Daily Stress and Your Kid ft. Aletha Solter, Ph.D.

If your kid comes home and has a meltdown, could that actually be a good thing? Stay tuned to find out because we're going to talk to a parenting expert.

We're Nick and Sonja, and this is Dyslexia Journey, where we talk about topics to help you support the dyslexic hit in your life. And today we're excited to have on psychologist and parenting expert, Dr. Alifa Solter. All right, I'm going to read a quick biography of Alifa. So, Dr. Alifa Solter is a Swiss-American developmental psychologist who is recognized internationally as an expert on attachment, trauma, and non-clinical discipline. She studied with a Swiss psychologist, Jean Piaget, at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, where she obtained a master's degree in human biology.

She then earned a PhD in psychology from the University of California at Santa Barbara. Dr. Solter is the author of six books, including The Aware Baby, which has sold over 200,000 copies worldwide, and, most recently, Healing Your Traumatized Child, which just came out earlier this year. Her books have been translated into many languages, she has written numerous articles for parents and professionals, and she has given talks and led workshops for parents and professionals in 17 countries.

In 1990, she founded the Aware Parenting Institute, which now has certified instructors in over 20 countries. And, spoiler alert, she's also my mom. So, Alifa, welcome to Dyslexia Dune. Thank you. Thank you for having me on your podcast. Okay, so let's dive in. So, in some of our other episodes, one of the things that has come up a lot is the stress that children can face, you know, from school or other areas of life.

And we've talked some about the specific stresses that dyslexic folks can have in their lives. So, I'm wondering, can we always tell if our kids are stressed? Like, what might that look like? Yeah, well, you know, we can usually tell when kids are stressed, if we know what to look for, okay? So, first of all, kids, they're not going to say, they're not going to come up from school and say, you know, I had a really hard day, I'm feeling really stressed.

They usually don't say it that way, at least young children don't. Instead, they show through their behavior. So, their behavior may look, it may look kind of, you know, agitated, hyperactive. You know, maybe they become aggressive. Maybe they'll pick a fight with a sibling or they'll be defiant, uncooperative. So, what we think of as behavior problems can actually be a symptom of a stressed child. And I think that's important to remember that.

Children don't really choose to act in these ways. They're just, the stress affects them biologically, physiologically. And so, they become a bit wild. That's one indication of stress. There's another way that children show stress. And that's when they become really, really calm, kind of abnormally calm, disconnected, numb. Maybe they're just sitting, staring at their space, sucking their thumb. Or they're just not connecting with you. They're not doing what they usually enjoy.

They're not playing. They might be daydreaming, just can't concentrate, unresponsive. And older children or teenagers, it might just be, they spend a lot of time on screens. They just connect and just zone out that way. So, that's, so these two extremes, one is called hyperarousal reaction and the other is called dissociation. So, those are some of the clues we can look for. So, there's not being their usual interact, they're not interacting as they usually do.

They're not, they're not looking happy in both of those extremes.

And then, and then we can also see when they're attempting to heal. So, that's another indication. They engage in what I call healthy recovery behaviors. So, a child who comes home from school and just starts crying. That is an indication that that child had a stressful day, and that is actually a healthy recovery mechanism. So, crying is, you know, the more a child cries, the less likely they will to be, to be aggressive or numbing themselves.

So, that's actually a healthy reaction. In fact, I tell parents, you know, if your child comes home from school and has a meltdown, which is, there's nothing but a cry, crying with lots of anger release. So, that means your child feels safer at home than at school, and that means your child, that means you're doing a good job because your child feels safe with you. So, that often reassures parents that, you know, if we create that environment at home where they can unload, you know, their painful emotions, they will do so.

And that's a healthy recovery mechanism.

And it definitely sounds like something helpful to remember in the moment when that's happening. Yeah, exactly. It doesn't mean, you know, your parents have failed. It doesn't mean they've spoiled the kids. It just means the kids are feeling safe and they're unloading the stress from their day, just as we might need to have a good cry after a really hard day at work or something. And then another clue that children are attempting to heal is that they might engage in certain forms of play that indicate healthy recovery mechanisms.

For example, a young child might come home and just play school, want to play school, pretending to be a teacher or play with their dolls or stuffed animals, kind of recreate scenes that were stressful or traumatic. They might do that through play. That's a healthy recovery mechanism. Or they might get really silly. And they might just giggle, laugh, just purposely make mistakes, not do it right. Just, I call that nonsense play.

