0:00:00 – Speaker 1
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0:00:11 – Speaker 2
Welcome to nextTalk Radio with Mandy and Kim On AM630, the word. Mandy is the author of Talk and Kim is the director of nextTalk, a non-profit organization helping parents’ cyber parent through open communication. Follow us on Facebook, instagram and Twitter. Create our free video series and subscribe to our weekly podcast at NextTalkorg. Are you ready for the nextTalk?
0:00:36 – Speaker 3
Today on the show we’re talking about anxiety and we’re bringing in the experts on this one. We’ve got Celeste Inman here. She is a counselor with the Vine Wellness Group. We’ve had her here before. We collaborate with their office a lot. They give us great advice and lend us their expertise, but we wanted to just kind of welcome her. We did a domestic abuse show with you a while back. It was so good. Tell us a little bit about yourself, celeste. For those who didn’t listen to that show.
0:01:06 – Speaker 4
Well, I am a co-owner of the Vine Wellness Group. I’m a licensed professional counselor and a registered play therapist. At the Vine Wellness we see families, individuals, marriage couples, people of all different ages, as young as two, all the way up. Wow For individual counseling. We do group counseling as well, so just wanting to help people with mental health.
0:01:28 – Speaker 3
Yeah, you all have a great. You’re a great resource. You help a lot of families. We really like having you in our community.
0:01:34 – Speaker 1
You know, today we want to talk about anxiety, which all of us have heard the term a lot and maybe even feel like we struggle with it a little bit or seen it in our kids. But maybe first we can set it up by telling us a little bit about the definition of anxiety.
0:01:45 – Speaker 4
as you see it, Anxiety is definitely worries, kind of the what ifs fears, but it’s also, you know, the concerns for possible danger. But there are different levels of anxiety as well, just to make sure that we can kind of differentiate that. There’s mild. We all have some day to day small things, wondering if things are going to be okay, if things are going to work out, maybe a fear of a test, but anxiety can be kind of normal.
Some of that is good. Some of it is good. It can motivate us to do well, to work hard or to be more cautious when we need to be. Oh that’s true. But then it can also be more moderate or become more severe when it’s really more day to day, when it intensifies and it gets in the way of things and then you kind of lose out on that joy, joy of life and experiencing fun things. You can’t really enjoy things in life.
0:02:35 – Speaker 3
So my mind, when you start talking about like moderate or severe, my mind automatically goes to like anxiety, like panic attacks, like debilitating, that would be more severe. Okay, so that? And can somebody have a panic attack and not really struggle with it day to day, but like out of the blue, could it be building, or is it just a pattern that you normally see they can build up in somewhere, sometimes out of nowhere, where they weren’t expecting it.
0:03:00 – Speaker 4
Something new, yeah, yes, that they have experienced. It was overwhelming all at once and so stressful yeah, or out of an experience that was very overwhelming and maybe traumatizing, or there’s a trigger somewhere, a trigger somewhere that’s what I’m thinking Definitely Like a trigger Right and it could send you in.
0:03:16 – Speaker 3
You’ve been afraid of that. You didn’t realize.
0:03:18 – Speaker 4
Right and it could send you in All of a sudden and then sometimes from that then it might continue on creating more anxiety from there. But then some of the day to day can be more the moderate when it is just day to day worried about a schedule change or worried am I going to be able to plan for this or have control over certain things. When they don’t have control it creates more of those what ifs and it kind of can snowball into bigger and bigger issues and concerns.
0:03:44 – Speaker 1
It kind of makes me think of. I’m thinking of people who are obsessive about things that they can’t control, like I’m trying to think of people that I know are in my family where they worry about it so much that, like you said, they can’t get past it, they can’t let it go. Would you consider that to be more the moderate? They don’t necessarily panic, right, but they just go over it and over it and worry and worry.
0:04:05 – Speaker 3
They can’t let go. They can’t let it go and move past it. They need some frozen going on, let it go, let it go.
0:04:11 – Speaker 4
And sometimes too, the other thing that comes along with that is with the worries that they’re having some of those turn into unrealistic worries that really for some children, when they don’t know, they’re questioning things and they’re unsure of things, they can all of a sudden get to this what if that really is so far from what was the reality of the situation? That would never even happen, but those worries get them so far to the other side.
