Supporting Parents With Healthy Boundaries: A Chat About Education, Behaviour, and Children with Amy Yeung

 

Show Notes:

 

Discover the invaluable insights of Amy, a high school guidance counsellor and special education specialist, as she joins me to unravel the complexities of school behaviour, mental health, and parenting in today's fast-paced society. Our discussion sheds light on the heightened challenges educators and students face as the as the year comes to a close.  

We delve into the emotional turmoil flooding our classrooms, the silent battles fought within the walls of family homes, and the transformative power of understanding and managing these sometimes overwhelming emotions.

Our conversation weaves through the fabric of modern parenting to examine the nuances of setting boundaries and allowing emotional growth. We tackle the paradox of parenting strategies that aim to support children, but are actually shielding them from essential life experiences and building a potential for increased anxiety and maladaptive coping mechanisms. 

Amy and I share personal reflections on the mental load of parenting, discussing the fine line between guiding and overprotecting our children, all while navigating the deluge of information that constantly barrages today's families.

This episode goes beyond the impact of individual families to address  community-wide issues like the impact of funding cuts on school based extracurricular activities. We debate how the balance of structured and unstructured play shapes a child's autonomy and long-term emotional resilience. From the playground to the living room, we confront the intricacies of providing children with choices, respecting the wisdom of elders, and the essential role trust plays in the journey of parenting. 

Join us for this reflective conversation that promises to offer a deeper comprehension of the interplay between education, mental health, and the art of raising children in our current era.

 

TRANSCRIPT:

 

Tara Gratto: Today, Amy and I are going to be talking about more of like a casual conversation. Um, we've been chatting quite a bit recently about a bunch of things, things happening in schools, things happening in the mental health space, and we thought it's the end of the year.

People are overwhelmed. Behavior is really kind of a disaster in schools. I'm hearing it from my kids, from my colleagues, from my friends. Um, and sort of parents are overwhelmed, kids are overwhelmed. So we thought it'd be kind of a great idea to sort of chat. If you haven't listened to a podcast from Amy and I, uh, we talk about topics in education typically.

Parenting and education. Amy is a high school guidance counselor and special education specialist. So I always enjoy our conversations. So today's a bit more of a casual chat. Thank you for joining me on a Friday evening.

Amy Yeung: I'm not going to lie. I, I fell asleep on the couch just before.

Tara Gratto: I literally texted her, I'm like, are you awake?

Amy Yeung: Cause that's just how it is now. We're, we're in December, December 1st, right? This is the first day of December as we're recording this. And so we're a few weeks away from the winter break. And, uh, around this time it's like you start to reflect about just everything. Yeah. And I thought, yeah, I thought it'd be fun for us just to talk because we have, we have talked about some pretty serious topics and not that I don't love talking about them, but I think once in a while it's, it's time to, to sort of have a debrief.

Amy Yeung: Yeah. And to reflect. That's a big, that's a big word. Uh, in education. We talked about when I was being trained as a teacher that that was the, the big word. It was a lot of reflect the

Tara Gratto: word of the time.

Amy Yeung: Yes. And it still is. And as I get older and wiser in my years, I find, um, reflection is a big thing and it helps me process what is happening.

And I thought, let's, let's do some processing together now that we've had a year through the

Tara Gratto: fall. Yeah. And it's, it's funny. I was actually talking to somebody the other day and the older I get, the less I realize I know. Which is interesting, or at least the less confident I am in what I know. When I was younger, I was like, this is the way and I know it.

And now I'm like, maybe I need to think about a lot a little bit more. Maybe I need to delve into that idea a little bit. Yeah,

Amy Yeung: I agree with you. I think the older I get, the more I realize, um, that things are ever changing and ever shifting. And there is actually not a whole lot of certainty in life. Like I like to think that there is because it makes me feel good to.

Amy Yeung: Believe that things are for certain, but, um, as we know, and as life goes on for me, I go, okay, not everything is certain. Not everything that existed last year will be the same as this year. And yeah, and you just kind of have to go with it. There's nothing much you can do about stopping change. You have to figure out how to wrap your head around it.

You

Tara Gratto: can't control it. And maybe that's, I think that's actually like one of the things that's happening right now is we're trying to control things and we're definitely trying to find blame. I hear it a lot. I'm not saying the pandemic did not have an impact on behavior and development and all the things.

But I don't think it's actually the cause of it. I think it was here much before and I don't think

Amy Yeung: I think it has it highlighted a lot of things. And actually, I've been thinking about this lately about the, I guess the end of the acute portion of the pandemic. COVID's still with us. Yeah, it didn't go

Tara Gratto: away.

Amy Yeung: Yeah, it didn't go away. And you know, as I think about the fall, a lot of students and staff have been sick at my school. And yeah, I mean, there's always this cycle of illness in the fall. And, oh, it's worse

Tara Gratto: though. Like I said, today, the day, like an

Amy Yeung: extra layer, it's not just, so I was talking to the social worker at my school, um, yesterday and,

Amy Yeung: She's a very experienced social worker, and I would say she's probably, you know, in close to 30 years of Working in the field and she said this was has been the busiest fall of her career Mental health wise there's been a lot of mental health Issues challenges that that she's been supporting students with and you know as a guidance counselor, I would say I agree with that compared to last year I've dealt with a lot more, uh, mental health crises amongst our students.

Um, so it made me think about that. And the other thing that I've. I've, I've noticed observed in, um, I guess at my school, but also at my kid's school is, you know, there's a lot of challenging behaviors and, um, and by challenging, meaning like to the level where, you know, learning is being disrupted or, um, you know, I work with the older kids, so we're looking at having more conflicts outside of school, um, fights and, and that sort of stuff happening and, and things online as well, um.

So I guess the question is like, people are probably wondering like, what's going on? Like, you know, yeah. Is this the result of covid? Like I feel, I I think I hear that. Yeah. I hear that a lot. You know, it was because Covid messed things up and I'm like, well, yeah, actually I don't know necessarily. It's because Covid messed it up.

Like you said it, I think it just highlighted some things that, um, some cracks in our, in our system framework. Yeah. Yeah. A framework. Yeah. I like that. I like that. Uh, word. Um, I think. I think, well, I think it's the world is not as peachy as we thought it would be when COVID was over. This is My line of thinking, like, right.

I think

Tara Gratto: we couldn't control the outcome. We thought we could, but we couldn't. Yeah.

Amy Yeung: And I think too, like when we were in it and we were locked down and we were dreaming about like, Oh, you know, life is going to be great when we can be back in school and we can do all these activities together or life will be great when we have the ability to hang out with our friends and have dinner and, and, and socialize and, you know, and.

Yeah. I mean, I have enjoyed that aspect of being back in quote unquote regular life, um, being able to socialize and being out there, but it also means that we've been a lot more busy than we were even compared to last

Tara Gratto: year. I think we're even more busy. I mean, you and I talked about this. During the lockdown, we, we had so many amazing conversations, but one of the things we talked about is like this idea that everyone thought school was going to solve everything.

