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- [00:00]
A
Essentially our job as caregivers is to get them ready to be independent people in the world. But they are also so vulnerable throughout the course of growing up in terms of their safety in a variety of ways that they need to have those skills and build those skills in an ongoing way so that they can participate in keeping themselves safe. Hi, Kara.
- [00:32]
B
Hi, Vanessa.
- [00:35]
A
Today's conversation is about something that is seemingly simple and maybe not science based at all, which is the phrase trust your gut or trust your gut instinct. But in fact it has profound layers beneath it that are physiologically based in science and have all sorts of reverberations out from that scientific and physiological basis, which is about teaching kids how to be healthy and safe. And we cover this topic in 18 different ways in our school based curriculum. Everywhere from our kindergarten lesson about safety and consent all the way up through high school, we are constantly referring back to instinct, gut. What is your body telling you? What are the cues? How do you understand your brain's relationship to your body? There's so much fascinating stuff to cover with these three little words, trust your gut. So, Cara, will you start out with actually the physiological basis of this phrase?
- [01:45]
B
I will. I want to preempt that by just saying there's a reason we teach it year in and year out in our curriculum, which is that while these are very biological processes, they're also learned. This is complicated. Like we think about things that just happen automatically inside our body as being things that we don't actually have to learn how to do. But this trusting your gut is this funny combination of your body's going to do this thing automatically that you need to learn to cue into to like you need to listen, you need to actually trust it. We don't say trust your heart to beat, we don't say trust your lungs to breathe, but we have this phrase that you should trust your gut instinct because it's a reminder that that automated process is trying to yell at us. And as kids get older, Vanessa, and we'll get into this, sometimes you have to not trust your gut. Sometimes as you're going through the tween and teen years and the brain is mid development and maybe things are not super even in there and you're making high risk, high reward choices or feel good decisions, that gut instinct might not take you to the right place. Right. And so we'll get into that. But let's talk about the brain gut connection for a second where we did have some of this conversation with Elisa Song, my very dear friend from residency training, who is A pediatrician and functional medicine doctor up in Northern California. And she was on an episode and talked a lot about brain gut connection. But let's just do maybe a quick overview for people who like the science. So we'll start with the vagal nerve. The vagus nerve is the. I think it's the longest nerve in the body. Someone's going to correct me on that. It's very long, this nerve, and it is literally the primary conduit, nerve conduit between the gut and the brain. And what happens in the gut. This is so fascinating to me. I learned this in medical school when I was learning about celiac disease. So kids and adults who have celiac disease, when they ingest gluten, their gut becomes really, really inflamed. And instead of having these villi and microvilli, which are these, like little projections on projections on projections that increase the surface area of the gut, the inflammation kind of wipes all of this away, and your gut turns into this tube and it can't absorb anything particularly well, and the microbiome can't thrive particularly well. And one of the side effects is that serotonin, which is a neurotransmitter and is largely produced in the gut by the microbiome, serotonin levels fall because the gut cannot do what it's supposed to do. And this has been known for a very long time. One of the presenting signs of celiac disease can be depression because of low serotonin levels, but all has to do with inflammation in the gut. And so, you know, that is one kind of brain gut connection. And it's really. It's amazing. Like when I tell you 90% of your body serotonin is made in your gut, and that neurochemical then really feeds into the way your brain thinks and feels. It's remarkable. But that's slightly different from this gut instinct that we're talking about. We're not talking about the microbiome making neurotransmitters. What we're talking about is intuitive signals. What we're talking about is a neural network in the gut that processes information in real time and sends signals to your brain. So, Vanessa, you and I are. We jump on a zoom and. And we are both finishing going through our emails and we're about to start a meeting, and we both get the same email with bad news and what happens, or good news and what happens. We look at each other on the screen, our faces fall, we become pale, and we have horrible. It feels like a pit in our stomach. And that is sort of one of these feelings that we, I think have all experienced day in and day out of our gut telling us something is wrong and you literally, you feel sick to your stomach. Right?
- [06:37]
A
Right. So all of those times that we all told our children that like you're fine. When they told us their stomach hurt or they felt nauseous or whatever gut related complaint they had that we dismissed, in fact, they might have felt sick. They also might have been having stress responses or other kinds of emotional responses that were showing up in their bellies. So well done us. I include myself in that, in that category of invalidating how my kids are feeling. But hopefully after this episode we will all be more empathic of our children. My complaints taking the do over.
- [07:24]
B
But I think it's important to know this is bi directional. It's not like your gut only sends messages to your body.
- [07:29]
A
It's like a high. It's a highway. It's so cool.