0:04:38 – Speaker 3
So when you see this in kids let’s just talk about that for a minute when you see this in kids, is there often a correlation that the parents struggle with it too? Because you know, I’m thinking, there’s certain fears that I have in my life and I see my kids picking up on those fears, like they’re modeling that, and I didn’t even realize it until just this moment.
0:04:59 – Speaker 2
I’m thinking about I’m thinking about some things.
0:05:03 – Speaker 3
Yeah, yes, no. I’m thinking about the kids, and we just took a vacation and they were very hesitant to go on roller coasters, and so I’m sitting here thinking, oh my gosh, I’m creating this like fear and anxiety.
0:05:15 – Speaker 4
Some of it can happen that way. Some of it is hereditary, some of it is a chemical imbalance, but a lot of it can be learned behaviors from families, from parents as well.
0:05:24 – Speaker 3
So it can be a combination of any, or it could be one thing or the other. Right.
0:05:29 – Speaker 1
Well, and going back to the normal side of anxiety and worry that all of us experience, a little bit like on the moderate side, I guess you would say I have seen that in my kids as just a part of the unknown of growing up, Right, and those are those conversations that we’re always talking about too with nextTalk. It’s one of those things that we can easily dismiss. But I noticed with my little girl, who just turned four, she will see something like in a movie or in a show and then she’ll apply that to real life and be worried about it. So she’ll say is the whole world gonna flood? Because it happened in the show? Right, and what are we gonna drown? Right. And she’ll start to worry about it. And I could. My natural tendency is oh no, don’t be silly.
0:06:09 – Speaker 4
I’m gonna dismiss it or minimize it.
0:06:10 – Speaker 1
Yes, but then I see that that’s something she’s really trying to process and understand. Is this something I really need to be worried about? So maybe if you have younger ones, like not dismissing those types of little signs.
0:06:22 – Speaker 4
It goes back to what y’all really stress in the communication and having those conversations and talking it out with them, hearing out what their worry or their concern, the question is, and it kind of is a form of education and just teaching them and talking through that. It’s so important to have that so they can process through and not then develop more worries and anxieties, because if they’re left with those constant unknowns, it builds and builds and that then it can definitely grow to be more severe.
0:06:51 – Speaker 1
Yeah, I can imagine that we have to talk with our kids a lot about like what’s real and what do we know and what is it that you’re worried about. That’s not realistic, like we have that like comparison conversation all the time, because their minds just go crazy sometimes when they’re younger.
0:07:06 – Speaker 4
And I think too, when they’re so young really, I guess up until maybe seven, eight when they’re starting to really learn their world and they’re starting to see other things, they have a hard time, up into those ages, differentiating what’s real on TV and comparing it to the real world. So it is important to be able to help them. Well, that was just on TV. That’s not always realistic, because they can have all these special effects that they can do, or the story lines, the stories you can create with your imagination. But reality is different.
0:07:38 – Speaker 3
Well, and I’m thinking you always talk about the younger kids. I’m thinking about the older kids here and most of them are on social media as they get older and they’re just exposed to so much about what could happen and that, even if you don’t struggle with anxiety, it can create anxiety. You know, I’m really particularly I’m thinking about school shootings. That was just coming to my mind as well, and we did a show on mass shootings here. You can look into that about how to talk to your kids about it. But you know, when a school shooting happens, it’s all over social media. I mean we’re seeing live stream from within the school of these kids and it’s like terror and you automatically go into this mode, even as a mom, like that could be my kid, and so it creates this anxiety in us.
And I know for me and my kids, like I don’t promise them. Like when we talk about that my older kids I never promise that it’s not gonna happen, because I can’t promise that. But I’ll always say the likelihood is small. You know this is rare. Even though I know we’re seeing it more often now, it’s still very rare. But you know, and just kind of talking them through that so it doesn’t create anxiety, but I’ve seen it like in kids. You know, once a big school shooting happens and then it’s all over social media and the news Right in the news, like going to school the next day. The news is a huge form of creating into anxiety.
0:09:04 – Speaker 4
But I think what you also brought up is another point of kind of the statistics how common or how rare is the probability of something to happen? Maybe, looking it up together, or you checking it out and then bringing it back to them or, you know, learning that together to help them understand the likelihood of it happening.
