← Thriving Kids
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- [00:00]
A
Hello and welcome to the Thriving Kids podcast with me, Dr. Dave Anderson. This is the flagship and only podcast of the Child Mind Institute, and it's the show we talk about what really helps kids thrive and what makes parenting just a little easier along the way. Today we're tackling something that often gets pushed to the bottom of every parent's to do list, taking care of yourself. Parenting is demanding and when you're running on empty, everything gets harder. But here's the self care isn't selfish. It's actually one of the best ways we can show up for our kids. It's not a luxury, it's fuel for parenting. To help us explore this topic, I'm joined by Dr. Joanna Kim, a clinical psychologist and assistant professor at Arizona State University. Her work focuses on reducing mental health disparities, engaging families, and improving outcomes for families in underserved communities. She brings both deep clinical expertise and real compassion to this conversation and I think you'll find her insights grounding and empowering. Let's get into it. Doctor Joanna, if you could tell us a bit about your work and how you come to work with parents and families, we'd love to hear about it.
- [01:06]
B
Yeah, we know that there are just so many great evidence based parenting programs out there. They work really, really, really well. But they also are all predicated on having parents come to a session. Right. Whether it's virtual, over the or in person, parents have to be there and then they have to do all the elements of the intervention. Right? They have to practice it in the session, they have to go home and then they have to practice it with their kids. That's a lot to ask of parents. And so my research is really about what are the components of that. We call it engagement. What does it look like? How do parents engage? What gets in the way of parents engaging, what makes it really difficult for them? And then the key piece that we're really excited about is learning from parents themselves. When they get stuck, when things are difficult, how do they overcome them? So we're really homing in on home practice. So these are the pieces of like, okay, you learned about praise in your session. You go home and you have to practice praise with your kids. You know, how do parents actually do that? Practice? How do they remember to do it? You know, when it doesn't go that well, how do they, you know, stay persistent and keep going on? So that's pretty much what we do, is we really want to learn from parents about how they engage and how we can learn to help other parents Engage better.
- [02:27]
A
So this is already something where for any parent who's listening to this while washing dishes or taking a run or dropping their kids off at various things, I mean, you know, it's already such an empathizing turn just in talking about your work because I feel like far too much of the field is something where we will, you know, talk about a particular treatment and then we'll hear other clinicians, you know, researchers talk about like, oh, but you know, it's really hard to get parents follow through on this. And it's tough because I think for a lot of parents, what I see in practice is that they'll come into the office and their view of child therapy is they think they're going to drop the kid off with me and the kid and I are going to work together and then like this is going to work sort of like the model of adult therapy where you see the therapist as confidential, you then do the work outside of therapy. And it can be kind of a shock to find out that you need to be so engaged where kid therapy really works when parents in the village are engaged. So just looking at your research, what are some of the main factors predicting like how parents will be more likely to engage if we support them or in supportive ways?
- [03:33]
B
We're still trying to figure that out. One of the big things that we have come across though is just parents who just have more, I would say, like social logistical barriers. Right. We often talk about social determinants of health. Right. But having a lot more kind of financial barri barriers, those often get in the way. One of the things that's really, really cool about our research is we're really focused on minority families and immigrant families as well. Right. And historically we've seen that. We try to, I would say in the, in scientists, we often characterize Spanish speaking families, minority families, immigrant families, low income families as less engaged. They don't show up to as many sessions. Well, they don't participate the same way that other parents do. But what we're finding in our research is actually the opposite. When you look at engagement kind of a little bit more broadly and think about, well, what are the types of questions that parents are asking when they say, hey, this doesn't work for me, or the level of practice that they do at home, we're actually finding that Spanish speaking families and low income families tend to participate a lot more than some of our typical families that are, you know, middle income, English speaking and have a fair amount of social capital. So those are one of the things that we're really excited to showcase is, you know, really kind of flipping the script on. It's not the same kind of families that we have been labeling as less engaged.
- [05:07]
A
Right?
