Handling Anxiety & Conflict in Kids (and Humans!) with Connection with

Handling Anxiety & Conflict in Kids (and Humans!) with Connection with NYT Bestselling Author Alyssa Blask Campbell [Episode 1013]

This Week’s Episode Special Guest: Alyssa Trask Campbell

Summary:

In this episode, Kimberly and Alyssa Black Campbell discuss her journey as a parenting expert and author, focusing on the emotional landscape of parenting. She emphasizes the importance of understanding emotions, connection, and the needs behind children’s behaviors. The discussion covers various topics including self-regulation, co-regulation, the significance of creating safe spaces for communication, and navigating challenges like lying and bullying. Alyssa shares insights from her personal experiences and highlights the role of neuroscience in understanding children’s emotional needs.

About Alyssa Blask Campbell

Alyssa Blask Campbell is CEO of Seed & Sew, a platform that offers consultations and courses on emotional intelligence, as well as creating a modern parenting village. She has a master’s degree in early childhood education and is a leading expert in emotional development and travels the globe speaking on the topic. Her first book, Tiny Humans, Big Emotions, published in October 2023 from HarperCollins. Follow @seed.and.sew.

Guest Resources:

Website: Seed & Sew

Book: Big Kids, Bigger Feelings: Navigating Defiance, Meltdowns, Anxiety to Raise Confident, Connected Kids

Episode Sponsors:

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Episode Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Parenting and Emotions
02:48 Understanding Emotions in Parenting
06:01 The Role of Connection in Parenting
08:50 Identifying Needs Behind Behaviors
12:09 Navigating Punishment and Connection
14:48 The Importance of Self-Regulation
17:51 Co-Regulation and Emotional Intelligence
21:09 Addressing Lying and Trust
23:47 Creating a Safe Space for Sharing
27:00 Understanding Fear and Vulnerability
29:45 The Impact of Trauma on Parenting
32:59 Conclusion and Resources

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Transcript:

Welcome to the Feel Good Podcast, which is all about heart-led living and wellness. When we awaken the power of our hearts and let that guide us through our daily choices and decisions, through our four cornerstones, food, body, emotional well-being, and spiritual growth, we will experience the most incredible results and create more vitality, health, strength, peace, abundance, and love in our lives.

I am your host, Kimberly Snyder, New York Times bestselling author, founder of Solluna, creator of the research-based Heart Aligned Meditation, wellness expert, nutritionist, and international speaker. I am passionate about supporting you on your unique heart and wellness journey. For more information on todays show please go to mysolluna.com for show notes and links. Let’s get started.

Speaker 1 (01:29.13)
So thank you so much for being here with us today and congrats on your new book. This is your second one.

Speaker 2 (01:30.73)

Yeah, yeah, my first one, Tiny Human’s Big Emotions came out in 2023. I was like 32 weeks pregnant when that one published, was a whirlwind. Wow. Yeah, that one hit the New York Times bestseller list, which was exciting. Yeah. And then a few weeks after it published, was doing well. Our editor reached out and was like, Alyssa, will you write another book?

I was like, actually, I just need a nap. I’m so tired. And so I turned to Rachel, who I’ve worked with, had the privilege of working with now for seven years. And she works with me at my company. And I asked her she would write this bad boy with me. And she said, yeah. So we were able to do it.

Well, I think this is so great because many of us are parents in the community or are thinking about being parents in the future or even not. feel like parenting books help us understand ourselves. And I can say as a parent, there’s been this incredible experience of feeling like I’m reparenting myself. And most of us are not learned. You we don’t learn.

to handle emotions, have tools as you talk about in your book. And I went through this period of this, where it’s like, hmm, you know, it just felt a little sad and I had to process that. But I also think we’re given the, you know, the childhoods that were meant to be given. But I feel like this is, you know, this is big stuff we’re talking about here.

Yeah, people often say they like come for their kids, but they stay for themselves. That so much of this work. We say if you have a nervous system like this works for you. We are really just talking about neuroscience and what it’s like to be a human on planet Earth and be in relationship with other humans. And man, it’s doozy sometimes.

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:55.63)
Yeah, and I like how you talk about upfront. It’s not about trying to shield ourselves or our children from hardships because you know my nine-year-old now I can see him being more self-conscious about what he wears to school and Then he told me that there was a child like in one of the older grades who kind of made fun of his dog man sure now he won’t wear it and it just brings up stuff and It’s a lot

like all the layers of kind of reliving what we’ve been through as parents.

100%. And I find for myself as a parent, there’s nothing harder than just watching your child experience something hard, like being made fun of, feeling left out, feeling that shame or embarrassment. And knowing that it’s not our job to take it away, but instead to be with them through those hard things to let them know that they can navigate this and survive it. It’s so hard.

to do in practice as a parent is allowing it.