0:09:21 – Speaker 3
Right, I mean going into my fear of rollercoasters. You know there are people who have died on rollercoasters before.
0:09:27 – Speaker 1
there are my husband does not like rollercoasters, also because he saw a woman die on a rollercoaster I mean in front of him and so it’s a valid fear. It’s a valid thing.
0:09:38 – Speaker 3
But I was doing some research on it for my kids because I saw this fear in them and I was like, look, very rarely did the ride malfunction. That does happen. Like I can’t promise you that it wouldn’t happen, but oftentimes it’s somebody trying to stand up or somebody not, you know I mean not always, you know, but like just talking them through, that just because you get on a rollercoaster doesn’t mean you’re going to die Cause. I think I’ve instilled that and I didn’t mean to.
I didn’t mean to you know, but it’s just like it’s okay for you to ride it. I’m just like old and my neck will crack. You know, pop, and I can’t ride it anymore.
0:10:15 – Speaker 1
I like how you talked your way out of that one.
0:10:20 – Speaker 3
Small rollercoasters are going, but I don’t know the big ones. They scare me a lot. Okay, okay, sorry, but you know, just we don’t realize that we are creating anxiety and our world is so messed up.
0:10:33 – Speaker 4
Everything and, unfortunately, within the news, a lot of it just focuses on the negative it does, and so it’s hard to find those positives, and that’s another thing with anxiety. You have to help them because of where their mind keeps going. They have to learn to stop, yeah, and redirect their brain on something more positive.
0:10:49 – Speaker 3
Mm-hmm so true that’s really good to stop the spiral right, because if the anxiety is just allowed to perpetuate, it’s gonna become a bigger problem, just like everything else we’ve talked about. I know you know we’ve did a perfectionism show too and that is an underlying issue sometimes with this Anxiety that you’re seeing. I love what you said at the beginning of the show is sometimes it’s about the control. Yes, like just not being able to control the situation, so you have anxiety. I think that’s a very like. Again, this is Girl.
0:11:22 – Speaker 2
I struggle with it.
0:11:23 – Speaker 3
I think a lot of parents to struggle with being at the party with their kid, or you know.
0:11:28 – Speaker 1
It creates anxiety in us, and then we Know the not knowing of what could happen, the what ifs. Yeah, the what ifs, just like you said, and as our kids get older, they, you know it’s a different set of what ifs yes and you’re and they’re not right in front of you.
0:11:46 – Speaker 4
So you have to have this trust rising and, yes, they’re kind of out on their own doing their own thing and we have to let go of that anxiety that is so important to be able to let let go, but having those conversations ahead of time and that open communication To help them how to better handle it if they have it, but also for yourself as well, to be able to stop your, your anxiety, snowball well and being able, like you, to model that for them.
0:12:14 – Speaker 3
So when they see you being all anxious, anxious, you can actually speak out loud and say okay, mommy is being crazy, right now I’m being anxious and I’m allowing the what ifs to creep in, so let’s talk through this right, like with our own stuff. Then they learn that behavior right on how to stop it. Right, if you’re just not tuning in, this is nextTalk radio at 2 pm On am 6 30. The word nextTalk radio is listeners supported. Everything we do at our nonprofit to keep kids safe online is accomplished through your donations To support our organization. Go to next doc org and click on give today.
0:12:50 – Speaker 1
We have Celeste in man here from the vine wellness group and you can check out their website at the vine wellness comm.
You can also give them a call it to 10 4 9, 0, 4 4 1 9. Just you and Annie are such a great resource for us and being able to bring some validity to our real-life Conversations about the things that we’re seeing in our culture and in our home through nextTalk, one of those being anxiety, and that’s what we’re talking about today, like the root of that, how we can identify it and how to work through it through conversations with our kids, and we were talking about you know you being afraid of roller coasters and talking out loud through those types of things with your kids, and I just think Parenting that way is one of the hardest things to do but one of the most beneficial and healing things to do, because I found when I’m anxious about something or I’m struggling with something, my husband always say you know your mom loves you. If she’s doing this like I have a fear of the ocean, even though I grew up in Hawaii.
