Advice I would Give My Child: Fostering Emotional Development and Resilience in the Post Pandemic Era

Di: 0:27

Welcome back. We're tuned in to another inspiring episode Bodyholic with Di. I'm your host, Di Katz-Sachar, and today we've got a powerful episode in store for you. This is episode 30, and, trust me, it's one you will not want to miss. But before we dive into today's really enlightening conversation with our incredible guest, dr Stephanie Bathurst, I want to remind you about an exciting resource that's been buzzing in the wellness world. If you're looking to train on your exact schedule and take control of your fitness journey, head over to Bodyholic. fit. There you'll find a range of workouts and training options to suit your needs. It's your fitness, your way.

Di: 1:17

Now let's talk about the heart of today's episode. If you're a parent, or even if you're planning to be one in the future, this episode is an absolute must listen. Dr Stephanie Bathurst brings insights and wisdom that will not only clear up questions and doubts, but also help ease the anxiety that many parents are experiencing in this intense digital and post-pandemic era. Our discussion today touches upon crucial aspects of mental health that affects individuals and families alike. It's a conversation that every parent should engage in, and Dr Bathurst's expertise is truly enlightening. Dr Stephanie Bathurst is not only a licensed clinical marriage and family therapist in both Maryland and Hawaii, but she's also a board-certified clinical sexologist, with a doctoral degree in clinical sexology from the International Institute for Clinical Sexology in Miami, florida. Her journey also includes a master's degree in marriage and family therapy, with a specialty in addictions counseling. Her practice, bathurst Family Therapy LLC, founded in 2014, has given countless individuals and families seeking guidance and healing hope. Her impressive credentials are further underscored by recognition that she's received, including the prestigious top doctor award in Maryland, dc and Virginia. Dr Bathurst is an executive contributor at Brains Magazine, where she shares her expertise in her clinical fields, and she's been honored with not one, but two awards in 2023, the CREA Global Awards and the Outstanding Leadership Award in Health.

Di: 3:18

With such an impressive background, we're in for an enlightening conversation today. So, whether you're a seasoned parent or just starting your journey, get ready to gain invaluable insights. But before we jump into the conversation, if you haven't already, make sure you hit that subscribe button. We want you to be a part of our BodyHolic community, where we share knowledge, inspire change and support each other in our wellness journeys. And also, don't forget to follow BodyHolic on Instagram for all behind the scenes action and so much more. So grab a seat, perhaps grab a pen and paper and get ready for an episode that's bound to spark thought-provoking conversations and empower parents in this ever-evolving world. It's time to dive into today's enlightening conversation with the incredible Dr Stephanie Bathurst. This is truly a pivotal episode, so stay tuned for insights that could reshape your perspective on parenting in the digital age and the post-pandemic world. Dr Stephanie Bathurst, thank you so much for joining me today.

Dr. Bathurst: 4:40

Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. I'm happy to be here.

Di: 4:44

I'm really excited. I think I was even talking to my husband yesterday about our conversation coming up and I was like this is such a great topic. So before we dive in, can you just say a few words about yourself? You are highly impressive. If anybody just goes out and Googles Dr Stephanie Bathurst, it's going to be pretty impressive. So definitely go ahead and do that. But I want to hear a little bit from you.

Dr. Bathurst: 5:13

So kind thank you for that amazing introduction. Yeah, so I'm Dr Stephanie Bathurst. I own Bathurst Family Therapy. We are over in Oahu, hawaii. We focus on relationship health, sexual health. I'm a clinical sexologist and a licensed marriage and family therapist. I'm also a certified integrative medicine specialist for mental health and a certified philates instructor. So we kind of take a holistic approach to relationship repair and reconnection, intimacy improvement, public floor reconditioning and health, holistic healing for mental health disorders, kind of the whole gamut. We also offer in-person couples retreats here on the island.

Di: 6:03

Which is that's amazing. I just want to. That sounds so amazing, just being on the island and going on a retreat. I just kind of want to go there, just yeah, even if I don't feel like I need the therapy necessarily. I just want to like, yeah, let's just do it. Anyway, have fun. Yeah, of course, exactly. So the thing that strikes me most when I first met you, I was like you the preconception and the stereotype of a sexologist has nothing to do with you. It's really amazing and I don't know. I think that's also why I really wanted to get you on the podcast, because the topic is so important and it can really. I mean, you have a whole other approach. You're so holistic, but I feel like you can really save relationships and you're so not that stereotype that people might have, and I was wondering if you could maybe talk about that a little bit and maybe let's work on kind of disintegrating or getting rid of that stereotype, because you're exactly. You're not that which is amazing.

Dr. Bathurst: 7:24

Yeah, thank you.

Dr. Bathurst: 7:25

I think it's hard for I mean for late people right like the general public, to understand what it actually means to be a clinical sexologist.

Dr. Bathurst: 7:34

But even providers in the mental and medical field it's difficult to understand, and rightfully so, because we aren't. We're fairly new in terms of, like, regulation, we're not fully regulated yet. So there are sex coaches out there and there are clinical sexologists out there that have no formal training either PhD in clinical sexology, right. So we, a lot of us, have a significant amount of education and deep, deep backgrounds in mental health and the medical field, and I think that is so critically important. And there's a big difference between unlicensed or uncertified coaches who are intending to help people through difficult moments and us, right Like licensed providers who really can do a whole lot more and without doing harm. So I think there are a lot of misconceptions about who we are and what we offer, and I think there's. I think, as we like, transform and evolve as a field itself and the regulations get a lot more strict. I'm hopeful that that will hopefully clear up.

Di: 8:56

Yeah, wow, that's really really interesting and I think that's so important that we get that message out there. Honestly, if I'm thinking personally about myself, I would want to turn to someone who has such a deep education in the matter. Absolutely, so, thank you for that. Thank you for clarifying that. Really important because there's a lot out there, especially now with social media. There's so much out there, and so I bet it's also a little frustrating for those of you who have devoted so many years of your life to the topic.

Dr. Bathurst: 9:34

But okay, and it's not just about. It's not just about like sexual pleasure, although that's really important, right Sexual trauma recovery, physical trauma healing and, like we talked about, pelvic floor reconditioning, right Like surgery or childbirth. These are really really important processes that really require somebody who is well educated and understands what they're doing or there can be a lot of harm. So clinical sexology we each have different niches and it's so much more expansive and more complex than just we like to talk about sex and sexual pleasure.

Di: 10:20

We're right 100%. And you mentioned the trauma. Absolutely you can't when dealing with someone who has been through a trauma, god forbid going to someone who doesn't actually know how delicate the situation is is actually quite harmful. So yeah, Absolutely.