Well, I’m not sure that all of us were even raised with parents that were aware that there was hardship. I wasn’t. I’m not just blaming my parents or anything. just I don’t think that’s how they were raised either. So I just know that there was a lot of things that I pushed down because I couldn’t handle them.

Speaker 1 (04:26.614)
And I think that’s ultimately why I turned to certain things like bulimia and eating disorders. I couldn’t digest life. And, you know, as adults, we continue to learn and grow and pass on, you know, more tools to our children.

Totally, and we’re not gonna heal all the things and that’s okay too. I think of my friend, Dr. Linietta Willis, she’s an intergenerational trauma therapist. And she talks about our legacy blessings and our legacy burdens. And our legacy blessings are those things that we wanna pass on, that we inherited and that we want to pass on to our children in the next gen.

And our legacy burdens are those things that maybe we don’t want to pass on, but also knowing that we’re not going to heal all the burdens, that some of them will get passed on and that’s okay. We get to give our kids the tools and the outlets to continue to heal and process.

Yeah

Speaker 1 (05:24.078)
Well, I love how, and we’ll get into some of the more specific tools you talk about, but there’s a underlying theme of connection, which is, you know, in my work with the heart and just being connected to self and always, even if we’re not perfect parents, if we can stay empathetic, we can be connected. Our children will really feel that.

100%. And when we’re talking about different topics in big kids in this book, we talk about a number of different topics, but you’re right, the through line is not it. The goal isn’t to say, Hey, say this script at this time, or say these exact words or do this exact thing. The through line for us is how do you maintain connection and just stay in relationship with each other and recognizing that

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (06:13.336)
Sometimes relationship is messy and hard and sometimes it feels good and easy and you’re not failing if you’re in conflict in relationship or you’re in the messy hard parts. That’s just a part of being in relationship with each other.

Right. Well, you know, as you say, these tiny humans and then middle childhood, there’s different things happening on in their brain and their prefrontal cortex and the way that they process information. So I want to ask you as a parent, you know, some real questions. And then of course, it will illustrate some of the information that you share in big kids, bigger, bigger feelings. either you or Rachel use an example where, obviously paraphrasing here, but I think it was one of the daughters.

was teasing the sibling. then the mama, which was you, Rachel, said, well, no screen time tomorrow, if you remember this. And I think as a parent, sometimes we see behaviors in our children. And in our family dynamic, our older son, who’s four years older than our younger son, who’s now five, sometimes he’ll take his choice because he can, and he’s bigger, or he’ll do things.

And as hard as a parent, like we don’t know. Sometimes you wanna say, because my kids don’t get screen time except on the weekends. So sometimes I’ll say something, well, next Saturday you’re not gonna get your 30 minutes of screen time. like you said, it’s punishment, give, take, but sometimes you don’t know what else to do.

Totally, yeah. Well, and that’s real and a part of just being a human on planet Earth too, that you’re not always gonna in the moment have the answers. So giving ourselves grace is so key here too. But in an ideal world, what we’re looking at is trying to identify, we get to be like a detective and see what’s the need that’s driving this behavior. So when your older son comes and takes that toy from his younger son, is it a need for connection?

Speaker 2 (08:08.768)
Is he really trying to connect or engage or get somebody’s attention, which is a connection?

You get so much attention though.

Some of our kids, it’s like a leaky cup. It can feel like a leaky cup for connection. I have a high connection seeker. My daughter’s a high connection seeker. And it can feel like there’s not enough connection in the world that will be enough for her. And my son is not a high connection seeker. It’s almost like it feels easier to fill his connection cup. But also for him, his sensory needs are more demanding than hers. we all just have our own little blueprint walking through this world.

But when we can look at what is the need driving the behavior and we break these down into two categories. We have sensory needs and we talk about the nervous system, the nine sensory systems which we can get into. But when we’re looking at that, we’re really looking at are they under stimulated or overstimulated? Are they hungry? Are they tired? Do they need to move their body? Do they need a break from stim? They need to chill.

Right, okay. That’s more easier to decode in a way.

Speaker 2 (09:11.822)
For a lot of us, we grew up in cultures where sensory needs were seen as needs. Food, water, movement, were seen as needs. And connection needs were often seen as wants. It was like attention-seeking behavior, and that was a negative thing. And it wasn’t seen as, you need attention, that you have this need for inclusion or belonging or knowing that you’re loved or worthy or valued. so for a lot of us, the connection needs can actually be quite triggering.

where it can feel like, my gosh, this kid’s so needy. They need so much. And that’s our own bias coming up into play and being able to recognize that is half the battle. And then really being able to see like, okay, this is a need for connection. And maybe I just spent a bunch of time connecting with this kiddo and maybe they’re a high connection needs kid. And so what are the outlets for that?

Great.