And I actually think that has a lot to do with a lot of things that are happening. There's this, there's a notion that school was going to be this magical solution. Um, it was going to be like, The consistency, the regularity, the, the things that everybody needed. Um, and I think that myth has been debunked big time.

Um

Tara Gratto: , because that's not what school does. I mean, yes, for sure. It does have some systems of predictability and things like that. One of the things that sort of I'm finding interesting, and it's become a theme in many of my conversations this fall, is sort of an awareness that the way people have been parenting was to try and sort of really break cycles.

Like really trying to show up differently and one of the things that people are finding. So I recently, for whatever reason, I've been working with more older kids. So I used to have a more core younger group and it's kind of shifted to more a middle or late elementary middle school ish area, um, for whatever reason.

And one of the interesting themes in many of those conversations kind of has been that.

Tara Gratto: In trying to parent differently, there's a bit of an awareness that like, there aren't boundaries. And now we're in a space where we're kind of afraid of the behavior because We were trying so hard to break generational cycles and trying to make space for validating feelings and really encourage that independent thinker, right?

So a real sort of, I hear this with regularity, this idea of like, I really want my child to be able to communicate to be, you know, I felt. As a kid that I didn't have a say and I didn't feel like I was a valued member. So I've worked really hard. Um, but I also have seen that sort of like a little bit of a light bulb of like, the missing piece here seems to be that like, my kids kind of speak out everywhere.

All the time, and they're not very nice to me, right, so, they're not very nice to some of their peers, and some of this is contained to the house, they'll be like, well, as soon as they go to school, it's okay, and some of it's not, some of it's like, they're just, have very strong feelings and very strong opinions, and so I find it kind of interesting, where, We've talked about this before, this pendulum, right?

Where we're like trying so hard to do something totally different that we might be missing the pieces that balance us. So I'm wondering, pondering, that if part of this behavioral element that across the board, I'm hearing it in lots of different states, provinces like I have friends all over the place.

Everyone's talking about it. So it's not just where we live, but I'm, I'm wondering if part of this sort of is we swung too far to the other direction. We were trying to empower kids with certain qualities and trying to do things so differently that we've actually sort of created this like.

Tara Gratto: Lack of respect this lack of understanding and sort of a balance in like how important boundaries actually are for your mental well being that having effective supportive boundaries doesn't mean you're, you know, crushing a child spirit, or that being ever present.

Right. This idea that like adults should constantly do things for their kids. Um, that that's actually sort of made it really hard for kids to be alone with their thoughts, even in a room. Right. They just can't handle it. So they speak out constantly. They're like, I can't handle the silence. I can't wait my turn.

Need constant feedback.

Amy Yeung: Yeah. I mean, okay. So there's one thing I've observed about humans. Um, again, as I'm getting older and wiser, is that we are really, we're not, we're, we love extremes.

Amy Yeung: Like we're not good at moderation, um, and we, we, in our society in particular, we're very binary thinkers. It's either this. Or this, right?

We do it this way or this way. And I'm learning that life is really about this and this and really thinking about where, where, what's, what, where is it that you want to go with this and how are we going to get there?

Amy Yeung: So when you talk about like, um, you know, having the lack of boundaries. Uh, I could definitely say I see that, uh, in my work, uh, working with students, um, and in particular I think about the amount of anxiety overall among students, uh, that I've observed in the last 10 years.

Uh, when I started my career as a teacher 20 years ago, I, I would say that I didn't see so much, um, anxiety around testing, around marks and, you know, but now the level of anxiety seems to be quite acute, um, to the point where, you know, there are students that have panic attacks because, you know, they're required to write a test.

And then I think about like, what, like what has happened in the last 10 years? And maybe what maybe it's connected to what you're saying is that, um. You know, as parents and, you know, I, my, my kids are about 12. So, you know, I'm, I'm part of this generation of parenting, um, where, yeah, we do want to change things, make things, um, better for our children, in that I do want my children to feel like they are respected for who they are, for their opinion.

Amy Yeung: You know, I want to recognize them as people. Um. And I, I do think that sometimes like the way we have parented where we give our children so much choice and, and we try to remove suffering like disappointment and the earlier basic disappointment, like we don't, we want to remove all that from their experience in the younger years.

And so I think that when we remove that to the point where they don't experience any kind of. I don't, I don't, I don't know if the word is adversity

Tara Gratto: or just, well, they just don't get used to the, the not comfortable feelings. Right. Right.

Amy Yeung: So we've removed all that. So when they have to encounter something like a test in school, all of a sudden it is uncomfortable because you're feeling nervous, right? You're having doubts about your, your ability to do this. And then I think that because they're not used to that feeling that becomes more acute and evolves into a

Tara Gratto: panic.

Yeah. Um, and I think, yeah. I think there's another layer, which is one that you and I were talking about the other day. Um, as I've shared with my followers, podcast listeners, like I'm in the process of moving and I'm actually downsizing, which everyone is shocked to hear.

They're like, don't you still have children? And I'm like, yeah, I do. Um, and there's lots of reasons behind why I'm downsizing. But one of the reasons is in the discovery of like putting my house up for sale, I realized that the mental load of running my house is too much. It's just too much. I live in a, in a very large house with a yard and lots of things that were great when I owned a preschool, a lot of work.

Yeah, it's a lot of work. Um, but one of the things that's made me sort of realize, and I talk all the time about unintentional. Unintentional reinforcement, how these things come about unintentionally. So we're not intentionally protecting our kids. And when I work with families of younger children, it's not intentional that you're protecting them.

It's because quite often you're exhausted and don't have the capacity to handle. The frustrated, the yelling, the crying, the, and then on top of that, there's these guilty layers of like, you know, you're supposed to be there for the feelings. And it's not really a lot of clarity around that actually. And I think

Amy Yeung: there's also this sort of underlying fear that, you know, am I ruining my child's life?

Like, am I crushing their soul? Like, is this going to

Tara Gratto: be And social media is good at the guilt. It lays it on thick.

Amy Yeung: Yeah. I, you know, I think as parents, we've been there. And that, that was moments where. Yeah. You say no to your child and they look at you and this, you know, with their eyes and they're about to bawl and you think, oh my gosh, am I crushing their soul? Right.

Tara Gratto: Am I, am I, is this no? And that's the whole thing, right?

Because you, you do have, again, the polar opposites where some people, the advice is you have to be there to comfort them and be there and don't sort of, In one breath, they're saying, don't let them cry. And then another breath, we were like, let kids cry because they need to express their feelings. Like the mixed messaging around this is intense.

But what I do hear as a general theme is when like, parents don't want to be embarrassed in the grocery store, right? Parents don't want their kids having a tantrum trying to get out the door for daycare every day. Like we live this like very fast paced. Life of, of overwhelm, like really we're kind of in overwhelm all the time.

So I think what unintentionally happens with the littlest is we actually fix a lot of things that they don't get practice at. They don't get practice at feeling frustrated. It's

Amy Yeung: faster because it's, because we're so busy. It is faster a lot of times for us just to do the thing versus helping our children learn the thing.

Yeah. That does take time and effort.