Di: 10:42

Yeah, okay, I'm glad we talked about that. I like, yeah, I want to get that message out there. But, going on to maybe something a little later, considering that we both have daughters, we both have little adorable girls, and I was wondering what specific advice or guidance you would offer your daughter to help her develop emotional intelligence and build strong, healthy relationships, and also, specifically, in this digital connected world. I guess that's a big question and take your time, go for it.

Dr. Bathurst: 11:27

I'm going right in, yeah, and we're imagining I'm just imagining because I know our daughters are very similar in age and what their lives are going to be like when they are of school age, right, when they have access to all of this technology.

Dr. Bathurst: 11:45

But I think there's going to be a lot of change in that timeframe. Emotional intelligence is a set of skills that can be inherent but also learned right, and we want to take this time, these critical seven years, when we as parents have the most influence over our children, to really foster this learning environment to help them be set up for success or their relationships, for life success. And it's essential to the ability to understand, use and manage your own emotions and the ability to self-regulate when distressed, right Like these are all EQ expressions. Communicating effectively to other people so that they can understand what you're asking for, empathizing with others and diffusing conflict these are really really really important life skills that will carry through with them well beyond just grade school right. And then relationship intelligence is kind of a set of interpersonal skills that help you connect with others and sustain relationship bonds, developing trust right. So this includes healthy communication tactics, repairing injured attachment tethers when there's a conflict you need to kind of repair that so that the relationship doesn't break right.

Dr. Bathurst: 13:14

And then continuously contributing to a relationship for its sustainability. So these types of intelligence, I feel like, are deeply, deeply underserved in the core curriculum of public education in our society right now, which is super, super sad because these are very critical to every person's on earth quality of life. So, increasing EQ in the digital world what can we do and what would I give advice for my child, my daughter, in the next couple of years? We all have mirror neurons built within our body. This is why when we watch Hallmark movies and the character is crying hysterically in the movie itself, we find ourselves like just weeping in response to that.

Dr. Bathurst: 14:10

These mirror neurons are what make modeling so effective in dialogue. So if you see someone escalating, kind of respond with calm, regulated, slow, paced exchanges and the receiving persons, mirror neurons are gonna communicate to them that the threat's been diffused right. So, rather than having them feel really excitatory in not such a good way, right and react to that person, which I'm sure that our kids are going to experience that on a regular basis in school, because kids are emotionally dysregulated help them respond in a really calm way so that they can immediately diffuse conflict with their peers. That's empowerment, right, to have control over yourself and not have somebody else control your emotion.

Di: 15:05

That's amazing. Yeah yeah, Because the importance of us as the parent not mirroring the child is so so, so important Like, and that's calculated, so it's really you know. It's also about educate, like. That's why it's important to educate parents, because it's so easy to get caught up in your child's emotions.

Dr. Bathurst: 15:33

So easy. Yeah, the anxiety, the anger we just as humans we feed off of each other and, knowing that right, we want to kind of get a hold of those feedback loops before they get too ingrained, help them disrupt it, regain control if they're engaged with somebody who is visibly out of control.

Dr. Bathurst: 15:54

And that's gonna help them feel more empowered and more confident in their abilities to socialize healthily. Yeah, Beautiful. And then I think learning emotional hierarchies is something that is very age appropriate to teach our kids when they're really, really young. Anger and anxiety are both secondary emotions. It's socially more acceptable and more comfortable for people to express these emotions than it is to be more deeply vulnerable with the core emotions like pain, powerlessness, fear, sadness, which are the primary emotions that feed anxiety and anger and that can be really confusing for kids, right? Like you're taught to, you feel this certain way. Somebody else names the emotion for you anger or anxiety, because it's comfortable for them to name it that way, and then you mischaracterize what your sensation is and it can make you feel confused about what your needs are. If you're focusing on a superficial emotion like anger, how do you evaluate how to get your need met if your real emotion is powerlessness, right?

Di: 17:12

Wow, yeah. So I think I'm saying wow because of also, like you're saying things that you're I mean, you're an expert on this topic but for me, I read the emotion books to my daughter and it's actually what you're saying is so much deeper than all these books that are labeling the emotions. So that's actually what's going through my mind now. I'm really taking everything you're saying to her. I'm like, okay, okay, I'm on this all right. Okay, yeah, sorry, I interrupted you.

Dr. Bathurst: 17:51

No, no, no, you're perfect, you're great, and it is confusing, right, like I think, all of those emotions when you see them visually or when you see them. I'm thinking of the movie, the kids movie that has all of, like, the fuzzy emotions. What is that movie?

Di: 18:08

Yeah, not elemental Wait.

Dr. Bathurst: 18:12

I know, you know what I'm talking about. I do, I know exactly.

Di: 18:16

I think my daughter watched it 150 times. Yes, and that's what we call it. We call it the feelings movie. But yeah, you know what I'm saying?

Dr. Bathurst: 18:27

Yeah, but they're all on equal playing field, right? They're all there together.

Di: 18:33

Right.

Dr. Bathurst: 18:33

And there is a hierarchy there. So, helping our kids understand that there's like levels of depth and to better know what your needs are, what your body needs in order to regulate or to feel good and calm, you have to understand what that core emotion is, not the upper levels. So I think just helping them break down that process is going to be really helpful.

Di: 19:01

Beautiful, beautiful.

Dr. Bathurst: 19:05

And then I didn't even get into relational intelligence yet, so I'm afraid I'm being worse.

Di: 19:09

No, no, everything you've set up until now is just so important, really. Thank you.

Dr. Bathurst: 19:16

Oh, of course, thank you, yeah, our relational intelligence in the digital world. So Esther Perrell once said the quality of our relationships determines the quality of our lives, and I think that's so true. I know I'm a little biased because I'm a relationship therapist, but it's really true, it's so deeply true and I think the way so. We are perfectly imperfect creatures or imperfectly perfect creatures, whatever one you wanna pick. Instead of striving for perfection, which is not attainable as human beings because we're imperfect, we create imperfect systems, and I think helping make that, helping our kids find acceptance for that as they grow up, is really necessary, because relationships take work always.

Dr. Bathurst: 20:16

There is no good, healthy relationship that is easy. Free-flowing, requires absolutely no energy or effort. Right, and I think there's a little bit of grit in there. If something is really valuable and important to you, you put in the energy and the effort to make sure that it lasts a very long time, and I think that applies to relationships. So helping them have a really healthy mentality of realistic relationships and the amount of energy that it requires is really important.

