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The Apex Podcast
A team of professional storytellers dedicated to highlighting how ordinary people can be capable of such extraordinary things. We are always on the lookout for unsung heroes and emerging leaders that are transforming the world around them each and every day. Our guests range from the world of sports and medicine to business and entrepreneurship. Each episode offers you insights into how these amazing humans have managed to conquer fear and persevere through seemingly insurmountable challenges. We dive into psychology, philosophy, marketing, entrepreneurship, and a bunch of other random topics with our guests, so each interview is truly unique. We don't care if you're organizing people to pick up trash in your neighborhood, or if you're running a global nonprofit...Your story matters and we want to tell it!In order to start chasing your Apex, you have to take the leap. Start listening today to change your tomorrow.
The Apex Podcast
Embracing the Journey: Parental Wisdom for Nurturing Neurodiverse Children with Dr. Inna Rozentsvit
With her specialized passion and expertise, guides us through the delicate intricacies of family dynamics, emphasizing the importance of personalized strategies in fostering a child's sense of belonging. We cover the imperative of breaking free from transgenerational patterns and emotional legacies that can unknowingly shape our parenting approach. The conversation reveals how mindful one-on-one time and confronting inherited family experiences can empower both the child and the parent, paving the way for a harmonious and conscious family life.
We shine a light on the transformative potential of parental foresight and intentionality in setting clear goals for a child's future, especially for those who are neurodiverse. Dr. Inna encourages listeners to seek the guidance of parent coaching, emphasizing that no matter the obstacles, a more empowered, purposeful, and joyful life is within our reach. Join us as we redefine the parenting experience, ensuring a bright and thriving future for our children and ourselves.
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Welcome everybody to another episode of the Apex podcast. As always, I'm your host, jan Almasey, the CEO and co-founder here at Apex Communications Network, and, as you may have noticed, we're going on a slew of inviting guests onto the show recently. Over the past year, you all have been kind of riding with us. As we've been growing as a company, I've had to focus a lot of my efforts on business development and actually taking care of customers, which, at the end of the day, means that just me and RJ I didn't really have the space, the time or the bandwidth to focus on bringing on guests. But we do now and it turns out that bringing the guests on is a great benefit for both of us. So you all have already heard from this guest in the past. For all of my neuroscience, neurology, neuropsychobiopsychology All of y'all out there that had dived on the same rabbit holes that I do on a regular basis you are probably familiar with this episode because it more than likely stood out with you. I'd like to welcome back to the show Dr Ina Rosensvitt.
Speaker 2:Thank you for inviting me again. Thank you.
Speaker 1:You are super, super welcome. If you have not heard that name before and you are interested in any of those categories that I just aforementioned, go back in our episodes a, two or three episodes in the past and you will see her name pop up. Go ahead and listen to that one. You'll get an insight on why she became passionate about the medical field, how she looks at the integration of so many different fields and the knowledge that they have, and the importance of approaching patients life in general from a more holistic mindset. So definitely check that episode out. In today's episode we're going to be exploring a little bit of a more narrow area, but there's so much richness. I'm really looking forward to the conversation because I feel, even though we're kind of exploring more of a specific area of your expertise, that every time we go deep on a topic I learn something new. So super, super excited to have you here. Thanks for being on the show a second time.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:So I think, first off, we may have mentioned it in the last show and I actually you know what we did talk about it a little bit in the last show, but you have a kind of a specific passion for parents. Why don't we just kind of start with a general question there? Why do you feel that parents, or why did you feel drawn to working specifically with that population?
Speaker 2:Well, I am a parent, I'm a grandparent already, so I have my own experience as a parent. But I didn't think that it is a kind of any special experience until I started to work with neurodiverse children and helping them. Somebody reached out to a colleague and I said yes, although I am an adult neurologist, neuro rehab specialist and everything else that I did was with adults, like psychoanalysis, psychoanalytic psychotherapy, neuropsych analysis all these things I've done with adults. But because my educational and medical background, you know, does not preclude me, you know we start with children, yes, so I decided, okay, why not? You know, I will help out, you know, and I start to help being out. And then I start to do like regular sessions with these children and what I've learned, that parents would bring the children to the session and they kind of sign off, you know, because they feel they're not specialists, they cannot contribute anything else, so they're doing whether something on their phone or their computer, or they just leave the children to do some chopping. And then the children, when they open up, I realized that it's not about the intelligence that I need to work on, it's not about in their so-called pathological behaviors or stimming what they're saying, you know, like it's actually self-regulating activities that they're doing to the children, to, you know, to make them feel okay, to kind of surviving the situation. But it is not social acceptable to have those behaviors and parents mostly want these children to be fixed. And it's not to put down parents, it's just, this is what it is. You know they want these children to be so-called normal, to be like others, so they can enjoy life, not necessarily for their you know ulterior motives, you know motives. But even standing on the side of their children, they want them to enjoy life, to enjoy school, to not to be bullied, not to be teased, to have friends, to be able to live and then be independent at some point.
Speaker 2:And I've learned that some parents feel they cannot be independent. They will have to live with them all their life. And when we start to explore that, the alternatives are to go to group homes or to, you know, just to live with some family members somewhere, you know like, from one family member to another, whoever can take them, and it's, you know, I felt horrible that this is the past that the parents seeing that these children will take in their life, and I see them as having all these potentials, and so I started to get interested, you know. So I went actually to you know personal development programs to find out what I can do, you know like also for myself, you know I like those things, you know. But I also went to you know with some kind of secondary motivation is to find out what we can take from those programs and do something for parents, to educate them, to make them feel they're empowered, to make them feel they can be their child's, you know, confident and their child's, you know, mentor and protector and educator and everything that they are delegating to others because they don't feel that they are specialists in that.