- [07:31]
B
It's a super highway. It's like an autobahn. Vanessa. The brain sends to the gut. The gut sends to the brain. It is. When you start tuning into this, you should do this thought experiment, try to see where you feel it first. That's actually a really nice distraction for me. When I'm having like a total oh my God moment, I just distract myself by saying, huh, did I feel that my gut first or.
- [07:56]
A
Right. Like a body scan is always a great idea with ourselves or with kids. And always. Cara. It's really fascinating because as we wrote our K3 curriculum, K through 3 curriculum with Barbara Stretchberry, who's of American Girl editor fame and brings all of that wonderful energy to the curriculum. There's so much content of versions of body scans throughout the curriculum. And teaching kids not just interoception of like, am I hungry? Am I thirsty, Am I tired? Do my eyes sting? Right. But what am I feeling in my belly? What am I feeling? Is my heart racing? Are my palms sweating? Is the back of my neck prickling? Right. Like teaching them all of those things. And there's language in the curriculum that I love so much, which is about how sometimes our bodies physically react before the messages get to our brains and how that's instinct. That's survival instinct. Right. So another kind of instinct we talk about related to safety, but survival instinct rooted in our evolution. Right. Like rooted in us as cavemen. And if you could talk about that a little bit, I think be super interesting.
- [09:13]
B
I mean it's. There's so many pathways that are in charge of this. And go back to, you know, know the burning hot stove, the baby near the burning hot stove, right? So when a child puts their hand, or anyone, but I'm going to use
- [09:29]
A
the baby, I just burn myself and keep burning myself. I mean, it's like I don't count.
- [09:35]
B
I'm not calling you baby. So when a baby puts their hand on a hot stove, they're sort of the pain pathway, right? Which is going to tell their brain there's danger. You have to move your hand, right? And then if you burn your hand a time or two, then there's the anticipation feeling, right? And this is sort of one pathway of sort of a learned response to something that causes pain. But you jerk your hand away so fast before you can even realize what's happening.
- [10:04]
A
Before you jerk it.
- [10:05]
B
You feel the pain because you feel the pain, right?
- [10:08]
A
Yeah, I. Sorry. You feel the pain and then you jerk it away. And then sometimes you don't feel the pain for a second. And there's a fascinating reason for that, Cara, which I'm going to let you say, because I'm going to say, I mean, it's the, it's the adrenaline, right?
- [10:26]
B
It can be, it can also be the slowness of the nerve fibers. Like sometimes you actually it just takes a minute or like a few seconds.
- [10:34]
A
I mean, my mother in law has been cooking for so many decades and burnt herself so many times that I swear to God, the woman can now pull hot pans out of the oven like without even like an.
- [10:45]
B
That's a whole different other skill set.
- [10:47]
A
It's like she has calluses. Oh yeah. Like pulling out of the oven. So the.
- [10:52]
B
Do not endorse.
- [10:53]
A
So it's the, it's the speed of the nerve response.
- [10:57]
B
It can be. And you know, there are these classic cases. In fact, my kids had a, an unbelievable middle school science teacher who brought a friend of his into the classroom in the sixth grade every year. And this was someone who had a neuropathy, a problem with the nerves in their hands and feet and could touch very hot things and not feel it. Could poke themselves with a pin and not feel it. And the reason why he would come into the classroom is this sounds like such an exciting skill to have. You don't feel pain. Well, it's not. It's actually extraordinarily dangerous because his brain cannot register when something is dangerous for his body. So if he puts his hand on a hot stove, then he doesn't know instinctively to take it off because he doesn't feel that pain. And that is actually there's something called diabetic neuropathy, where people with advanced diabetes, over time their peripheral nerves, the nerves in their hands, the nerves in their feet will lose that sensation. And they can have a lot of problems where, you know, you hear about someone who has infected toes, for instance, who's diabetic. And the reason that happens is they get a toe injury and they actually don't feel it. And unless they're the noticing type who's physically body scanning all the time, they may not take care of it because they don't. They're not getting any of those inputs. So that's, that's sort of one path. It's also important, though, to recognize. Vanessa. Do you ever have that thing where you're driving a car and someone stops short and you slam on the brakes, right? And it feels like every nerve in your body fires? Do you know that feeling? It's like, it's like you can't catch your breath.
- [12:47]
A
Like you're like. It's like you just ran a mile in six.
- [12:50]
B
And there's this physical sensation that is so singular to that moment of existential threat.
- [12:57]
A
Right.
- [12:58]
B
That is sort of the. In the most extreme case, I would say that gut instinct is. If that's a spectrum and, and that sort of feeling of all over every nerve firing is on one end of the spectrum, I would put gut instinct very far on the other side of the spectrum. It's like a. It can be a nuanced feeling, it can be a sense, it can be a, you know, I want to say a spidey sense. Like that I'm walking down the street and the way this person who's walking towards me looks, carries themselves sounds is just giving me clues that I should cross the street to be a little bit safer. Right? Like, or when I'm walking my dogs, my dogs may make people feel that
- [13:48]
A
way because they're going crazy sometimes you're that person or your dogs are those. Right?
