Today on Main Street, we delve into the often-overlooked complexities of the holiday season. While it's a time of joy and celebration for many, the holidays can also bring a unique blend of stress and challenges. To shed light on this topic, we're joined by the esteemed Dr. Ron Werner-Wilson, a renowned expert in family dynamics and marital relationships. Dr. Werner-Wilson's extensive research provides valuable insights into navigating the emotional landscape of the holidays. Tune in as we explore practical tips and strategies for managing holiday stress, enhancing family interactions, and nurturing our most important relationships during this festive, yet demanding, time of the year.
Interview Highlights (Full Transcript Below)
Common signs of stress:
Well, some common signs of stress are being surly, being surprised even by how you respond to somebody so that you end up being shorter with them than you intended. So you can surprise yourself in terms of those responses. Of course, heart rate, sweaty palms are often signs of stress. And so paying attention to those sorts of markers in yourself, your kind of headaches, all kinds of physiological symptoms that can be associated with stress. And I think your intro is spot on that we have this idea from homework that life is going to be perfect, and when our life doesn't match up, we can feel really disappointed by that or like we're failing, which can then contribute to those feelings of stress.
When we're feeling stressed out, we have a hard time going to sleep. We have a hard time staying asleep. We wake up 2, 3 o'clock in the morning and we're cogitating on things, or maybe we don't even know why we can't get back to sleep, but we just sort of lay there. And the more desperate we are to try to go to sleep sometimes, the harder we try to go to sleep, of course, the less successful we'll be.
Simple self-care tips and questions to ask yourself: Am I eating healthy? Am I taking time for myself? Am I getting adequate rest? Am I sleeping? Exercising, and that doesn't mean necessarily going to the gym and working out for four hours, or even having a formal workout routine, but maybe just go for a walk… and give yourself a little bit of peace, but there's something about that for your body. Paying attention to, at these parties, there's all kinds of snack food, and rarely is it healthy. It's great food, and that could be part of, before you go to the event, the expectation. What am I going to eat? What do I want to have? Make sure you bring something that you enjoy that may not be too unhealthy. If you're gluten intolerant, or have a problem with dairy, or nut allergies, or something like that, just to make sure that there's something there that you can have that you don't, just out of boredom or in your anxiety, grab something that later on is going to make you feel even worse physically.
So that's part of wellness, taking care of yourself, sitting quietly, and that's hard for us. I think as a culture, you know, it seems like we're human doings instead of human beings. It's hard to just kind of be present and enjoy some quiet. But, you know, occasionally just sit and listen to music that you enjoy, whether it's quiet music or Christmas music or something else.
Ashley Thornberg
Is there room for the opposite to be true? What if you just need to do 20 jumping jacks or scream?
Dr. Ron Werner-Wilson
Absolutely. Do both of those things. You know, if it'll help you, you know, listen to something that is peppy and dance with yourself and just have some fun dancing around the kitchen or the living room or something. And, you know, close the shades if you're embarrassed. But, yeah, look for those kinds of opportunities as well. And if you do need to—and sometimes there's something really powerful about that venting and just yelling. You know, instead of yelling at somebody else, just go someplace and yell.
How to be a supportive partner:
Plan some time and be prepared. Coming into the holiday season, even in the middle of the holiday season, kind of just touching base and having expectations. How do you want things to go? What can I do to support you? What is our symbol or sign or whatever to help each other out if we're at a party or we're talking to somebody? What can you do to signal me that you do need help?
Why we don’t ask for help:
I think it's being afraid to be vulnerable. And our culture tells us we need to solve our own problems, pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, figure out how to solve our own problems.
Remember that perfection is impossible:
Remind yourself that it's okay for it not to be perfect. It's okay to be disappointed. It's okay to be disappointed that this isn't some magical experience.
It's okay that my kids are crying. So, you know, kids crying when they're in line to get their photo made with Santa Claus. It's okay. It's okay for the kid to cry, and it's okay for you as a parent to maybe be a little bit embarrassed by that. Both experiences are okay. And allow the child to be sad or afraid because they don't know what's going on. And allow yourself to say, yeah, this is kind of embarrassing because everybody's looking at me right now. So how do I first take care of myself, and then how do I care for my child?
