us sign and look at the negativity the anger that's the

modeling that our children are seeing and they're seeing it, you know,

even if you're in a home, excuse me, I've got a bit of a call

today, even if you're in a home that you are modeling mindfulness

that you're present that you're having.

Open discussions all around our children in social

media, whatever. They're exposed to their face

with this negativity turn on the TV at any time of the

day, right that is all around them now and I

and I'd like to see the tables are turning and I'd like to see there's more positivity

coming through but really it is a matter of what they're

engaged with who they're engaged with and how often so I

think and we as adults because all

they can confession. I'm from the suck it up

that Buttercup generation. We didn't talk about how we were feeling we didn't

we just did what we had to do, you know,

and so a lot of us have trauma unresolved trauma that

we haven't dealt with ourselves. So how do we as adults

know how to model strategies to

teach our four five six seven eight year olds,

so they have the problem solving skills to face every day

situations that right now are shutting them down. So

that's two big pieces. The third

piece is we're we're trained to

be re

Of as opposed to proactive we wait

till we get the letter in the mail in Ontario Oh,

it's time for your pap. Smear. Oh, it's time for your mammogram. Oh it's

time for your you know, we're waiting when you're 50

years old. You can start to do this when you're 40 years old you can start to do

that. We wait to be responsive. We watch

our children when they have symptoms and say

wait a minute something's something's up here and

then try to help and guide through the symptoms. We need

to be moving before that time and teach

them when their brains in their emotions are still building

and developing so that they like I said, they can have those

tools. But how do we do that? When we weren't taught those

tools ourselves. So, oh I could go on and on

but those to me are the three big those are three really big components

in in why so many of us adults teenagers

children. We have we have day treatment

centers for five year old Simon.

We're doing something wrong. Yeah, I mean it's it's

obviously a huge topic and

that parental negativity that you're talking

about. There's obviously a root there, right? There's a root why

the whole world is anxious and depressed at

the moment and yes social media and and

mainstream media as

well. Like certainly have have a part to play in

that, you know that the idea that you know fear sells

and the they don't have to be truthful

with it, which is just mind blowing to me that we don't have any type

of

you know standards when it comes to reporting news

and having a responsibility to making sure that it's not completely wrapped

up and bound it bound up in fear, which you know,

obviously engages a certain part of our brain which you know

makes listening to that information kind of addicting and we were

in this constant state of survival and I'll

never system can't even contemplate the idea

of doing meditation or being conscious to our surroundings and

our emotional state when we can consistently in this,

you know, reptilian reactive and

brains so so difficult and yeah,

we could certainly go on about like the root of

those those negativities because

there are there is an external Source coming

in from all angles, which makes it very very difficult for a lot

of people to be able to recognize the negative influence

that they will have on their children and other people around them,

you know that's talking about like energy and frequency and like, you

know how we how we are in the world like it's obviously a

huge big thing, but we have to end up like if

want to change and we want to change this.

We have to start taking some personal responsibility. We have

to start learning we have to start reading and we have to start.

Being more aware of the things that we're thinking

about the emotions that we're we're having in the behaviors

that were exhibiting and there is an

amazing group of people out there and Foundations and

organizations and books that you know are certainly

doing their very best to support this. It's

just it's just it's just really sucks that it's not just like a big

mainstream government pushed like

help people literally get their minds and their

bodies better than they're able to like make better choices and

that's gonna you know,

Develop those younger Generations coming up

with more resilience with stronger mindsets with all these

skills and abilities and traits. That's just

going to evolve them as individuals and then

involve them as as a community and then you know when you have

that combination, you know you you create great things.

Yeah, I don't.