- [13:54]
B
That person. So I, you know, there's, there's sort of a continuum of this. But what we want kids to learn that I think we take for granted as adults is we want them to start paying attention to. Not the slam on the brakes, full body firing part, although pay attention to that, but to the much more subtle, what we call gut instinct. Like, this isn't feeling safe, this isn't feeling smart, this isn't feeling, you know, fill in the blank. And also, when is something feeling good? Like, I don't think gut instinct has to be about all negative things. It can be about, I feel like if I try this, I tee myself up for something really exciting, right? So, like, there's so much. And Barbara does such a beautiful job of helping kids tap into not just gut instincts that protect them, but also gut instincts that help them grow and thrive.
- [15:01]
A
Right. I mean, this episode is about. It's about the former that helps them protect them. And when we interviewed Emily Oster and we were sort of, you know, I was like, well, we have all this data, but, like, where does instinct come in? And I remember her saying, instinct is learned. Like instinct is through lived experience. Instinct is from absorbing and reading and being in conversation about this data over time or being in, you know, relationship to other people over time. And that helps build instinct. So instinct is not just inborn, genetic, full stop. Instinct is also developed, honed, and learned over time. So it's not actually one thing. It's sort of like a meta thing in our, in our human experience. And the reason it's so important with kids and safety is because first of all, they need to grow that instinct. They need to learn that skill over time so that ultimately when they are out in the world as independent human beings, as teens and young adults and older adults, they can function independently. Right? That's essentially our job as caregivers is to get them ready to be independent people in the world. But they are also so vulnerable throughout the course of growing up in terms of their safety in a variety of ways that they need to have those skills and build those skills in an ongoing way so that they can participate in keeping themselves safe.
- [16:38]
B
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- [18:55]
A
Cara we should spend a minute talking about how we our generation was raised around this issue of personal safety and all of that. And it was about stranger danger. Like we were raised to be afraid of the people we didn't know. And it was the Eitan Pats disappearance in New York city in the 70s. And was it in the 70s?
- [19:22]
B
Well, I think so.
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A
Was it in the 80s?
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B
And then the milk cartons became the primary marketing tool. This is so amazing.
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A
1979. Yeah, May of 1979. We grew up reading.
- [19:37]
B
Okay. You have to tell the millennial parents who are listening what it was like.
- [19:42]
A
Okay, so there was no. No phones, no iPads, no nothing at the kitchen table or the kitchen counter, wherever you were eating your breakfast. So you had a cereal box. Right? Because we all ate cereal because the milk industry told us that we needed cereal and milk as a healthy breakfast.
- [20:01]
B
And orange juice.
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A
And orange juice.
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B
Let's be clear. There were three things.
- [20:07]
A
So you grew. We grew up with a cereal box which had games and trivia and things to read on the back of it because again, there was nothing else.
- [20:17]
B
And no phone. So you had a puzzle on the
- [20:20]
A
back of your puzzle box or like a maze or whatever. And then a milk carton.
- [20:24]
B
You should just put social media on the Back of cereal boxes. Go on, Vanessa.
- [20:28]
A
Then people would read. And the milk carton. This is so bananas, Kara. When I think about it, the cardboard milk cartons had pictures of missing children.
- [20:41]
B
Yes.
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A
And so a black and white picture. So you'd have like a red.
- [20:44]
B
Can you describe the pictures?
- [20:45]
A
You'd have a red carton of milk. And we didn't have any of those twist off spouts. It was. You open the milk carton badly. So it was like that you pull out the triangle and it was like mashed and like depending on which sibling of yours did it like the milk would pour out like sideways and all over the counter. So you know, red milk carton. And on one side of the four sides of the square, you had a black and white photograph and information about a missing child.
- [21:18]
B
And in big block letters, black bold font, all caps, it said missing child colon. And then there was the name, which this is probably the most sort of upsetting piece that I've never really thought
- [21:37]
A
about until never now thought about this.
- [21:39]
B
Like Vanessa, every milk carton, like not every milk carton, but there were many kids. It wasn't. It wasn't like you always saw the same kit.
- [21:49]
A
No.
- [21:49]
B
And so the fear, like the, the branding and marketing of fear and the stranger danger. It wasn't just that our parents were taught. We were taught and people be very afraid. You don't want to end up on a milk carton. Like that was a thing. Or millennial parents. If you're shocked, you have to ask people who are 10 years older.