Full Transcript
Ashley Thornberg
This is Main Street on Prairie Public. I'm Ashley Thornberg, and Hallmark would lead us to believe that everything about the holidays is perfect at all times, right? And the movies never lie to us. Well, in fact, there are times of great joy and deep spiritual connection around the holidays, but there can also be a great deal of stress, whether it is finances, calories, or just everything on your schedule all at the same time. So we're bringing in an expert on family relationships and therapy and counseling. Dr. Ron Werner-Wilson is the Interim Dean at the College of Health and Human Sciences at North Dakota State University where he specializes in family and marriage relationships. Dr. Werner-Wilson, thank you so much for joining us today.
Dr. Ron Werner-Wilson
You're welcome. Thanks for inviting me.
Ashley Thornberg
Let's start just broadly with this idea of stress, because we tend to equate stress with just a bad situation, but stress can happen even in joyful times. So what would be some of the more common, but maybe overlooked, signs of stress?
Dr. Ron Werner-Wilson
Well, some common signs of stress are being surly, being surprised even by how you respond to somebody so that you end up being shorter with them than you intended. So you can surprise yourself in terms of those responses. Of course, heart rate, sweaty palms are often signs of stress. And so paying attention to those sorts of markers in yourself, your kind of headaches, all kinds of physiological symptoms that can be associated with stress. And I think your intro is spot on that we have this idea from homework that life is going to be perfect, and when our life doesn't match up, we can feel really disappointed by that or like we're failing, which can then contribute to those feelings of stress.
Ashley Thornberg
Yeah. A lot to pick apart there, but I wonder just about sleep. Is that a pretty good indicator of stress and how so?
Dr. Ron Werner-Wilson
So when we're feeling stressed out, we have a hard time going to sleep. We have a hard time staying asleep. We wake up 2, 3 o'clock in the morning and we're cogitating on things, or maybe we don't even know why we can't get back to sleep, but we just sort of lay there. And the more desperate we are to try to go to sleep sometimes, the harder we try to go to sleep, of course, the less successful we'll be.
Ashley Thornberg
Yeah. I want to talk about just some tips for when we're managing that stress, but let's broaden out even more because when you say something like notice your reaction to a situation, let's just use an example. If I'm short with my husband because I'm stressed about something he doesn't even know about, is it exclusively on me to say, “Oh, I didn't need to be short with him,” or is there kind of some wiggle room of saying, actually, I need a little bit of help here and how do you ask for that?
Dr. Ron Werner-Wilson
Well, a couple of things I'd like to respond on that, Ashley. One is if my partner is being short, that could be an important sign for me to say, “What do you need from me?” The worst thing you could do is to say, “What's wrong with you?” That's just not going to lead anywhere good. That's just going to be another of those holidays.
Ashley Thornberg
That would hurt my stomach, my heart, my throat.
Dr. Ron Werner-Wilson
I think as a partner to recognize that - and it can be hard for us because when our partner is short with us, we can interpret it as I've done something wrong or get defensive versus they're really hurting right now - what can I do to help you? I think to be able to just have that in the can to be able to respond, “Seems like you're not feeling well, what can I do to support you right now?” Also, because sometimes if we are short, we may not be able to not see that in ourselves until later when we regret it. But I think the important part of your question is, how can I ask for help?
Ashley Thornberg
Yeah.
Dr. Ron Werner-Wilson
I think sometimes we just have to pause and recognize that ourselves, which may be a little while. We may need to come back later and say, “I was thinking about earlier, and I'm really sorry about that. Instead of being short with you, I wish I would have told you that I'm feeling overwhelmed or that I'm not feeling well. I was thinking about my mom earlier, and Christmas was great for her. She loved Christmas. Now that she's not around, I really miss her.”
Or I saw some other kind of cue that somebody might have that can put them in a bad space, or they had a bad experience with somebody in the parking lot, or at the mall, or one of their colleagues. So I think there's two sides to that. One, as the partner, to say, “Hey, how can I help you?” The other is just to recognize, gosh, I do need some help, but I'm not going to be able to solve this all by myself.
Ashley Thornberg
Do you recommend having that kind of conversation in the moment when it's happening? Or is it possible to just say, you know, every Monday at 7 a.m., we spend 15 minutes having a quick, “What do I need from you? What do you need from me?”