Dr. Bathurst: 20:53

There's also so the way that things are built, branded and marketed today seem to communicate an expectation of like simple, easy replacement of the old and malfunctioning right, which can be fun at certain times, but I think it can also be problematic, seeing as we as human beings become old and malfunction at times as well. So when we are kind of internalizing some of those ideologies, we in our family try to combat some of that with having a family motto that is, we have nice things because we take care of our things. Super true, right, we really do take care of our things. If something breaks, we try really, really hard to fix it and we clean up and we organize things as a family and we take pride in the conscious upkeep of our home. We are responsible for keeping like a respectful space for one another and I think that carries over right. Those are value systems that carry over into your adult relationships. Relationships feed you with what you give back to them.

Dr. Bathurst: 22:09

It's a give to get relationship right. There's no sustainable, long-lasting unilateral relationship. There's always energy lines going both ways for a long-lasting relationship 100%, whether it's a parent-child friendship, couple them.

Di: 22:30

It's a family, like you know, extended family. I mean, this is so true, this is so true, and it all takes energy 100%.

Dr. Bathurst: 22:39

Yeah, I think the last thing that I would probably encourage and this would be later on, I mean, she's almost three right now, so she's a little young for this kind of advice but in a little wild. Helping her recognize toxic communication when it presents in relationships and knowing how to disrupt it is really, really important.

Di: 23:03

So I have to interrupt you. Yeah, because my daughter is four and a half and we had an interesting year where she actually had a toxic. I can't believe this. I'm saying this because at such a young age, right? So does that make sense that at such a young age there was a relationship that we were very happy to move her, because now she's in a different kindergarten just because of her age so, and we were very happy to remove her from that relationship? Does that make sense to you at that age?

Dr. Bathurst: 23:42

I think it makes sense in terms of family modeling is so, so critically important and influential on children. So if there are unhealthy and toxic exchanges happening in the home, kids are just sponges. They soak everything up. Whether they can sexually understand things or not, they're going to apply them in their own life experiences because that's what we're built to do.

Di: 24:09

Right.

Dr. Bathurst: 24:10

Like we learn culturally around us just by observing, and then we play out those learn dynamics, and that's our expectation, that's our job as children is to learn what we are supposed to do as social beings and to practice that. So I'm so sorry that your daughter had to go through a toxic exchange.

Di: 24:36

Yeah, it was. There was a. There is a child in our neighborhood and our the previous kindergarten and he he was. I guess he's going through his own emotional havoc. Okay, there's a lot, but definitely my daughter was a target for a lot of that, so he would like take her best friend away and say, like we're not gonna play with my daughter's name is Neri, we're not gonna play with Neri right now. And also sometimes there was physical violence or things like that.

Di: 25:17

So I mean, I guess I already started experiencing that, lioness, everything that you're actually you're calming me down, you're like teaching me. Okay, take it down a notch, but I definitely notice the emotions rising me, but I, of course, handled it like an adult because I am, but I definitely cause she's still processing everything and she still talks about it, and it's been months ago, but she still talks about it. And so it's very interesting to me to talk to a four and a half year old and help her process all this and it seems like she's getting over it, but something she does very often and I'm sharing this because I think that a lot of other parents can benefit from it If there's any type of bullying that starts even at a young age or happens later. I think that's why I'm stopping here and I'm actually sharing this cause. I think so many people can benefit.

Di: 26:34

So she kind of parallels, she talks a lot about kindheartedness, my daughter, and then she says but when you're darkhearted you're like she says his name, so she, it's not like different. For her In her mind it's one thing to. And I say to her all children are good, but he might be going through something. But anyway, I was interested because you were talking about how your daughter is actually before that and the age difference between our children. It's not that huge. But then again, look at what happens just a short while later.

Dr. Bathurst: 27:20

Wow, that's. It's a little scary right. We wanna protect them and their innocence for a lot longer than four.

Di: 27:27

A lot longer.

Dr. Bathurst: 27:28

Oh.

Di: 27:29

Yeah.

Dr. Bathurst: 27:30

It is hard and kids are different in like. Some kids are naturally very emotionally intelligent and in tune with themselves and like the subtle nuance, social cues of their friends. And then other kids have them, they struggle and they have to learn a lot of those through education and teachings. It's really important to help them understand the like, the manifestation of toxicity. So if it's defensiveness, if it's criticism, if it's stonewalling, if it's contempt and what that looks like behaviorally and that's gonna be different from adults to kids. Sometimes adults name call too right Contempt, kids name call you know, not so different, but these are all defense mechanisms, right?

Dr. Bathurst: 28:23

Defense mechanisms are nothing more than ways to essentially get your needs met. These are very unhealthy ways to get your needs met, but they're self-protective in many cases and they're essentially. You have a need. You don't know how to get it met any better way than this particular form. So what we wanna do is sit down with our kids and help them figure out what's going on, right? Is the person expressing deep pain? Are they feeling powerless or out of control, and this is how they're trying to assert their control, to feel more stable. Are they deeply fearful of being alone, and so they're trying to take somebody else's friend? Are they super, super sad and they're trying to distract from the sadness because they don't know how to self-soothe. Do you know what I mean? So helping them drop down to a more core emotion allows us to empathize rather than sit and stagnate in the anger of the injuring person Makes sense.

Di: 29:37

Such an important conversation you and I are having right now. Oh my God, wow. I love that you and I are in a similar place in life, like you know, kind of early parenthood, because I also get to see, because my peers are in the same situation, so I also know the extreme need to hear the words that you're saying right now.

Dr. Bathurst: 30:09

Well, thank you, I appreciate that and I hope it's helpful for someone out there. I hope it's helpful.

Di: 30:15

Yeah, Absolutely so. In general, like we were also talking about the digitally connected world, it's also a fast-paced society and I guess also it builds on what you just talked about. But how can we instill patience and empathy in our younger generations it might be a continuation of what you just said in order to, of course, increase emotional intelligence.

Dr. Bathurst: 30:53

Yeah, I think I'm gonna get a bit into like narrative therapy for this one, beautiful. I think it's really important to teach kids that every like early, early on, that every single human being on earth has a subjective reality. I know that sounds really complicated the way that I just said it subjective reality but I think when we teach it early on it doesn't have to be that complicated, right.

Dr. Bathurst: 31:22

If we instill this early, it doesn't feel so offensive when a later adolescent or an adult is met with an environment or a partner who you know strongly differs from their perspective or their reality. It feels like a personal attack if you haven't internalized that truth. And that is a truth, right. How we process information from our environment and how we retain memory is entirely unique from person to person. And once we accept that truth about the world and we stop fighting each other for having different perspectives, all of that chaos and our struggle to like be heard it just falls away, right, and it allows us to hold space for somebody else's truth without invalidating them, without invalidating ourselves. It just creates a more respectful and peaceful world. So I think that's a really, really important thing that we can instill early on, that we all just think differently even about the exact same conversations.