- [22:13]
A
I mean, it's like, it's so crazy Car. We have no idea what year it is, but we can remember exactly what is said on those milk cartons 40 and 50 years ago. We can talk about that. And on top of. Yeah, we would grow up watching TV and at a certain point at night there would be like a public service announcement and it would say, it's 9pm do you know where your children are?
- [22:41]
B
Or do you know where your children are?
- [22:43]
A
Yeah. Do you. Do you know?
- [22:44]
B
Like, do you know?
- [22:45]
A
I'm sorry, the tone is not right. Do you know where your children are? Like, I. E. Your children may have been abducted like 15 minutes ago, but because they're not home, I mean, and I don't mean to make light of this, this is.
- [22:58]
B
No, guys, because it happened.
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A
Terrifying.
- [23:00]
B
It did happen and it happened. It happened. But Vanessa, the big disservice that was done and I actually don't have the data at my fingertips, but it would be very helpful for us to get this data. So I'll try to find it, and then maybe we'll just send it out in the newsletter. But the data now is very clear that the biggest risk was never a stranger.
- [23:24]
A
It's. No, we have data, you know.
- [23:26]
B
Yeah, but I want to know the data from the 70s.
- [23:28]
A
Oh, I don't have the data. I don't have the data from the 70s. I have the data from the 70s.
- [23:32]
B
Today's data is crystal clear. Today's data is 90% of the predators are known to the kids who are. Fill in the blank. Whatever the scary thing is that the predator is doing to them. And this is sort of an alarming statistic from the Department of justice that 23% of the perpetrators are actually kids. So, you know, here we were raised in an environment to be afraid of everyone we didn't know. And really, the life skill that we all needed was how to. I'm gonna. I'm gonna actually bring this back to the episode. You're gonna be proud of me. The life skill was how to listen to your gut instinct and follow through with it. Because actually, odds are, if you're going to be in a situation with someone who is an abductor or a predator or anything else, it's going to be someone you know. And the gut instinct thing is not just about predation, but in its most extreme example, it is.
- [24:35]
A
Well. And we were taught, like, give uncle so and so a hug, even though uncle so and so creeped us out. Even though uncle so and so we could smell the alcohol on his breath and he put his hands in places we didn't. Like the number of women who have told me stories about that person and their family. Or we were told, give so and so a kiss or call them by this term of endearment. And all of our instincts were like, no way. This feels awful to me. And yet we were socialized. No, this is respect for your elders. You do what I tell you or you do what they're asking. Which, Kara, very sadly, is like, play that forward. And the stories that people have so bravely shared about their sexual abuse from people in positions of trust, from religious figures to police officers and fire people to teachers. I mean, it's just devastating what happened to people.
- [25:39]
B
Yeah. And, you know, it's interesting. We have an episode with Meg Josephson, who wrote the book are you mad at me? And really what she explores is the fawning response. So the fawning response is when. When we are threatened, when something is coming our way, you know, everyone knows fight Flight freeze. The sort of three classic responses. And what she writes about is the fourth F, which is fawning. And fawning is engaging the threat in order to disarm it. And it connects very deeply to this way we were raised because, you know, I'm someone who believes and respect your elders. And yet when it crosses the line of fawning, where when you feel threatened, when not only your family but the world around you is telling you no, you neutralize the aggression by making that person feel comfortable by following what they want you to do. That is, I think that's the connector that ends up creating that very devastating outcome. She argues that we all are going to respond to threat some way or another. But fawning, which looks when you know your predator and you don't know how to say no and you don't know how to find a trusted adult and all the things fawning does not serve you well.
- [27:05]
A
Right. And you know, we've talked endlessly about how teaching kids the anatomical terms for all of their body parts, including their genitals, keeps them safe from sexual predation. The reason that is is because it indicates to a predator who is grooming or approaching a child that there is a trusted adult in conversation with them about their bodies, about how their bodies work and who can touch their bodies. So that's one aspect of it. But there's other parts of the conversation we're going to have today, which is the associated skills that come with not just knowing the names of your body parts, but also how to understand your body in other ways which we talked about, right, the sort of the physical manifestation of gut instinct, how to set body boundaries. Right. How to let someone know how to advocate for yourself, how to. And how to go to someone, literally how to go to a trusted adult to let them know, hey, I don't feel safe. And that can be a very complicated situation. I will tell you. I had a situation in my own family, my extended family, where there was a person who joined our family at some point and my kids told me they didn't feel comfortable with this person. And I was picking up on similarly uncomfortable vibes. And I told some family members we wouldn't be joining a certain experience because of my kids discomfort. And I said, you know, they just don't feel comfortable around this person. And I was made to feel like I was crazy and judgmental. And I was made to feel like my kids were, quote, you're going to love this one, overreacting. And I said, I don't care These are my kids instincts. These are my instincts. I'm teaching my kids to trust their instincts. I don't care if it makes you uncomfortable. This is the skill I want my kids to know above all else. And it might be inconvenient, but this is what I'm doing.