Tara Gratto: And also sitting with the like discomfort of the loudness or the right, like when we say all feelings are welcome. We don't generally really mean it. And I've had to check myself on this, right? Where I'm like, sometimes my house is really loud. And I'm like, this is supposed to be my jam.

Like we're supposed to use tools for our feelings. And I'm like, yeah, but that's how some feelings manifest themselves, right? Some feelings are loud or tearful or whatever. And if we're saying feelings are welcome, we can't actually suppress The ones we don't like hearing, right? Like truthfully, that's kind of, we have to build tools for those, but when do you build tools for stuff like that when you're little, right?

So if we're, if we're getting away from the like suppressing feelings, right. Sort of to loop to this idea of like, why are kids all over the place?

Amy Yeung: Yeah. I think we need to do a better job talking about how do we process the feelings. And this is, this is a word that I'm learning to use. Um, With, with my students and my own children, uh, and I think that we as a society are, we move too fast.

So we actually don't provide the time to process things. Yeah.

Tara Gratto: And we discourage it actually

Amy Yeung: because we want it done fast. We just want everything to be like fixed. We want, we want to move fast. We want to. And sometimes. People just need time to process and when it comes to stress or anxiety and you know, if I have a student in my office who is having a moment, I go, okay, we're going to sit here and we are going to process what you're feeling because right feelings.

Feelings, they run through a cycle, right? Like when you're anxious, there is a cycle. It begins and you go through the thing and then it ends and then you have to process and move on. Right. You know, you're not in that one cycle, you know, that one stage forever. So I think, I think I'm trying in my own life to take some more time to process.

Yeah. Because I think if we can process things and understand why, why things happen, I think we can be more intentional about how we approach, uh, situations. So you know, why is it that my child is throwing a tantrum every time we need to leave for school? Right. Why is that? Yeah. Are they, they're not, you know, I think, you know, sometimes people think children are being willfully, you know, disruptive, but yeah.

There's usually a reason for it and so

Tara Gratto: getting to that reason isn't always easy. I will say that it's it's not As educators we are i'm going to say privileged in our perspective of being able to figure out what behavior means Um, and I think I think that's the part that's tricky, right? Especially with the nuance of the world.

Everyone's like well behavior means something. Um It's the stepping back to figure that behavior

Amy Yeung: piece. And the other tricky piece too is that every kid is different. So, you know, what one behavior means for one kid doesn't mean the same for another. And

Tara Gratto: if you have more than one child, siblings, you're like, what?

I mastered that strategy and now it doesn't work at all for the other one.

Amy Yeung: Yeah. The other one, it's not the same. So that, and I think that's where the, the parents. Parents are experts on their own children because you spend the time observing them and understanding how they work. Um, it is really helpful, but, you know, yeah, it is tricky because not everybody has the same reaction to things.

And if you have neurodivergent kids, it's even trickier. Uh,

Tara Gratto: somebody asked me this the other day, so I'm just gonna pause.

Tara Gratto: Neurodivergent means differently thinking. So somebody was like, you keep saying neurodivergent, what does that actually mean? So it could mean somebody who has a disability. It could be an, what we call an invisible disability.

So anxiety, a learning disability, autism, something along that line. It could be a physical. So if people are like, what's a neurodivergent, they're like, you use these fancy words sometimes. I was like, Oh, next time I will stop. And I will explain neurodiversity.

Amy Yeung: I forget that what we, what people don't know, because I'm an educator.

There's a lot of acronyms. So I'm like, Oh yeah. Neurodivergence. I forget that people don't actually know what that means. And in the education world, neurodivergence is, is usually reflected in special education. So, you know, students who need service through special education are usually the ones who are neurodivergent because their needs are not met by a typical classroom.

And when we say typical classroom, we're talking about, you know, you have one teacher, you have a group of students. And the teacher gives instructions and the students follow the instructions, um, and people learn how to behave in the community, in the classroom where it's conducive to learning and conducive to. Um, you know, people feeling belong, feeling like they belong and, um, and that they're safe in the classroom. So that's our vision of the typical classroom, but students who are neurodivergent find that type of classroom not always great for them because they have different

Tara Gratto: needs. And we have a, we have a podcast episode.

Tara Gratto: So if you are really interested in like, what does that look like in the classroom? How does the supports, how does the support system work specifically at Ontario? Amy and I have a podcast all about, um, um, individual education plans and how they're implemented. So you can check that out. I'll link it in the show notes.

Tara Gratto: Um, but yeah, it was interesting. I think another really interesting piece, because people will comment to me quite regularly, I work very hard to build my vocabulary in a way that's sort of trying to be mindful of things that are changing, right? So like, special needs is actually frowned upon in the disability community.

And so, and disability, which when I was younger, and I have a podcast with Karen Audio about this, when I was younger, disability was a bad word. You never said it, it was not okay. And that was the other way around special needs is actually considered sort of ableist and not the kindest way of addressing.

So it's like, I will use terms to try and be consistent with what's sort of more socially acceptable and working hard to be mindful. But that doesn't mean that That's the, the vernacular, the language of every day. So sometimes I'm like, well, neuro, this is like what special needs is, right? So it's, it's tricky.

And I've been caught sometimes with like saying things and I'll be like, why say them this way? Because my one friend will be like, but that's not how we understand it. So it could have used. You know, once in a while, pause and explain these things. That would be super helpful. So that's, that's the backstory on, on, on that piece.

Um, why sort of this supports a different, but the question, I think one of the things that becomes interesting in this neurodiverse and divergent conversation is I do have a lot of people who are like, I just don't know because classrooms are out of control right now. I'm not sure where my kid fits in this.

Tara Gratto: And so one of the things I find really interesting about behavior and in supporting parents with behavior is where that balance between empowering our kids to be thoughtful, mindful, strong personalities, the piece that I see missing, and maybe you can like expand on this in your, you know, education school perspective, but the stories that are coming home to me and the stories that I'm hearing for colleagues is there's a serious lack of respect.

So one of my rules, right? So I have the language of kindness. Um, it's the found it was the foundation of my preschool and I just have expanded as kids get older using different language. But the whole premise of it is you can have very strong opinions. You can have lots of feelings about things, but how you treat others matters, right?

And how you treat other people in a space and how you communicate about that matters. So if you disagree with somebody, how you disagree with them matters. So my definition of kindness doesn't mean be nice to people. It doesn't mean niceness or you know, placating it means,

Amy Yeung: well, I mean, I'll tell you, I've met, I've met some people who are very polite, very nice, and I would say their actions are not kind, right?

What does nice really mean? Yeah.

Tara Gratto: But I think kids right now in classrooms are so used to voicing their opinions. I was, I was talking to a friend about this, because, like, as you know, I grew up in sort of two cultures, right? So I grew up in Middle Eastern culture, and then Canadian culture, and then, I call it, I'm starting to call it the culture of capitalism.

Because I really think that's having a big impact on all of this. Truth be, like, what's, what is the root of the mental health crisis? I'm not sure that it's not the culture of capitalism, actually, when I really start to think about it. Research project for the future! But one of the things I, I is missing in the, in the, this culture is, is understanding respect for elders.