Dr. Bathurst: 32:40

You and I are having the exact same conversations. All of your beautiful listeners are listening in at some point, and we will all, and we will all take away something different from this exact same dialogue, and that is a human truth. That just is right.

Di: 32:59

Absolutely. I feel like that is the truth, that everybody has their own truth, their own perspective. Yeah, and also the idea of instilling this so early on. It's so forward thinking and so like. I feel like I can't even emphasize how important this is, it's. I mean, looking around reading the news, it's like you know there's so much animosity, so much like social war, internal war, to have everyone's story be the right story and there is no right story.

Dr. Bathurst: 33:50

Everybody's story is valid.

Di: 33:53

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Dr. Bathurst: 33:56

And when we validate our childs and tell them that their truth is always true because everybody's truth is always true they feel heard, they feel seen, they feel understood, they feel like they're right, they feel understood, and those are core, basic needs. Those are, you know, part of the 60 inherent needs within every single human being, so it makes that at their core level.

Di: 34:23

Wow.

Dr. Bathurst: 34:24

Yeah, I also really love. So. Brene Brown, I have you heard. Do you know Brene Brown's Marvel analogy?

Di: 34:33

No. I would love to.

Dr. Bathurst: 34:36

Okay, I really like hers because I don't know if she built it for teen girls or if that's just how it's most applied. For every moment of trust earned, one marble goes in the jar. It's only once that the jar is full of marbles that trust actually exists between two people. So essentially, the marble jar sees trust as being built over time in small everyday moments that you actively, conscientiously contribute. It takes effort, it takes care to build trust. So I love that because it's simple, it's concrete and kids can get it really early on.

Dr. Bathurst: 35:19

Love it, so I think, yeah, I think that helps. And then it's also a visual.

Di: 35:25

Yeah, yeah, there's a vision Like concrete, yeah.

Dr. Bathurst: 35:28

You can do it right, like you can do a literal expression of that analogy to help build trust. If you're having a child take action or choose behaviors that are breaking trust within the dynamic, I think this is a really good way to concretely help them understand, like the taking out or the replacing of marbles is really helpful. And I know that the relational intelligence question you asked specifically about digital, the digital age and how we kind of combat that. A tip to help unlearn instant gratification, because that is such like an intense thing that kids are just normalized to now. I think we are normalized to that now. To be honest, that's kind of hard for us as adults too. Yeah, is to support our kids at working hard as something that they really want to achieve.

Dr. Bathurst: 36:25

So studies on children's successful performance have shown really high correlations of success with effort-phase. So I think this was Andrew Huberman kind of on his podcast, went through this particular article right Meaning that the amount of effort that you put toward an activity and how we praise them for that effort is most associated with their positive performance than us praising them for like intelligence or beauty or anything else. So Savvy my daughter, who's almost three. She loves maps, for whatever reason, and so we will create like a treasure map and I'll hide some of her toys, like her valuable toys around the yard, and we're on about an acre of land in Pupakaya right now. It's really pretty out here. We have like a bunch of fruit trees, and so it'll take a while right. There's a lot of time lapse in that process, but during that time lapse, the process of building excitement and self-pride from the effort-praise upon completion is so much more sustainable. Meaning like the high that she gets lasts so much longer than if she were just watching Bluey on her iPad.

Di: 37:48

A hundred percent.

Dr. Bathurst: 37:50

And I think sitting down and helping her, like we can say that, hey, honey, doesn't this feel amazing, aren't you feeling so good about yourself? And helping just really solidify that moment and that self-pride and accomplishment, so that she can in the future better assess and evaluate what she wants to do.

Di: 38:11

Mm-hmm, that's great.

Dr. Bathurst: 38:14

And I'm sure you have a million examples of that.

Di: 38:17

Yeah, my daughter is a big performer, she was born a performer and she started this ballet class and she keeps talking about the show, the show, the show is gonna happen in June. So like, I'm like like a lot of build up, yeah, a lot of build up, exactly. And she gets to the class. She's like, but when is the show? When is the show? And I'm like, honey, the show is all about working towards it, right when at the end of the year, you get to show mommy and daddy everything that you've learned. So I mean, we'll see what happens at the end. I'm sure it's gonna be very, very emotional and exciting. Oh yeah, yeah, that's one build up. That's one example. But I love the Treasure Hunt map. That's brilliant. I feel like any child can really get a lot out of that specific example. Oh good, but I love that. Savvy loves maps. That's so cute.

Dr. Bathurst: 39:22

Yeah, it's not thinking.

Di: 39:29

So was there something else that you wanted to add on this topic?

Dr. Bathurst: 39:37

No, I think that's good for empathy, building relational, emotional and intelligence for younger generations. I think we're good for that one. Yeah, Mm-hmm.

Di: 39:49

And specifically, I feel like the main thing we've been talking about is the emotional intelligence and communication we have with our children, but maybe looking more specifically at the gap between generations and how parents can effectively encourage the honest communication with their children, because I think there's also teaching the child how to deal with the relationships and friends and future, maybe romantic relationships but then what happens with the generational gap and how do we sustain honest communication?

Dr. Bathurst: 40:42

Yeah, I had a lot to reflect on this one and I had to chop it down because I had so much to say. I didn't want to waste all of the time, so I will try and get everything in as much as I possibly can.

Dr. Bathurst: 40:59

So parents have to create a safe emotional environment to encourage their kids' safety and sharing. That's our job is to create a safe container so that our kids don't feel the reticence in sharing critical information with us. We have to set the standard and the stage for them to have that play. This means getting our emotions in check so that we don't project our stuff onto them. This means using curiosity-based questions rather than directives, so that it feels playful at times. It feels inquisitive rather than interrogatory.

Dr. Bathurst: 41:39

Right, this means managing our nonverbal cues. So if I am really concerned but I'm wanting it to feel non-pressuring for my child, I need to conscientiously relax my furrowed eyebrows because my kid is going to just spoke that up and place meaning to it. Whatever that meaning is, they're gonna take meaning to it, right, Right, and after the dialogue, since 80% of our interpersonal communication sorry. So the nonverbal cues it's really important during the dialogue, but also after the dialogue. So you wrap up the conversation and afterwards, if you go to do the dishes and you're slamming the dishes around or you throw a towel down because you're frustrated, that stuff.

Dr. Bathurst: 42:28

Those are all nonverbal cues. You may not be saying anything, but it's communicating to your child that whatever they just said to you is not safe to say again. So if you do need a moment, remove yourself healthily. Hey, mommy needs a few moments. I'm gonna go to my room. I'll see you in five minutes. Love you. You know what I mean. It doesn't take care of yourself first. That's okay.