0:13:48 – Speaker 4
Oh, isn’t that weird.
0:13:49 – Speaker 1
Wow, I really feel like sharks are just waiting for me and sea lice and so Great. Another thing, yeah, and let me just tell you, we recently went down to the beach here and my kids were playing with these little creatures and they brought them over. They’re like, what are these? And they look like little pigs to me, like water pigs, and I was like I just made it up. I said they, oh, their water pigs. And they were laughing, we’re laughing, we’re playing with them. And they were big, you know, like bigger than a quarter.
And then we found like little ones and there was a lot of them and we made like a little resort for them out of sand and and we were having a great time, all of us. And then the other mom that was there, she was looking on her phone and she was like Kim Kim, and I was like, yeah, she pulls me over. She’s like those are sea lice. You guys are playing with sea lice, like. She showed me pictures of people being like eaten all up and I mean it was awful, awful and I wanted to just screen.
0:14:46 – Speaker 3
I really just scream and.
0:14:48 – Speaker 1
I wanted to run off the beach and like, just leave them, like I was like how did you handle it?
0:14:52 – Speaker 3
Tell us how you’re with me.
0:14:54 – Speaker 1
I had one in my hand as she was showing me the pictures at the moment, like I was like.
0:14:58 – Speaker 3
Oh, it’s like biting you and eating and sucking your blood, you know.
0:15:01 – Speaker 1
I asked my husband. I said why was they weren’t really biting, you know? And he said we didn’t know why. We just were blessed that day, I guess. But anyway, I told my kids I was. I wanted to freak out, you know, I wanted to lie. I’ll be frank. I wanted to be like you know it’s okay, it’s okay they are see pigs, and not freak them out. But I figured honesty and calmness and that moment was gonna teach them something. Yeah, so I sat down with them in the sea lice and I told them what it was and I said it’s probably not best that we play with them, but what cool little creatures we discovered and they didn’t bite us.
I don’t know why, but they do bite, so let’s put them back in the ocean and keep swimming over here, and they were fine with it Like we moved on inside. I was literally falling apart, creating anxiety.
0:15:42 – Speaker 3
Yes, nobody could not sleep that night, except for you, and we went back to the beach the next day.
0:15:46 – Speaker 1
Yes, I was very well for them you know, let me tell you, it took everything in me, like I was sweating, I was falling apart.
0:15:53 – Speaker 3
You know did you have any nightmares?
0:15:54 – Speaker 1
about it? No, but I did visit the bathroom a few times.
0:15:56 – Speaker 2
Yeah, things were running and so I was just grossed out on so many levels.
0:16:01 – Speaker 1
But I realized what is that gonna do? How is that gonna make this situation better if I freak my kids out about one of God’s greatest Beautiful creations the ocean? I want them to feel good about those things but be aware and so finding the way of not creating anxiety about things that could be is really difficult.
0:16:19 – Speaker 4
But I feel like that helps to just talk it through and be honest, definitely again going back to that education piece and the awareness piece of just being able to talk through what is the situation, what are you afraid of or, if there is a fear, or how can you handle the situation To be able to calm yourself or to take care of what you need to during that time?
0:16:39 – Speaker 3
so, celeste, let me ask you so as a parent, you know I see anxiety in my kid and I have tried to talk them out of it and we go through the scenarios and we go through the Research and we say this is rare, I can’t ever promise, you know, but you’re constantly seeing anxiety in all sorts of things. So you, you know there’s something deeper, because you’ve tried everything in your power to kind of talk them through it. Right, what’s the next step? What do we do? Like, do we go to our doctor first? Do we go to a counselor? Like what? What are our steps?
0:17:10 – Speaker 4
It is good to go ahead and have things checked medically just to make sure there’s nothing there to roll things out or if there is Something causing it possibly, yeah, and then from that point then maybe seeking out mental health professional. Okay, and some of the things too that you might also be seeing if it is taking away they’re. They’re joy from every day because they’re constantly worrying. Are they having a hard time sleeping at night? They’re coming out every five, ten minutes and some of that is again age-appropriate. So you kind of have to differentiate with other things that are going on. Are they having a hard time at school, going to the nurse’s office, very often complaining of a headache or a tummy ache?