I want to I didn't even mention covid. I mean we can go

on and on about covid but the stressors that we as adults

endured during covid and still are to some degree

the losses that many of us have suffered. You know that there's

a lot of trauma that happened in the last two years to

adults as well. You know Trump my mother used to say stealing from

Peter to pay Paul to make ends meet but I think we if

we if we can learn to just be and this is

my my mission making conscious and Positive Choices

if we can be more aware of what

we're doing in the moment and stop that negative

reaction, especially in front of our children walk away

go for a walk scream at scream at

nature do whatever you want to do, but keep that connection that

positivity and that presence with our children

right there. We can make the biggest difference in

the world. You know what we all have our stressors, but I

think we have to we have to try to What's The Word?

We got it. We gotta draw a line to who we show those

to and who we don't and we are human. So, I mean,

I guess I want to say there's nothing wrong with saying to your child.

If you just like had an argument your teenager. I am

so sorry. I've had a terrible day. I should not

have taken it out on you. I apologize. We model

self compassion. We model ourselves as

being human and I'll tell you over time your child

is going to see that and respond in a more positive way as

well. We're not we're not unbreakable. We're human.

Yeah, absolutely. No, I think responsibility could always

comes up for me in these conversations and regards to you know,

you can you can make mistakes and make errors but you know, you have

we have to be responsible for them and and standing up and saying

yeah, I'm sorry. I've made a mistake there. I should not have done that. I shouldn't

have said that I shouldn't have you know, all these things and yeah it

that's one of the key things I think is

missing from you know, even just like young kids is that that level

of responsibility that we can give

them because you know, even a very young ages kids are incredibly

competent and incredibly smart and very creative and

can do all these incredible amazing things. If we you know,

give them the skill set to do. So, how do you think we start

making those positive and conscious choices,

especially when

You know most of us walk through our day like

95% like unconscious. We're just like doing these

things that we've just done every single day for

years and years and years and we don't actually have a conscious

thought or a conscious feeling or a conscious Behavior towards these

things. So it's very very difficult for people who are like habitually just

Pro literally programmed to

react respond and just be

in the world in a certain way. How do we begin because that's literally trying to change your

brain. It's a very difficult thing to do because we can't see

the change happening in our brain like we could if we

were going to work out we'd see the muscles change we can see it's

very very different when you can actually see it. How do we start to

to make those those positive and

conscious choices? Like what's the beginning

stages of that? Well, we've all been on the treadmill. I'll

call it a treadmilla treadmill that you're gonna fall off of I

got stopped dead in my tracks in 2013 with the diagnosis

of brain tumor, you know, and and

I believe that everything happens for a reason.

And I I retired from my full-time career. And that's

when I really learned to say holy

cow. You've just been on this treadmill for far too long. It's affected your

health. It's affected your relationships on and

that's when I started to say and it was collaboration and

listening to podcasts and things that got me moving that

way. I think the first thing is we have to learn

and you've already mentioned that Simon you've got a podcast where you're helping

people to learn new ways and new ways of thinking we have

people modeling it all around us. But what do we do first of

all to resolve our own trauma? And

so and that could be listening to other people.

It could be just having a conversation it's

digging deep, but if we can wake up in the morning and

just take five minutes.

Five minutes to say and you know, we talk about gratitude and

all those things but how is my cup more full than

empty and wake up in a positive mindset to

carry on through the day. It makes all the difference

in the world because if you wake up and you've hit snooze snooze snooze snooze, you're

running you're showering you're out the door and 15 minutes.

Yeah, your day is not gonna get off to the best start.

So I think it's how you start your day. But we also have to learn

those evidence-based strategies. We have to learn how

to model these problem-solving skills for our

children and the perfect time is between. You know,

you start you do read alouds on a very very early age by

the time there's six seven eight nine years old. They

are taking it in and they can learn those strategies. So

my niece and I who's a social worker. I've developed a

children's book series and the feedback we've gotten from adults

because your question is about adults.

Has been thank you. I didn't know the first

book is called I have choices. Well, you know Simon we

would all say. All right. Well, you got a choice go make a choice.

It's not as simple as that. We have to teach the kids what the

strategies are to move forward first of all to identify why

they're feeling a certain way what that emotion is and then

how to actually make a choice that takes them

in a direction that lessens that fear that anxiety that

anger or whatever and give us a positive outcome, but we

don't know how to teach it many of us because we're not social workers. We're

not psychologists. It's not something that we've been involved at him. We don't

learn it when we were kids.