Dr. Bathurst: 42:52

That's always okay and I think it's really important to always start and end these intense potentially intense, because we don't always know how they're going to go Conversations with an attachment affirmation. So whether it goes swimmingly and it's really productive and really connective, or it just kind of goes kaput and our kid doesn't have a whole lot to say, or they're really frustrated and they storm out, we always need to start and end affirming the attachment with them so that they know and feel that they're going to go. They need to be there for them so that they know and feel that attachment is not conditional to the positivity of the dialogue. Right, so I love you and I'm here with you Doesn't have to be complicated, right, super simple.

Di: 43:50

I love the simplicity of okay, yeah, I love you and I'm here.

Dr. Bathurst: 43:57

And it. As long as you are consistent with that and you mean it when you say it, your kid will believe it right? It doesn't have to take a whole lot. You don't have to be super complex and grandiose with your attachment exchanges. It's the consistency that matters most with children.

Di: 44:15

I think the young. It's like the parents' marble jar.

Dr. Bathurst: 44:19

Yes, exactly exactly, Mm-hmm, I think. Comparatively to our generations or the generations before us, I think the younger generations are a lot more expressive about their concerns or their life struggles. With millennials, the parenting styles began to shift with the intention to prevent shame and encourage individuality, which I think is amazing, right Like I certainly want to prevent shame and encourage individuality for savvy, and I'm sure most parents would like to do the same. How this reduction of shame and embrace of individuality came to be expressed in the kids essentially was them self-narrating, their struggles with mental health, sexual identity, gender expression, trauma and abuse. And these were really really important breakthroughs in our society that were needed to destigmatize so much of what general youth struggle with in terms of identity formation. Right, Like, youth is a struggle. You have a lot going on and most of the time it's really chaotic. On the other hand, how shame was combated in this movement was essentially owning these dark experiences which kind of entwined to the struggle with the whole self of the child.

Di: 45:49

Does that make? Sense yes yes, like an example, this is who I am.

Dr. Bathurst: 45:54

Yes yeah, it's like an ownership of, like my depression right, it was. The struggle is me and I am the struggle as a way to combat the shame, and the combating of the shame was the good part. But the glomming of the struggle to the child's sense of self is not good and it makes it so difficult for them to disconnect from the struggle later on in life which we're seeing now, right? So I think, yeah, yeah, and I think what we can and we're learning, right, we're learning now some of the side effects of that and what we can do now with our younger kids is help them narrate or communicate their struggles in slightly different ways that separate struggle from sense of self, very similar to how we as parents separate child like our child from the bad behavior. Right, that was a poor decision. Not, you are bad.

Di: 47:03

Right.

Dr. Bathurst: 47:05

Do you see how we separate?

Di: 47:07

Absolutely.

Dr. Bathurst: 47:09

We wanna encourage them to use that same kind of narration so that they, when they have the skills, and the ability to do so. With our support, they can manage the struggle. They can separate themselves from the struggle, whatever it may be right. Because how do you fix something that is inherently a part of you? You can't If you genuinely believe that it's inherently a part of you. It's so difficult to remove Right? I think that's a lot of what we can be working on to help our kids grow.

Di: 47:47

I have to interject again with my personal experience. I do so because this is also very, very new. So Mary is in this new kindergarten with an amazing kindergarten teacher Like I love her. Now what happens now? I told you in the beginning of our conversation that it's actually a holiday now. So in Tel Aviv in Israel, everything is on hold, Like the whole world stops during the high holidays. Really nothing functions. So in municipality kindergartens there's a bridge between Yom Kippur and Sukkot. These are two Jewish high holidays, and so what happens now is so we just finished that bridge and it wasn't the kindergarten teacher, it was the.

Di: 48:48

There's always someone who comes in in the afternoon and she's with the kids for two hours.

Di: 48:52

So she was with the kids all day because the kindergarten teacher, whose municipality employee has been on vacation Okay, and the experience that my daughter was explaining when she was my daughter please don't change, knock on wood, don't change anything gives me the lowdown. When she gets home, she gives me the lowdown and she said to me Ms Such and Such said I'm a very good girl, and then I'm like, all right, my daughter already has a slight predisposition towards perfectionism, Like it's already clear, and I was like, oh okay, I mean, you know you're kindhearted and I'm talking about all the good aspects of this child that I'm talking to. And then her next sentence was and she told Such Such, such and Such that they're bad children. Now the person were I was expecting that face and I was like I know, I know I'm gonna get that face from Stephanie Right. And I said to her really that's what she said. Now, this kindergarten teacher, this you know who's the two hour every afternoon. She's very old school, she's like, she's kind of like a grandma figure.

Dr. Bathurst: 50:24

Gotcha.

Di: 50:25

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I spoke to my very good friend and we were like okay, we're gonna talk to the main kindergarten teacher right after the holidays because this has to not be in the dialogue. It can't. So that's gonna happen. But what you're saying is actually so reaffirming to my gut feeling of like the dichotomy this versus this. It can't exist, especially when we're raising four-year-old, five-year-old children or younger, or you know, in general.

Dr. Bathurst: 51:10

Right, especially at such a critical age of development, when right that dichotomy that you're talking about when it's natural for our brains to want to categorize information into simple things, right to make sense of the most amount of information in the easiest way possible so that we can retain more. That's just the way that our brain is wired. So it's natural for kids to want to go those routes, right Good, bad or good, evil, right, wrong. And it's our job to help them find the nuance and the spectrum so that they don't categorize themselves into those absolute categories which create senses of hopelessness once they do categorize. Yeah, so I wish you luck with that conversation. Thank you.

Di: 52:11

I'm actually I'm going to be really honest with you. I'm going to send over our conversation to the people. You'll be like, hey, so do you know? Mind also maybe listening to Dr Stephanie Bathurst here. I'm definitely going to do that because now I'm also like, wow, this information is so valuable, not only to parents, but also to educators, so so important.

Dr. Bathurst: 52:42

Yeah, I hope it helps absolutely, I believe it.

Di: 52:46

I believe it's definitely going to help. But you were saying right, you were in the middle, yeah yeah, so I was just.

Dr. Bathurst: 52:59

these are, these are. These struggles are not part of who they are. These are momentary, painful experiences in their lives that we can support them through processing right. And I think that's really important for us to help them because, as kids because their brains don't fully develop until 25, they time is different for children and for adolescents than it is for adults, and painful moments feel like it will last forever. Right, and we want to help them as best as we possibly can help them understand that, yes, this pain is real and 100% is real to the extent that you're feeling it and that sucks, and also, it's not going to last forever.