Dr. Ron Werner-Wilson
Well, I think that would be the better way to do it, the latter, actually, is to plan some time and be prepared. Coming into the holiday season, even in the middle of the holiday season, kind of just touching base and having expectations. How do you want things to go? What can I do to support you? What is our symbol or sign or whatever to help each other out if we're at a party or we're talking to somebody? What can you do to signal me that you do need help? And then talking about those expectations. So I think your idea of scheduling it regularly makes an awful lot of sense, both at the beginning of the week, as you suggested, and or even before the event. If you're going to a holiday party and you know there's going to be somebody there that drives you crazy, whether it's your crazy uncle or some colleague who always says something inappropriate and just loves to try to get reactions from folks. So any at all times you can check in about expectations is really helpful. But your idea of every Monday morning, 7 o'clock, hey, let's have a cup of coffee and talk about this week and some things that are going on makes an awful lot of sense to me.
Ashley Thornberg
You're listening to Main Street on Prairie Public and we are having a show on navigating the holidays. We're in today with our relationship expert, Dr. Ron Warner-Wilson. And Ron, you just said, you know, you might go to a party and somebody there drives you crazy.
People can walk around being triggered and the really annoying part about being triggered is your body is responding in a way that your mind doesn't understand what's going on. What are some of the signs that you might be being triggered? Let's say you're at a party and your wife's cousin does something and it drives you crazy, but your brother does the same thing and it's hilarious.
Dr. Ron Werner-Wilson
It's interesting, isn't it, that who the person is and how they do things matters. So the question is, how do you recognize that? So in terms of how we respond, sometimes it's fight-flight. And so if we feel like we're being attacked, so in that moment, it's funny when somebody does it in their context, they smile or they wink at us because we have a good relationship with them. We know it's in good fun. But somebody else who is—our experience of them is that they're trying to needle us and they're trying to provoke something out of us.
That's when sort of we move into this fight-flight sort of thing and we just want to respond in a really aggressive or strong way. And it's hard to stop ourselves. So if you do that, I guess I would just want to say to anybody listening, it's okay. Have some grace with yourself. You've been provoked and maybe you're embarrassed by what you did, but that will happen to you at some point. And it's just—I mean, that's a survival mechanism. If we feel threatened, if that person is saying something— We lash out. Exactly. I'm protecting myself. I'm either getting out of this situation or I'm going to respond to push that person away. And sometimes you have to do that. You just have to protect yourself.
Ashley Thornberg
What kind of easy, if that's possible, tips would you have for people recognizing boundaries like that?
Dr. Ron Werner-Wilson
Well, I think maybe thinking about it before you go to whatever the event is. Is there somebody there that is potentially a trigger? And try to avoid them.
You're probably not going to be 100% successful. But I think one of the things you want to do is if you are going with somebody to have a conversation with them about that situation so that maybe they can help be your ally. If you're going to this event by yourself, is there somebody in the family or somebody else who's going to be there that, again, you could talk to before you get there and say, you know, I don't want this to get ugly. Can we talk about how you could help me or I could help you? It could be a mutual sort of thing. So having somebody who's going to be an ally.
If you are particularly in gatherings with family, if you have—particularly for folks who are LGBTQ+, right? If there's somebody in their family who is not going to accept that - and maybe even multiple people - is there somebody in the family, and chances are there's going to be at least one or two people there who do understand, support, and love you. And so can you talk to them in advance and say, can you help me here? Because I don't want it to get ugly. It's not going to accomplish anything if I confront this person or I tell them what I really think about them. That's just not going to be helpful. So can you help me? I want to get through this. There are people in this family I love and I want to connect with and figure out how to manage this in a way with this person who just loves to get under my skin.
Ashley Thornberg
Why are we so bad at asking for help?
Dr. Ron Werner-Wilson
That's a great question, Ashley, because I'm as guilty of that as anybody. I think it's being afraid to be vulnerable. And our culture tells us we need to solve our own problems, pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, figure out how to solve our own problems. And that may be, as a middle-aged white guy, maybe that's just a thing that I struggle with, that we are socialized as men not to ask for help. We have to solve it. But I think I see that in a fair number of women as well.
Ashley Thornberg
And Ron, you used a couple of really critical words there, things like vulnerable and just this idea of failing and how it might show up in men and women differently. What might be some things to keep in mind as we're navigating, particularly with members of the opposite sex, about what failure looks like to—and I know that these are overgeneralized here—but what failure might look like to a man and what failure might look like to a woman?
Dr. Ron Werner-Wilson
Well, we do want to avoid being overgeneralizing, but there are some fairly common patterns. So failure for a man is feeling inadequate, feeling like, you know, I didn't do it right, I didn't do something. And so the kinds of things that can get under the skin of men can sometimes be anything that implies they're not pulling their weight.
