House Calls with Dr. Vivek Murthy | Dr. A. Pressman: Why Parent Mental Health is Essential for Kids

[Music] hello and welcome to house calls I'm VI Mory and I have the honor of serving as US Surgeon General I'd like to introduce you to Alisa prman psychologist and author today we talk about parenting and how focusing on the mental health of parents supports the well-being of our kids if you're a parent or you're raising a child have you ever worried about whether you're doing a good enough job that's a question I sometimes ask myself in this complicated world am I raising my kids to become healthy and resilient adults to explore these questions I invited Dr Elisa prman to house calls she's co-founding director of the Mount Si Parenting Center and is an assistant clinical professor at Mount Si hospital she's also the author of the new book the five principles of parenting and host of the parenting podcast raising good humans speaking with Alisa's very reassuring not because she told me I'm a perfect parent but because she relieved me of the notion that I need to be one actually Alisa told me that having imperfect parents means kids don't feel the pressure to be perfect either and by that measure my kids should be absolutely fine Alisa sees parenting is a path for growth and she brings a compelling perspective on why parent mental health is essential the better we as adults can handle stress worry loneliness or isolation the more easily our children will be able to navigate these challenges in in their own lives as Alisa and I discuss here the keys to Parenting resilient children are surprisingly simple and Universal it's less about a specific right or wrong parenting response to every Calamity that arises and more about us the adults grounding ourselves so we can parent in the ways we intend Alisa shares some exercises I know I'll be using as a parent for my kids for years to come be sure to stay tuned in for our Q&A at the end we bring in a surprise house calls guest to join us well said thank you so much for joining me on the podcast I'm really excited for our conversation today I am so honored I'm so honored that I'm here I'm so honored to be in conversation with you and also I'm blown away at the work that you are doing for everyone to see the urgency of our mental health and our parents and so much of the so many of the things I just can't I I'm not saying this way not saying this in the way that I wanted to because I'm too excited about it but I'm just so moved by how much is Under the Umbrella of Health well thank you so much that means a lot to me especially given your background in health and everything you've been doing uh you know to help parents and kids and uh so I I really appreciate that this has been for for me and I know a lot of people in my office this has been a very personal labor of love especially when it comes to youth mental health because a lot of us have kids or we kids we love in our life many of us are parents and were grappling with so many of the issues that you've been writing about and this is one of the reasons I'm just so excited to talk to you I was thinking uh When I Was preparing for our conversation just in very personal terms about my own struggles with parenting and I I just I'm blessed to have two kids who are six and seven and I feel so much joy from parenting I I'm just feel so lucky to be their parents they make me laugh all the time there's a lot of Joy but there's also a lot of worry I feel like I'm con L just wondering if I'm doing what I need to do for them to help them learn to develop socially to you know be healthy to to be the kind of human beings that I hope will be happy and fulfilled and to have a foundation for that and I suspect that I may not be the only parent out there who's worrying about this but but that's actually where I I wanted to start with you which is um if you had to describe like how parents are feeling today about their parenting about the challenges of parenting like what would you say I would say today I'm hearing parents feeling overwhelmed inundated at maximum capacity and a little bit scared and that's my the the sort of more negative things that I'm hearing and then on the other side of it the most engaged the most in love the most excited to do right by our kids so it's interesting because it's big feelings on both sides yes I'm really glad you mentioned both sides because I I have heard parents say to me that at a time when it feels like everyone is so stressed and understandably so about the challenges of parenting in in the 21st century that it feels almost hard to talk about the joy that you get from parenting because it almost feels like you're either out of touch or insensitive to other people's pain or that worse that you're naive in some way I'm curious if if you've heard that or if that resonates with you one of the things that I hear so often parents will say something that sounds like they're struggling and then they'll say but I know my kid is wonderful and I'm so lucky like they're apologizing for their stress or I know it could be so much worse and you know we know this about adults too that's no way to have a conversation to feel like whatever you're struggling with is somehow being measured by the other person listening and is somehow it has has to have a caveat so I really want parents to be able to both love and enjoy and find Delight in their parenting and also be able to say no matter what my circumstances are these are the things that I'm struggling with and I think it's kind of heartbreaking to imagine that and this happens across the range of experiences people are having no matter how challenging or maybe it seems like it's how could how could this person be complaining they they've got so many things going