- [05:07]
B
Yeah. And it's kind of seems to speak
- [05:09]
A
to the idea that the frame of outpatient treatment is more likely to intersect with the barriers that some of these families might be encountering versus thinking about engagement in a more holistic way around, like at home practice.
- [05:23]
B
And just coming from the perspective that if you have a program that's already really resonating with this one culture, right, like family values that are really important to this sample of people and building an intervention that caters to that, people are so engaged. And so we've done some interviews with families and all they tell us is how grateful they are, how much more that they want of this. A lot of times they'll tell us, you know, these skills are not skills that I was familiar with. These are not. This is not the way my parents raised me. But then, wow, like, this is something that I'm really interested in. I see the benefit, I see why. And so we're really finding that there's really high engagement with these. Oops. These families.
- [06:08]
A
For those of you, this is an issue that we've seen many times on these podcasts that we do in motion sensor offices. The lights just went off in Dr. Joanna's office here. I think this is our second remote podcast recording where the lights have gone off on our guest. Yeah, it's. It's great that you're conserving energy in an area like Phoenix, where energy needs to be conserved in the midst of a climate crisis. But, you know, it, it makes it so that we will say for the people watching on YouTube, they just got a good moment. So back to. Back to engaging family. So you were saying?
- [06:46]
B
I was just saying that basically, you know, as long as programs are culturally resonant, you know, we are tailoring the programs to each individual family and it doesn't matter, like, maybe this is a family that is Spanish speaking, maybe it's a family that's not. But it has to work with each individual family. So there's a lot of this, like, tinkering that needs to happen for the engagement to happen. And I think a lot about, you know, why I got into this research. Right. And a lot of it is because I, when I was on internship, I would work with a lot of providers who would often say, well, I did my job. I told the parents this is what they need to do. And the rest is on them. If they don't want to follow through with this, then that's not my problem. I would hear that over and over and over again in the children's hospital and it drove me crazy. Right. Because that is our job. Our job is to convince families and convince parents like this is important and that they have to follow through in these ways because of X, Y and Z. It's, you know, you can't just give a pamphlet and say, well, like now the rest is up to you. You really gotta make it stick and work with families and just kind of like be with them through the entire process. So that's, that's like the heart of where, you know, all my research starts from.
- [08:02]
A
So taking that empathy and public health kind of mindset when we talk about parental self care, you know, and you, you talked about this a little bit just before we, we kind of recorded the episode of the podcast here. Do you call it self care? Do you call it something different? What's kind of the term you use for this?
- [08:20]
B
I, I like filling my cup like, or, you know, asking people like, what do you do to fill your cup? But I, I asked chatgpt before we met. What, what do other people use colloquially? So it looks like me time, treating myself or treat yourself, popularized by Parks and Recharge time.
- [08:41]
A
That was a great, great thing that parks and Rec gave us as a culture. But yes, keep going.
- [08:46]
B
Recharge time, taking a break, Mental health day. Unplugging, resetting, decompressing, taking it easy, Glow up, vibe check, soft life. A lot of these I've never heard of before, but I was wondering, I don't know what other people always use, but you know, I don't love the word self care. I think it sounds very privileged. I know we've talked a little bit about that.
- [09:09]
A
Yeah. And why? Well, first of all, I mean, I'm just kind of reacting to terms like I feel like ChatGPT drifted there because I feel like it'd be great if our filling our cup always resulted in a glow up. I don't necessarily always feel glowed up after I fill my cup, but. So when you talk about the privilege associated with self care, what do you mean? What do parents hear in it?
- [09:30]
B
I think, you know, a lot of times when we talk about self care, there's an image of going to a spa, right. To getting massages, you know, taking, taking a whole day off just for myself.
- [09:46]
A
Right.
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B
These are, these are huge, huge luxuries that the average person all often cannot do, you know, and I Find self care is often really hard for single parents. And single parents especially have a really hard time being able to block out a whole day or even two hours for themselves. And so, you know, there's. Because there's this connotation of a lot of privilege and feeling like there are barriers to being able to access self care. I think it's important for us to try to find new terms that are just going to work better for others.