Speaker 2:Okay, so other people end up spending more time with these children than parents, and parents only see them when they have to go to sleep or they have to pick them up from school or when they misbehave and nobody wants them around. So they end up being at home and that's when the you know parents are dealing with that. So it's very stressful to have that every day, 24, seven. It's very stressful. These parents don't want to spend any money on themselves. Self care is usually out and so every penny they feel they need to spend on their children's programs or tutors or you know kind of professionals groups, you know special schools that cost a lot of money, and not saying that they don't need special school, you know they might need. But what I'm trying to say is the parents are spending every penny on their children feeling exhausted, not wanting to admit they're exhausted, because then they feel guilty that you know they're blaming their children for it. So it's a lot of these tech dynamics that I did not have any answer in a regular psychology, psychoanalysis, neurology.
Speaker 2:I like to be transdisciplinary and to put everything together to integrate everything. It didn't work so I decided to go to these, you know, personal development programs. When I finished one of the programs I was on the third level, you know I was already myself in introducer to the program. That took like some couple of years, three years, to get through. I asked, like I want to have a program for parents and I was told well, just bring the adults to the adult group and bring children to the children group and we'll work with them. It doesn't really work because there is no connection between those people. Yes, they have the same concepts, the same base, but the connection, you know the in and out, the interaction that let us do things and mastering things like communications is not happening because the communications are happening with other adults.
Speaker 2:For those children and communication of parents are happening with other adults, you know, in their group. So there is no really family oriented program.
Speaker 1:So that's the main difference. You're saying is that it's important for the parents and the children to learn how to communicate throughout that process, not just learning concepts and working on, you know, normalizing behavior or reducing socially unaccepted behavior in isolation, separate from each other, and that was the breakthroughs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so most left side left brain adults are conceptual thinkers. Yeah, they conceptualize things. They're not going from bottom up, like right sided people, from perceiving more like navigating. How come? Why not, you know, like this creative part. You know most adults try to be effective and you know really, that's really interesting.
Speaker 1:I want to pause there for just a split second because that almost seems counterintuitive to me. Right, because you're saying that the left, the left brain is more conceptual and the right brain is the bottom up thinker. But traditionally I know that you and I have had conversations about the nuances between the way that the left and the right, you know, operate and their intercommunication and Dr Ian McGillchrist is a great person to look into if you want to dive down that rabbit hole. But at a very, very superficial level, most people associate the left brain with analytical, the right brain with creative. So how, why is that bottom up thinking present on more of the creative side and the conceptual on the left hand?
Speaker 2:So the conceptual, we make concepts, you know. So we, we have to navigate through logic. Yes, so we are. How, how the concept comes to life. You know the concept comes to life when we use the analyzer, which is a left brain, you know mostly, and the synthesizer you know, so that's also more left brain way of functioning is front back, front back, not left, right, left right, where you connect the dots between things. You know the front back gives you fast response. The front back gives you solid, like assurance that you're right, you know, even if you're not, but you feel like you're doing the right thing and you continue on that person persevering yes, where the right, left is like, how come? Maybe so, maybe not, you know. And and it's a longer response it's not a very effective because the due date was five days ago and you're still, you know, taking the third all nighter. You know like. You know I'm talking about myself. So you know. You know because you want to integrate that.
Speaker 2:So integration of left way of processing and right way of processing is not that easy. You have to put your mind to it and say this is what I want to do. This is a choice that I want to go, not because it's easier for me to be analytical it's easier but when I want to be integrative, I need to, I need to tap in into my you know creative kind of, you know empathic kind of thinking through different circumstances. You know mind, before I am making final decision or put that article out or, you know, finish the program that I want to finalize.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So I think that parents, like after I understood that there is no way that I can find that place, and I went through a lot of websites, a lot of different programs which you know parent child development programs, parenting institutes everybody is concentrating on a child. How to deal with a child? Is a child centered? And, at the end of the day, parents are all about children. We don't have children. We are not parents. Yes, we can be parents to a company, we can be parents to a dog, we can be parents to another pet, we can be parents to our books, but in the traditional sense of you know, being a parent is to have a child that you're a parent of or a grandchild that your grandparent of. So so then I realized that parents are in very peculiar situation. They are adults that are responsible for their children because they bring them to the society and they're responsible for them. They're also responsible to their children because they're bringing this child to this world. Although we think we're doing our children a favor, we actually bring them in for ourselves. Yes, so I heard I think I spoke about it with you before I heard in from young adults in analytic sessions and you know they, for example, they have grievances around their parents and their communications. And I said but you were saying that your dad or your mom did this, this and that and they supported you through this and this, or they paid through your college. And now you're raging and they said I didn't ask them to bring me here, I didn't ask them, they did it for themselves. And now they're guilting me. They are, they're putting a guilt on me that you know they brought me to this life. So so this is what I sometimes hear from people that have grievances that who are children.