So for example, I had a colleague who was married to somebody who was a stay-at-home father. And so anytime he went to a holiday party, people would say something like, “So, you still get to stay home and let your wife earn all the money?” And that was just—he was proud of what they did, they made that decision, but it still bothered him, despite the fact that they had made this choice and they felt good about it. The way people said that sort of undermined and questioned whether or not he was making a contribution, when in fact we claim as a country that we value families and what could be more important than caring for your kids, right? So something that for men, I think it's this sense of adequacy or pulling your own weight, that you're doing something meaningful.
I think for women, the failure can be around relationships, because women are socialized to believe that they're responsible for what happens in the family. So if somebody's not happy, women internalize that as I've failed. It's because I've got a job, it's because I'm working, it's because I'm not attentive enough. And so they're more likely to feel like they're a failure if something in the family is feeling a little bit off.
So I think for men it's about pulling their weight, sense of accomplishment, and for women it's more around, again, being careful not to overgeneralize, but oftentimes for women feeling like it's their fault if things aren't going right in the family.
Ashley Thornberg
So let's talk about reasonable expectations then. You know, in keeping those kinds of things in mind and this idea that we think we have to be perfect at all times and have our very individual ideas of what that perfection is. In group situations in particular, are there good tips for what can we reasonably expect from other people and from ourselves?
Dr. Ron Werner-Wilson
You know, I think that's a great question, and I think that we need to remind ourselves and maybe ask ourselves that question any time we walk into that situation. What's reasonable? What can I really expect here? I'm not going to have one of these Kodak moments if people even understand what that metaphor means anymore. In this particular setting, so what's the best thing I can hope for here? It's not going to match up to that Hallmark movie. So what's the best I can do? And then again, talking about if you're going with somebody or you have other people that you know who are going to be there, what is reasonable? What can I accomplish here?
So I think just asking yourself, reminding yourself that it's okay for it not to be perfect. It's okay to be disappointed. It's okay to be disappointed that this isn't some magical experience. It's okay that my kids are crying. So, you know, kids crying when they're in line to get their photo made with Santa Claus. It's okay. It's okay for the kid to cry, and it's okay for you as a parent to maybe be a little bit embarrassed by that. Both experiences are okay. And allow the child to be sad or afraid because they don't know what's going on. And allow yourself to say, yeah, this is kind of embarrassing because everybody's looking at me right now. So how do I first take care of myself, and then how do I care for my child?
Ashley Thornberg
Yeah, put your own oxygen mask on first.
Dr. Ron Werner-Wilson
Yeah, so I think that advice they give us at the airline makes a lot of sense.
Ashley Thornberg
Okay, so how do we set ourselves up for success? You sent a little list about even just ways to eat during this time of year, and other little health and wellness tips.
Dr. Ron Werner-Wilson
Well, I think taking care of ourselves, and maybe that underscores a lot of these kinds of things in terms of expectations. Am I eating healthy? Am I taking time for myself? Am I getting adequate rest? Am I sleeping? So you asked about that earlier, and that would be a sign of things getting out of kilter a little bit. Exercising, and that doesn't mean necessarily going to the gym and working out for four hours, or even having a formal workout routine, but maybe just go for a walk. Or, well, that's the easiest one, I think, is to just go for a walk and give yourself a little bit of peace, but there's something about that for your body. Paying attention to, at these parties, there's all kinds of snack food, and rarely is it healthy.
It's great food, and that could be part of, before you go to the event, the expectation. What am I going to eat? What do I want to have? Are there particular things? And if it's a potluck, and I love potlucks, make sure you bring something that you enjoy that may not be too unhealthy. If you're gluten intolerant, or have a problem with dairy, or nut allergies, or something like that, just to make sure that there's something there that you can have that you don't, just out of boredom or in your anxiety, grab something that later on is going to make you feel even worse physically.
Paying attention to how much alcohol you drink. One of the reasons we gain weight at the holidays is not only because of that food, but it's difficult to metabolize alcohol. They're empty calories that the body pays attention to before it does anything else. And so, and I'm not saying be a teetotaler, or don't have a glass of wine, but if you're going to go to a lot of parties, to kind of watch that. If you get frustrated with yourself, if you find your waist being a little tighter in your pants than you would like, it could be that alcohol, that you're not used to having that four or five times a week, but because you're going to four or five parties, and there's usually some wine or something else there, that may be contributing to it. So you might want to pay a little bit of attention to it.