on but what also happens is parents apologize for talking about their child in a way that makes them sound like they're challenging like as if they're they need to then say to me but I really love them and they wonderful kids of course they are and it's just letting go of the myth that we wouldn't be able to see our kids and see that they are challenges and see that there are moments that are not delightful and not have to apologize for it and just be able to say oh we're in this together we know that helps everyone everyone's mental health benefits when we can just name that yeah I think it it absolutely does and I think naming it is been one of the challenges which is one of the reasons I'm glad that you wrote your book Because as much as parents are often talking with one another especially within parent groups I do find that sometimes the sort of getting deeper into like what is driving the in parenting is often challenging so it's it feels a little bit harder CU I've realized and you I felt this at times myself that I do worry that parents carry a lot of Shame when it comes to what they perceive as shortcomings in parenting or not knowing exactly what what to do like I remember when I first became a a parent Alisa which is feels like forever ago but honestly it was only about 7 years ago I remember when when I found out that we were going to have a baby you know after the initial joy and excitement and just disbelief and everything I started thinking okay how do I figure out everything I need to do and know in order to be a good parent and this is something that I think is an impossible task but it's one that you've spoken to really beautifully when you've talked about the actually Gifts of imperfection and about the learning curve that we have to embrace as parents could you talk a bit about that I found that very helpful sure I feel so passionately about this because one of the things which I didn't say before is we are striving for Perfection rightfully so it is so developmentally appropriate to have the care of a human to want to want that to be your your most perfect job why wouldn't you if you are bringing a child into the world in whatever way this child comes to be your child how could you not get this down so right so I want to just say that it is developmentally appropriate to want that and then I also want to encourage people to remember that not only is it not possible to be perfect and I know there's that little tiny voice inside of people's heads saying well sure but I can like this is and I understand that it's so interesting because of the role that I am in it sometimes feels like well are you not telling us about best practices or whatever is going to best support our children's thriving but one of the things that's important to remember is that even though it is developmentally appropriate to want to be perfect it isn't good for our kids because not only is it burdensome I mean if anybody was raised by a perfect parent and perfect in quotes they know that when you grow up and get out into the world it does not feel good to think that your model was perfect because then you imagine you're supposed to be perfect so you're already using voices inside of your head that are not kind who wants that and separately we grow from our mistakes and we grow from our Discord and repair so how can we build strong muscles without having those tiny little ruptures in the muscles to grow the big muscles and so those are the mistakes the parenting mistakes are part of what makes us better parents and in absence of those mistakes we just can't grow our best version of humans I think that really highlights the Deep connection that you've underscored in your book between the mental health and state of stress at parents experience and what their kids actually experience could you talk a little bit about that about the interplay bit and influence of a parents Mental Health on their kids this is such a a fine balance to say this because I want to say this without burdening parents MH more to inspire parents but the most powerful environmental influence on our kids is is having this parenting environment is this strong ideally a strong close connection with the with your parent one it just takes one um it's so wonderful if there are more adults in our lives that are supportive and loving but it just takes one and knowing that the parenting environment is the most powerful environment I find that heartening because we can control ourselves we can't control the world so when we're inundated with media saying the world is on fire we can't control those things but how heartening that those environmental influences terrifying as they are are not going to take over the buffering impact of having a close conned relationship with this one adult caregiver that is you and so that means your mental health is crucial for your child's mental health because in a sense they borrow your nervous system that's what co-regulation is so you want a nervous system that is the kind of nervous system you want to be lending out to your kids when they are still growing and so they don't have capacity to have a fully developed nervous system so we we co-regulate with them and I want people to feel inspired by that not terrified by that and it means that sometimes you're going to fly off the handle you're going to you're you're going to have that stress that makes it so that you are not making choices in an intentional way it happens to all of us and also what a wonderful time to practice taking care of our mental health so that we have a better chance at helping our kids have strong mental health and of course there's DNA there's so many influences that are out of our control and so I don't want people to blame themselves if things are