Speaker 2:So I decided to look. So what you know? I looked at different institutions and they all geared towards eliminating bad behaviors or how to feed children. So it's more parenting how to feed, how to dress, which school to use, you know which programs to use and not to use, what is good or not for you know nutrition and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:But they, you know, it's kind of almost parents as servants. You know parents as servants of the children. And so I said to myself like we need to have something where parents can look at the experiences of being a parent, experiences of being also a spouse to another parent, and how to navigate through those situations having extended families, having in-laws, and they are what people say five cents on what has to happen with the child, and feeling judged and feeling always on the defense that you know, like if the child, the other child, has an iPhone, my child has to have iPhone, otherwise I would be a cheap parent, I would be this, I would be that. So parents are not in a very good situation and if they don't become strong and empowered and understand that they're not working from a reactive side, they're working from proactive, preventive, you know kind of stance, then they will be enjoying their parenting, enjoying their parenthood, enjoying their children, enjoying their family and grow together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. So is that kind of and you already, I think, kind of started answering this, but I think it's worth kind of diving down a little bit more. You've mentioned to me a couple of different times in conversation that in your observations, as you've done this work, that there's a subtle difference between parenthood and parenting. Can you kind of explain the difference between those two words, now that we have a little bit of the context as to why it's important for parents to become more self aware of these types of things?
Speaker 2:Yes. So, as I said, parenting is what we do with a child. Yes, it's parenting how we discipline, how we feed, how we dress, what school we choose. You know what choices other choices we make for the child to have that friend or not to have that friend.
Speaker 1:There are a lot of institutions that are already kind of covering parenting, correct.
Speaker 2:But the parenthood is an experience. It's like childhood. Yes, brotherhood, everything hoods. Yes, it's an experience of being that thing. You know, whether brotherhood, childhood or parenthood, it's an experience of being that word whatever it encompasses, and that is not attended to. It's attended to in the personal development programs like Tony Robbins, landmark, others like Peter Sage, others. They're great, but very little is said like how different it is to you know to address those things.
Speaker 2:If you are a parent, I think it is an assumption that if you're an empowered individual then you right away will transport that feeling empowered to your parenting experience. It's not really the truth. It's not. I know great people, great workers, ceos. You know doctors, you know social workers. They are great at work, they are great individuals. They have lectures, they are known online. You know they write books. But when it comes to their own family experience and if they open up, they have a lot of difficulties communicating with their children. Some of their children feel excommunicated or some of their children decide that as soon as they go to college or as soon as they got the degree and put that diploma on the father's or mother's table, they're out of the house. You know, and so you've, you've learning, so just being personally developed is not good enough.
Speaker 1:Right Is. So what are I mean? You mentioned that there there are differences in the way that you need to approach it. As far as personal development for parents, people that are in the experience of parenthood right, like we're talking about that. It's not just the acts, it's the actual experience of being a parent, versus personal development on the non parent side, or not having become a parent side of the house. What are, what are some of the differences in the way that you need to approach it?
Speaker 2:Okay. So the differences are not necessarily approach can be different. You know, like I am, I'm responding similarly to the question which therapy is the best, because I am involved in different somatic therapy, psychoanalytic, psychotherapeutic, medical rehab. You know neuro rehab, neuropsychoanalytic therapy, so neuro coaching, parent coaching. So the difference is not in approaches, is difference in what works for each individual. For you, one thing will work you need coaching, for example, because you, for example, have X, y and Z like character. You know proclivities, yes, and I need, you know, a KLM approach because you know, whatever it is, my character is different, my life experience is different. I have different age. You know also experience of just living and having children or not. You know so. So so it's not what works better, but what it needs to be included in parent coaching or working with parents.
Speaker 1:I found that I love that, that is, I mean every single time that we've asked the question about, like, what is the best, what is the way to go. And if you're listening to this, I want you to kind of take this away, especially if you've listened to the previous episode and you're now listening to this one as well, if you go back dollars to donuts, if you listen to any question that I throw it, dr Rosen Smith, about what is the best version of this or what are the differences in the approach. Every time it's a accumulation of all of the experience that you've had up until that point and then realizing what pieces you need to bring together to make sure that that person is taken care of. And we talked about that with the holistic approach, from learning how OTS talk, how PTS talk, how the neurologist talks, how the psychiatrist talks, like all of these different fields. And then to your point, whether it's EMDR, it's somatic, it's CBT, there's tons of different types of therapies and there's a lot of different schools. But if you're able to know about all of the different ways that they can be positively impactful or their use cases, I guess, in the way, it would be the way that I would say when they are valuable to implement. Then you kind of have this toolkit and you can.
Speaker 1:You look at a person or you are in an encounterous scenario. Let's say you're not in psychology, you're not. You know analyzing people's minds and trying to help them repair, become better, work on character, you know. But let's say you're a salesperson, you're a consultant, you're working retail, you know, even down to that level. If you're able to know negotiation skills, sales skills, conversation starters, empathy, like all of these other things, then when a random customer comes up to you and is distraught, you'll know what things you need to enact in order to make it through that situation Right.
Speaker 1:So it's not just I wanted to bring that concept down a little bit for people that are maybe not involved in the psychology world. So it is applicable All of your life skills, you are able to go through life in a way where it's not oh, this is the specific approach I'm going to take every time because it works. No, you kind of you have a toolkit of things at your disposal and you want to figure out what is the best tool for me to bring out. I'm not going to get a drill to hammer in a nail.
Speaker 2:Correct. Actually, you said the magic word experience. You know collecting experiences rather than collecting knowledge, because very often you talk to people as I know that I know this. I know it. Yes, I know it. I learned it before you did. You know I hear it like from, like you know friends and neighbors, like when you know I learned it before. But knowing it and not using it doesn't do anything for you. You have to know and then you have to use it and the more you use it it becomes your road. It's like I think I'm not sure if I it wasn't our prior non-podcast conversations or it was a podcast conversation I give an analogy.
