Supporting emotionally intense kids, with Anouk Godbout
Dec 18, 2023Welcome back!
This photo is of my extended family at Christmas dinner, taken when I was a child. Can you spot me?
Yep, I'm the kid who is NOT having a good time.
Why? I have no idea. All I know is that I was a difficult kid.
Why? Again, I have no idea. I was too young to have memories of the reasons behind why I did the things I did.
I do know that having a reputation as a difficult kid profoundly shaped who I am now. It is definitely one of the biggest reasons behind why I am so passionate about supporting neurodivergent kids, some of whom share that reputation with 'little me'.
On this week's podcast/YouTube episode, I'm talking to Anouk Godbout all about parenting emotionally intense kids. She has a few of 'us' at home and she supports other parents who do as well.
It's a great conversation between Anouk as the parent and me as the (former) difficult kid. I very much enjoyed our time together.
Here's a clip from the episode:
Anouk: I always hate when people say, like, 'Don't yell at your kids' or 'Stay calm'. That's the worst advice because it's not doable. Like just that way. It's just not doable. And to be able to do that we need ourself to be regulated to be calm. And that's not something you can do in the moment when the child loses it. We cannot say 'I'm gonna stay calm'. No, because often it's triggering our own defense mechanism, our own fight or flight or fawn or, like freeze response, because they're really intense and it's physically threatening. And sometimes it's even, like, they can even be violent, right? So it really is physically threatening. So it's going against that instinct of protecting ourself. And often that's why we yell and that's why we lose it.
Steph: And yeah, we become afraid, we become anxious, we become... right? Yeah. And sometimes... Anger is like a mask for other things. So even if we think we're angry, we're afraid or scared or...
Anouk: Yeah. And often we're scared of 1000 things at the same time, because we have the mind that will... The kids are just in the moment feeling bad. But we can also be like, 'If my child behaves that way now, how it's going to be a Christmas or how it's going to be at school, or how are they ever going to be able to be an adult?’ Like, we can spin it and it's not conscious, it goes so fast, but we spin in that, in that worry, and it makes us lose it.
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