And that can be very therapeutic too. And children do that to release stress. Laughter is also a very important stress release mechanism, just like crying. So crying and laughter, play, those are the healing mechanisms. The behaviors that indicate stress that isn't really healing yet is the hyperarousal behaviors and aggression and the dissociation, the disconnection, withdrawal behaviors. Those two extremes. So it sounds like, so I'm trying to distinguish, I think, between the hyperarousal and the, and the, you know, like the silliness.

I could see that ever sort of looking in between, but it seems like it's almost like the tone of it that you'd notice. Like, let's say a kid is hyper. They would seem more silly, maybe, and laughing, right? I'm guessing, if it's more the healthy thing. And then hyperarousal would look a little different, right? Yeah. Hyperarousal with kind of aggression. That's kind of the stress reaction. But just being kind of wild and laughing.

Laughter is the clue. If they're laughing, that's, that's pretty good clues that that's a recovery mechanism. So laughing and crying are good. Yes. Yes.

So, so these sort of, I want, it's interesting, you talk about the kind of misbehavior, aggression and stuff that might indicate stress. Is, is that kind of misbehavior in children always a result of stress, ma'am? Well, very often. I mean, it could be, it could be indication that there's something physically bothering them, too. I mean, there are conditions or neurological conditions or something that make them act in those ways. But if it, if it's different from a child's usual behavior and it's after a whole day at school or something, and they're not normally like that.

I mean, that's, that's pretty clear. I think that they're, they're just, it's, it's their body. It's, it's a physiological manifestation of stress in their bodies. And then you talk a little bit about this, sort of the differences between younger children and teenagers as to how this stress manifests. Is there anything, any, any more detail you can give about how this would, would it appear differently in younger children, like a preschooler, this is a, for another child?

Yeah, well, a preschooler might, might just hit or bite, you know, come home and punch the baby or pick a fight with a sibling hit or bite, you know. Teenagers, might just yell or slam doors, you know, as part of their, their hyperarousal, stress response. I did, I did, I think I mentioned that teenagers for the dissociation, teenagers might just, you know, zone out on front screens. The younger child might just suck, suck their, they might just suck their thumb, something like that.

Well, disconnect that way. And for the, for the, for the, for the healing behaviors, well, children of all ages benefit from a good cry. So that's not something that changes, really. I mean, we're not going to see as many, you know, typical early childhood meltdowns in teenagers, but teenagers still benefit from a really good cry. And so do we as adults, actually, we all do. So that, that's not something that we outgrow.

the symbolic play to heal, I mean, teenagers, they, they do get silly, too, and they might laugh a lot and get silly. But in terms of the symbolic play, like, they're not going to play school, okay? What they're going to do is talk about it. If they feel safe, they're going to talk. They're going to tell about their day. If they feel we're really listening, they will talk and say, you know, all the horrible things that happened at school and all the stress and their day and all me and their friends were, all me and their teachers were.

Whatever they need to get off their chest, it comes out more in, in language. Yeah. So that's all really helpful to just getting the insight and understanding into all of this. I'm wondering if you could say a little more about how we can, as parents, best support our children with these daily stresses and, and, having a healthy, being able to help the reprocess them. Yeah, well, I talk about, the concept of emotional safety.

So, there's several ways that, as parents, we can create that emotional safety at home so that children then do feel safe enough to, to do some of these, recovery behaviors, these healing behaviors that, that I mentioned. So to create emotional safety or make, make, make the home a safe haven, well, one, of course, is connection. That's the root of everything, just to stay connected, maintain connection, lots of hugging, lots of cuddling.

and then emotional connection, you know, just, just, spending time, just spending time with kids. I think it's, you know, it doesn't always have to be educational, just doing fun things together. and then, my approach that I teach is, is completely non-punitive. so, children feel a whole lot safer, a whole lot, much more emotionally safe if, if we avoid punishments. So, moving towards a non-punitive approach to discipline will always help children feel safer.

and there's a lot of information about that in my books and how to do that. It's not easy, you know, if we were raised with punishment, that's not going to be easy. It's not going to come naturally. But anything, anything parents can do to look for alternatives to punishment will help children feel safe and will help them cope more effectively with stress. Punishment just adds an additional layer of stress. So it's important to avoid that.

And which book, or article of yours would be a good place for parents to start, if they, they want to start, exploring how to implement non-punitive or democratic discipline? How to avoid punishments? Well, it depends on the age of the child. I think, two to eight-year-olds, it would be my book, Cooperative and Connected, the basic approach to non-punitive discipline that I teach, which involves really looking beneath the surface and pricking out why children.

And act the way they do, but then there's, you know, I have one book about crying and it's called tears and tantrums and one book about play called attachment play. So both of those together, help above the stress release and also give tips on non-punitive discipline. But for discipline, yeah, the basic, basic guidelines are in, in cooperative and connected and that goes up to age eight. And then it's just the basic principles for older kids.