Speaker 2 (10:07.154)
And we give some examples in the book. And I was actually, was just at an event down in LA where we were, I was met with a group of a hundred moms and we were talking about exactly this. Like what are ways that we can help our kids? Like if I can’t give them more connection in this moment, I’m cooking dinner or I’m trying to do something. What are outlets for that? And we have things like journaling back and forth or being able to call a friend and chat with them on the phone or.

FaceTime a grandparent or a cousin or a friend or an aunt or uncle and find ways to have that outlet that’s not always directly from you as the parent or maybe even from the sibling who might have lower connection needs and kind of needs a break to be by themselves for a little bit.

Right. Okay. So would you say as a parenting expert, Alyssa, punishment or taking things away doesn’t really work?

It just doesn’t solve the problem. What we’re going to do is we’re responding to the behavior on the surface. As long as we’re not meeting that need, you’re going to keep seeing new behaviors pop up because the need doesn’t go away. Right? In the same way that if you had like a baby who was hungry, you could bounce them and shush them all day long, but until you feed them, they’re not going to stop crying because they’re hungry. And if we have a child who needs to move their body or a child who needs to connect, we might

put out the fires on the surface, but until we meet that need, you’re just gonna see new ones pop up.

Speaker 1 (11:40.226)
Do you think that there’s some children in the way that they’re, you know, finding their way in the world? Like my older son is very mischievous, for example. Slime in my farm boots and he thinks it’s hilarious and he laughs like he’s always… Pranks like he loves it. And he just thinks it’s hilarious. And he gets so much attention. Again, like always, all the time. Do you feel like maybe some of this behavior is, you he wants his…

He would.

Speaker 2 (11:54.888)
Such a connection seeker.

Speaker 1 (12:09.57)
get a rise out of his brother and.

really from a place of connection. I want your attention. want you to notice me. brother. From anybody, right? Our high connection seekers, they’ll seek it out anywhere. we can help them identify that. I would say things like, that was a silly prank that you did, or that was silly joke. Did you want me to laugh? Were you trying to connect with me and help kind of bridge that awareness for them of when you’re doing these things, it’s because you want to connect.

That’s how we help build their awareness of what is my need. So then when they grow up in the world, they can move through the world knowing, when I feel this way, it’s because I’m hungry. When I feel that way, it’s because I’m tired. When I feel this way, I need to move my body. When I’m doing these things, it’s because I need to connect with somebody, because I need to feel that sense of connection and belong.

you

Speaker 1 (13:07.278)
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Speaker 1 (16:34.958)
I’ll just tell you a fear as a parent hearing this is, again, he gets so much attention. Again, everybody says it, right? I pay so much attention to E. So I guess my fear is if he’s still wanting more, what if when he grows up, he gets into unhealthy relationships or he just always has to be in a relationship because of that.

I want to reframe, like, you’re looking at intimate relationships. I see most often with our high connection seekers, they often actually seek it out even much outside of intimate relationships in friendships and in other spaces where, like, they might be the human who corrals kids to, like, all get together and play a game or they can often be, like, leaders in a pack where they… are so many outlets for connection that it’s not just an intimate one-to-one relationship.

There are so many avenues for it. And as they continue to grow, they’ll find places to connect in different ways to make that happen. And we can support them along the way. But these are humans who it’s a superpower and we need them in this world. My daughter is like this. She is a high connection seeker. She walks into a room of 100 people she doesn’t know. And she’s like, my God, yes, 100 new friends. She’s 20 months.

And she’s four?

my gosh. and do you think that correlates with being an extrovert? Yeah, a lot of way.

Speaker 2 (18:00.494)
A lot of our high connection seeking kiddos are also extroverted. You a little bit have to be because it’s going to fill that cup, right? That like when you’re in that, although I just had a kid pop into my head who I when I was teaching and he was five years old and he had high connection needs, but he was an introvert and he would seek out more one to one like peer connection connection for me as a teacher. But he would look forward in those kind of smaller groups.

activities and avenues, but he would glom on to like other kids and just want to be near them and want to talk to them and want to share and yada yada. But it was like he had one or two good friends in each space. He wasn’t like, I want to hang out with everyone in the class.

Well, so there’s natural extroverts, introverts, connectors, like you said. How do you think this relates to, and you know, this is sort of on a spiritual level and in yogic traditions, you talk about the true self and self connection, which is self-effulgence and fulfilling and being so connected to the love inside that you wanna share it with people, but you’re not needing it.

Yeah, I think that we’re, I’m going to pull in the like neuroscience and too. When we’re looking at this, I want to recognize that there’s not a human on the planet where there’s a one size fits all. Right? all of us, our nervous systems operate differently in the way that we integrate stimuli, the way that we integrate the world around us and make sense of it is different for all of us. And for some kids, they are their superpowers. I can noticing the details.

or they know if something moves in their environment. They can get really dysregulated by like piles or clutter or things like that because they’re super attuned to the visual stimuli in their space. Some humans who sound, they’re really aware of the sounds in their environment and they can get really overstimulated by sound, especially if there’s competing sounds happening. Some kids who notice the details of how clothing feels in a heightened way. It’s too itchy, it’s too tight, it’s too something.