So how do we navigate that space where like teachers are meaningful people that we should respect and that it's not this sort of like power dynamic and that my opinions matter just as much as yours? Simultaneously, where it's like all our opinions matter, but how we speak to each other also matters, but that the person at the front of the room got there for a reason, right?

Tara Gratto: The whole idea here is that didn't we want teachers to teach our children, but if they can't keep everybody. You know, listening and kind, you can't teach and people are like, well, that's the teacher's fault. And I don't think that's a fair thing to say because how are we empowering kids or over empowering them to navigate their classroom spaces is kind of right.

How I'm feeling about this

Amy Yeung: This a big question. I mean, there's many pieces here. Like what is it, what is the teacher's role really? Is sort of what the first question that comes to mind, um, you know, what is our primary job as teachers? Are we there to teach social skills? Are we there to teach the curriculum?

You know, I mean, I mean, I guess it depends on your view of education. I'm not going to answer the question. I'm just sort of putting out there like a rhetorical one. Um, and the other thing is I think that In terms of respecting elders. I mean, as you were talking about capitalism, I actually thinking I started listening to Trevor Noah's new podcast.

It's called What Now? Yes, I've been was listening to, um, the episode where he interviews Kerry Washington, and they were actually talking about the culture of capitalism. And, you know, and Trevor Noah says, you know, there's a lot of cool things that come out of capitalism, a lot of innovation, um, you know, a lot of interesting things just because of the structure of it.

But, but, you know, they also highlight that capitalism is, as they call it in the podcast, a hungry beast. It'll keep taking and taking and taking from you if you do not put boundaries. Right.

Tara Gratto: Um, I haven't listened to that one. I listened to the one with The Rock. Now I gotta go listen

Amy Yeung: to that one. Yeah, that's the second one is, the second one of the series is Kerry Washington.

So they talk about how capitalism is this hungry beast. And it'll keep taking from you. And, and, you know, that is the nature of capitalism, right? And they're not necessarily,

Amy Yeung: um, making a judgment call and that saying that capitalism is bad or capitalism is good. But the structure of capitalism is. To take never ending from a resource and you know, and you, you give us a little as you can in terms of your resources, but you take right.

And that's, that's the structure of capitalism. And it's made me think about like, is this what's happening with, um, children and behavior and because parents are, we're giving so much. And they keep taking right in terms of like we're trying to give them so much and try to try we're trying to make our kids lives easier.

Yeah, I think that's what it comes down to is we're trying to give them comfortable, easy, easier lives and we keep giving and giving and they keep taking and taking. I'm not saying that our children are hungry beasts, but okay, sometimes it feels like it.

Tara Gratto: But it's, it's, it's the cultural idea, right? The whole idea of like, you're not a successful parent if you're not able to provide these certain things.

So, I mean, it's interesting that you say this, me downsizing has been a real sort of challenging thing to, to do, to. To comprehend and someone said to me, some of the greatest things that will happen in your children's life are the are the hard things the hard change the things that were sort of not what you expected.

And it was funny because when I reflected on my life, I'm like, yeah, I had a lot of adversity that I had to overcome, um, throughout the years. Um, And my kids have had little less because I've always sort of kept them like, I want them to go to the same school zone and be able to walk to school. Like that's sort of like textbook, like I want the early years to look like this.

And what was missing is like, you know, when I, when they started to need to use transit, I had a bit of a panic attack because I was like, Oh my goodness, like transit, the big scary. And I was like, what am I afraid of? I'm afraid of them growing up. Am I afraid of something actually happening? And, and then sort of the real thought process started to kick in, which was, what am I sheltering them from?

What is this change in my lifestyle forcing me to face, right? I've had to face like how much of a bubble and it's funny because if people speak to me, they're like, if we talk about you as like bubbling your children, this is actually not how we think of you. And I'm like, yeah, but I've been doing it to trying to be intentional, but I still was doing it.

I

Amy Yeung: think it's an instinct as a parent. You want to protect your children, right? It's understandable. Um, but I think when, at what cost, right. And I, and I was about to say like, uh, what costs and. Like, we're now protecting them from things that they actually don't need protecting from like, we can actually say no to the kids like, as you know, like in that podcast with Trevor Noah, you got to set the boundaries, right?

Amy Yeung: Yeah. And, um, Boundaries, I, I, I'm starting to think of boundaries as, as like being compassionate actually, you're not only being compassionate to yourself, but you're also being compassionate to your kids, because I've worked with kids a long time now, and I think one of the things they, they actually really welcome, and it's particularly kids who have had no boundaries is they actually do like boundaries.

Yeah. Underneath

Tara Gratto: it all. But they might not.

Amy Yeung: It provides some certainty.

Tara Gratto: Right? Yeah. But it might not seem that way. No. Yes. So parents who are like, no, no, my kids don't. On the outside, the reaction will feel like it. But once they're in place and things are going, that predictability, I think we've confused.

Amy Yeung: You need the time to process it. Give it some time to play out and time to process it. Yeah. And, and I, and I, when I work with, with students, I always say, you got to give this like two, three weeks. to see how it really goes. The first day might, it might not work so well for you because you're not used to it.

Whatever it is, like that, the new, the new habit, it's, they say it takes about three weeks for a habit to really, to really click in.

Tara Gratto: So three, three weeks if you're very invested in the habit. Right. Right. You have to be very invested in wanting to change a habit. It's actually much longer. It can be up to a year if you're not invested.

If you're not mentally invested in that habit change, it's not three weeks. Um, I think some people think you can be invested

Amy Yeung: for a while. And then you become uninvested and then you become invested again. Like,

Tara Gratto: yeah, for sure. Yeah. I think one of the things also that's really interesting, like when I observe children's behavior is we've confused, um, the need to give children control and choices because all the people say that, right.

Tara Gratto: Kids don't have enough control. Kids don't have enough choices. So we've confused what those age appropriate areas of control and choices look like and boundaries. So we've confused the definitions of those things. And if you're listening to this and you're like, Yes, that whole situation is overwhelming.

That's literally why I do what I do. Because it is overwhelming. And I actually read an article recently, um, by, oh, TechnoSapiens. And she was literally talking about one of the reasons why we're overloaded, why parenting is so hard right now, why the mental, what her sort of, drop in the bucket to the parent mental health crisis is, is we are literally an information overload.

We have access to so much information where before you would call your parent, right? You didn't have Google on your phone at two in the morning while you were feeding your kid. You didn't have Google while you were making dinner. When your, when your child was sick, you had to ask other people whether that sickness was significant or whether to seek help.

Now, Google

Amy Yeung: it. I wonder if this might have something to do with that question of, well, what am I protecting my kids from? It's like, I think we just have too much information. Well,

Tara Gratto: and that was her, Jacqueline Nesi, that's her name. Yeah. Well, we do. We have too much. We do have access to too much information.

And it was interesting, before I started consulting, and before I knew. Oh, and by the

Amy Yeung: way, the information isn't always accurate.