So maybe I kind of went off on a tangent there, but no

that was great. Yeah, I think that I think that we have a big

misunderstanding of our actual biology in

regards to emotion and how we have

a lot of control over it if we don't need to right like, you

know, that's it's there's a lot of a lot

of philosophy but also a lot of Science in regards to like the benefits of

being able to, you know, create that space to actually

respond rather than to react in the short

period of time and how much responsibility and power we have over our emotional

state and therefore our nervous system and therefore

a lot to do without Health, you know, if we're in the sympathetic fight or

flight never system for a long period of time every single part

of our health is going to is going to suffer so

again

Being able to teach kids a young age and they're able

to understand this at such a young age that they have these strong emotions

that come up and you know, it's you know, you can't expect as an

adult to that a child is going to have the experience

you have with particular emotions and that they should just like, you

know, get over it or bottle it up or like not react like

that. Like that's insane especially for looking at like a young a young kid.

So we certainly have to learn

ourselves as adults or relearn and our

connection to our emotional states. And of course like you

know how we how we are in the world our kids are going to pick up

on that incredibly. So yeah, that's a huge

piece and and that's amazing. You've written written a

book about it. We can talk we can talk about the book and it towards the

end of the podcast because being an important resource

for people to to check out because books stories

such a wonderful way not only to just connect with your

kids. But you know telling stories is like one of

the oldest things that humans have ever done. So it's a great tradition to keep

keep going forward and just

Talk about like physical and mental health.

How do you think moving into like a positive proactive mindset

ends up supporting both

of those because you know mental health physical health,

you know different but obviously

interconnected like so how do you think we can start how to

how does moving into that proactive mindset starts

supporting both of those parts of our health?

Well, we're connected our bodies our souls our spirit our

emotions. They're all connected in their connected

to the universe, right? We are all connected to each other so that

positivity once you put it

out. It's coming back at you might not be right away. You know, it has that

pay it full forward kind of thing. But if we can if we

can intentionally not just in the morning when we make

up be present. So how many times Simon let's

ask the people who are listening and viewing are you

at the dinner table and your family sitting there with you but

your mind is here your mind is gone. It's it's thinking about

all the things that happen today or going to happen tomorrow if we

can intentionally be present in that conversation. Then we

leave with oh my gosh. I'm connected to

my family. You might not be able to express that but you feel that way if

we can take five 10 minutes to do something that

we enjoy every single day. I walk I walk

in nature. I listen to some amazing playlists

that are all about confidence building that

are about connective can if we can do something.

Maybe it's a bath. Maybe it's then we start to bring some

physical health to ourselves. It's all

connected. So a physically we're out walking

in nature and that is making us feel good and and and

building our hearts and in our

blood, you know, all those kinds of things that's kind of it's all related. It's

all connected. And then if we can be present we might

notice in nature some of the things we've never noticed before you walk

right past that you know, the

The geese that just flew over, you know heading off

on their migratory route, you might not have noticed that before if

you're in your house just everything. Okay, so I'm just throwing out

some ideas and what matters to you that gives

you something that you will physically and emotionally

enjoy and you will see a difference

if you make that part of your daily routine.

yeah, I think the nature pace is huge because I think that's the only real

place where we're able to actually quiet and

the outside world and you know

that sensory overload be it from a screen or just

like traffic or just noise like it

can be so hard to be able to actually quite

quiet in your mind to be able to

be able to put yourself in a position to be able to like

Put your energy back on you and and sense

what's going on for you? And yeah stepping into nature is

without question. One of the most powerful ways.