not going beautifully but I do want to inspire parents to know that we do make a difference absolutely I I love the balce way in which you put that because um I certainly wouldn't don't want anyone to think that because you have a diagnosis of depression or because you struggle with anxiety that your kids are doomed I think exact what what you're saying is exactly the opposite which is that we can use our Journeys actually to benefit our children and I I think about even in my own life I it took me years to understand and recognize that my parents were on a growth Journey as well while they were parenting me I think as a little kid and this wasn't something that we talked about a lot in my in Indian immigrant family but we to talk about mental health we to talk about um some of these different elements of development but I realized in retrospect that even though I thought as a young kid that my parents must know everything and have everything figured out and they should be perfect like I realized in retrospect they were growing that they were changing that they were developing and um I actually wondered what would it have been like if we had conversation about that earlier on maybe it would have set more realistic expectations for me as a child but maybe it would have also led to conversations that that could have been very helpful for both of us so anyway I'll just just to say that I think this learning curve that you point to that parents are on my My Hope Is that people can see that as a source of strength and as permission uh to develop and to evolve and to not be perfect um because truth is this is a journey I think for all of us we have when you walk into Mount I in New York at the when you're giving birth it says parents are born here so that was something that we yeah and it was something that we put there 10 years ago because we really wanted that that journey to be abundantly clear we just got here we just got here when our kids did and so when that just offers us so much more self-compassion and I think it's so interesting that you observe that about your parents how attuned were you that you could recognize that well it came about when I was older though I would say probably it took me until college or you know graduate school to recognize that as as a kid growing up I didn't fully see that because I didn't have context and I just thought your parents are supposed to be perfect and know everything but clearly that that was not the case for them and it was has not been the case for me as as a parent either I think there's a there's a frightening recogn realization that almost every parent goes through when you realize as you get older that you're becoming your parents yeah and doing the things that they did saying the things that they said and as that's happened to me it's given me a lot more empathy uh for for my own parents so how did you I I'm just so curious because reflection is such a big part of our parenting so how at at such a young age I know it doesn't seem so young when you say college or you know in your 20s but how even then because a lot of people don't reflect on this until they have kids kids and they think oh okay well now that I'm at this point I I can recognize this can't have just happened so easily and naturally and my parents were on a journey but to even get to that place of reflection in college or in your 20s before you had kids to me is it says a lot well that's very kind of you I I think what happened is that when when I was growing up I think you know I was was short tempered and I I I think when you're angry certainly when I was angry anger clouds your vision and and makes it hard to see what's really happening and it was only years later when uh I started to get a little bit more control over my temper but also when I went through uh life experiences that um helped me put things in perspective and realize just how important family was and how uncertain the future was and how important it was for us to focus on our relationships and embrace forgiveness and and empathy that's when like my vision start to become a little more clear and I start to see ah you know like there there's there was more going on you know during those moments like in childhood childhood perhaps than than I realized and um I I think but I would be remiss if I didn't say that it it didn't have to do with an influence of my parents themselves which is that even when I would be just a terrible kid or would do like really dumb things or would disobey them they never ever made me feel like they didn't love me they may not have had all the solutions they may have proposed rules that irritated me or angered me or made me resentful but there was never a moment where I questioned their unconditional love for me and that has been like a life jacket that I've worn like my entire life and even even in this job I will tell you like I you know it's my second time serving as Surgeon General and there are great days and there there are tough days you know like in any job uh in anyone's life but even during really low points like uh it'll be like a call from my mother out of the blue you know just to check on me or a text from my dad saying we're worried about you I want to know how you're doing that'll just remind me of that warm blanket of unconditional love that they've always always given me that is what I try to remember in my own parenting with my kids when I feel like I'm screwing up or I'm not sure what I'm doing or un My Hope Is that that they will feel the unconditional love that uh that I feel so strongly for them I mean that's that that's just so you know that's what we hope for we hope that our children believe they are loved for exactly who they are then we can Delight in their accomplishments I'm