- [10:20]
A
Well, it also sounds like to me, filling your cup also gives you sort of like, I don't know, I'm a big fan of metaphors that seem to give me a finish line to move toward. Like, self care is ambiguous. I don't know exactly what my goal is, but I could visualize my own cup and think, okay, how full is it today versus yesterday? Where. And like, in terms of what we're filling it with, how will we define what's going into the cup?
- [10:45]
B
Things that make you feel better, Things that make you feel more like you. Things that help you be the type of person that you want to be. Right?
- [10:53]
A
Yeah.
- [10:54]
B
So we talk a lot in one of our parenting groups about being a wise parent. And you can't be a wise, calm, collected parent if you are running on empty, right?
- [11:05]
A
Yeah.
- [11:05]
B
And so I think kind of thinking about self care, we want to also think about, like, the opposite is if you don't do any self care, you are running on empty. And I would never expect. My car can't run on empty. Right. None of my appliances can run if they're not plugged in.
- [11:20]
A
Right.
- [11:20]
B
You've got to juice it up. Right. So you have to do something. So whether it's sleep, whether it's, you know, healthy eating habits, maybe it's going to the gym. For me, going to the gym, not self care does not make me feel good. I don't, like, does not feel your cup.
- [11:36]
A
You're just doing it to stay alive. That's what apparently it is. Right.
- [11:40]
B
I go to the gym because I have to. My doctor says I have to. Right. But it's not something that makes me feel really good and helps kind of sustain me week by week. I think the other thing about self care is oftentimes we think, okay, it's this big thing that I'm going to do to make myself feel better. So I schedule it for once once a month or once every other month or something like that. But I, you know, I really want our parents to focus on self care as something that they can do more regularly. Whether it's like A daily habit or something that they can do every week, just scheduling that time that's just for themselves. That helps them recharge, helps them be the person that they want to be. I think that's really key to, to keeping, you know, keeping going on.
- [12:25]
A
So two things. First is as you're talking you, you have a number of different taglines here that I'm considering to be the titles of your future book. Like juice it up on the vibe, check with Dr. Joanna Kim, like something like that. And then like you've got a co branded tour with like Tropicana where you're juicing things while you're doing this. But still these are all the cross branding opportunities for the future, for filling our cups. But what, what I'm also thinking about is like what really hit for me was your, your comment about bringing a certain self as a parent to something. This is what I think about with my wife and my nine to six year old. It's like nine, nine and six year old. The, you know, I often reflect on the days when I was a summer camp counselor, when I was a therapist, when I didn't have kids, when I was a summer camp director. And like I could bring a lot of energy in short bursts to the time that I spent with youth as a parent. On the other hand there's a conservation of energy issue, meaning like I just, I'm on all the time. So in, in a sense I, I'm not always at like the same amplitude of energy. I was the summer camp counselor and I think I learned actually too late. Even as a psychologist in our kids lives, the value of how my own filling of my cup could allow me to bring the best parts of myself as a summer camp counselor into being a parent. And not feeling guilty or wrong about that or to use your word earlier, you know, like it was indulgent or something that like I should feel like it's not a part of parenting. I've signed up for this.
- [13:55]
B
Yeah, Yeah. A lot of parents talk about guilt when we talk about self care. Like how can I spend this time on myself when really little Jimmy could really benefit from this one on one time. You know, we're already working on all these extra things for him. He has to get to soccer practice, he has to go to his doctor's appointment, he has to go to the dentist, like all these other things. But one of the things that I think you're also talking about is placing a limit on what drains your energy too. And so with self care it's not just what do you add to fill in your cup, but what can you stop to drain your cup to things that something. And you know, this is something I'm really struggling with now, and I've been struggling with it for 15 years. But say no to things, right?