- [29:12]
B
I mean, I think that's amazing. I think that's an easier path than the other path that so often comes up, which is one person, a kid or another adult feels one way instinctively and the other person doesn't.
- [29:27]
A
Yeah. So let's talk, let's talk about that because that becomes, it's easy for my kids because I was having the same reaction and I could be their advocate. Right. They came to me and I don't want to diminish.
- [29:37]
B
Like that was really important and it wasn't like your whole family agreed, your whole bigger family agreed with you and it was hard.
- [29:43]
A
And by the way, my kids ability to come and tell me is born of years and years and years of conversation about, like, when do you feel safe? How do you know if you don't feel safe? Who do you talk to? Right. But sometimes kids come to us and we're like, wait, really? Like I need that person to drive you in the carpool. Or like, wait, but that person is your, like your basketball coach. Or like that's our clergy person. Like that's really annoying that you don't feel safe with them because like our lives revolve around routines and structures that like kind of involve that person, for example.
- [30:19]
B
Right. Or we tell ourselves a story that works for us. I mean, when my kids and I have this conversation and when I talk to older teens and adults about this, not, this isn't how I would frame it for younger kids. But when I talk about it with older kids and other adults, I will sometimes talk about an example that came up in my own life that was so dramatic. I had a family that I took care of in my practice and I knew both parents, I thought pretty well, and took care of their kids. And one day the dad was arrested and the dad was arrested on sexual predation charges. And I came home and I said, there's no way. There's no way I know this guy. There's no way. And it turns out I was very wrong. I wanted to know what my gut instinct told me about him. I knew him in this context where he would come in with his kids. All of the sort of boxes were checked for me in the way I was engaging with him. I didn't really know him. And I had written a story, and it was such an eye opener for me, Vanessa. Because it's a good reminder that when two people have two different reactions to someone, someone's gonna be right and someone's gonna be wrong. And sometimes we just don't have all the data and we just don't know and we're gonna be wrong. So if a child. And, you know, we. In our curriculum, we teach kids the importance of talking to a trusted adult. Okay. This is the main message that we send is, no one will ever be mad at you for being in conversation. But we need the adults on the receiving end of that to not be mad at them. When they come and they say, this is the feeling I have. We have to help the trusted adults get to a point where they can receive the input from the kids. And if they don't agree, figure out how they're going to have that conversation. If they do agree, figure out how they're going to have that conversation. But, like, that's tricky. That's the tricky spot.
- [32:43]
A
Right. And it's funny that you use that word because in the curriculum and the new phrase is tricky people. So we've moved from stranger danger to tricky people. These are tricky people because it allows for sort of a broader sense from a kid. Right. Like, I don't necessarily feel unsafe or frightened, but something about this feels tricky to me. And frankly, and I don't think this is intended by the term, but it also implies it's tricky for the adults managing the situation, too. Right. It's not always uncomplicated because of the data we cited that 90% of the time, these are folks known to. To a kid. The fascinating thing about when we talk to kids about finding trusted adults, when we work with kids and workshops, we say, give us a list. We want a nice long list of all of the grownups you can go to. And we work with the kids to come up with their list. And they're awesome lists. Right. Like, the littler kids are like, well, the feelings doctor at school, that's the therapist or the psychologist on staff. So I love that. Name the feelings doctor or the nurse or my little E coach, and then they'll inevitably name someone, and you're like, really? You'd go to that person? Like, I wouldn't. But part of the reason, in the context of this conversation, that we want you to have a long list of people with your kid is because sometimes they're going to tell you something and you're going to dismiss it.
- [34:17]
B
Yeah.
- [34:18]
A
And they should have the sense, no, I am feeling this, this matters. I'm going to go down my list and find another trusted adult to go to because this is really important that I talk to someone who listens. And I don't say that with judgment. I am someone, as I said earlier, who has dismissed or ignored or gotten exasperated by my kids when they express stuff like we are all fallible in this situation, but it's our kids safety demands. They have other people on their list besides us to go to.
- [34:54]
B
Okay? I want to throw in gender just because there may be listeners who are thinking, well, this is easier for girls to have this conversation, for instance, or it's easier for boys. And I just want to pop those bubbles for a second because there is,
- [35:09]
A
it's hard for everyone.