It might also disrupt your sleep a little bit if you're, you know, it'll help you maybe get to sleep, but then you wake up at two or three o'clock in the morning, and you can't get back to sleep. So that's part of wellness, taking care of yourself, sitting quietly, and that's hard for us. I think as a culture, you know, it seems like we're human doings instead of human beings. It's hard to just kind of be present and enjoy some quiet. But, you know, occasionally just sit and listen to music that you enjoy, whether it's quiet music or Christmas music or something else.
Ashley Thornberg
Is there room for the opposite to be true? What if you just need to do 20 jumping jacks or scream?
Dr. Ron Werner-Wilson
Absolutely. Do both of those things. You know, if it'll help you, you know, listen to something that is peppy and dance with yourself and just have some fun dancing around the kitchen or the living room or something. And, you know, close the shades if you're embarrassed. But, yeah, look for those kinds of opportunities as well. And if you do need to—and sometimes there's something really powerful about that venting and just yelling. You know, instead of yelling at somebody else, just go someplace and yell.
Ashley Thornberg
You said your body might not be used to drinking four or five drinks a week, but suddenly we're going to these parties. So let me ask you this, Ron. Do you have to go to your book club's holiday party, your work holiday party, your, you know, spouse's holiday party and your family's holiday party and the town Christmas party and all the things?
Dr. Ron Werner-Wilson
Well, earlier you talked about checking in with your partner about expectations. Check in with yourself about those as well and set some—and that's part of setting boundaries. I'm—you know, for some people, if somebody is more of an extrovert, going to 20 parties is exhilarating. But if somebody tends to be a little bit more introverted, and that's the difference between how they get their energy. An extrovert gets their energy by being with a lot of people and being at these sorts of social events. An introvert gets re-energized sometimes by just sitting and reading. It's not that they don't enjoy people. It's just that that can be exhausting for them. And so if you find yourself in that situation, just ask yourself, of this list of events that you just identified, Ashley, which one of those do I want to go to versus do I have to go to because it's expected at my office that I have to be there.
So I'd rather go to this one, but I have to go to that one, to clarify for yourself what that list looks like and what those expectations— and again, if they're exhilarating and exciting for you, go to all of them. Find some more to go to. But if it's one that just feels overwhelming and puts you over the edge, then I think it's completely appropriate. And I've had friends say to me, you know, I can't make it. I'm sorry. I can't make it. And you don't have to give an explanation. See, I just can't make it that night. That's all you have to say.
And so that way you're still living with integrity. You're not making up a lie. If you make up something like, oh, I've got a conflict or I've got to do this, then that can feel kind of bad because you're not working from a place of authenticity. But I think it's okay just to say, you know, I'm not going to be able to make it. Thanks for inviting me. I really appreciate it. It sounds like it's going to be a lot of fun. I hope you enjoy it. Disappointed I can't make it, but I'm just not going to be able to be there.
Ashley Thornberg
Ron, a moment ago you used the phrase, operating from a place of authenticity. What does that mean?
Dr. Ron Werner-Wilson
Yeah, I probably shouldn't have said that. What is this psycho babble jargon? I think to be operating from a point of authenticity means that I'm being honest with myself and others. That doesn't necessarily mean I need to be confrontive. And sometimes that's what can lead to arguments in family gatherings, is if somebody says something that I experience as outrageous in my younger days, I would feel compelled to argue with them and to confront them. But as I've gotten older, I've realized that I don't need to do that. And earlier I would have thought, well, you know, if I'm going to have integrity, I have to tell them that they're dead wrong. That's just not appropriate. But I'm not going to change their mind. So I can just ignore them. As opposed to, you know, now to be inauthentic would be to agree with them, just to avoid having an argument. Oh, that's right.
But I think I can just say, you know, agree to disagree or completely tune them out. And actually, people, the best response to somebody saying something offensive, the absolute best response is to just ignore them because what they're hoping they're going to do is get a rise out of you. And you get to frustrate that. You get to be the one that says, that's on you, buddy.
Ashley Thornberg
That says more about you than it says about me.
Dr. Ron Werner-Wilson
Yeah. And I think that's operating from a place of authenticity. I think also it is that self-awareness to say, you know, I'm really disappointed. I had hoped that we could have had a different experience than what we had.