So, and then so to continue with emotional safety, I think it's important for kids to have lots of downtime, lots of time when they're just not expected to accomplish anything, not do anything, just let them play. All children need to play and that's, as I mentioned, it's a wonderful way to decompress and to just do what they want to do because, you know, all day at school, it's continually doing, when you think about it, it's continually doing what someone else tells them to do.

And that's hard for some children, who, who often have to be kind of more on and focused throughout the day. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And then, of course, the, the, another really important aspect of creating emotional safety is to just listen, to listen when they talk, listen when they cry, without trying to, distract them or without trying to make them happy. so, I mean, you know, a child comes up to school and says, I, I hate my teacher.

I, I, I had a, you know, that was a terrible test and I failed the test and, you know, they start to cry. They're, they're upset about that. The most helpful thing is just to, to listen, say, yeah, oh, wow, it sounds like a really bad day. Yeah, I really hear you. I'm here. I'm listening. It's okay to cry. we don't have to do anything. We don't have to try to fix it.

We don't have to try to make them happy. they will work through with our listening, with our support. Children will work through the emotions and they might actually end up saying, well, it wasn't such a bad day after all. Or they might start talking about something fun that happened. But they need to get through that whole block of chunk, a chunk of painful emotions first. Should I talk about how not to listen?

Tell us a little bit about that, too. That's sometimes helpful to see the contrast. Yeah. I mean, some of the things that, you know, always good intentions. I don't recommend giving advice. Like, you know, it's not helpful. When a child is upset about a test, it's not helpful to say, well, next time you need to eat a bit. You need to eat a bigger breakfast before you go to school. You'll do better.

Okay. That's not helpful. Or I told you you should have studied more for that test. You should have studied more. Blaming. You don't want to blame your children, even though it may be true. Okay. You know, why didn't you listen to me when I told you you didn't know this material? That's not helpful. what else do we do? Oh, and this isn't really well-intentioned. We tend to say, oh, don't worry. I'm sure you'll do better next time.

I think we tend to do that with good intentions, obviously, but it doesn't help children feel listened to. It doesn't help them work through the chunk of emotions that they need to get off their chest at that point. it just, it just kind of blocks, blocks them. It's a, it's a blocks of communication and the emotions. So that's not helpful. Even though next time they may do better, it's not helpful to say that.

It's not helpful to change the subject. We don't want to say, oh, you know, why don't you just take a shower? You're hot and tired. You'll feel better after you take a shower. again, it's well-intentioned, but it, it can block their expression of emotions and make them feel like we're not really hearing them. And then, another one that I think it's, it's, it's common. It's like, if the child criticizes the teacher, says, I hate my teacher.

She's really mean. we have to avoid the temptation to say, well, I think the test was fair. You know, you're really lucky to have such an understanding teacher. it, it never, it's never helpful to take the teacher's side. And this is not because we don't support teachers and all teachers are wonderful. Of course we support teachers, but when a child needs to be heard, needs to be listened to, it's not helpful at that point to take the teacher's side.

It's just going to make them mad. It's just going to, they're just going to shut down emotionally and stop talking to us. it will block the communication again. So I think those are some of the common ways that we do all with good intentions, but that aren't helpful. Yeah. It sounds like it's really a lot, all of them having common, really being focused on that moment and being present in there because it's, you know, not going into the future, not going into transitioning out of it or they're not ready.

Yeah, staying present with what's happening in the present with the child. What is it, what is my child feeling right now? And how can I support that? How can I just be there for this child? That's what all children need. And that's what we need as adults. When you think of it, you know, if you come home, you've had a hard day and you tell your, your, your partner, gosh, it's such a terrible day with my boss yelling at me and we had a meeting at work and nobody agreed on anything.

And then your partner says, I want you to go have a beer. You'll feel better. You know, I mean, that's really what we need, isn't it? For, go take a shower. You'll feel better. That's, emotional safety connection. No criticism, no punishment. No criticism. Did I say that? No criticism. That goes along with no punishment. you know, you know, just lots of down time. Not the blame. Mm-hmm. You know about what, how it should have, could have gone better.

It's done something different. Yeah. Yeah. All that. So, connection and listening. Those are two important things. And all children need those. Listen to children who have challenges at school, like dyslexic children. They're, they're going to get, they're going to have more stresses than other children. and so they're, they're going to need a lot of support at home. Yeah. So one, one follow up on that, I guess, something to emphasize. if, if your child is crying a lot, I think a lot of parents might be worried that, oh, my child is emotionally, emotionally fragile, or, you know, are they crying a lot at school also, are they not able to handle things?