sure your parents are very proud of you what more could they really where do you go from here and yet their love does not rest on that and you knew that and so I think that is my hope as well yeah thank you for giving me a chance to reflect on that speaking of being short-tempered which I admitted I was there is something that you've spoken about which I really loved about the importance of us as parents learning about self-regulation and how that's a really really important tool to build a muscle to build if you will can you talk a bit about the importance of self-regulation what is it and how do we cultivate that in our lives so my non-scientific explanation of self-regulation is just to think you know we want to raise kids who aren't losing their temper when they got the wrong order at the coffee shop you know just like it's it's not something that is unattainable but it is something that we can catch in ourselves as we move through the world so if everybody just spends this week paying attention to when they feel in their body just like a clenched fist or red face or just those moments when you aren't making the choice that you would make if you paused that's really it and when you are self-regulated you're intentional even if you yell at your kids you paused and you said what do I want in this moment what is my goal I'm going to yell there's something about that that's just it's unlikely that you will but it is so different to make intentional choices It Feels So freeing that your your nervous system make a decision for you unless it needed to because there was something that was a real threat and then of course we need to we need to do the thing we need to have a stress response so regulation it is such a skill that we that is growable and that's why I talk about it so much because it's not something that we have to think of as just you either have it or you don't there are certainly people who are more they they sort of came into this world with a little bit more of an easy time with it but we know that self-regulation is more is highly linked with academic success for example than IQ that's shocking so if you can focus on controlling where your attention is it makes sense that it would be more associated with academic success because you are not sort of at the whim of whatever it is that your brain wants to be doing and focusing on and remembering but you actually are having intention and since our brains are not fully developed I know you know this but it till you know 18 to late 20s that means that the part of our brain that has capacity for self-regulation just isn't fully developed so we need as parents to support our children's developing regulation by self-regulating and so often parents ask how do I get if self-regulation is so important how can I get my kids to be more self-regulated which is a very natural question to ask and certainly there are many activities that you can do to practice growing those muscles but the biggest thing that we can do is invest in our own capacity to self-regulate so if you notice that you are short-tempered that you make a decision to practice yourself so that you get a little bit better at being intentional at pausing and having intentional responses instead of reactions and just that change has a huge influence on your children's future self-regulation it's a long game though so you don't get like the payoff right away but it seems so so vital not just for our kids but for our own happiness as well and I say that as somebody who you know used to really struggle with this short tempered and I know one of the decisions I made it was a very small thing was that I was never going to send an email when I was angry right and that because otherwise IID write these like long Toms like full of like emotion and like this and that and then sit on and be like should I send this and part like no I shouldn't send this I should then I just realized wait a minute if I just like walk away and then come back like when I'm in a better place and usually I don't need to send the email at all or I send like a oneliner or phone call um but you have these like a series of beautiful exercises that you have walked people through breathing exercises and others I think to help them move from a place of Stress and Anxiety to a place of calm I think think of them as as small tools to help us actually with self-regulation I was wondering if you might be able to share uh some of those tools with us maybe walk us through one of those exercises sure I feel the same way about those long you know never send an email when you're angry or you know fill in the blank for whatever it is when you're having that reactive State what I think is wonderful is to get to a certain point in life where you've made that decision you've gone past the place and be self-compassionate like I can look back too and I think to myself oh there are so many things that I have written or sent or said back when I was younger and just didn't have as much of a commitment to this as I would say I do now and you know it just always feels better to make intentional choices and to have the freedom to send the email because you want to and you believe it's really important and going to serve you and the other person not because you just went on autopilot and that's just what happened one of the exercises that I do or I talk about is really simple it's finding the passcode to your particular alarm system so I think of it as when I I lived in New York um I lived in New York City and I went to high school in New York City and I lived in New York City until a few years ago and then I moved to California I moved into a house from an apartment where I had lots of neighbors around me and maybe this is just a New York thing but I feel feel