The other piece, you had asked me in an email about grief, and that's a really complicated experience right now. Sometimes that grief is we miss somebody at these kinds of holiday seasons that we really cared about. And that's a grief most of us understand. You know, I miss my mother because she did love the holidays. But there are also, it gets complicated when the holiday can be a trigger for experiences that weren't so good. Or putting somebody in a situation where they really have a tough relationship with a caregiver, with one of their parents, and now they have to go to a holiday party and act like everything's okay. And so there's that authenticity again. How do you have a relationship? So there's grief about, I didn't have the kind of parenting I wanted to have. And in fact, maybe even it was abusive or traumatic. And now I'm in a room with this person. And so there's a grief there that is really uncomfortable and hard to manage. Because you would love to have that Hallmark Christmas, but in fact, your life was one of being disappointed or hurt by somebody who was supposed to be taking care of you. And that's a lot to try to manage, to figure out emotionally, how do I deal with that? Or if you're not meeting your own expectations about who you should be.
Ashley Thornberg
What are some examples of manifestations of grief? It's easy to just think crying, but there are other ways.
Dr. Ron Werner-Wilson
Well, yeah. So anytimes we're flooded, we have three responses - fight, flight, or freeze. So earlier I just talked about fight, flight, but sometimes we just get paralyzed and we don't know what to do. And so then in those situations, later on, we start thinking about that. And if you ever had that experience actually where you think, “Oh, I wish I would have said this in response to what that person said.”
Ashley Thornberg
Only all day, every day.
Dr. Ron Werner-Wilson
But that's probably where you got the freeze. You were paralyzed because you didn't know how to respond. And so part of that is we've learned in our lives, sometimes we're aggressive and we fight back because we don't see a way out of the situation. And sometimes, particularly for people who've had traumatic experiences, they just kind of freeze. They're paralyzed and they don't know what to do with that. And so when we're emotionally flooded, you know, paying attention to that. Am I just really agitated? Am I wanting to push back? Or am I wanting to escape? You know, so I'm feeling really aroused. And so I just want to get out of this situation. And it's sort of, you know, in the most extreme manifestation, there's this kind of a panic attack.
And to say to your partner or the host, you know, I feel a headache coming on and I need to leave. Or sometimes just, again, that feeling paralyzed. And so being clear with yourself before that event, talking to your ally in that group and or a partner before the meeting to just say, you know, help me get out of this situation.
But when we're flooded and grief can create that flooding and it's really unpredictable. A song that was, so somebody, you know - I was working with a couple one time and the person's partner had left them. And so many kinds of triggers, but music, they were both musicians.
And so if a particular song played, that was a trigger. And so sometimes it can be sadness, but sometimes it can just be anger. So grief isn't always about crying. So we recognize that. And as a partner, if I see my partner crying, it's much easier for me to put my arm around them and say, “Hey, how can I help you?” But if they're feeling angry, it's maybe a little bit harder.
So that goes back to the, if somebody is acting in some sort of unusual way, they are being short. To say, what can I do to help you right now? And to see that as maybe that sign of grief or being overwhelmed. And so they're just really aroused and they don't know what to do with that. We're clenching our teeth. You know, our hands are clenched as well. And we're just really tense.
Ashley Thornberg
I remember hearing the advice one time, “Love someone when they deserve it the least, for that is when they need it the most.”
Dr. Ron Werner-Wilson
You know, that's really great advice. I love that.
Ashley Thornberg
I really want people to do that to me and I really have a hard time doing it to other people.
Dr. Ron Werner-Wilson
I get it. Yeah, it is.
Ashley Thornberg
Ron, let's talk about helping kids out during this time because kids are going through a lot of the same thing that adults are. And we've spent, you know, 35 minutes showing how bad adults are at this and we have a vocabulary for, “I'm feeling overwhelmed.” Kids, not so much. So how can we help recognize when a kid just needs to be removed from a situation or we need to get down to their level and say, “Hey, how can I help?”
Dr. Ron Werner-Wilson
And kids are just so much more raw.
Ashley Thornberg
That's a great word.
Dr. Ron Werner-Wilson
So again, you know, you're taking them to Santa Claus and we've built up all of these ideas about who Santa Claus is. All they see is, you know, this long line of people. They don't like standing in line. This is irritating. Do they really want to sit on the lap? You know, and it's a sort of a contradictory or we're contradicting ourselves and we say, “Be aware of stranger danger. Oh, here's somebody I want you to sit on their lap,” some strange person in a red outfit with white fur and a white beard. You know, it's no wonder that little Albert for years and years and years was afraid of the things that were white after they conditioned him to be afraid of, you know, white fluffy things in the lab. But they are - they're just emotionally wrong.