And so I think, not to put words in your mouth, but I think what you're, what you're saying here is that if your child is, is crying a lot at home, that's, that's actually a different, like, that's a, a compliment to, to you as a parent that you've created this safe and, you know, feel that emotional safe. And in fact, the more they cry at home, the less they'll need to, to cry.

So, and the better able they will be to handle everything else outside of their home. Exactly, exactly. And it's hard to remember that as parents when, and children are, or, the children act, when they feel safe at home, they act, they almost have two personalities. They have their school personality and their home personality. At home, they can fall apart. They can be who they are. They can yell and scream. They can cry.

They can, they know they're going to be loved and understood and listened to. And at school, they're, they're, I mean, the more they can kind of fall apart at home, the, the better they will cope at school and the better they will function at school. And the, and the, and the more likely teachers will describe them as, you know, handling things in a mature way. You know, they won't, they won't need to, express these painful emotions as much as school.

They still might cry at school. there's no guarantee they're never going to cry at school, but, it'd probably be less if they can cry at home and they feel that safety at home. So, yeah, I mean, it's hard to remember that as parents, isn't it? You know, when our children falling apart, we, we tend to think, oh my gosh, they're going to, they're not going to be able to cope with life.

You know, we might feel we have to teach them coping skills. You got to buckle up, you know, how you think about, immediately think about solutions. How can you feel better? What can you handle this? No, they need to go through the emotions first and then they will figure out how to cope with life. And it sounds like, even if it's often, you know, it's, you're seeing them process it, right? So like a lot of the time then they're coming back to a point when they're not needing to cry and being themselves, right?

So, so it's not like they're under distress constantly, which it looks like the, would look more like the hyper arousal or the, or the numbing. And so, so it's like they're, I guess what I'm saying is it's like this, you'll see the processing and then they're, as you've just graduated, like then they're okay. So you'll see too, even often, even if it's every day, it's like they're still coming back to themselves after the process.

Yeah. That's one clue that tends to reassure parents and their child comes up from school, has a meltdown. and then, you know, maybe they, had a real meltdown for 20 minutes and really cry and then really upset. and then they're perfectly fine and they're happy and they're back to their normal selves. And that could be reassuring the parents because then parents know, okay, I did the right thing by listening to that.

And children have what I call the broken cookie phenomenon. They might, they might not say, I had a, I had a test, I'm upset about it and cry about it. They might just find a pretext to cry. They might, you know, they come home and find out that, that, that their father's home and their mother isn't there. And they thought their mother was going to be there. And they're, they, they did choose to cry about that as a pretext or parents didn't buy their favorite food.

It's not, you know, something or, you know, any change in plans can be a pretext to have a meltdown. And that's what I call the broken cookie phenomenon. it's crying about a pretext, like a broken cookie. there's nothing wrong with a cookie, but it's a symbol. It's almost like it's a symbol for, for a whole day of accumulated stress. And that's normal. A straw that broke the camel's back. Yes, exactly. That's the thing that has just, yeah.

Yeah. We adults have broken cookie days too. Right. And I think that's it. I think that's really helpful for us as parents to remember that, because sometimes it can feel like, as a parent that, that you did something wrong, that you did something that triggered your child to have a 20-minute meltdown. If it's, if it's that perhaps Ruth broke the cookie and then they had a meltdown. I think it helps you to, to know and to remember as parents that it's probably not about the property, right?

Or said something a little, that they didn't like the reason. Or something, I'm just thinking of maybe, you know, it's the nature of saying. Yeah. But it's not, yeah. It's more to, yeah. Yeah, exactly. It's easy to think that it's our fault, that we cause it. But that brings up another point that, children take out their anger on their parents and often the, the one they're with the most, which is often the mother, but children often are angry at the mother or the father too.

and they blame the parents for everything that's, that's not going well in their lives. Especially in young children. I think they, they expect, I mean, they just feel safer with their parents. And so they take, they, they just might come home and say, I hate you, you're mean. and then that just means probably they had a hard day, you know, or maybe we have been too, you know, maybe the parents have been too punitive or something, but often it's nothing to do with what the parents have done.

It sounds like they're using us as a foil or sort of as a trap. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So that was really, really helpful. Thank you so much for sharing all of this with us, Dr. Soltzer. And, we're actually going to be talking with you, in another episode about how we can secure ourselves as parents with that. So everyone, we'd love to hear your comments in the comment section. And if you could like and subscribe, that'll help to get this information out there.

And if you're listening to this in podcast form, please, comment and leave a review. Thanks, everyone. Thanks. Thank you, Alexa. Thank you for having me. Thank you for having me.