much safer in an apartment with lots of neighbors around me in a smaller setting it just feels like if I scream there's somebody right there and um and so I got an alarm system and I remember walking into my house when I first had this alarm system and it made like a slow beeping sound that gives you time to punch in the passcode so that the alarm doesn't go off so that the police don't come the firetruck doesn't come the ambulance doesn't come whatever it is and I had this moment when I did that of this is the key to self-regulation we all just need to hear the beeping sound the warning that it's going to the alarm's going to go off and decide do I need this alarm to go off because sometimes you do sometimes you need the police to show up but most of the time hopefully you can recognize I don't there are signs that I'm about to have a false emergency and so learning that passcode for me and for most people it's taking a certain number of breaths even one breath so that you can ask yourself is this a real emergency meaning is this a life or death issue that I can't think before I respond to if your kids's running across the street you're not going to have a deep breath and say like I see you're in a rush and you really want to get across the street but we have to stop and look at the light no by then she could be heaven forbid run over so practicing is this real or imagined do I need to punch in the passcode okay now I know for me I take a deep breath in through the nose out through the mouth and right then just from that your shoulders lower you can tell that there's no emergency and so I I tend to and this is not me this is pretty much anybody in this field put your hand on your heart because it's just gives you a little boost um and it tells you that you're safe and you can even say through that breath in through the nose and out through the mouth I'm not being chased I'm safe my child is safe what now and just doing that then you can decide then you might say like go clean your up but in that moment you have given your whole body a message the alarm does not need to call Emergency Services now there are other things that we can do like if you're a little CH like practicing with kids just walking around smelling a flower and you can just use a finger with you know younger kids let's smell a flower blow out a candle because that teaches younger kids the practice of in through the nose and out through the mouth and when you practice these things every day you can access them more quickly In the Heat of the Moment I definitely wouldn't recommend saying that to someone in the Heat of the Moment like they're upset the child is upset and you say like let's breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth they might get really mad at you but if it's been something they do every day because they're smelling a flower and blowing out a candle that's just kind of when you're walking to school or outside or just part of your bedtime routine it becomes something that we can access more easily and those are small ways where you kind of punch in the passcode to your alarm system I love the Simplicity of that I was just doing that breathing and my hand over my heart as you were talking and just with this single breath I felt what you said which is my shoulders lower and relaxed and I just felt less worried you I woke up this morning and there were some things that were you know that some work-related things that I was worried about that were a bit stressful and I just I wasn't thinking about that when I took that deep breath and let it out and and that was a moment of relief so thank you for that it's very simple but I like having that in our toolkit it's embarrassingly simple everything that you know parenting is so complicated because these are our children there's so much at stake we're humans but the actual science of it is embarrassingly simple it's just accessing it breath is so powerful taking a sip of a drink putting your hands under water there are certain things that you can do that take just seconds and they give your body the message that there isn't an emergency and when there isn't an emergency we regulate I love that I I had a a professor in medical school who who used to be just so busy like seeing patients running a fellowship program teaching medical students taking care of our own two kids that she was constantly running from place to place and but she was ALS always very present with her patients even when there was an emergency she was able to just be there and calmly guide them through whatever situation arose and I remember asking her her name is pegy beia she's a nephologist at Yale and I used to often ask her Dr B where do you get that calm that centeredness from and she had a small trick which is that before she went to see a patient she would wash her hands but she would use that time with just 20 seconds or so of the water running over her hands to just feel the water to close her eyes and to take a deep breath and in that 20 seconds she would find her Center again and she would come back to that interaction with the patient less burdened by everything that was swirling around her and able to be more present for that moment it's not to say got rid of all the stresses in her life but it allowed her to be who she wanted to be in that moment and I think what you're saying is so in parallel that as parents I think we want we have a certain idea of who we want to be for our kids and so much of our pain I think comes from not being able to be that person you know from maybe uh flying off the handle when we don't intend to or maybe seeing something hurtful when that wasn't really our intent these stresses though that you and I are talking about that parents are going through right now in the