Speaker 2:I like to give metaphors when I explain something, and the analogy is like each of us have our I-95 road. Yes, here in New York we have interstate I-95. So it is like seven lanes, I think. I don't remember exactly, you know, don't quote me, but it's a very, very wide road. So it's easy to take that road because you know, even if something is happening, it will be cleared. But the more you take that road and the more you bypass the possibility of going some little country road, getting on the exit to just get gas or to get a cup of coffee, or just the rest area to see what's out there, to see what birds you know are, you know kind of populating there and what kind of trees, and all that you lose on the experience. Yes, that in case you know. So you have only one type of experience. And if you are put in a different situation where the I-95 is completely, you know, closed it's like tractor trailer is turned over or you know oil spill or anything like that and you need to take that side road, you would have hard time, you would be in fear, you would be like very you know, up to being enraged that you are put in this situation because you never took that little road and never had other experience, never had additional experience what that place means. So, on purpose, you should do it just to have that experience. So just knowledge is not what we are talking about experiencing. Yes, so that's important.
Speaker 2:And then going back to your question, what we need to use, not which therapy best to use, not which program best to use, but what each program that would be effective. That should be using the parts of that program definitely to understand. First. Number one is to understand what children need and what parents need. The children need feeling, belonging and significance. The parents need to be supported, empowered and for them not to feel judged, so they can do their job as a parent better, because they are judged a lot. So that's first thing. Second thing, not to tell them what to do, but to teach them how to think, how to understand their child, how to connect. So it's the same as don't give the person the fish. Teach them how to fish, so then they can come out of any situation.
Speaker 2:If they are guiding star, they are guiding star is belonging and significance for a child. They can be taught one little thing 10 minutes a day to give a special time to their child and call it a special time. It's me and you time, it's special. I don't have time more than that 10 minutes, but these 10 minutes is just you and me and we'll do what you want to do, whether to read the book, to have a massage, to listen to a tale, to jump, you know, whatever, whatever. But those 10 minutes we all can find 10 minutes a day. So each parent needs to know it, you know, and that any program should be able to tell the parent to do it, because that will provide for belonging and significance part for a child. The child will know it will be happening every day. I will not be robbed of that experience with my mom and dad, or mom or dad, or could be with both parents, but it's better one on one for each parent, you know. So the child has this understanding he or she is loved, cherished and belonging there and then most of the behaviors that are unwanted will not be happening anymore. Yeah, it will take time. It might take two weeks, it might take a month, you know, for a child really to be sure that you're giving that 10 minutes. But that's something like little, you know, and it's not a trick, it's just the thing that you need to, you know, give like a little bit of that understanding for a parent. So that's number one.
Speaker 2:So what parents need, what children need, okay, the second is to know that there are usually two parents and they usually bring their luggage with transgenerational experiences and patterns and those luggage could be from different parts of the world, from different ethnic background. So imagine you bring your huge luggage suitcase yes, that has, you know, inside a lot of suitcases. One is from Holocaust survivor grandparent, another one is from Nazi sympathizer grandparent. Another luggage. You know suitcase inside that huge one is, you know, feminist mom. And then you know then and then box or dad, yes, so you know. So all these things are in the luggage that the child gets. When the child gets out of the mom's womb it's already there, but we pretend that it's all hunky-dory, like peachy, everything, like it's a blank slate. No, they're not blank slate. They're carrying that luggage unless we process it.
Speaker 2:We understand what makes us feel guilty or what makes us feel ashamed, yes, what makes us feel neurotic because we cannot decide. You know, like if we lost a parent and it was in a critical time, you know, when we still needed that parent. You know a lot. Yes, you know we could grow up being great person. But the neurotic because we don't know what will happen. Maybe tomorrow I will lose another person. That is significant. It will be always in our makeup and we bring that to our child's life without realizing. So we need to work on those things. We need to work on those things as adults, and this is for the sake of the children, but it's also for the sake of us, for our personal development.
Speaker 2:Okay, so the transgenerational patterns, the transgenerational luggage, to actually dig into your history, find out about that grandma's you know if she's still alive or grand-grandma. You know what actually happened. You know in their life who they liked, who they didn't like, who they affiliated with, who they hated. You know it's okay to. You know love and hate is the bilateral experience. We can have a love and hate to the same person.
Speaker 2:It doesn't have to be just loving or hating, because that's kind of that's a divided world. We have to integrate. We have in and young. We have good and bad in that one person. We want it to be more good, but we have to admit that we all carry capacity for bad.
Speaker 2:You know we just need to feed. You know like the tail with two wolves. You know. You probably know, yes, like then. You know when each wolf is winning. You know the one that you're feeding. If you're feeding goodness, then you will have more goodness in your life. If you're feeding badness, then you will have more badness in your life. That's, that's all it is. But you need to know who you're feeding, why you're raging, you know, for no good reason. You know it's probably maybe you have a chip in your shoulder and you didn't never analyze that, you never. You were covering it up because you're wearing a suit or you're wearing a per coat or you're wearing something that is covering the chip in your shoulder. But unless you analyze, you look into without guilt, without shame, without you know punishment, but just to know what you're bringing to that child's world Right. And that is another ingredient. Everything else falls into place.
Speaker 1:Once those two things are kind of worked out.
Speaker 2:Yes, there is a third thing that I don't know like. Should I talk now or you want to ask more question?
Speaker 1:I would add it in. I mean I could. I've got so many questions, but I think right now, if we're in the track, we've got the first thing. The second thing I would add, and then I can take us down a different rabbit hole. We'll see where I'm at by the end of this third thing.