Dr. Bathurst: 53:48

What can we do to help you get through it until, until it naturally kind of subsides right? So support them in processing things like depression, anxiety, sexual identity or gender identity confusion, which can also be called dysphoria, trauma, abuse, neglect, relationship violence. These are like the big heavy hitters that are impacting our everyday youth pretty regularly but are not talked about on a consistent basis in the general public or core curriculums of our schools, and they're deeply, deeply impactful to how our kids are understanding themselves and they shape our kids' perspective of life. We want to help them separate themselves from the struggle to make it easier to overcome. Yeah, that was it.

Di: 54:44

Beautiful. Thank you so much. And also very, very important to. I mean, we can get into it another time, but, like when you're saying, the heavy hitters that aren't talked about so much, it's important for us to be aware.

Dr. Bathurst: 55:03

Yeah, absolutely yeah, we can definitely talk about it another time.

Di: 55:09

Yeah. So as a segue also, I naturally want to talk about technology and social media. When we're talking about also generational gaps, the way that we communicate with technology and social media has completely I mean, you and I know this because we've been through the change but it has changed the way we connect with others. And how can parents strike a balance between digital interaction and face-to-face connections to nurture the children's emotional well-being and social skills? I mean, they will never know the lives that we used to live, so how do we communicate this to them and nurture the emotional intelligence beyond what they're used to?

Dr. Bathurst: 56:19

Yeah, so there is no stronger parental influence than modeling, and I think we talked about that a little bit earlier. So we can create guidelines like no phones during dinner, but the restrictions only go so far. They don't really teach. They teach what not to do. If I sit here and you're riding a bike and I say, stop riding the bike, that way the probability that you're going to ride the bike the right way is very, very low. So we want to take the positive frame. We want to help them not just hear dialogues or stories about what could be done, but actually experience it in their bodies, in their minds.

Dr. Bathurst: 57:04

At the end of the day, creating an environment that models fun, fulfilling and active socialization is super, super valuable, and you can model that by inviting your own friends over and attending neighborhood barbecues and being active yourself. If you're modeling it, it's going to be a lot easier for them to follow when you're trying to get them on board.

Di: 57:29

Beautiful.

Dr. Bathurst: 57:31

Yeah, absolutely. Our kids get so much passive socialization digitally that becomes like mind-numbing. But that feels normal for them, so we call it mind-numbing. They just call it scrolling Life, yeah, life, yeah. So spicing it up helps them to buy into real life experiences and honestly experience different neurotransmitter floods in the brain, which hopefully helps them be like okay, there's different experiences of joy, what can that feel like? What else can trigger this kind of sensation in my body, rather than this tiny little hit of dopamine for every instant gratification on my phone?

Dr. Bathurst: 58:20

So, what we can do is getting creative, like putting your phones in the basket, playing fun music, dancing while you're making dinner. Ask them to get up out of the fridge or grab something out of the fridge and dance with them on the weekends.

Dr. Bathurst: 58:36

Get out of the house, get some sunlight to boost your mood. Try some new things like go rock climbing or whatever you guys want to do. Try new activities that you haven't experienced before. Novelty is going to flood your brain with phenylethylalamine a little bit, which is a totally different neurotransmitter. Right, it's going to be excitatory for them.

Di: 58:59

As opposed to dopamine.

Dr. Bathurst: 59:01

Yes, exactly, and it'll be a fresh conversation. So it's something different to talk about, which is refreshing, and then you can always help them build new skills so that your brain and body feel challenged and invigorated. So these are just a couple of examples of how you can kind of combat some of the mind-numbing scrolling or life for them.

Di: 59:27

How uncomfortable does this make some parents feel, like I'm wondering, like yes, we are officially telling you to put your phone down for a minute, you know, and going out and interacting, and so I'm thinking for me, actually, what you're describing is pretty much how I live my life.

Di: 59:50

I'm just very old school, like I just am, so I can't even help it. This is the way I am. I want to go out and meet people and I want to talk face to face, but there are a lot of people around me who will take their kids to different places, different activities, but they will be on the phone the whole time, the whole, whole, whole time. So it's very interesting to me also really inviting the parents to say, ok, you know, let's step out of our own comfort zone, and I think there's no better way to encourage this than to say this is really good for your child 100% Honestly so we focus a lot on, like the statistics of anxiety and depression and suicide rates of kids post pandemic and and it's outrageous and also anxiety like social anxiety for the general public post pandemic is outrageous.

Dr. Bathurst: 1:00:58

So I think a lot of the reticence, the hesitance for parents to adopt the same kind of like behavioral prescription for change that we are recommending for their children is because it it impresses upon their level of discomfort because they have adopted anxiety from being shut in for so long as well, and that's such a shame, you know.

Dr. Bathurst: 1:01:23

And women and lower SES kids are significantly higher in susceptibility towards social anxiety in particular. But kids in general, like post COVID, post pandemic we're just seeing, are not, are not able to regulate anxiety right. They feel extreme discomfort. They feel anxiety in the prospect of a potential social interaction and because they don't know how to self suit they haven't practiced it for so long. It is easier and more comfortable for them to to avoid the situation than to challenge themselves, and that's our job as parents is to help see when they're doing that and rather than allow them to avoid because of the anxiety which is essentially not living their life because of a mental health struggle, but help them work through the anxiety by self soothing and creating regulation techniques that are effective so they don't feel controlled by it anymore, right. And there's so many amazing techniques that are fast and free and really effective, right. So I'll go through four super, super simple ones that are really good for teens, but if your viewers or you want any more, I'm happy to send you more. So just let me know.

Di: 1:02:48

Okay, thank you.

Dr. Bathurst: 1:02:52

Vocal toning, which is essentially using your vibration and Hertz levels, created by your own voice through like vowel sounds, right. So like humming vowel sounds for a period of time, which is vocal toning. It nullifies anxiety and you could do that for a couple of minutes and that's it.

Di: 1:03:12

Super, super simple, super free, like to teach, to teach your teen to do that yeah.

Dr. Bathurst: 1:03:18

With their own voice. They don't have to be good at singing, it's honestly just a vowel sound and you're just kind of letting it out Super, super easy. So, teaching your teen with that, you can do it with them. Box breathing, which is the I like the four, four, four method because it's like the easiest to remember right, love it so much.

Dr. Bathurst: 1:03:38

Yeah, super easy. It counteracts the sympathetic nervous response to constrict and make your heart rate increase, right. So you're just kind of teaching your body no, everything's fine, you're totally cool, you're not actually in a threatening situation, you're just. You're essentially tricking your body. So in for four, hold for four, out for four, hold for four and just continue until you see that your Fitbit kind of like calm down right. Accupressure tapping with emotional freedom technique. There's like I think it's 10 acupressure points on the body that hit all five energy meridians on the in the body and it just kind of moves energy which is theorized to be the stagnant energy is theorized to be the cause of mental and physical disturbances. So acupressure is really effective. This is an evidence-based practice that is has a higher efficacy rate than placebo for anxiety reduction.