beginning you said that so many parents are feeling overwhelmed and exhausted and drained what do you think is driving that feeling among parents these days I mean part of it is just the existential what in the world is going on that you know it's just the world has so much going wrong there is so much going wrong that it's hard to focus on what's going right there's so many stressors from economic stressors to emotional stressors to physical stressors we we're trying to do so much carry so much and then there's information and the way we're getting information information is so valuable and I mean I don't know about you but I for sure grew up learning that reading is power and information is power and we need to take all of it in but now we've come to an Era when we've grown up with that idea and also there's too much there's too much it's hard to figure out when we're supposed to say I have enough information and more is actually not serving me right now and it's not serving my children or it's not serving whoever so I think part of the pressure today has to do for parents in particular with the sense that there is ju there is the answer out there if I just spend enough time looking for it and that weighs heavily and it weighs heavily across every Community I've worked with every Community I've seen it's the great Universal uh equalizer is this parenting experience because no matter what we want to get it right and we think there is a possibility for that and it's just out of our reach and we just can keep you know trying to figure it out and what I hope parents can start to buy into is that like most things it's simpler than we think and it doesn't require the level of noise and intensity and sometimes that gets in the way of our just being able to put our hands under the water wash them and breathe and just decide to be present no no matter what the stressors are that are out there and also know that sometimes we can't be and that's okay too because even in the research on Attunement it's about 33% of the time that close connected relationships are really attuned we're present we're there and the rest of the time is Discord and repair if it's all Discord that's a problem but Discord and repair is more than the Attunement itself so I think we have this fantasy of there's a parent that's less stressed that's less overworked that's less everything else that is able to just be sitting there staring you know gazing lovingly into their child's eyes they're not disregulated because they don't have piles of stress and they are getting it they're nailing parenting but that's just not so gosh it's definitely not so and I I mean at least think about the thousands of parents I've met and talked to around our country yet to meet that perfect parent who's figured it all out yet I think that that person is someone we think of conceptually and and that's a dream that we Chase even though it's not realistic or desirable um you know the one one of the things that youve brought up which I I would love for you to to talk about here is you've said a part of what we've got to get clear on is what the goal of parenting is Right could you talk about that I think it's such an important question to ask it seems obvious but I don't think it is yes um and while you were saying that I was thinking about even this conversation parents are so to just name something that is so important to you like so lonely and I don't know if you're hearing that too but I think that even having conversations and connecting it's so lonely to feel like you can't share these struggles or these Joys because one would be you know bragging and one would be shame shameful and so we just tend to keep this stuff to ourselves and just to go to our parenting goals if we have a sense of our values like we really know who we are as a family or just ourselves as a parent one way to do that is to just ask yourself it's so simple let's just Envision my child or my children grown up what are they saying to what are the words they're using to describe me to my future grandchildren those are your parenting values like what are what are your goals they're in there you know them you just might not realize it but when you start to think big picture what really matters I have an exercise that we could do if you are up for it yeah I'd love to so this isn't this if this is too personal of an exercise we can swap out but this one smells good so one thing that I like to do every once in a while sometimes I do it daily sometimes I do it yearly it really depends you put your hand on your heart and you ask yourself what really matters to me and you picture your children's faces or your child's face and now if I ask you this question what are the words that come to mind what really matters the words that are coming to me I mean the first word is just love I want my kids to know that they are deeply loved I want them to know that they are worthy of that love and I want them to feel like they can give that love to other people so love feels like a very strong value that's coming up the other word that's coming up for me is is Joy like okay I want to experience Joy with my children I want them to to cultivate joy in their own lives long after I'm gone and to see that not as not a luxury not an Indulgence but as something that's really Str Central to their own well-being but also to what they can bring to the world so Joy comes up and then the last word that's popping up is support like I want them to know that that I'll always be there to support them whether we agree on everything or not I want them to know that and while they you know need to build their own independence and their own skills and res resilience I want them to know what I know about my own parents which is that