Tara Gratto: It's not often accurate. No, let's go with that. Let's lead with that, even by very big names, even by very big names, because social media and all those things, those are cookie cutters, one, and they are a form of marketing. So there's always, there's always a layer there, which is, which is where this whole, like, I want to parent the whole

Amy Yeung: idea of capitalism, right?

Tara Gratto: Exactly, and I want to parent it differently. So like, it all layers in, right? And I say this to you often, and it sounds really harsh, but who, who are the actual sort of, in the whole span, who are the, the, um, I don't want to say victims, too harsh of a word, but like, kids are the ones missing out.

Kids are the ones losing out as we're trying to figure all of this out. Because they're seeking for boundaries, they're really, like, allowed to have all these feelings, but aren't building tools for those feelings because people don't have experience in, you know, supporting feelings. This is a very new way of doing things.

So we're doing something without any skills, and we're kind of like, we're all kind of like, flying by the seat of our pants. Versus, this is what our parents always did. Now I'm not saying what our parents did was right. But there was a method, right? So there was some, like, predictability to it. So I think we kind of threw all the rules out the window.

Um, and we're guided by our guilt and our own inner thoughts, right? It's like, my parents, I don't want to feel like this. I never felt like I had a say. I never felt like I was heard. I never felt like I was hugged enough. I never felt right. So we, again, that pendulum we were talking about, we're overdoing the other side of it, right?

Instead of saying, well, what were

Amy Yeung: those valuable things? Also to the detriment of the kids. It's a two way. It's a two way. Now these kids have very tired parents who are stressed and maybe not necessarily having enough time to connect. With them. Yep. And you know, honestly, when I think about my own kids, I think we're happiest when we just are hanging out together, not doing anything in particular, maybe just sitting next to each other watching a show or like I today I went out to lunch with my kids and we thought that was a lot of fun because we don't get to do that every day.

Very often. Yeah.

Tara Gratto: Um, Well, we've made things so, um, and this is again that capitalism, I think, right? Stuff like that's not as special for a lot of people because they have to do it. We are going from school to X, Y, Z place. We're going to have to stop and grab food, right? We're going to have to, so that sort of like specialness of going out, um, isn't.

It's also, I think like

Amy Yeung: when we think about. Um, just our lives and when you say, okay, what am I protecting my kids from? Yeah, I also think like, what are we, why are we trying to stay so busy? Why do we feel like we need to keep our kids so busy?

Tara Gratto: We're trying to prepare their, I call it the invisible resume.

You've heard me say that before. Yeah, we have an invisible. Yeah, the Ivy League checklist, the invisible Ivy League checklist, right? Because we think if we don't. Our kids are going to be messed up or not have a great future. The kids are

Amy Yeung: tired. Like, it's a lot for them. Um,

Tara Gratto: And you know what else I'm hearing?

That

Amy Yeung: contributes to some of these behaviors, too.

Tara Gratto: I'm also hearing that through, like, it takes a bit for me to sort of hear these things, but I've now, since August, had several conversations. Kids, again, this is like kids needing some boundaries. Over what they choose to do versus what they need to do.

Kids are also

looking for some social outlets that aren't adult prescribed. They just want to hang out, but they don't want to at the same time. Because it's like that, like, conundrum of, like, I want

Amy Yeung: to, but it's Well, I don't think they know how because they're Extracurriculars have been so organized for that or they get

Tara Gratto: or they're on games like there is a very real tech reality here

Oh, yeah,

and the interesting thing is and I've watched this evolution with my kids and I found it very interesting In the absence of screens, again, not all screens are bad. I've seen some kids do some great stuff with screen, but I think that in the absence of screens, they will find movement. Um, like I know one of the kids was getting super frustrated because they want to play pickup ball. They don't want to play in a league. They're like, I just want to play pickup. But everybody wants to go home to their computers, but their friends don't want to because they're like, I'm going home to my screens and I'm kind of like, I know if the screens weren't available yet, that those same people would play because they wouldn't have the option.

So there's this really interesting, like, what are these sort of 8 to 14 year olds? That's kind of my realm. After that, I, it's out of my zone. But. These kids are really thriving for some active friendship, lifestyle stuff, um, and it's not there. They don't know how to find people, like, I'm talking about the kids who don't want to play competitive sports.

Or the kids who maybe don't belong to 5, 000 things, or they do belong to 5, 000 Things and don't really like it, right? There's no spaces where, like, Kids just hang out so I have a lot of people and I do wonder if this is playing out for you I'm wondering if this is part of this is very much like pondering podcast But like I'm hearing these kids who their parents are pretty strict with screens are pretty strict with tech and stuff like that.

Very lonely They have no friendships They can't find people to be friends with because everybody there's two things that happen after school. There's the people who zip off To wherever and the people that zip home, right? There's no more. Let's play ball. Let's go to the store together Let's

Amy Yeung: talk about this Like this is where in the school then you have extra curriculars to become even more important because I find those clubs and things that people join.

Yeah That is a way for you for for kids to connect, it's still semi structured, you know, depending on what you join. Right. Um, there is a common interest, but it's a great way for kids to connect with other kids. Um, and And so, like, as funding gets cut for things in education, like, I mean, well, I mean, there's partly that is the the funding is cut.

Um, and there's a lot of, so, like, you know, I, I, I run an extracurricular in my school. It was actually hard this year for me to find money to fund it. And it wasn't even that much money to be honest with you in terms of the grand scheme of the school, but because of a lot of budget cuts. You know, teachers who are trying to run things are trying now to find the funding and the harder it gets, the less, the less likely things will happen.

Right. So we have to, um, and then

Tara Gratto: behaviors get worse. And we wonder why, well, that's

Amy Yeung: the thing. And, you know, I, and I talk about things like this with the football coach at my school. Like, I'm not, I'm not a football person. Like I don't watch football. You know, I just, it's never been a thing for me, but I really respect that, um, that, that is a great outlet for a lot of kids. Right. Um, and you know, and he said, you know, kids just want something to do.

Yeah.

That is fun. That is engaging. That isn't too much pressure. I mean, okay. So football can be pressure, but then there's other things that you can exactly. So we have the sports that competitive, but you're talking about that.

What if we, what about the kids

Tara Gratto: who aren't competitive? You

Amy Yeung: just want to go hang, you know, like do intramurals at lunch where you're just going to play. Um, And I don't think we invest enough in that type of thinking, to be honest, like,

Tara Gratto: I think even, even young, I've thought about this for a really long time.

And I've talked about this in my extracurricular podcast, like, because of, again, the need, either the need and the sort of balance, right? You and I were talking the other day about like. being, you know, career driven women and the impact that has on the dynamics of our household and things like that. But one of the products is kids in more care from younger ages, right?

There's no denial that we can't be like, this is like magic. This is, this is actually what's happened. And when I look at that in the early years, right? Some kids have longer days than their parents because they get dropped off. Before work and picked up after work. So that's already a long day and then because we're paying so much money We have high expectations for what our kids are doing what they're able to produce what they're learning Right, and the narrative is just now coming out How important like doing less is and more play is more important and more focusing on that kind of sort of space but Typically, because there's so much money invested, you're like, I need my kid to get the most out of this experience.