I mean you can do then it's actually highly researched and regards

to anxiety and depression and mental health in general

is to like, you know get outside and if you can add some

like some some like exercise or movement

into that process as well. Like it's only just gonna support your

health even further. But yeah, absolutely like especially when I've got

two young kids and I have to remove myself from the

situation at some point because it can just get overwhelming and it's got

nothing to do my kids. It's got nothing to do with that. It's just like I've got

a limit of like what my body can kind of like tolerate to

a level before I start moving into

that reactive State and I know that reactive State

isn't me and I don't want that to be

I don't like to be like a the prime example of who

I am because it's just not me. So yeah, I take myself

at that situation. We you know, my wife and I will take 15 minutes

if we need to just get outside get some breaths

and and you know, just kind of like reset and recalibrate because

that's what the nervous system needs. Right and and just that

even that five ten minutes can be just so profound in regards

to coming back into the situation and maybe

making apologies or just resetting your energy to to

teach you to teach your kids

that that happens to adults too, you know, and it's

a normal part of life and we're you know, we're the same

and yeah and ultimately we're teaching

them through our own example, and I think

It's a very very quick and simple way in which you can exactly start

becoming conscious and start becoming bit more of

a responsive individual rather than a

reactive and yeah, yeah, nobody really enjoys those

reactive individuals, especially when it's just like that's all that they

are all of the time.

So I can make the connection to my daughter through her year and

a half of debilitating anxiety. She got through it not

through traditional, you know, cognitive behavior

therapy or anything like that. She actually refused it she

started heading out in nature. She joined

team sports again, she joined a gym and she

started to become aware of what her triggers were and could

shut down that. Okay. That's that's the crazy person

talking in my mind. I shouldn't use the word crazy, but that's

the irrational person talking in my mind. No. No, I'm

gonna shut that person down and then and be consciously

aware that hey hold on and take

it off to a new direction of a positive way of thinking so

it's made a difference to her on the other end close

to the ledge too. So and I want

to jump in with conscious decisions about what we

do as adults every single day how much social media do we let into our

lives? How many times did we find ourselves scrolling and scrolling

and scrolling mean in seeing meaningless stupid ridiculous

things that make no matter

Difference to us when we could actually be connecting or taking

care of ourselves or walking, you know, shut it down.

I shut Facebook. I took Facebook off my phone.

I still use Facebook for my business, but I took it off my phone because it

was just getting crazy like seriously and then you get sucked into

these conversations that you want. No part of but you start

to be start to feel this way. We can consciously decide

how much we let in and how much we push out and how

much news we watch every day and what we watch and

what we listen to and that will make a huge decision difference in

your lives. If you don't let it in it's not going to affect you

in a negative way.

Yeah an hour.

Our biology is not designed to intake so much

information and light and have those

types of thoughts when we see these things like we're not

designed to do it. And yeah, I

think it's important that when we do like your daughter's

example of you know, going to the gym and and

being in nature more and and connecting with team

sports, you know, like that's such a healthy way to get

out of that.

Cyclical mindset of those thoughts that keep coming up for

us and you know, we shouldn't believe everything we think, you know, like a lot of neuron.

No a lot of neurons just fire just to fire and we

think that we're thinking these things and we you know, which we

have control over them and we give them way too much attention that they need and we

don't actually digest those thoughts that come up for us, but being with

other people and having conversations with other people and moving

your body and you know doing and changing your environment such powerful

very very simple cheap ways to completely

change, you know going from

an anxious person to you know, I don't say normal person but a

person that doesn't experience anxiety as a standard

throughout their whole day, which is just like an unbelievably debilitating

thing for a lot of people and can you

recommend any resources for parents to

help and

teach their children skills in regards

to like life and because

I think it can be tricky as parents because I don't know a

lot parents might think that those types of skills are supposed to be taught

in school or they they

They expect the school to to teach this

set of things and then I'll do these things at home.