- [35:11]
B
It's hard for everyone. There's gender socialization that works against this in both ways and I think it helps us to understand that lens as well. So these are like raging stereotypes, okay? But in general, girls are socialized to be pleasers. Now this is shifting, I would argue. And, and it has to do with temperament and personality and all the things, but it broadest strokes, be nice to everyone. Don't rock the boat, you know, be inclusive. And when you, when you play and you, you're playing and you're creating something, you create it for everyone. This is a very sort of, this goes back to Carol Gilligan research in the 1960s and 70s. Like it's really old school stuff.
- [36:02]
A
Be nice above all else. Be nice, nice, be nice.
- [36:07]
B
And by the way, I mean just to like beat the dead horse. That does not get these girls very far down the road of trusting their instinct and going to a trusted adult and saying this person is a tricky person. When at every turn they're told, be nice, be nice, be nice, be kind, be forgiving, be pleasing, be all the things. So we have to recognize that that's how they're being socialized and help them figure out how are they going to identify this gut instinct and get over it and come talk to a trusted adult.
- [36:43]
A
I mean, before we get to boys, I can tell you I have coached thousands of girls in my career. And the biggest reason, when girls, you can see on their faces and in their body language that something is wrong, that they uncomfortable, their personal bubble has been violated, they're upset and you say to them, hey, like it seems like something's going on. I'm fine, I'm fine. This is like 6, 7 and 8 year old girls have already been socialized to say I'm fine. Or if you see them being touched or sort of, you know, played with by friends in a way that's clearly making them uncomfortable and you say, hey, I can tell from your face that you're not comfortable. Why don't you tell your friend that like what they're doing doesn't feel great and you'd like them to stop, oh no, I can't do that because then they'll be mad at me and they won't want to be my friend anymore. These are elementary school age kids, so anyone who's listening, thinking, what the hell are you doing this for kindergarten through third graders, these lessons are learned and inculcated in the earliest school years. And then they only get deeper as kids go. So don't wait to have these conversations and listen.
- [37:59]
B
It gets complicated because we're talking about trusting your gut and it's not just about adults. So this is going to take a lot of sorting through with, you know, a five, six, seven, eight year old, let alone a teenager about. So my instinct is that this person is violating my space or is tickling me too hard all the time or is breaking the rules in class and wants me to join. And I. That makes me feel uncomfortable. Now what? And you know, our goal is not to isolate our kids and say systematically. Well then don't spend time with this person, don't spend time with that person. Each one of these scenarios requires conversation around what tools in your toolbox are you going to access to figure out sort of where your personal boundary is, what feels comfortable, what language you can use to communicate, what feels comfortable to you, how you can be mutually respectful, trying to teach empathy, want to make sure that they're sensitive to whatever's going on for that kid. I mean, there's so many layers, right? There's so many layers. And so this is not a one off conversation. It really is a lot of sort of figuring out. But it's thematically a really important thread to pull through. And I will say for the record, in my own family, my kids were relieved when this was the theme that was being discussed rather than porn all the time. So it was a little break from that. You weren't expecting that.
- [39:32]
A
Good. It's consent night, not porn night exactly,
- [39:36]
B
but let's talk about boys and boy socialization for a second because this also works counter to teaching them to trust their gut. So boys get socialized. You described the girls who say they're fine. Boys are socialized. Again, not all, and this is shifting, but many are socialized to actually convince themselves they don't feel anything. And they do.
- [40:03]
A
I'm fine.
- [40:03]
B
Fine.
- [40:04]
A
I'm fine.
- [40:04]
B
What? Yeah, right. They lock. It is like a lock box. And when that lockbox has so much pressure coming because the feelings don't go away, they just get bottled up. Then there is anger or aggression, and. And there is a very strong theme in their socialization that. That anger, aggression, strength, masculinity, brute force, all the things are actually okay. They are. These are rational, reasonable expressions of these feelings. And, you know, you and I sit with boys all over the country who talk about not wanting to get to this point of emotional outbursts. They have the same spectrum of feelings that girls have. And they often are told, hey, you don't need the language for those feelings. You don't need the toolbox for those feelings. I think there are a lot of people doing a lot of wonderful work around boys, especially now. There are so many books out. There are so many people speaking up about it. I am very optimistic that this is going to start to shift and change. But when we talk about kind of, okay, here's where we are. Snapshot in real time. There's a lot of teaching to do with our boys in terms of helping them. You don't only have to tap into the instinct. You have to allow yourself to. To feel the instinct. We'll be right back, but first, a word from our sponsors.
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- [42:20]
A
Rated PG 13. So, like, in addition to your awesome book decoding boys, folks like Christopher Pepper and Joanna Schroeder's book Talk to youo Boys, Ruth Whitman's book Boy Mom. Those are additional wonderful. And they, you know, go deeper into certain areas. They also quote you extensively, which always makes for a good book. So anyone grappling with that, this is a long journey, Cara. And I speak from experience on that. And don't give up on sort of deprogramming your sons on this, because their future emotional and physical wellbeing depends on them learning to express themselves emotionally. And in the context of this conversation, their safety depends on it. I mean, you just have to look at the heartbreaking stories from the Catholic Church abuse over decades and how these boys and young men kept what happened to them secret and were destroyed by it. And, you know, the ones who were able to get help and speak out and to find support and resources. Thank God, but so many lives were affected by this abuse.