Speaker 2:Okay, so that's also one of the things that might help parents with those behaviors that they don't like. That's why they're bringing them to others to get fixed, their children. So the other thing is like coming the is how to deal, how to deal with children's behaviors in a moment. When I said number one thing is like the 10 minutes, this is a process to create the trust, yes, between parent and child and create this significance and belonging. That number one, what I said, and then that was transgenerational thing is number two. But number three is in the moment, how you can deal with the behavior in the moment. And that's what you know very important to give that kind of little tool. So if we use Adlerian psychology and we use the triangle that the you know the Adlerian psychologist are using is about the behavior, the mantra of a person. So imagine that the three angles of the triangle is one as a child and another is a parent and the third one is an adult. Okay, so you know when you're in the role of a child. It could be a doll that in the role of a child. Yes, we have a lot of adults that behave like children.
Speaker 2:What does it mean to be a child. Oh, you're a child. What does it mean? That person is silly, light, wanna play, you know. And it's highly emotional. Yes, because the emotion goes two ways. It could be very playful, it could be very tantrum-y, yes, so you cannot have just one way. You know that's a child. The other corner is for a parent. So in interaction with such a child, when you don't go their level to be a child and get everything playful, which we usually forget by the time we become parents, we usually forget how to be a child, you know, because the life has too many demands. It has too many demands to be grown up, you know. So it's. You cannot be silly, you know you have to be. You know tough and serious and whatever, yeah, in a box. And so we forget. We're trained, like on the I-95, we train to be that, you know. So we cannot be playful. We cannot just stop on the you know, on the side road and make pictures.
Speaker 1:Which, to an extent, serves us in a way, right, because and I want to make sure that I give that caveat because there you know, anytime this is probably a general rule of thumb if you're listening to this that when we're explaining a principle or something, that there's almost always two edges to the blade, right. So, although in this context we're talking about like, okay, it puts you in a box, you are adulting, you know, maybe you don't feel like you have permission to be silly. That's because, over time, those things are, the things that you've done are consistently either working for you and in some cases they're not working for you, but there's a lot of energy cost or there's a lot of things that come with going and doing stuff outside of your norm Right, and that that actually can serve us in some capacities. But at any point, as it is with a lot of these principles, if the pendulum swings too far to one side so let's say, you have completely shut your box, there's no light entering it and you never give yourself the chance to be goofy that's not a high quality life. And if you're a 40 year old, 50 year old person and you have no stability in your life whatsoever, that's also a negative thing Right.
Speaker 1:Finding that center pointer, that mixture of the two and a balance, is kind of the best way, kind of relating back to the way that you talked about Knowing what brain space to be in. Sometimes there's usefulness to going back and forth, and maybe this, maybe that I could do this, maybe I should do this, but then there's also times where you just need to go forward to back front, back to front. You just need to make a decision, you need to stick with it and you need to go get stuff done. So I will surrender back to you, but I wanted to make sure that I threw that copy out in there.
Speaker 2:Yes, thank you so much. Yes, so you brought an idea that you know when you have the retreats for the teams. Yes, like for the high end, you know companies. They usually do the place. They usually bring you to whether the obstacle courses or like where you can do teamwork, or they doing some play. You know, like where you, you know you're like children and you're running around and you're making your own decisions as a child and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:So, yes, so, but when, normally, when you're in a parent role, you are what you're judging, scolding, telling the child what to do, you know, in a reaction to what child is doing not wanting to finish the play, not wanting to go to dinner or take a bath or go to school or wake up or whatever. So you have to enforce your power, because you're big, you're big and you are the boss, you know so. So you're enforcing that power. You're using the power over. You know techniques to submit the child to do whatever scream, yell or whatever it is. You know judge and that is a that's what that larynx called parental role. Yes, like that's the parent on that triangle, and then the third corner of the triangle is called adult. It's an adult role. So the adult, so the parent, is also emotional. The child is emotional, the parent is emotional. So those are two emotional ones. The adult can be played by a child or can be played by an adult grown up, but the adult is less emotional, is very little emotions.
Speaker 2:When children go to school and they work in school, they're different people. Their emotions are down. Yes, some of them may have tantrum, but we're talking on the. Those are outliers. The most of the children. They work at school, they work through school and they are being in adult position because they need to be effective, they need to communicate, they need to cooperate. Yes, if you're a grown up and you're in adult position, your response to your child will be not screaming, yelling and telling them what to do and shutting them down, but talking to them like equal, you know on their level, and saying I understand my dear that you want to continue playing, but this is a time to go to sleep or to go, and you know like to go to a birthday party or whatever it is. When you will be older, you know you will have a choice to stay home by yourself, you know, or whatever it is, but right now it is not safe. So we need to go, you know we need to. You know clean up and we need to go. So something like that, to have an adult to adult conversation. And children usually reciprocate. They adult to adult. They usually come down with their tantrums, especially when they know that they have place in this family. They have the love you know, the belonging and significance. Yes, like that is built because of those 10 minutes, only 10 minutes out of 24 hours, you know. So it's kind of integrated.
Speaker 2:That approach, the Adlerian approach to be an adult, you know to try to use adult. You don't have to be a friend, you don't have to be succumbing to what the child like is bullying you. You know, like a feeling bad because other children have it and this child doesn't have it. No, you can reason from the adult position but you never can reason from their so-called parent position. You cannot reason. It's emotional position.
Speaker 2:So I think those three things that I said.