And then that same theory gets applied to aftercare, right? Where kids may be, and I, and I do see this from grade one to three, the parents that call me in that zone. One of the things we always talk about is aftercare and I, and we talk about how rigid is the space they're in, how adult regulated is it?

Do they have time to just run on the playground without rules that are governed, like, where they have to resolve conflict, where they're the ones responsible. Again, nobody's getting hurt.

Amy Yeung: We're talking about that balance, right? How do you provide that structure for kids in that they feel safe to, to explore some of these things themselves, but you do need to supervise them.

Like, you can't just say, Hey, you're going to go, you know, for sure in a school setting anyways, I know that when we were kids. I think our parents just said, go outside and play and that was, you know, like,

Tara Gratto: but even in a school setting, again, we, because there's money involved, need to see an outcome instead of maybe a thinking that our money is in the supervision. Right. The money's in if my kid falls and breaks their wrist, someone's going to be there. But it's not about you need to play soccer this way. You need to do the craft this way. You need the running game this way, where when people are employed to, to oversee these, they also feel an obligation to do things.

Tara Gratto: Now there's an interesting dynamic that evolves here. And this is where I think the control conversations are really interesting. Kids are seeking more control in their lives because from infancy age one in Canada, they have a very long day of being told what to do. And then they come home and they're overtired. So they have really big feelings and are, we don't have the capacity for the big feelings because we're tired. We're tired. We're done. So kids are trying to control themselves. So yes, this lack of sense of control, that's where that argument becomes really interesting. And that's where I kind of wonder, like, are we feeding the.

What did you call it? The beast, the

Amy Yeung: beast, the hungry

Tara Gratto: beast from this very early narrative, right? From this very early age, instead of saying my money is well spent in an environment where these kids can run around, get their energy out and they have less of

Tara Gratto: an adult dependency because the other product of this is when an adult is always entertaining you, you have an expectation to be entertained,

Amy Yeung: not just the entertaining, but a lot of the critical sort of independent skills.

Yeah. Kids don't necessarily learn as early as they used to because, you know, somebody does it for them. Partly it's because somebody does it for them because it's faster. Yeah. It's faster to tie my kid's shoe than try to, you know, wait for them to like figure it out.

Tara Gratto: Right. Yeah. And they talk about that.

They talk about how kids now can't tie their shoes till two or three years later than they used to. And I

Amy Yeung: see that play out in high school where, you know, we in the system expect, you know, Students that come in, in grade nine and have all these independent learning skills or independent skills, right?

And they don't have them and people will, why not? And it's like, well, they just haven't developed them. It's not to say they can't be developed. It's just that it hasn't happened. And so as an educator, I have to remember that there are things that I, you know, I saw, I see as like, oh, the kids should know this by now.

A lot of them just don't know. And part of it is, and we've had this conversation before where. This generation of kids, they're learning these skills a little later than we did. Yes. Because we, we've had, they've had a lot more supervision and a lot of, you know, more people doing things for them as opposed to like, you know, my parents just let us figure it out.

Like we just had to figure it out. And

Tara Gratto: so, and they also have access to the same information technology obsessions that we do. Right. So that plays into it too. And

Amy Yeung: so like, I'm watching kids learn these independent skills and as they inch towards graduation and all of a sudden they're like, wait a minute, I'm actually responsible for a lot of things.

Like Right. The choices that I make for post-secondary, and it's like, yeah, when you're applying for post-second, it's, you are applying, you, you're not, not your parents. Yeah. Are talking about this. Yeah. When you, when you go to, when you go off and go to college or university, like they're talking to you like it's not, your parents are not gonna be the ones.

Yeah, doing the things for you. And I think that's, I think that's a shift for the students, but also the parents, the parents are like, well, wait a minute. Yeah. I have to now trust

Tara Gratto: my kid to do this.

Tara Gratto: Yeah, and that, I mean, that's my, that was even my own self reflection this summer, right? What am I protecting my kids from, and what is the outcome I need by the end of high school?

I mean, I have a whole other conversation is I don't think high school should end at 18 anymore, or 17. I mean, that's when I graduated from high school. People are like, I don't know how you have so many degrees. It's because I, I went to university at 17. That's not a great thing, that's also another topic for another day, but like, we now know brains don't develop till 25, so that's kind of like the sphere of when we sort of do that, but if we've been protecting kids all these times, and there is some interesting research about this idea that one of the current lines of thinking of why anxiety rates are so high right now is that kids have a lack of autonomy and independence, and that that actually is fueling their mental health, because if you don't have choice and you don't have sort of the ability to do things if you're being picked up after school instead of having to figure out transit, or if you're trying to right, you know, and we have this perceived dangerousness, and depends on where you are when you listen to this but like that was affecting me but the stats are actually the other way around your, your online danger rates are much higher than your in person danger rates, but it's the perception that the world is unsafe right

Amy Yeung: now. Now it's, you know, our conversation is getting confusing again because on one hand we're like too much choice. Not great for kids, but then if you have none, that also doesn't, you know, and then I guess that goes towards the, we need to balance things out.

Like, when is it that you give kids choice? And when is it that you need to set a boundary? And I think that's maybe what we have to start thinking about. Right? When do we do these things? You don't need to give choice to every, for everything, like certain things in life for, for kids, they don't need to have a choice.

Yeah, right. Um, and a lot of the things that we say, like I say no to for my kids, like a lot of it is safety base, you know, they, they, maybe they want to go on tick tock and they're like 10, no,

Tara Gratto: yeah, developmentally appropriate

Amy Yeung: also, you know, a lot of apps, tick tock and YouTube and those things. Um, you gotta be 13.

Like that's yeah. The age. Yeah. I even actually think 13 might be a bit young. Yeah. Especially without any

Tara Gratto: Another conversation for another day.

Amy Yeung: Without any guidance. Without

Tara Gratto: any Yeah. Keyword, not without guidance. Yeah. Well, it's funny because one of my kids actually said this to me. They're like, you confuse me.

Because sometimes, and I actually use this language, so if you're wondering what the language is, I actually say, this is not an adult, sorry, this is not a kid choice. This is an adult choice. But I have built a lot of conversations around that. If you just simply say that to your child and you haven't built up the narrative around it, it's going to backfire. They will not like it. It will push them right over the edge. And kids

Amy Yeung: do need to know why, you know, you're doing things now. Yeah, that again is developmental. Um, You know, you, what I would say to a three year old is not the same thing I would say to a 10 year old. Yeah. In terms of explaining why we do things, but they do like to know like a little bit the reason behind it.

You would explain less to a younger kid, but with an older kid, like my kids are now starting to become very aware of the world and ask a lot of questions. And so, you know, they, they understand my explanations. Um, so I think we have to understand development as well, when we're explaining things to kids.

Um, But it's, you know, when I, when I talk to students, you know, I. I, I let them know what their options are. So this is how I work with choice like in education anyways, I don't know if it will help parents. Um, well maybe it will because as an educator, like for me, an educator, uh, who is also a parent, like I used to use a lot of my educator skills, yeah.