And I don't know how much Community I'm in my consistent still super young and

I'm not too sure about where they're gonna go to school and

what they're going to do. Yeah, like I haven't figured that out yet, but you

obviously want to be aligned and you you know, you

want to be aligned with the school and what they're teaching you don't be contradicting you

don't you know, you want to be obviously a big part of that not always

not always not always possible I suppose but like what can

we do as parents like with like resources and exposure

to things that's gonna start like giving them actual

like proper life skills, you know. Yeah, I I

wouldn't be concerned about doing something and

in contradiction to what's being taught in the schools

when we're talking about emotions and understanding our emotions and

making positive and conscious choices because there's not

a teacher that I know that you know, if you've got a child who's struggling

with behavior, there's always a purpose to the behavior, right? So yeah

figure out what that is again. We're reacting to something that's

already starting with in that child, but

It everyone wants kids to be successful as

a whole person in their whole

well-being. We have a responsibility as parents and

adults any children Our Lives grandchildren nieces nephews

or whatever to model those kinds of things. We

have to learn them ourselves. So I do have on my website a

whole Mental Health Resource page. There's a

wonderful organization called jack.org, which is for teenagers

themselves. So I'm going a little bit ahead of you. But you

know, I think if we reflect reflect on ourselves or what

do we want to teach our children in terms of morals in

terms of guiding with the difference between right and

wrong we all know that that's ingrained in them by the time they're eight years

old. They're developing their moral compass by the time

they're eight years old. So we shouldn't be leaving that to the school system to

do is adults. So I mean, do I have a

resource? No, I don't have one resource Simon. I think

there are oh my gosh millions of

of books out there of

Of oh what I want

to talk Community groups of social engagement activities

of you know, I don't know

what four year olds go. Do they go to childcare do they go to a playgroup

do they go where these kinds of skills are being taught but I

think we have to teach emotional vocabulary at a

very young age and help our kids understand that there's a

reason why when we feel angry there's a reason we

feel angry and it's okay to feel angry. It's not a taboo thing

if we're frightened, there's a reason we're frightened, but

we have to take them through understanding what scared frightened worried

means. Yeah those signs

and those symptoms that you're showing right now show me that you're afraid let's

talk about why you're afraid and then

they have to identify what that trigger was if we can help them

just have those basic conversations at a very young

age. They can use and not just happy sad mad.

We need to teach more extensive emotional vocabulary

if they can identify why they're

feeling that way and it's okay to

feel that way. Then the next step is to take them into

the problem solving thing to say now. What do I do about it? I think

I think we can move our kids into an amazing place of

proactivity if we can just help them do those three things

right from the beginning.

Yeah, that's that's really cool. And

I think that's

so profound in regards to

what we can do as parents like even from such a young age to to

start helping our kids develop into the into the

people that that they're supposed to be and I

think yeah, I think you're what you said about success was

quite interesting because I think that

We should reassess or just assess as parents

what we think that means like

we all want our kids to do well and to be successful, but

I don't that's so broad. Like what does that even mean? Like if you

ask my wife and I that question one, we want

our kids to be just happy and kind that would be success. You

know, that would be success. So it's like and I think

that

we obviously want to do best do our best to the best we

can for our kids to, you know, get them in the best possible but

getting some clarity on that right? Like if your

goal is to have kind happy

children, you're gonna have to be the

example of that you're gonna have to be the role model of that and

that's got to be a part of your language and it's got to be part of their language

because you know that there's a there's a period of

time where

They're gonna learn significant part of their, you know

emotional being and it can be quite tricky like from a

certain age. Like if you're not say if you get it wrong, but like

If yeah, if you get it wrong as parents, then

there's gonna be a lot trickier like

down the road to be able to like adjust that or tweak that

it's obviously or possible. The brain is such an amazing thing to do and

kids are incredible and but yeah, do you think that

there's a lot of benefit?

From really establishing what you and your partner?

Want to and honestly get out of

your kids or how you want to sculpt them,

you know because they obviously they're their own individuals, right? But like

there are some of the key things that we want to instill in

our children that's going to and help propel

them to become the individual that they want to be there any particular

like traits you think are a really important. Oh imagine

a world of empathy where not

only are we are we empathetic people

but we can recognize when a child

beside us in on the playground is upset and

then be able to respond and support them, you know, empathy self-awareness

self-compassion. These are all the

components of what we call emotional literacy. Imagine a

world where our children are starting to become those

people and what that would look like in 20 years from now as

our adults. Um, yeah, I just

think I just think there's so much potential here if we

can move into that proactive proactive place. My mind

was going Simon with several things. I want to say

while you're talking.