Speaker 1:Hmm where do I want to go next? Wow A, I think it's new. At least I haven't heard the explanation of the parent, the role of the parent being a emotional center or, you know, an emotional role and the role of the adult kind of being a separate thing. But as soon as you said that, I immediately pictured three of my friends that are definitely the adults in their families and are not the parent, but they have to parent the parent in a way, you know, and they can't, to your point, they can't approach that situation with, you know, overbearing authority. It doesn't work.
Speaker 1:Right, they have to have adults, yeah, and have that conversation. And I've also seen differences, you know, even when I'm out in public or I just watch, you know we have a very large extended family. You know the difference between you, know the acute situation of just like I don't do that, you know, and kind of setting those boundaries and coming at it from the parental role versus my. You know the other side, where I watch, people have the approach Okay, here's why we don't do that. This is why that's not a thing, you know, and every parent that I know and I'm sure you've heard this a lot is well, you just you don't know my kid. You know my kid won't like there's no way that I'll be able to sit down and have a cohesive conversation with them about this. I have to come at this situation from the parental side of the triangle. What would you say to a parent that feels that way?
Speaker 2:Okay, well, first of all, there are two things that you said, the keywords. One is don't do that and another one you don't know my kid, so let's go with the first one. Right, our brain. So you know, I have to bring brain because, like this is, how.
Speaker 2:I operate. Yes, so our brain, mind dyad, because it's not just a brain, it's a mind that we're creating from the brain, and then they cannot live separately from each other. So it's that dyad does not process, because the brain itself, the material brain, is like electrochemical machine. Imagine electricity Does it go two ways? It goes one way. Yes, it goes one way. The direct, you know, current. Yes, so in the brain there is a, you know, in the nervous system, the nature, the God, whoever you believe in, made us the way that there is a so-called saltatory conduction, meaning it's a jumping conduction, because it will be too long to get information from here to my toe to do something. Yes, so it has to be a jumping, jumping, jumping to get there fast. Yes, so it only can jump in one direction. That's why when we say don't do it I don't want to look at him, I don't the don't has to cancel some action that you first saying to do and you say don't do that, or don't throw the ball, or don't throw the stone, the first thing the child hears, or any person actually, you have to be highly trained to hear those don'ts and stop yourself. But children, they are still developing brains, you know. So they first do that, what you said don't, and then they might feel guilty that I didn't mean it. I didn't mean it to hurt my sister. I didn't mean it because they really didn't. Because when you say don't throw the stone, because you're foreseeing that now that stone will hit somebody, somebody in the head, and it's a bigger and bigger stone, they pick up yes. So instead of say don't, you say like, you can do this, you can throw the ball, but you cannot throw the stone. You know, this is what you can do.
Speaker 2:Don't tell the person what they cannot do. If you tell the adult don't do something, unless they are highly trained and analyzed what they want to do, the first thing they will do it Just to tell you, to assert themselves. It sounds funny, but this is the truth. I'm not saying it to be funny, I'm saying how it is. The brain doesn't understand, don't. So in order to understand don't, you have to first process, do what you do that action and then you have to cancel it. But that's a second action that takes twice longer time. And if the child that is still developing their brain and nervous system and reactions, they first will do it and then they say they didn't mean it and you think that they are devils. They're not devils, they just not processing it as some adults might be able to process.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's almost like a lag between when their body hears you say don't throw the stone, and they hear throw the stone. And then yes, and then don't.
Speaker 2:The second is like they coming to them, but they already did it.
Speaker 2:They already did it, you understand. So that's how it is. And and the more child has like, individual differences, like an every other child, I feel in some kind of spectrum, you know, not because to make a diagnosis, but some child is more kind of ADHD and another one is more dyslexic and another one is, like, has some dyspraxia, because they still developing. It doesn't mean they will necessarily have it in adult life, but they might be able to navigate and not to struggle and have their own, you know, tools, how to deal with their particular individual differences. We have different learning talents, yes, like learning styles. Somebody learns through movement and somebody learns through hearing and somebody learns through visual and somebody who learns through touch and somebody learns through hearing noises and imitating noises and they start to talk only because they they want to imitate and they don't know how to talk yet but they imitating. So we have different talents, is not one is better than the other. Okay, so so that you know. So we, we need to understand that all the capacities when child is involved in something, all their capacities to process the outside world, are maxed out. Usually we adults, that you know, train ourselves to have some idling space. Yes, you know, like in a car has idling, you can idle to have it ready in case you need it to have that spring. You know sprint, but children don't know yet. So they using all of it. They're like you know they have whole life. They'd like you know. They're, you know, like running the party and now you know you tell them something. No, or you judge them or you limit them. And it's kind of traumatic in the moment, like to have something limited. Why? You know it's somebody taking away something from you. They don't have that idling to go by. So when we want them to stop something, we have to say tell them what they can do instead of telling them not to do something. So that's one and the other one I just wrote to myself. The first one, don't do that, and the second one I didn't write for myself. So what was the second? Oh, you don't know my child. Okay, first, you don't know my child means that the parent already has an idea how the child will respond to their don't. Do this child respond like stop it. You know they already know how child, but they never look at how.
Speaker 2:What's causing the child to be defined? What's causing the child? Maybe the communication? Maybe it's a call for I need that attention, I need to know that I am significant, I need to know that you see me. You know like I work with some children and after working like half a year or sometimes nine months and you don't even know that those concepts exist in their head, all of a sudden they would say I don't think anybody sees me.