Amy Yeung: Yeah. And, um, and so. I outlned for my students, like, okay, you make this choice. This is what could happen. You know, I'm not here to judge in terms of like, what your choice may be, but I will tell you what your limits are, what your boundaries are, and you will have to then decide which path you want to take.

And I think it's important for students to know. You know, where their immediate actions could lead them in the future, just so they have an understanding. Right. I'm not there to placate their wants. Right. You

Tara Gratto: know? Need versus want, yep.

Amy Yeung: Right, and I talk about need. You know, while you may not like Phys Ed, you're going to have to take at least one credit to graduate. You may not like this course, but you're going to have to get through it to graduate. Yes. Um, I had a conversation with a student yesterday who, who has, hasn't been attending school. And, um, and they're in their first year of high school. So they're coming from a system where they've never failed. They've never been held back, they always go on to the next grade.

So the conversation was, the student asked me like, Okay, so if I don't pass this grade 9 English course, will I have to take grade 9 again? I said, well yeah, for some courses you do. Especially courses like English where you have to pass one each year in order to get to the next level. Right. You will have to then retake it or do a summer school or, you know.

And I saw the light bulb go on. So I think that, you know, you Lack of

Tara Gratto: content,

Amy Yeung: lack of communication

Yeah, so for me, it's like, I, I highlight the choices, but I also highlight, you know, this is the consequence of the choice, and the consequence could be beneficial or not, um, so as an educator, I'll let them know, like, and I would say, nine times out of ten, the students will go with the one that makes more sense, and And because they start to understand, Oh, in the long run, this would actually be better for

Tara Gratto: me.

Tara Gratto: Right. It's the process, right? Now, if you have an early, if you have a young child, I actually have a whole podcast and I have a whole blog on how do you figure out what a developmentally appropriate choice is? What is an age appropriate choice? So if you want to delve into that, I'll put that in the show notes.

Um, but I think one of the things you said earlier made a lot of like a little bit of a. Light bulb point a trend that I see, um, is that we give very young Children a lot of choices and then when they Get older we actually start to remove the choices because they have bigger consequences So and there's so many reasons why this happens. I think a big part of this is that whole friend has the

Amy Yeung: teenager Yeah to me as the kids get older their their mistakes just get bigger and more expensive to to resolve Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's why we start to remove

Tara Gratto: Yeah, but actually it should be the other way around. So, and part of what happens is, I talk to a lot of parents who are like, I have this super smart kid. They're super smart.

Tara Gratto: And one of the things we have to step back from is, super smart kids are not mature kids. You can be highly intelligent, have amazing vocabulary, but you're still three. You have three years of experience on the planet. So I think sometimes we use adult not sometimes, we use adult, logic, rationalization, and choice making. And we offer that to toddlers and preschoolers and kindergartners. And they kind of get into this mindset of like, I have choices about everything. And I work with a lot of families who have school refusal problems. Which is very common with neurodiverse

Amy Yeung: don't realize it's not a choice. Because

Tara Gratto: school feels like a choice. Because they've always had choices. And there's a real, so, there's the flip of this. Again, that balance piece we were talking about. The flip is, kids are not learning that some things in life simply are not a choice. We're protecting them from that feeling that like, because again, we don't necessarily want the outcome of the and we're also hearing must give children choices.

They have to feel in control that will help build their self esteem. And it's age appropriate, age appropriate, developmentally appropriate choices, not every choice on the planet and not choices that are expanding the boundaries so much. That you don't have boundaries. And I think that's where the murkiness is happening.

That sort of like, well, I'm trying to do better. I'm trying to do a different path here. But as you said, that process of explaining that whole thing to that grade nine, that's a big conversation. Like you had a big conversation.

Amy Yeung: I did. And it was one of those ones where I knew I made an impact because I could see the light turning on.

That's my favorite thing. Wait a

Tara Gratto: minute. Like, yeah. And that's the same with my kid. When they were like, you confuse me sometimes because you say I have these choices. And then sometimes you say I don't. And I said, absolutely, because you're not ready for all the choices.

Amy Yeung: And I think this is where we think about our society, how we don't.

Necessarily respect elders, right? Um, and I, and I think that what might be missing here is that we're not, if we don't respect elders, we don't respect their experience. And, you know, we, we, we are disregarding all that knowledge that they have built up in their lifetime.

Tara Gratto: Right. And, and how to respectfully disagree with them.

Yes.

Amy Yeung: But it's also too, like, we're now, we have a really smart three year old and we think they're so mature because they know they have this vocabulary, but they're three, right? They don't have the experience of their parent. They don't have the experience of an elder. Like there is something to experience.

Um, you know, having those, those, those experiences through life that, that, that provide people with this kind of wisdom, like you just don't get that wisdom from being quote unquote smart, like having the knowledge, right? I feel like experience gives you that extra bit of wisdom. And I think this is where we do need to listen to the experienced elders in our society because they have seen a lot of things, right?

Right. And they, they can, they can tell us. You know how things could go because they've, they've witnessed it and, and I, and I see this a lot where people confuse, um, younger people who have a lot of knowledge,

Tara Gratto: um, thinking they're wise. Right. They lack experience. I was that person when I was 20, I thought I knew everything because I was highly educated.

Highly educated. By the time I was 22, I already had two masters, right? But I was not wise. I was not experienced. Some of the ideas that I had then are still ideas that I apply now. I applied them completely differently. Completely. Um, I mean, I've learned a lot about my own, like, black and white thinking and how the world isn't necessarily like that, but.

Definitely what I knew as knowledge and what I've gained as experience are not at all the same. And I do respect, I know there's some people right now who are, who are listening and saying, yeah, but elders also are wrong and they can be very stuck in their not awesome ways. And I'm not, I'm not dismissing any of that, but cancel culture also isn't helpful.

We have to understand how do we Pull from experience without because I actually think part of this is what's making

Amy Yeung: that risk. I'm going to go go out here and say like not all elders think in a bad way necessarily. No, I agree with you. Yeah, because there are people who are our contemporaries that I totally disagree with how they do things.

True story. Fair point.

And I think what we're not great at is understanding other

Tara Gratto: people's opinions. Yes. Adam Grant talked about

Amy Yeung: this recently. And when you're talking about the cancel culture, it's like, well, we need to, um, actually listen. Cause I'm in the business of education, if you can call it a business, you know, but, um, you know, I can't, I can't cancel.

Like if there is, if there is a student who is being disruptive in a classroom, I cannot cancel that child. Like, I cannot say, no, your behavior is wrong or what you're saying is wrong. And we're just going to put you over here and, you know, forget that you exist. That I can't do that because that's a person.

Right. And, and my job is to educate them on, you know, what they're saying and their impact on their school community, right. On their peers. And, you know, and, and I find that education actually really helps people reflect on their own behavior. And they, they start to think about how they want to fit into everything.

Right. And, and sometimes it helps change the behavior too, so that they become more cognizant of what is happening around them. And so, yeah, I. Like, I understand when people get upset, you know, you don't want to give air to the people who are being very offensive. I understand that. But I think at the same time, we have to remember they're all humans.

So I do think we should listen. I don't, I don't have to agree. And I think this is where we're not great at this.