There but yeah, I

think we have to learn as ourselves as adults and having that conversation

with your partner your family whatever it's going to be I don't

think there's anybody out there says I want to I want to raise a child

who's going to be angry and and violent

or right? We all want what's best for our kids but

we have to be aware of what we're modeling for them. Yes, you're

gonna push negative you're

gonna push that negative. Some people might have

to be pushed aside. Some people might you know, you might have to close the

door on some people who are bringing the kinds

of experiences to

your child that you don't want them to have.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, actually it's

family that's a set. It's certainly is absolutely like making

those boundaries is very important when you've got like multi-generations of

individuals involved in the raising

of kids, then it can get you get messy pretty

quick. But yeah, I think that yeah as a

parent you have to kind of take the ball by the horns there and take the responsibility

because the end of the day you're the parent and

you might want to do things in a different way and like there's every generation.

There's a different.

Starting at different style and adaptation of

parenting right? Like we primarily parent how we

want a parent and every culture too. Yeah, exactly and

that's it. That's very important as well. Because yeah, there's many different

things that come into that cultural aspect of things and just

to kind of finish off. I'd love to ask you about like what

motivation can we provide

people that think that they're personal circumstances

are just too much for them to

to get over especially when it it comes

in the way of like obtaining the dreams or their

goals or the things that they want to do because we were talking

about it before about how our thoughts can just create mountains

which seem impossible impossible.

So what do you think that you know,

what kind of

advice or motivation that you

can provide

To help those people in that in that position now, that's

a huge question to end with but I'm going to say I write read the

top of my mind baby steps.

It's you know, you can't think I'll go back to when I

had my brain tumor and yes, this is a concrete example, but I think it applies

to everything you one little baby step in

six months time. If you add all those baby steps

together, the the growth that you have had

in that time will be you'll just be blown away by how far you've

come but you've got to identify where do you want to be and then

what are the steps to get there? And the first step might be simply waking

up in the morning and not and leaving the phone off for 15

minutes and doing something that you enjoy doing and you

do that for two weeks. So to me, it's it's where

do I want to be and then figuring out how you gonna get there? And

you might need some help you might need to start listening to some podcasts.

You might need to take a course, but what

are those steps to get you to where you want to be and I

don't think you should be thinking five years down the line set baby

goals for from now to six months because when

you take that baby step

The difference you're making to yourself the people around you

are going to see as well. So that positivity right? It

starts to permeate it starts to spread. So this

baby steps make all the difference in the world. I'll go back to when I woke up

from my craniotomy. I could not even sit up in the bed.

Five days later I later I was going home. I

was walking back and forth to the to the lounge. I

failed my cognitive assessment before I left but that's okay five

days later and then a month later.

I was walking to the other side of town and back so baby

baby steps. Maybe you can take bigger steps.

Maybe you can do something in a day and then say hey that work for me

and I'm gonna move on but that mountain can

be climbed. You just got to do it one step at a time. And that's a cliche.

Oh, I don't like cliches, but that's what came to mind you've

mentioned a mountain. So yeah. No, I love

that. I think that you can actually look at look at

those big changes you want to make obviously, you know,

if you've gone through like a brain surgery and a brain

injury, you obviously have something to recover and you've got

to take steps to to literally create the

new tissues to create to create something new and I

think you could probably use that as an example of you know, like I've got

something here. That's maybe injured maybe I'm just like way too judgmental.