And then also another sign too, is that parents, because of their worries that we may not really being as in tune with them, that they’re coming to us all these time with these other little questions and things and we’re getting frustrated with all these constant questions. Pick that up. There’s questions here. They must be concerned or a fear, afraid of something, something going on and really talking about and not bringing in anxiety. Are you anxious about something? I don’t say that to that word, yeah, and because they’re not gonna grasp it, yeah, it’s more of.
Are you having a lot of Fears about something? Are you scared of something? Or and not even minimizing that they’re scared of something in their room. Oh, nothing’s gonna get you, you’re okay, you’re fine, we’re safe. Not minimizing that, really listening to them and having this open conversation because it may be something deeper.
0:18:30 – Speaker 3
They may be laying in bed wondering am I gonna die this way or am I gonna? It may be like way deeper than you anticipate, right when they’re just saying my room is dark or I don’t like that teddy bear or something. So just trying to get to the root, of it right.
0:18:43 – Speaker 4
Okay, there’s a lot of anxieties that parents don’t even think to ask of. Like maybe some anxieties tend to be kids are afraid of that they might stop breathing, or they’re really afraid of Not having enough money in the family, or that they’re something bad is gonna happen to their parents or their parents are gonna forget them one day.
0:18:59 – Speaker 3
So or I’ve seen parents, kids be afraid of parents getting a divorce.
0:19:04 – Speaker 2
Yes, you know.
0:19:05 – Speaker 3
I mean, I come from a divorced homes. We talk about divorce a lot, but I’ve seen it in other homes where Divorce has never talked about. But then a friend’s parents get divorced and then all of a sudden you like, rocks this kids world because Possibility yeah, it’s a new thing.
0:19:20 – Speaker 1
and to them, yeah and knowing your kid too, I think some kids it’s great to sit down and talk through those things and it’s like this emotional, deeper conversation. I know my daughter would be more like that. She likes to snuggle and talk it out. My boys need a plan and that helps deal with their anxiety. Yes, so like my one son was worried after we saw I think was home alone. He was worried that burglars were gonna come and break in the house and he was very anxious about it. Mm-hmm, and we literally sat down and talked through a plan and at first we’re like is this a bad idea? Like are we gonna scare him more? That’s great, you know, because you you don’t want to, but it’s true, I’m afraid that you might be treated like a plan but he needed a plan that we knew that this was a real thing.
Yeah, hmm, I Not gonna happen, most likely, but if it did, we’ve got a plan to keep you safe. And then he was fine like he never brought it up again.
0:20:06 – Speaker 3
Well, and I I think that is good for a lot of things, like I think of pornography. You know, we constantly tell our kids it’s bad, it’s bad, it’s bad, but they need a plan, like how am I gonna respond? And then it takes away the anxiety of being exposed to it. You know, if we’re constantly saying you’re gonna see this at some point, I you know and badgering that it’s bad, but they need a plan, they feel more prepared. Yeah, they feel more prepared. So what are ways that we can help our kids cope with anxiety?
0:20:33 – Speaker 4
when they give us some examples deep breathing and not. You know, sometimes we just think Deep breaths. But helping them, practicing it with them yeah, being on their level and Doing that big deep breath in with them all the way down, kind of for a good count of three If you can get to four is even great and then blowing out for that same count if it was three or if it was four, and doing that at least three to four times and asking them if they notice a difference.
0:20:58 – Speaker 3
Okay, a little more relaxed.
0:20:59 – Speaker 4
If not, okay, let’s do a little bit more For really young ones. You can practice like you’re blowing on a hot pizza. What kind of hot pizza would you want to eat? Pepperoni cheese. Smell that pizza, take that deep breath in and smell it and then, when you’re blowing out, cool it off. Oh, I know, cool it off and so it’s something a little more interesting for the younger ones. Or even using feathers with younger ones so they have something to visually, tangibly see and feel yeah.
So deep breath is always a good one, okay, another good one is having your like a safe place or a peaceful place that you can Create in your mind and you’re kind of redirecting your brain to something more positive, trying to stop all those thoughts.