Speaker 2:And the parents do everything for that child, everything they go into. You know debt for that child, you know to get all the programs and services and and everything, but the child doesn't feel seen. The child doesn't feel significant, doesn't, doesn't feel belonging yes, so it's sad that the parents are maxed out and the child does not feel significant, does not feel that this child is seen by anybody. That mean that this child is not seen by by the parents. First, because that's the first, the first world. And maybe these parents are not to blame, and most likely not to blame because they might have the same experience themselves. And this is the only they know. If you, if you never got the love, the unconditional love from your parent, how you can give love to somebody else If you never experienced that, how you can give something that you never got yourself?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that goes back to the idea of knowing that something might exist but never having experienced it. You know, you can, you can read, you can fantasize, you can know that love as a concept or that there is such a thing as unconditional. You know out there, but if you haven't been a recipient of that, you know you. There's no frame of reference for you to even and maybe frame is not the right word to use, but will.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, you're using the right word I want to go into, because I think that both of those things kind of create this natural question in my mind. I guess it's kind of like three things put together. So the idea of transgenerational information being passed down I won't say trauma, I'll say into information, because it can be both positive and negative Right, but there's transgenerational information that's passed down to an individual. And then there's the early stages of life and the way the relationships are formed, and you know the way that the child entered the world, you know the circumstances surrounding that and then also, to your point, you know they could be maxi out and doing all of these things and the child still doesn't feel seen or heard or anything like that.
Speaker 1:And we talked about this a little bit before the mics came on. But what is the power? Why is the idea of choice so powerful in that progression? You know, knowing that you were born with or given some things that you could not be in control of because you're not in previous generations, or your experience of childhood that you kind of carry into parenthood, how, why is it important for people to have that awareness and feel like they have a choice when dealing with, you know, becoming a parent or like entering the experience of parenthood.
Speaker 2:I think I'm writing this down because you know, okay. So so the choice it's coming from our conversation in between the podcast. Yes, so the choice is coming from our conversation from about try on brain First, that you know. First of all, we have, as soon as we out of our mom's wounds, we already have three layers kind of the brain the lizard brain that watches for enemies and, you know, based on fear and produces fight and flight reaction. And people who are traumatized, especially in the childhood time. You know, years, they are mastering that level so much that they very, they very. It's very hard for them to go to the second level, to emotion. So, the third level, the logic, you know. So they have it great, you know they. They're great workers, they're producers. But as soon as as something stressful comes in their life, in a moment, if they're not learning how to navigate, to go to the second floor to check with your emotions and your memories, to go to the third floor to check with your logic and reasoning, if they're not training themselves to go to go off their I 95, that is, on the first floor of their house, yes, then they will be responding with fight and flight all the time.
Speaker 2:People that like to live on the second floor of their brain, that is, you know, more emotion and memories, and they just go into it and you know so they mostly so they. They tend to neglect their fear level. So you know they can go and spend all the money you know all the money and in a casino, feeling good in the moment, they have usually addictive behaviors because they want to continue that pleasurable experience. They want to continue that. So they don't want to tap in in the moment. You know it's not like their decision, but they can make a decision. But if they go on automatic, they just like to live there on the second floor. You know they don't want to go to the logic and get that file where they know that in the red five books and then they made, they produce some lectures themselves why not to go gambling or something like that? But in the moment when they need to feel good belonging and significance and feeling good about yourself, they go and they bet and they, they, you know they spend all their. You know family, you know wealth Sometimes.
Speaker 2:So, and those who, for example, like to live on the third level in the logic and reasoning because they're so valued for that that work, they're valued. You know the, you know friends are valuing their you know advice, you know like they're so good, but when they want that relationship, when they want to get married, when they want to just to have like a, you know, intimate relationship with somebody, they can't connect with their emotions. They can't because that I 95 on their cases on the third floor, you know. So the first floor and second floor as kind of like a you know uncharted territory or almost uncharted territory, and they live 90% of their time in that logic, you know, doesn't give them anything good for relationships and having a family, yes, so so, but we need to know that it is a choice, because we are not doomed. We are not doomed, we all have three levels. Just because we human species, we all have three levels, no matter what, unless we have some kind of inborn, you know, kind of deficit of the nervous system, you know, like microcephaly, even microcephalics. They, you know, if you work with them, they, they, you know, like the people that born with the small brains, if you work with them enough, if you trigger their brain to use neuroplasticity, they also start to be like streetwise, you know, they become, you know, like normal, you know, members of the society. But you have to know you have the choice to do it If you feel you doomed.
Speaker 2:This is how I am, you know, you know this is how I am. I hear, like you know, like this, you know, kind of. You know, like you know I'm. I'm from Russia. We have the dance, you know Russian dance, where you go like this, you know, you know so, when they go like like that, you know, like this is how I am, judge me, do whatever, I don't care, this is how I am. Okay, if that's how you want to be fine, you know we don't want to change you, we don't want to break you, and that's choice. Yeah, that's a choice, that's fine.
Speaker 2:Yeah that's fine, you know. So when I tell parents, you know like I realized it started to ask only recently, like, especially with neurodiverse children, I started to ask where do you see your child in five years, in 10 years? They have like their eyes are popping out, you know, and they're like oh my God, I never thought about it. I said, but, but you know what, if you think about it, try to think, oh, I don't want to even think about it, you understand. And then I said, but if you do think, like I'm here for you, like let's think together. Where do you see it? Like, do you want me to give you choices? And they said, okay.
Speaker 2:And I said do you want this child to have independent life? Yeah, but I don't think he or she can. Okay, what do you see like living with you until you die and then some siblings will take over? Or you know, you know, like in some movies, that we know the rainmaker and all that and and. And they say I don't really want them to live with us. You know like a few more her to live with us? Okay, they want her or him to live in a group home, or that's horrible. I said so what is the choice. Are we trying to get this person to be like Oliver Sacks, or to be like Temple Grandin, or let it be, as is not to make any choice, and whatever happens happens. That's also a choice. So that's why I think that it's important for people to know that there is a choice and not necessarily tell them what choice to make.