Di: 1:04:40

So we're we're saying, like Google the acupressure points and just like, if you Google, I don't even know what I just did. By the way, I'm like for the people on YouTube.

Dr. Bathurst: 1:04:54

I don't know what I just did. You're perfect. Everybody kind of knows some of them already. Right, Wow, and here and here and here and here. Right and here. So there, if you Google acupressure EFT, it'll pop up with where the acupressure points are.

Di: 1:05:15

I'm just going to say because the podcast is both on YouTube and also wherever you podcast. So Stephanie just tapped between the eyebrows and also over the head and like different points on the face. So I just want want you to be clear on that and definitely just Google it. Yeah, it doesn't cost anything.

Dr. Bathurst: 1:05:38

It doesn't cost anything. It doesn't cost anything, you can do it anywhere. There's no negative side effects at all. So it's great. And then the last one that I really like for kids is what? So there are many exercise exercises for Vegas, nerve stimulation. The easiest one for kids is just splashing cold water on your face easy or getting in a post job. Super, super easy and quick right.

Di: 1:06:05

Yeah, yeah, no, I mean also my kid loves doing that. I'm thinking like that's great, I mean that'll be so much fun for her, but also like speaking of older children or older teens, what an easy, helpful way to just manage those darker feelings and moments.

Dr. Bathurst: 1:06:28

Yeah, yeah rather than shutting in and reinforcing or empowering the anxiety, we want to help them get control of it so that it doesn't get worse Right right.

Di: 1:06:39

It's like it really, because otherwise it really gets into this cycle. It's like you're just sitting there and anxiety feeds anxiety. It's really amazing to see someone. I've had conversations with people and I'll also see it about myself if I'm upset and I start talking about it, but I'm not letting anybody interject or anybody like, and I also, because I'm also a trainer and I deal with it. I'm a trainer and I deal with all kinds of public health situations, so I also receive this. I'll be on the receiving end where I'm not necessarily interjecting and I'm listening, but I see how a person can totally, totally site themselves out and it just gets worse, like it starts pretty calm and it spirals. And so thinking about what happens with a teen, for example, who's sitting in the anxiety for so long and I mean not a conversation, but like days or more yeah, this can be lifesaving 100%, absolutely yeah.

Di: 1:07:59

And so a lot of my followers and people who train with me know that my favorite word is resilience, so building resilience is. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's often really important for maintaining healthy relationships. At least, that's also my personal feeling. What strategies or life lessons would you emphasize to help your daughter and for us, to help our future generations, navigate challenges and setbacks in personal and interpersonal lives?

Dr. Bathurst: 1:08:45

I love this question because resiliency is also so significantly important for me, but also for relationships. I think that's why it's important for me, because I love relationships. It's my passion, it is critical, critical critical it's a critical life skill, and you don't need to experience trauma in order to develop resiliency. I think that's a common misconception. You do need to be able to experience and work through and manage challenge, and so us, as parents, need to find ways to support our children in experiencing life challenge. That's a really critical part of development so that they can.

Dr. Bathurst: 1:09:36

Adversity in life is never desired. It's never like. Nobody ever really wants to experience difficult, hard moments, and we as parents naturally want to protect our children from pain. Adversity also affords us opportunity to learn about ourselves and our world and to transform into wiser versions of ourselves in the future, which is exactly what resilience is. So, as parents, I feel like it's our job to keep our kids safe and also to allow them the life experiences that can be challenging, because that's what builds their confidence in their ability to handle difficult life moments moving forward, and that's what encourages independence and autonomy, which eventually in adult relationships means interdependence, the healthy spectrum of attachment and relationships. So it's really like a domino effect from beginning childhood for us to be able to find that balance of protecting and ensuring safety while still stepping back enough and allowing them to experience life for themselves.

Di: 1:10:48

Yep.

Dr. Bathurst: 1:10:50

Life will provide all of us with recurring opportunities to learn life lessons. Until you embrace those lessons and I think we can tell our kids that and they're not really going to They'll have to learn that on their own right.

Dr. Bathurst: 1:11:07

If you're struggling with something that you feel like is a recurring theme or a recurring issue over and, over and over again. We want to sit down and help them reflect on how we are responding. Are we responding to those issues in the exact same way every single time? What can we do differently next time? How can you follow the river flow instead of trudge against it?

Dr. Bathurst: 1:11:35

What life changes. Do you feel like this encourages you to take? So just finding different ways to perceive challenge rather than kind of like butting heads, allowing it to be seen and felt as an opportunity to grow, is really really valuable and will help those life experiences go a lot smoother for children, because essentially, emotional pain is an unavoidable part of life. That's kind of what being human is. We have this massive spectrum of emotion and in order for us to experience the really high emotions, we also have to be prepared to experience the really low emotions. But pain is a momentary period of discomfort, sometimes extreme, in direct response to life events. So as time continues and a new life event emerges, as it always does, the pain will alleviate and make way to a new emotional moment, which is what makes that pain temporary.

Dr. Bathurst: 1:12:42

And that's what we want to explain to our kids. Yes, this is real, this is hard, this sucks for you and also it's not going to last forever. Emotional suffering is different. Pain and suffering, those are different concepts and they're created differently. Pain is unavoidable, Suffering is not. Suffering is human created. This is our own continuation of pain moments due to rumination of the past or anxiety of the future. So by not existing in the present moment when life moves or is trying to move you through a natural pain moment, we, because of our metacognition, our ability to think about the way that we think, sit here and just stagnate or perseverate in our own processing of that pain moment when life is trying to move us through, we create our own state of suffering because of our intense thinking, which really stinks. So we want to help our kids just be open and trust the process of life. Life will move it through.

Dr. Bathurst: 1:13:52

Allow it to move through or else it's going to be really, really painful for a while, and choosing the deepened meaning from past pain moments allows you to find acceptance for that pain being present in your life. That's how we move through, rather than stay resentful, can you?

Di: 1:14:16

elaborate on that last part a little bit please.

Dr. Bathurst: 1:14:18

Yeah. So Japanese culture has a tradition of fixing cracks or broken objects with gold, which is known as kintsugi. I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly. If something breaks, rather than discarding it immediately, it's fixed with gold to be made more beautifully, more appreciatively. This is such an amazing concept to protect and respect ourselves, our bodies, our things, our relationships, and I love this so much. For me, this aligns perfectly with the process of forgiveness. The fourth stage of forgiveness is deepened meaning, right To take a past pain moment and something that was so dark and so heavy and so negative and move it forward by finding deepened meaning or beauty from it. It allows you to release it and move forward with positive energy.