You know, maybe I'm a little bit injured in there. I need to heal that and

I need to I'm not gonna just do it right away. It's not gonna be overnight type

of thing. You know, I have to be delicate with myself and understanding and

empathetic so taking I think baby steps and

small steps is the key to making like

good quality habitual change rather than

you know, like like diets for example where it's like,

you know, you're just like try and make you're just change your whole life for two

weeks and then, you know, then it doesn't work out

right like it's the complete opposite of that and very very

valuable piece of information. Thank you and and

Not wait for the brick to hit us on the head, right? I

mean that's what I mean about being conscious if we can now right now

whoever you are wherever you are in the world, if you're listening this podcast,

if you can identify something that you want to work on in

terms of your emotional health intelligence your overall

well-being your physical your mental health if you

can do that now and not wait for the door to

slam in your face or something like I I had to endure for

a year. Wow, you're being proactive for

yourself and everyone around you don't wait.

Yeah proactive is a big key to all of this and can

you tell us about tell us about your book series because I

love books I love stories and yeah, let us

know a little bit more about that. What are they called? What are they

for just just really quickly. I I my niece

was in her master of Social Work program and I was really

bothered after what my daughter had gone through a why like how

this is happening to so many people around me. Why how can

we be proactive and I called her while I was a walking and I said Amber, will

you write a children's book series with me and she was

blown away. And so we now have the third through three

books of the five book series done. It's called The Power of thought

we created a fictitional planet with

I with beings that are not identified by gender

the planets made a crystals. The beings are

all named after crystals and every single book teaches in a

really fun fun way and evidence-based strategy. So

the first book is called I have choices. So basically zirko

who is the main character in

the book flies out and

People playing a game that he's obviously gets

very worried about and that's something that every child can relate to

but then we take zirko through by teaching

a series of all, right. Why are you

feeling worried identifying what it is? And then what are

the possible choices you have and then we walk walk them

through the possible choices and the book ends with zirko making

a choice and feeling great about themselves. And then

the second book is what I'm thinking true. And that's about all the all the

stuff in our head that we've got a weed through some times

in a process to do that. And the third book is I

can check my senses and checking your senses if

you can get into a routine and we try to teach children this of I'm

going to identify five things around me that

I see what we're doing is we're bringing them to a state

of being present.

And mindful and so that's a strategy and then

it's I can call my mind and if you and the second

book and yeah, we're very very excited about it.

We'll see age group for those books while the reader aloud

is great for four year olds, five six seven, but we're finding the

this children that are really taking in the strategies and and

everybody's different right everybody's at a different development until age, but eight

nine years old is is excellent and

the adults are giving us the feedback saying thank you.

We didn't know we didn't know how to do this. We didn't

know the how to teach our kids these strategies. So, I mean

that was a surprise to us and I shouldn't have been because you know, as I

learned from my niece the social worker. I learned a lot of them myself

too. So

Yeah, that's really cool. We're great way for you to

be able to connect with your child and go through those together and learn

together and and do that in a

like non emotionally volatile space

because there's sometimes usually when we're aware of the emotional states

of our children is when it is in like a wild place and

that's just kind of like the worst time to educate or teach

or sit down and do those things. So it's very wonderful wonderful

to be able to do that. Where can

people find that book and working people connect with

you.

They are at anywhere books can be bought but

my website limaglachlan.com if we actually

have a holiday giveaway right now where we're giving away three books with

a set of crystals. You can sign up for that or if you want

personalized books. You can order directly from my website or through

Amazon Barnes & Noble anywhere that

you can buy books. And if you're an Essex County Ontario, they're in all

the local bookstores too. Well, that's awesome. Thank

you so much for sharing that information and I'll make sure that there are

links in the show notes of people can can get on top

of that and learn more but Lyn, thank you so much

for coming on to True Hope cast today. I really appreciate your time. Thank you.

My pleasure my honor thank you very much for having me. Of course.

Well that is it for this week on true. Hope because thank

you so much for listening. I'll make sure that all the information necessary to

connect with Lynn and connect with those Awesome books will be

in the show notes, and don't forget to subscribe. If you

haven't yet. You can also leave us a review on iTunes if you wish that it

for this week. We'll see you soon.