whatever may come however close or far geographically we may be however old we may be that they will always be there to support me and I want my kids to to feel like they have that that blanket you know of support from from me and for my wife as well so now when you check in with yourself or when you're punching in the passcode if you just even remind yourself by saying love joy support it's just a reminder but these are the moments that we can zoom out so that we're not because the day to day gets so important the minutia ends up being so important I mean another thing that I think parents are like should I do this or that should I feed them this or that should they cry or not cry should I bring the backpack or not should I you know like there are just so many questions that we're asking ourselves is if each micro decision matters but and every time we get too into that we forget to see our kids we forget to see ourselves and so just checking in and it's going to happen a lot but just checking in and for you it's love joy support it just takes you out of the minua I love that and because I do think that I have at times found myself stuck in the minutia you know and worrying a lot about the little things and I think it's not good for me it's not good for my kids it's also not good for my wife cuz I think I drive her crazy sometimes like you know like because I I tend to she's much more naturally inclined to do the things that you are mentioning which I think a good grounding practices to zoom out see the big picture but sometimes like with my with my son for example like when he was born we had a lot of challenges feeding him you know he was like you know very picky eater it was hard to get him to um you know just hard to get him to eat and so like I realized even like over the last seven years of his life like this has been a constant like worry for me like how do we get him to eat how and it's like my largely like become my job to like coach him at the dinner table and make sure that like he's eating to follow him around sometimes trying to get to eat and you know and and I've wondered so many times I'm like I must be doing something wrong here like I I don't see other parents following their kids around with food trying to get them to eat like what is going on here like how do I get him to eat more vegetables it's like all all of the these things which I focus on and I realize sometimes like if if just eats a piece of broccoli like my like joy and happiness surge you know if he like runs away before he eats his vegetables I'm like oh my God so down so yeah I just I feel like my own happiness is tied to his his food consumption so I but I would love to zoom out and to do what you're doing and with this exercise I will remember those three words love joy and support and take that breath and remember that that's the big picture that's what really matters and that's easier said when your child is is well fed and you know that they're not you know if they don't have that bite of broccoli they're still going to be okay so it's different what depending on what your stress level is and it depends on how your day was that day but if you have on balance if we can all zoom out no matter what's going on it just keeps us reminding ourselves to just not get too invested in these micro moments because that also just causes tension in the relationship and then it's hard to eat exactly and the point about Joy which I think has come up a few times in this conversation when I think about like what I remember from my childhood one of the things I remember most are the moments of Joy like when my parents and I were Trucking around in a big Oldsmobile if you remember those like you know station w we had an Oldsmobile yeah yeah yeah so then you and I probably both remember rolling around in the back of seat bels were a thing and all that stuff and um you know please don't do that today everyone who's listening yeah not a good thing but like I remember these moments of joy you know and um I realized like during the last seven years of parenting that I have become less like intentional about cultivating joy that I want to be one of our previous house call guests actually who we had on the podcast is um someone who I think you may know Kate bowler who a professor of divinity at Duke oh yeah I love Kate she's like absolutely incredible um but one of my the things that I always think about whenever I interact with Kate is just how she's just bubbling with joy and she brings joy to every around her and it's not to say I'm sure she has moments where she feels sad or she worries or she feels anxious but it's sort of a light that she brings to all of her interactions is she manages to make people laugh she manages to to bring joy to their lives and I think about that whenever I'm you know kid and I have an exchange because I think like that's actually what I want my kids to experience like for my interaction with them is I want them to feel Joy you know more than anything what a nice um just just imagining how if somebody could describe you as bringing Joy I mean what a wonderful I mean to me and we all have different values and we have different offerings for people but that that's a really wonderful thing to think about especially because we forget to Delight in this whole thing because it's just so hard it is so hard and I think that you pointed out the that the information environment we're living in has in fact made it harder in some ways right because we're constantly hearing about everything that is difficult and challenging about the world and it's not that those aren't real but it's almost like the magnifying glass on those is like 100x stronger than it was when when I was growing up and and I really worry about kids and parents now