Di: 1:15:29

Your first of all, the last few minutes you're talking about. For me, everything you're saying manifests itself very much in my mindfulness workshops and my mindfulness in general, so you're hitting home big time with me. On a personal level, I also have to share this Again. I am getting very personal on this podcast episode just because I feel like everything you're saying. I'm like I should share this because maybe someone else is feeling this.

Di: 1:16:02

And so I have an ice scar in a way. I never scar. Well, I always have, like it's called a keloid, where it's kind of like a bumpy scar. It doesn't really blend in with the rest of the body. So that's how my ears feel when they're pierced. So there's a bump, and that's also how it was in my C-section and I was very, very aware of the scar of my C-section because my daughter was breech. I did everything to flip her over oh my god and, by the way, my baby now is breech, but I've still been there, done that, and it's scarred in that keloid fashion. Everybody kept telling me it's going to blend in. It didn't. It didn't blend in and I was very self-conscious. Also, I have a lot of my work is my body, so it makes me a little bit more self-conscious Until my daughter grabbed my keloid.

Di: 1:17:14

She took the scar between her fingers. She was like what's this? I was like that's where you came out of. And she was like this is where I came out. And she was so excited about it and it was like if I ever considered any kind of cosmetic surgery, it was like that was the gold that you were describing. That that was it. I was like how cool is it that my daughter can actually see where she came out from? And she loves that scar. It's so meaningful to her, which made it then meaningful to me. And that was it.

Dr. Bathurst: 1:17:55

What a beautiful transformative moment.

Di: 1:17:58

Right, it was like that was the gold. When you were talking about the gold, I was like I get it.

Dr. Bathurst: 1:18:05

Yeah, 100%. What a beautiful moment, oh my gosh.

Di: 1:18:10

Yeah, and everything we go through, whether it's emotional scars or physical scars, it is what ends up making us who we are. And if you've been through something then and you've gotten through it and you've learned from it, then you might also be able to lend a hand and, because of what you've been through, you might actually help someone in such a profound manner you might not even realize how profound. So, yeah, I really I love the differentiation that you made between suffering and pain. I love that.

Dr. Bathurst: 1:18:56

And I think it gives hope right. It gives hope that we have a bit of choice, agency, control over our experience in life. And it gives hope, in those darkest moments that all of us will eventually have at some point or another, that they are not forever and they will eventually end and break way to something lighter and better and more fulfilling.

Di: 1:19:21

Absolutely.

Dr. Bathurst: 1:19:22

And that's what being human is right. Those dark moments make us appreciate the lighter moments so much more.

Di: 1:19:32

Absolutely. I wanna start wrapping things up, and when I say want, I don't think that's exactly correct, like I feel like I could talk to you for a really long time, but because I want people to listen from beginning to end, I do. A lot of people struggle with boundaries in relationships and, by the way, where I live, this is like a really big thing, like people just get in to everybody else's life. It's a culture. But how can we teach our children to establish and respect healthy boundaries and still foster close, meaningful connections with others?

Dr. Bathurst: 1:20:23

Yeah, healthy boundaries means that you're responsible for your emotions and other people are responsible for theirs. You can impact one another, but never accept responsibility for somebody else's emotional stability, because none of us have that power, right? So healthy boundaries is balance between giving and receiving time, energy, affection, resources, just general contributions of relationships, and teaching what boundaries are If they're physical, if they're emotional, if they're environmental, whatever they are. Teaching them requires consistency, right? So we wanna communicate our wants, needs and boundaries or limitations, which there are soft and hard right. Limitations, clearly. In simple terms, it's really really important for the modeling purpose, right? And then we wanna help them structure theirs so that they have it already pre-structured, pre-formatted. I want, I need. My boundary is the most common ones, right For?

Dr. Bathurst: 1:21:32

them and then they can kind of fill in the blanks with other reflections down the road. It's really, it's really important to follow up with the check-in question, to re-engage the person that you're giving the expression to.

Dr. Bathurst: 1:21:51

This re-engagement makes it a collaborative dialogue rather than like a demand or a directive or an immediate abrasive cutoff in the relationship, which feels really injurious to some people. Right, so the check-in can be can you support me with that or does that make sense, or can we resolve this together? Right, so it's re-engaging the person that you just expressed your need, want or boundary to. Without this part, the impact of the assertion can feel kind of dismissive or sometimes injurious to the relationship. I need blank and then it's just silence.

Dr. Bathurst: 1:22:32

And we're not taught in a lot of family dynamics, we're not taught how to receive these kinds of expressions. So it comes across very shocking for a lot of people, especially when it's coming from women, because women are not supposed to be assertive, even though assertive and aggression is different. So this is a really important piece to kind of make it collaborative. And then intention is a really critical tool in boundary awareness, right, so sharing your intention for why you are expressing this need, want or limitation is really helpful, because a lot of people especially if they're taken back, if they're surprised or whatever without sharing the intention, it may be misunderstood or personalized in some kind of way 100%.

Dr. Bathurst: 1:23:32

So that's the abridged quick response, since I know we've taken a long time. I hope that was helpful.

Di: 1:23:38

Very, very helpful, and I think it's also very helpful in between adults in this digital age where we text fast. I remember like 10 years ago I had a fight with a very, very close friend and I didn't understand why she was so angry at me, but I later understood that she read my quick responses. It wasn't my voice and it wasn't my intent and it was a very valuable lesson for me. I know I drive a lot of people crazy because I'll voice text them and nobody wants a voice text. I'm the person who does that and it's because I've learned the hard way that if I'm quick and immediate on texting, it can end up really bad and the intention does not get through. So, yeah, talking about your intention is so important, so important.

Dr. Bathurst: 1:24:48

Absolutely.

Di: 1:24:49

Dr Bathurst, I don't think I've ever had a conversation that flew by for me like our conversation today. This was so meaningful, and I think about how so many people are gonna find this meaningful as well. Thank you so much for joining and it took up a lot of your time, and thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and all this wealth of information. Really, really, really, thank you.

Dr. Bathurst: 1:25:24

So, lulie, I really appreciate you inviting me here, and I just enjoyed our conversation so much, so thank you.

Di: 1:25:31

Likewise, I hope this is the first of more, because you really are so valuable. Thank you for everything that you do. Also, I wanna make sure that everybody knows that, if you can send me the links where it's easy for people to reach out to you or to your team, anything that you find most comfortable and also valuable to the listeners, and I'll link everything below Okay.

Dr. Bathurst: 1:26:06

Absolutely.

Di: 1:26:07

Okay, wonderful. Thank you so so much, thank you so much, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.