They don't have the same vocabulary. They don't know how to say I'm overwhelmed or I'm frightened or I'm bored. All they know is they cry or they hit their sibling or they do something else. It's inappropriate. And then as parents we get embarrassed by that as opposed to saying, “Gosh, this is really tough for you, isn't it?”
Kids need routine. I need routine, but kids really need routine. And so this time of year is really disruptive to them, to their bedtimes, to their eating, to the type of food they eat, when they eat, and all of that. It just comes cascading down on them. They don't know how to deal with this. Suddenly you're in a car for 12 hours or you're in an airport where there's all this noise and people and you don't understand this process of boarding and getting put into a seat and the air pressure, the cabin pressure. So we all have our ears start to pop a little bit. If you're six months old, all you know is that you've got discomfort here. So you start to cry.
Everybody on the plane turns and looks at the caregiver and glares at them like, shut your kid up, when this kid is just having the appropriate response to physiological discomfort. And just to say, well, it's okay for my kid to cry. Yeah, you can still hold them and nurture them, but it's not I'm going to hold and nurture them with the expectation that this is going to soothe them and make them stop crying, but I'm going to hold and soothe and nurture them because that's what they need and it's okay for them to cry.
Ashley Thornberg
Parents can be pretty guilty of using guilt to force behavior. Oh, you have to give me a hug. I'm your grandma and it's Christmas. Is that helpful?
Dr. Ron Werner-Wilson
Not a bit. And we struggled with this. I've got three kids. They're all 20 or older right now. We did not think it was appropriate to tell them, go give your grandmother a hug or go give your auntie a hug, if they weren't ready to do that. We felt that if we want them to learn appropriate boundaries, we have to respect their right to decide who they want to hug or not.
And my mother would get her feelings hurt if the kids didn't automatically come over and hug her and want to sit on her lap. And she would see it as somehow an indictment of her nurturing ability versus it has nothing to do with you, mom. You didn't do anything wrong. They just don't know you and they are appropriately wary of people they don't know. And that's what I want them to be because if they have poor boundaries, then they're setting themselves up to be injured by somebody else. And so I had to talk to my mom and reassure her and she never did really get it. It still kind of hurt her feelings that they didn't automatically rush to her and give her a hug like those Hallmark movies.
Ashley Thornberg
It's special when that happens.
Dr. Ron Werner-Wilson
And then as they got older and they got to know my, we only saw my parents a couple times a year because we lived at a distance. As they got to know them, it was easier for them to show that kind of affection. But early on, that was a hard thing for my mom.
So I think we have to respect that and not tell them how to respond emotionally. Now, there are some things you can coach them about. If somebody gives them something, don't say, oh, what I really wanted was this. And so maybe to talk to your children about if somebody gives you something that maybe isn't what you really wanted, what could you say to them? Or maybe you could just say thanks and not say, you know, what I really wanted was whatever they were hoping for on their Christmas list.
Ashley Thornberg
What about bribery? Hey, if you go to this party and you don't throw a scene, I'll give you, you know, an extra half an hour of device time.
Dr. Ron Werner-Wilson
Well, I think this is a time when we are being so disruptive to them. I think using, instead of, like my mother, she would call that bribery, some kind of reinforcement. I mean, we negotiate all the time, right? You know, if you come to my event and then I'll go to, you know, your office party. And so I think it, you know, can be okay to say, I know this is hard. We normally restrict the amount of screen time that you have. But because we're asking you to come to this event in a strange situation, you know, a holiday party or Thanksgiving dinner, Christmas dinner, something like that, Festival of Light, you know, whatever the event is, this is going to stretch you. So I'm going to let you to bring some sort of electronic device as a way to, from time to time, help you manage yourself. And so they can use that. And some people might experience that as being rude, but I think that's being sensitive to the kid. To give them some, you know, options, something that can help them decompress. And if the screen time is the way to do that, then that may be helpful.
Ashley Thornberg
What about age range and when it comes to age appropriateness activities? You know, you might have someone as young as a year old and then someone else who's 16 and we kind of just lump them all in as their kids. Those are very different.
Dr. Ron Werner-Wilson
Well, and that's where a lot of parents get in trouble. Sometimes it's not understanding what's developmentally appropriate. So our friend Google can help us with that.
What can I reasonably expect from a four-year-old versus what can I reasonably expect from a 16-year-old? You know, so I've been at events where poor, you know, this four-year-old is being asked to sit through this three, four, five hour dinner and gets fidgety and the parents get uncomfortable and keep glaring at them and say, “Sit still. I told you to sit still. Didn't we talk about this before we came here?” Well, what can you really expect from a four-year-old? You know, I'm 61. I get squirmy at these really long events and I've got to get up and stretch.