Speaker 2 (20:02.378)
And I look at these as superpowers, that they’re really good at noticing, they’re very attuned to those senses. And there are some humans who aren’t as attuned, and for them, can, it then appears as though they can maybe be more easygoing or they can move through the world differently, because their brain isn’t so hyper-focused on like, my gosh, what is that noise? I can’t stop hearing that clicking sound in the background and kind of tuning into those things in different ways. And so when we’re looking at the

integration of all of that stimuli. We go through the nine senses in the book and outline it. But I think it’s really important in then saying like how you integrate them then determines how you show up in the world and what you need from the world around you based on how your nervous system is integrating that stimuli, because it’s going to find kind of homeostasis and regulation in different ways based on your unique nervous system. Does that make sense?

It does to me. It sounds a little complicated to explain to a child.

for sure. I’m going to break it down in different words to Yeah, to a kid. we this so the bulk of the work that we do at Seed is in school systems. I work in schools, elementary, middle schools, and then in childcare programs. And we teach teachers like how to talk to kids about this. How do you teach them about their nervous system? Totally. Well, there’s this idea of self-regulation even is something I think we need to really break down that

and self-regulation.

Speaker 2 (21:32.404)
You teach self-regulation through co-regulation and self-regulation isn’t one size fits all.

Wait, so say that again for a moment. mean co-regulation, you regulate yourself and then you’re in the space and then… You know, it’s like goosebumps. It’s almost like the science of heart coherence. Well, our hearts are giving off a magnetic field that’s 100 times stronger than the brain. So when we’re more emotionally calm, you talk about emotional intelligence and the more coherent, our heart rhythms are smooth and our…

borrowing your comms.

Speaker 2 (21:52.108)
Not anymore.

Speaker 1 (22:06.306)
Brains are nervous, everything’s in sync. People around you feel that. Totally. So as we calm ourselves, we can calm our children more. That’s right.

I think of it like the difference between a thermometer and a thermostat. A thermometer is just going to read the temperature of the room, you’re going to join it. A thermostat sets that temperature. And in order to set that temperature, you have to be mindful of your own regulation. So often we want kids to regulate for us. We want them to get calm for us when we can’t.

Right.

Yeah, I see parents who are literally screaming in public. Yeah. And they’re like, you calm down. We’re at the playground and I heard this, this mom didn’t know we were there. We were in the bathroom and she was like talking to her two girls and then me and my younger son came out and she was like embarrassed. I mean, I felt bad for her because obviously she didn’t want, no one wants to be that person.

Nobody wants to be in that state where their body feels so out of control that you’re like, need the humans around me to change their behavior so I can feel in control. And so so much, that’s why I said so many folks, they come for the kids, but stay for themselves that we dive into what is, how does your nervous system work? What does it look like to learn how to build your own self-awareness and self-regulation so that we can then navigate co-regulation with our kids so that

Speaker 2 (23:28.098)
when our kid comes in and they roll their eyes and they slam the door and they give a sass or the sarcasm or whatever, that we can be the calm force in that moment. And it doesn’t mean I don’t hold boundaries. It doesn’t mean that any behavior is allowed. It does mean that I am really working on, okay, how do I calm my body so that I can respond with intention instead of react from a place of dysregulation.

So let’s play this out for any mamas out there who have teenagers or getting close to teenagers, not there yet. But although I’ve seen some behavior from my nine-year-old defiance and disrespect, which you talk about in the book. Let’s say your teenager comes home and you say, or, hey, I’ll be the teenager.

Well, it seems like something happened at school today.

I’m fine.

Yeah, I am here if you want to chat. Would you like space or do you want to talk about?

Speaker 1 (24:30.862)
Why are you so annoying? Why are you always trying to say that to me?

I love you so much. I’m going to be cooking in the kitchen. If you want to come touch base, that’s where I’ll be

That’s not a fun. Okay. Let’s do another one. Yeah. I mean, so it’s a center. You’re the center and you’re not trying to grab. Okay. I love it.

I’m not taking the bait. Right? Like the bait is all, that would be me joining their energy. And I’m saying like, I’ve got you. I’m still calm in your storm.

Okay, let’s do this one, which I have experienced where my son will call me by my first name and I don’t like it. Sure. Okay, so I’ll be the teenager tween, okay? Yeah. Comes home from school. Hey, Alyssa.

Speaker 2 (25:15.544)
Hey, did you want my attention? I heard you use my first name.

Alisha?

Yeah, it does sound like you want my attention. I’m here if you want to chat or hang.

Lyssa, Lyssa!

Yeah, come

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