- [43:36]
B
Vanessa, I'm going to do the thing I never do, which is make sure that people know where they can find the resources in our materials. Because we're talking a lot about how we teach kids in schools, but what we haven't talked a lot about is how we teach parents and trusted adults in parallel. And I think this is a good moment for us to just inject that Anyone who goes onto our hub and joins our hub community, not only is all the content like this podcast will be up in the hub, but there is a course in the hub that is the parent version of what we teach kids in schools. And with this kind of topic in particular, it becomes so critical for parents to ask, actually, no one taught us this. I mean, go back to the milk cartons. Like, no one taught us this. And so while we're educating our kids, we do need to educate ourselves. And it's not a lot of homework, it's not a heavy lift. These are, you know, one sheeters that are hyperlinked for people who like to go down rabbit holes and they, there's tons of research. But for people who just need like literally the SparkNotes Cliff Notes version of what a kid is going to be taught over time in a classroom, we've got it for you. We will put a link in the show notes to our hub and you can go in there anytime, as often as you need to get refreshers because I promise you this will come up over and over again. And as you start to become aware of, of their inability to listen to their guts, it's like the chip in the dent in the wall that you never noticed before that once you see it, you can't unsee it. That's how it feels to help raise a kid who now you suddenly realize, oh, oh, they need some help learning how to trust their gut.
- [45:45]
A
So let's spend the last few minutes talking about how to have these conversations. What are the skills you can build? And we are also going to link in the show notes to resources from the Department of Justice's national sex offender public website, which has like very in depth guidance to have specific conversations broken up for younger kids and for teens in a preventative way so that God forbid they're ever in a situation, they have the knowledge, the skills, they've built the muscle of listening to their instinct and then acting on their instinct, because that's the last piece of this, having an instinct is great, but then you have to act on it to keep yourself safe. And so with younger kids, we talked about body scans, right? It's all about just casually, over time, helping kids be aware of their body signals. Yes, hunger and thirst, but also like, hey, we're about to go on this roller coaster. What does it feel like inside your body? Where do you feel that? Right? Not just the bad stuff, the excitement, the joy, the love. Like, oh, it's so nice to cuddle up with our dog. Where do you feel it in your body? I feel it in my belly. Like a warm feeling, like there's hot chocolate in my belly. Right. So, like, helping them build that granularity of language, that noticing. And part of the reason we do these things young is because they are not yet cynical. They are willing to lie on the floor with us. They're willing to play these games. They're willing to sort of absorb it. It's the best because they're like these open sponges just like, waiting to take on everything you say to them. And so starting this skill building, this noticing, this language, this body scanning early is so, so great. So that's part one, and it has no agenda except just noticing an awareness, which is a wonderful thing in any number of ways. Part two is about role playing and scenario building. And this becomes a little trickier. So, car, what's a scenario that you might present a younger kid about a, A, A tricky person?
- [48:09]
B
I mean, I don't want to do the uncle who you're supposed to hug, because that's everyone's example.
- [48:14]
A
I know, I. It's like everyone's got that uncle. I feel so bad for uncles because, like, uncles are awesome. But somehow that's become the guy.
- [48:22]
B
It's, it's such a bummer, but maybe. Well, I'm going to take one from the 1970s and we're going to play it forward into the, you know, the, the current day version of how this would be handled. The ice cream truck, man. Oh, so millennial parents. This was another real icon of fear when we were growing up was that it was sort of like the original white van with no windows. The ice cream truck. That guy. There were stories he was gonna abduct you and he was gonna invite you into his truck to give you a special ice cream, and he was going to abduct you. Okay, so, Vanessa, let's take that scenario. A kid goes up to buy the ice cream. They're trying to be independent. The parent is a few Feet away, and they're like, giving the kids some space. And the kid's trying to go and buy the ice cream at the ice cream truck. And now lay out the scene for us.