Speaker 1:Again, it's the same concept of freedom, the free will, the freedom that they give people the idea of empowering people with not only the knowledge but also standing there with them as they have the experience of processing those thoughts for the first time you know, potentially for the first time can be a very empowering thing. There's a quote. I just tried to do a quick Google search but I'm just going to paraphrase it because I am not sure who exactly it's attributed to. But the way that you just described that is like well, here's, do you want me to pick options for you? Right, here's the three options. We have to aim at one of them.
Speaker 1:Like, we can't just go through life aimless, right, and we often hit the targets that we choose to aim at. And that's the paraphrase quote. Right, there is that we often hit the targets that we choose to aim at, and if you have no target, then you're just kind of, you know, walking around aimlessly and from personal experience and then also watching a lot of other people inside of coaching sessions that I've been in, other stuff like that that can be extremely anxiety provoking, right, if you never look into the future, it makes the future this fog. That can be very mysterious and scary and you don't know what's around the bend and life is kind of happening to you in a way.
Speaker 2:Correct.
Speaker 1:Instead of you being able to kind of navigate. So I want to kind of I don't think that there's really anywhere else to go, unless you have other things to add. It's mind boggling that we've already been at this another hour, which is crazy Because it feels like we've been talking for 15 minutes. But I do want to say, you know, as we were ending this, two things that really stood out to me in this last you know monologue or section that you explained is you're not doomed. You know. That's one thing I really want to drive home. Whether you're a parent, you are dealing with anxiety, you're dealing with a lack of clarity about the future. You're dealing with a compulsion that you may have. You're dealing with, you know, not being able to understand why you feel this intense sense of rage when something happens. You know, or any of these types of things that we can look at ourselves and really get down on ourselves about. You're not doomed. So that's like the first thing that I want to kind of point out.
Speaker 1:And the second thing is is that there are places, whether it's with Dr Ina, it's, you know, with a local counselor, inside of your group, inside of the, you know. This is why I'm always going to be an advocate for things like psychotherapy or just, and we don't. I'm not going to tie it to a specific discipline, but having a conversation with a professional can open your eyes a to the awareness that these types of structures exist and then be hold the space where you to process those things as you're going through it. So those will be the two things that I'll kind of add on my part, but anything else from your side as far as parting thoughts, yes, so you know, so there are.
Speaker 2:You know many things to say, but you know it's another time.
Speaker 2:but I want to tell that to whoever are the parents or whoever are interested to improve their life and the life of their children, they should look into parent coach, you know, to have a parent coach, to have a group experience with that parent coach, to have individual experience with the parent coach, because the parent coach is not a therapist that has to look only into your life and to your kind of look after your interests hopefully you know and it's not just a therapist for your child that looks only on your child's interests. This person understands your interest, the child interest, and how to merge them to have a happier, joyful, empowered life as a parent and and and whole life for for a child that each child deserves. So that's kind of what I want to say at the end.
Speaker 1:I love that and I know that you know we've talked about places where people can find you. I believe we talked about Dr inosensitcom the last time. Does parents first have a place where people can go to find you, or should we continue?
Speaker 2:to send people to your parents first, that net is is an organization that my colleague, mitchell find burger and I created just for that particular reason.
Speaker 2:Okay, you know, I had an idea that this is what needs to happen, that parents need to have a place where not only parenting advice is, but also parenthood examined and give them permission to do that. And Mitchell, he is a, he was a trainer and professional development is, you know, high and professional development programs. So we got together and created, created this organization where we do parent. There are a lot of free videos online there and parents, parents first net, and you know like I can point to each of them is, like you know, the parent quotient, for example. Or you know, wizard of Oz method that we, you know that we use, or understanding the parenthood is, you know like it was a movie with Steve margin that called it's an old movie and the grandma that will be the last thing that I want to mention.
Speaker 2:This is was funny because the you know like, so Steve margin, as a father, you know that is arguing with his wife not to have a next child, you know, and and she would like to have a next child, and they have an argument that you know like that child could do this, but yes, but it would be fun if they, you know the child will do that, you know. So they have different perspectives. Steve Martin has with negative perspective and the wife has a positive perspective on a child, of future child. And then the grandma overheard his grandma overheard the conversation comes out of her room and says when I was little, my, my father, took me on merry go round, but I liked more the roller coaster, so you know. So it all depends on what you want. It's again the choice. Yes, you can have a parenthood that is a merry go round and you can have a parenthood that is a roller coaster, but you've got to enjoy whatever you're creating, that's all.
Speaker 1:I love that. Well, if you are not subscribed to the apex podcast, this brings us to the end of another interview here on the show. Go ahead and hit that subscribe button. Or if you're on YouTube, there's a little bell in the upper right hand corner of the video that you can tap to get notified whenever we put out content like this. Interviews will be coming more frequently. However, there are a couple of other types of episode segments that we deal with, the other ones being me and my co founder, rj holiday, here at apex communications network talking about the day in and day out of running a marketing agency, or the potential of us going down a random rabbit hole of a trending news topic or something that we get emailed in. So if you want to send us questions or you want us to address on the show, or there's a guest that you think would be a great fit for the apex podcast, go ahead and reach out to me. At yawn, looks like Jan. Jan at chase the apexcom. Until next time, have a great rest of your day.
Speaker 2:Thank you.