Ashley Thornberg
I've moved like four times during this interview.
Dr. Ron Werner-Wilson
Exactly. So, you know, I think that's really, really important. What can we reasonably expect and understand that what we expect may be different than our parents. So if our parents say something like, “Doesn't she ever sit still?” Which sounds like both a criticism of our child, which gets their dander up, and it also feels like a criticism of our parenting because we haven't taught that kid how to sit like a statue for five hours.
Ashley Thornberg
Right. Getting annoyed by a conversation like that, a comment like that, brings up something we have been talking about, but maybe let's hit it a little bit more head-on. The difference between responding and reacting.
Dr. Ron Werner-Wilson
Those are not the same thing. They're not. And that's a great distinction, Ashley, to make a distinction between responding and reacting. To be reactive is to just sort of immediately, you know, push back.
Ashley Thornberg
You're stabbing the air as you're talking.
Dr. Ron Werner-Wilson
Versus responding to say, instead of pushing back because your feelings are hurt to say, you know, that really hurt my feelings. And that's part of that going back to the being authentic. If somebody says something, you know, I'm feeling really judged right now. And boy, you want to put somebody back on your heels, you know, actually tell them how you feel about something. You know, I'm just feeling really judged. You know, I'm feeling really attacked right now by that or I'm offended by that. And then when somebody says, oh, well, you've always been too sensitive or I was just joking. That may be your intent, but it still hurt my feelings. That's being authentic.
And that's responding in a way that is authentic and not reactive. But there's that little piece in terms of the information jumping synapses in our brain from immediately responding to pausing and thinking, you know, I feel really judged right now. I feel really hurt. I feel, you know, I'm not feeling accepted or valued for who I am. And oftentimes, oh, you're just too sensitive. No, no such thing. Now, you know, anybody listening, if anybody ever tells you you're being too sensitive, they just don't understand human behavior. You cannot be too sensitive.
Ashley Thornberg
What do you mean by that?
Dr. Ron Werner-Wilson
Well, because people will say that. If you say, you know.
Ashley Thornberg
What do you mean by you cannot be too sensitive? Like if you cry at everything, you're really not being too sensitive?
Dr. Ron Werner-Wilson
There's probably some real good reason why you are crying is where it comes down to for me. But it's oftentimes the context I'm putting that in - when somebody is putting you down to say, if you do say, you know, that hurt my feelings or I'm not feeling accepted, I'm feeling rejected. And somebody says, “Oh, you're just too sensitive.” And they're saying that as a put down. And so that is really gaslighting, isn't it? Actually to say you don't have a right, that you do not have the right to feel rejected or not accepted here. You, it's not my fault. And so those people are trying to get themselves off the hook in terms of accountability for their, with their words.
Ashley Thornberg
Give our listeners a definition of gaslighting.
Dr. Ron Werner-Wilson
Gaslighting is when somebody tries to persuade you that you didn't have the experience that you had. And so it's confusing..It goes back, I think, maybe to that guilt - using guilt to try to manipulate somebody to do something that they don't want to do. But gaslighting is even more insidious because you're trying to - and it goes back to that old black and white movie where the husband in that movie is imperceptibly every night turning the gas down just a little bit. So it becomes dimmer and dimmer and dimmer in the room. And the wife asks, “Is it getting darker in here?” And the husband says “No.” And so she starts to doubt her own sense of perception and observation.
And so we've taken that idea from that movie of gaslighting, turning it down and having somebody question themselves. Deny their existence, their experience. Yeah. Yeah. And so when we do that, that's just, that's really a horrible thing. And then some people do embrace that. “Well, I guess I just, I guess I am too sensitive. My parents said I was always too sensitive. I guess I am.” And so that's the kind of, you know - so then they get into adult relationships where they're abused or hurt and then they blame themselves for that as opposed to saying no, that's inappropriate. You should not talk to me that way. You should not, you should not treat me like that.
Ashley Thornberg
So just to sum up here, am I oversimplifying if I say make sure you're getting enough sleep, get enough water, be sure you know how to say “no,” try to model the behavior you expect. Did I miss any other big ones?
Dr. Ron Werner-Wilson
Well, I think clarifying - and maybe it's wrapped up in all of this - clarify expectations for yourself and with anybody else you're going someplace with. Just be careful, compare those, be realistic. Can you have realistic expectations?
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