- [49:24]
A
So if you're in New York City, the ice cream truck line is like 400 people long. So like, like no one's getting abducted. And there's like a thousand witnesses. But, you know, not everyone is on, like, the Upper west side buying ice cream. And sometimes you're at the baseball game and you know your kid's the last kid. So you want to lay some ground rules. You want to clock your fears, you want to clock your own socialization. Right. What were the stories I was told? What was the underlying purpose of those stories? Not the sort of, like, fear mongering, but what was the underlying purpose? The underlying purpose was kids need to know they never go with someone they don't know, or they never go with someone maybe they know but isn't approved by their parent. Or they can go with someone, but they have to get approval from somebody else. Right? So there's kind of layers of thought processing. And it's so funny. When my brother and I were, I think, 8 and 6, we used to pick up our school bus at the train station on the other side of town. My mom would drop us at the train station. We went to school several towns over. So it was sort of like the lesser of two evils to get us to school. And we didn't like our bus driver. Our bus driver actually creeped us both out. And we told our mom, but the story's not about that. There was a snow delay, and my mom didn't know, so she dropped us at the bus, and we're waiting at the bus stop, and the bus stopped, was not coming. And I was like, okay, well, we gotta walk home. And like, I was 8 and he was 6, and he was like, all right. And so we start walking home, and I think it's probably. It's probably a three, two or three mile walk home. And we get home, and my mom at that point had been frantically calling the school and calling the bus company, and no one knew where we were, what was a hundred yards from the train station, the police station, what didn't we do? We didn't walk to the police station. We didn't stop at the real estate agent who was good friends with my mom. We didn't stop at the coffee shop where my parents went every day. We had one solution based on something that had never happened before. And, you know, we Made it home. But there were all sorts of scenarios that could have been played out with the ice cream truck, with the bus driver, with the whomever, but no one had ever done it with us. So we were like, all right, here we go. So what did my mom do after the fact? She was like, okay, so if you're ever in this position, I want you to go to the police station. You won't be in trouble. Here's who you can ask for. If nobody's there, you can't get ahold of someone, I want you to go down the street and stop. Speak to Nancy. She can help you. Right. And then we walked through. Ideally, we would have had those conversations before. So those are the fears. The. The ice cream truck is one example of the fears that need the sort of prophylactic conversations.
- [52:35]
B
That's right. And so to bring your blood pressure down as a parent, the things that you can do are to anticipate, like, come up with the three or four scenarios that you know are a little worrying to you and do that role playing. Or if you hate role playing, use the line that Vanessa just used. If this were to happen, what could you do? Or here's what I think you should do. What do you think of that? The one I want to throw in there, that is not a 1970s phenomena, but is very much a today phenomena, is the sort of Predator Stranger Online, which is a very real thing and is like a great teaser for another episode. But really is, I think, the thing, it's the ice cream truck of today, that our kids, whether they have their own devices or use ours, our kids are out on platforms where in many cases, adults, some of whom know them and some of whom don't, can access them and start communicating with them. And we need to build their gut instinct there. We need to build their resilience there. We need to help them create a filter there. In the world of AI, this is going to become increasingly difficult, and it's going to feel a little overwhelming to us as the adults who are so not native to this environment. And we're going to have to lean on younger folks who are a bit more fluent in this, all the. The technology of it, to teach us. We'll come in with the medical and the psychological and the scientific piece and lean into their expertise on the tech side, because it's going to take a lot of working together to help us figure out when it's AI bots or not coming at our kids. But this is the. The today threat. This is the today version of it. And it's the, the best, worst piece of advice, role playing scenarios, walking through it.
- [54:55]
A
Right? So the homework that you have. Sorry to give you homework when you already, your lives are already so crazy. The homework is clock what your fears are with your kid. And rather than dumping your fears on them, think about examples of where those fears might show up and just bit by bit over the dinner table, on a car ride, on a walk, just throw one out there. Hey, what would you do if or how could you handle it? If or who are the people in your life you can go to? And who are the people in your life who don't feel super comfortable to you? And just building that connection, that pathway for conversation, that awareness in kids and then the execution of building the muscle of what would you do? How would you handle it? What do you think about? And over time, they become more fluent in it and you can gain more confidence and less fear at their ability to navigate these situations.
- [56:01]
B
That's right. That's right.
- [56:03]
A
So. And it doesn't ever get not scary. I mean, we have young adults in our families and we still worry. So you never don't worry. You just have more and more faith in your kid's ability to navigate tricky people and tricky situations.
- [56:18]
B
I mean, it's a muscle, that gut instinct, and we gotta learn to flex it. My gut instinct, Vanessa, is that you are a very good person.
- [56:28]
A
Oh, that's so nice. Thanks, Cara. Yeah, I think you're not a tricky person. I think you're a conversation. If you weren't on Zoom, I would give you a hug. But since you're on Zoom, I can
- [56:41]
B
just share the uncle.
- [56:43]
A
Yeah. Oh, poor uncles. But also listen to your kid when they tell you that.
- [56:52]
B
Bye, Vanessa.
- [56:55]
A
Thank you so much for listening. You can email us with questions, feedback, or Episode requests@podcast.com if you want to
- [57:05]
B
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