Tara Gratto: Yeah. Well, I mean, this is the interesting thing for me is sort of this idea of like, you don't have to, you can just like. block everybody out, but you can't because ultimately, and this is what I tell my kids, my kids have had teachers that have been very difficult to spend time with.

And I'm like, you still have to find respect for the person. You have to learn from that person. I'm not asking you to like that person. I'm not asking you to perpetuate the beliefs that you disagree with. But the reality is we will face people for which we have no choice, but to work with. That is a fact that is life and we but we do try to manipulate that we do try to manipulate where our kids land and who they're with.

And again, I think coming back to that, like, what are we protecting our kids from? I think that's the message of today's podcast to really sit are the I think the point for reflection. So we did not have a plan going into this podcast, we were very much going to have a reflect. I know

Amy Yeung: people are probably like they talked about a lot of different things.

Contradictory and yes,

Tara Gratto: I think that's the point though. Yep. But I think that the, the thing here to reflect on is how much are you protecting your kids? How much more space could you be making for them to work on feeling some feelings and sitting with that discomfort and having to work through it without fixing it?

How, so like those pieces, and then if you have younger kids thinking about, well, where do they have control over their lives in free play? And Where's that happening? And sort of the bigger trajectories here of like,

Amy Yeung: oh, and as you're talking, I also thought of what another thing, yes, as we were talking about wisdom.

And I think this is where as parents, we need to trust our ourselves some more. And when we are working with our own kids, yeah, because, you know, I think we have a lot of, um, I guess worry or anxiety about what's going to happen to our kids in the future. We can't answer that question. Like, we don't know what, and again, like we don't have any control over what will happen to them ultimately.

Like, this is their journey. But I think when, when we provide boundaries for our children, when we, we have to trust That our wisdom is going to guide them as much as we can until they're of age. And then, you know, I, I said to my son today, I said, you know, you're going to hear my voice in your head, you know, as you get through, go through life, you're going to have those moments where it's like, oh, my mother said that, like, my mother's voice is telling me this.

And, you know, I think we need to trust ourselves more because we're so afraid that we're going to mess it up that I think that we're just, we, we're afraid to give them boundaries.

Tara Gratto: Yes, but I also I'm also gonna throw out like a bit of a contradictory point. Okay, and that is If you have those feelings, don't sit with them alone, find a friend, find a third party.

So they're talking a lot about like, who can you share these concerns with instead of the Google rabbit hole, right? Instead of trying to find out if you're alone in this. Um, so, cause I know a lot of people, especially people I work with, they have, they don't trust their gut because it's not working. It's it isn't working.

There's behaviors at school. There's like really discount like a lot of challenges at home. So like they're it's not working. So they've lost sense of that like touch and they're googling to death to try and problem solve, which is not helping. It is making it much worse. So where is that support right?

Going to Jacqueline Nesi's idea from Techno Sapiens information overload. . Like, who would you have asked without, right? Would you ask a parent if you have that kind of relationship? Or could you build that relationship? Do you have a friend group? Do you have, I mean, that's what I do. Do you have a support system?

A third party, an objective? Because sometimes we all need that. Sometimes we need an objective, right? And that's, I think Part of like say

Amy Yeung: I have a lot of those kinds of conversations with parents in my work. They're they're trying to Get feedback as to like if what they're doing is working

Tara Gratto: Well, it's a judgmental space.

We are not kind to each other Parenting is not I'm actually starting some group programs in person in in the in the new year Because of this the the need for a space where you can ask somebody who knows About development and about age appropriate behaviors and how to sort of tackle some of these things that we've been talking about so that we can help support the trajectory and help you listen to your gut right help you know that you do know your child and that the clouded over judgmental world is actually what's confusing you in terms of of

Amy Yeung: your past and I would say the more you trust yourself the more it starts to feel natural and more comfortable and um and I'll say That children can really, they can sense if an adult, an adult trust themselves and, um, you know, as the teacher who's working in the classroom with lots of kids, like kids can read, kids can read an adult, like they're especially the ones who are very savvy socially.

They can read you in the first five minutes of class, right? Yeah. And they know us. And, and, and so like the way.

Tara Gratto: And they all know that everybody's overstressed right now. And, and that's part of the reason there's all the behaviors because they need a strong presence in all their different spaces. And they're not finding it because teachers are overwhelmed and parents are overwhelmed and coaches are overwhelmed.

I mean, I've seen, I've seen behavior from coaches recently that I'm like, and you know, maybe finishing it off here, like you and I both know teachers are taking leaves of absence. Like it's, I've never seen this unprecedented levels. And when I talk to some of

Amy Yeung: them are teachers who love their work. Yep.

Like, you know, they, yeah, they're

Tara Gratto: not avoiding for sure. But it's. Too much. It's a lot. Yeah, it's too much. Well, I mean, the space of parenting and the space of, there's become a real blur instead of a collaboration, right? There's a blur there of who's responsible for what and who can, and it's interesting because like ultimately it'll come down to, you can have lots of conversations with your children if you're connected to them in a way that they'll listen to you.

Tara Gratto: And And here's, here's the thing, here's the, the, the, the truth. It's not when you're their friend, and I have a whole podcast on this. It feels like you should do things to develop a friendship with your kids to have a good relationship with them. And that's not actually how it works effectively.

Amy Yeung: While they're looking for someone who can guide them, your kids will find friends, their peers of their age. Right? What they need is

Tara Gratto: Peers come and go. Friends come and go. They need the

Amy Yeung: elder who will guide them because life is tough and life is confusing and they need someone they can trust that have their best interest at heart to say, okay, like, you know, I'm, I'm sharing this information with you because, you know, it'll benefit you.

Like that's really what they're looking for. Yeah. And they don't want to be judged. Right. They're not. Which

Tara Gratto: friends do a lot of. Yeah.

Amy Yeung: But as you know, as a parent, it can be difficult because you have your own expectations for your kids and when they do things and you disagree, anyways, that's a different conversation.

It totally

Tara Gratto: is. But I think that's, it just reminded me of the whole idea of like, one of the reasons these permissive boundaries are happening is because you're afraid your kid won't like you. You're afraid that you're not going to foster a relationship, a connected relationship when in fact that's not the kind of relationship you actually want to foster, but you can have the same kind of feeling you can have the same type of feeling, um, but you have to foster it a different way.

You have to create connection in a different way.

All right. Thank you for joining me, Amy. It's always a pleasure to talk to you. Um, I'm curious if you have thoughts or reflections. On any of the topics we talked to, leave a message.

You can go to taragratto.Ca forward slash podcast, or you can email me at the email in the show notes. Um, as you know, Amy's a regular guest and we will be back in the new year with some of our educational content. We're going to be talking about report cards, we're going to be talking about giftedness. So there's a few different topics we already

Amy Yeung: have lined up.

And if maybe, if maybe listeners enjoy our rambling, we'll have another one of these. Yeah, we'll have another ramble. Re entering conversations.

Tara Gratto: Cause Amy and I love them. They fuel my heart. All right. Thank you so much.

Amy Yeung: All right. Till next time. Bye.