Yeah, and so if you could go anywhere and because it’s all in your head, there’s no limitations when would you want to go? What would it look like? Thinking out all the five senses to that situation, what it all looks like, what it Feels like the weather or the ground or your clothes, what do you smell, what do you taste, what do you hear? Going into every detail to really direct that, redirect the brain into something more positive to help calm you down. And then another good one is just grounding, and that’s kind of bringing your brain back to the here in the now and really thinking about again those senses. What are all the things that you hear around you right now? Right, what are the things that you see right now in detail, what do you smell? Again, just those five senses, but with the here in the now, so it kind of grounds them rather than their brain going to all the what ifs, snowballing to a deep end.
0:22:20 – Speaker 3
Yeah, okay for the older ones, because I think that was really good, like the pizza thing, and you were like nodding yes, that’s good to redirect their brain for the younger ones. For the older ones, is it good to kind of say let’s talk about the worst thing that could happen right now. Is that good? You know, like, for instance, what if your kid is trying out for something that means a lot to them you know, I’m thought I’m talking an older kid right, and they are like I got to get this part, or I’m gonna just die, or I’m not. You know, whatever, I’m gonna make the team, whatever Is it. Can we say what is the worst thing that can happen in certain situations? I think it would be okay, what is the worst thing that could happen? And then they’ll say it and then you say, okay, that’s not gonna be the end of the world, like life will go on.
0:23:05 – Speaker 4
Oh, is that gonna end everything? And how awful would that really be?
0:23:08 – Speaker 3
Yeah, kind of talking them through it so they realize it’s not really as big as you think. It is right, is that?
0:23:13 – Speaker 4
okay to do, definitely okay, it’s very important to go there with them. What is the the main fear of this? Okay, what is the whole route? If it’s the perfectionism, if it is, you know, failing and not doing well, but if you feel, okay, what’s gonna happen?
Yeah, sometimes, really, it’s not that bad, yeah it’s just really talking it through with them to help them kind of process each of those steps. And it’s not as but it might feel huge in that moment and, yes, it’s gonna hurt and there’s gonna be disappointment or frustration, but then you know what we can learn from that. What do we do different next time?
0:23:43 – Speaker 3
Yeah, and I always come back to you still have a family that loves you. That is not. Maybe God is redirecting you. Whatever you know like, bring in those talking points, but it always helps me for to know worst-case scenario and then I can talk myself off the lead. Yeah absolutely, because sometimes I spiral in my mind that it’s gonna continue to go this far and it’s. It’s not as big as what I’m making it out to be in my mind one of our nextTalk team member.
0:24:08 – Speaker 1
She Was telling me that she mirrors with her older kids. She has a much older kids than I do and she will say this is what I just heard you say and Do you see how that sounds? Or this is what your face look like just now and I could tell you were worried. You see why I can tell. And she said that has really helped with her older kids, like nearing the words that they say in the Look and reflecting it.
0:24:31 – Speaker 4
I’m expecting it back and they, and then also from that. Not only are they seeing that other side of it, but the other thing they take in is you took the time to hear me and you respect me and you love me enough to really get me. You’re not minimizing it.
0:24:44 – Speaker 1
Yes, get it.
0:24:44 – Speaker 4
Yes, and so now I’m gonna take you for full. You know, that’s really really good Point, because you get it, yes.
0:24:51 – Speaker 3
And so I think that is true too, and I find myself doing it too, because we’re so busy and we’re multitasking, I minimize things that I shouldn’t minimize, and you know they’re little bitty things, but when I start asking questions it leads to a bigger fear or anxiety or something, and so we’ve got to be, and again that that can happen while you’re cooking dinner. It’s a little bit, aren’t big conversations? They’re just right talking, just in the go.
0:25:16 – Speaker 1
Yeah thank you, celeste. It has been such a pleasure having you on the show, as always, our regular now. It’s been great and again, if people want to get a hold of you, they can call to 10 4904419 or visit the website at the vine wellness comm. Thank you for being on the show today.
0:25:33 – Speaker 2
Thanks for joining us on nextTalk radio with Mandy and Kim on a m630 the word. You are not alone trying to figure out how to parent in this digital world. We are here with practical solutions to help you. Follow us on Facebook, instagram and Twitter. Find our free video series and podcast at nextTalk. Or are you ready for the next time?
Transcribed by https://podium.page