- [14:43]
A
Things that I was like, waiting for that. That was a cliffhanger. I was like, what is it? Is it like a mother in law thing? Is it like, are we going to go into a therapist?
- [14:49]
B
My mother in law is like the best mother in law in the world.
- [14:52]
A
I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Your mother in law is best. My mother in law is the best too. What I meant was that there was no reason why I thought of that. Every mother in law is amazing. But yes. Sorry, you said saying no to things. Let's go back to your back.
- [15:04]
B
Saying no to things having limits, right, or boundaries, whatever you want to call it, letting go of things that, you know, probably don't matter quite as much as they used to at some point. And so things that unnecessarily strain you, unnecessarily drain you, add stress that doesn't need to be there. Being able to let those things go are really going to be important. So I know, you know, I grew up with a lot of sense of responsibility. I think a lot of us who are like the first child, right, have the sense of like, we are really conscientious. If anything else, we're very, very conscientious. We can often be like big rule followers. And when someone asks me for something, especially in my current job, I. I'm kind of figuring out, like, what are the ways that I can make this work? You know, they're asking for this time and I will kind of rearrange my schedule to make it fit. And I've just come to a point where I can't do that anymore. I just, I physically don't have the time and, you know, it doesn't allow me to be my best self. And so being able to say no helps me find more time to refill my cup. It finds. Helps me find more time to be better in the things that I have to do and that I have to show up for.
- [16:20]
A
So what I get a sense of is like, any parent listening to us right now, it's like, all right, I got that. I'm supposed to push guilt a little bit out of here. I got that, like, self care isn't only an indulgent spa day that I clearly can't afford. I get the sense that I should Stop the things that are like draining my cup or poking a hole in it and I got the cup, you know, what do you then talk to parents about? About how they develop a process for doing their own self care or their own cup filling?
- [16:49]
B
Yeah, it's, it's. And I love that you called it a process because that's exactly what it is. It's not this, I'm going to do this, you know, for some people, it's I'm going to sign up for a ballet class and I'm going to go to this ballet class every single week. And it's going to work and it's going to fix everything, but might work for some people. It doesn't work for a lot of people. And so a lot of times it could be, well, what is something, what is like an amount of time that you can set aside and we start kind of there, right? So maybe it's five minutes at the start of the day, maybe it's an hour once a week, right. Trying to figure out what is that time and then filling it with something that brings them joy. So one of the things that we found in our, our interviews with families is parents said, well, this brought me joy. So I did more. Right. And so we're trying to find ways that we can identify things that they enjoy, things that bring them gratitude, things that bring them a sense of appreciation or achievement, any of those kind of pleasant feelings, and then bring that in. Schedule it as much as they can. Just like they would schedule an important meeting or a doctor's appointment and not reschedule that around. So those are the things. And then, you know, you try it out. One week it works, one week it doesn't, and then you kind of go from there.
- [18:06]
A
I think the notion of grouping it by time makes so much sense because like, for example, as somebody who's doing activity scheduling and CBT with many patients, like, we'll go through like social activities, solitary activities, athletic activities, like, we'll just kind of like go through all kinds of headings drawn from all manner of Internet searches of different things one could do. And that notion of, you know, what can you do if you have one minute? Or what can you do if you have five minutes? What can you do if you have a whole day which no one claims to have, you know, that kind of stuff in terms of your own, like filling of your cup, I think it makes it a little bit more achievable in terms of how one can schedule it. What are some of the more creative things you've seen parents do that. Fill their cup.
- [18:52]
B
Yeah. One thing that I always think about is one mom who told me she really has just like a few minutes to herself every morning and then the rest of the day kind of like runs and it's can be pretty chaotic. And so she actually started buying a specific brand of tea. And on this brand of tea there's a little saying. It's like a little inspirational quote or something that's just like really calming and peaceful. Feels really nice. So she drinks her tea and she reads that little quote. It is maybe a couple minutes of peacefulness and silence. Maybe she's doing a little meditation. Maybe she's not. Right. But it's that, that little, little reprieve that she has every morning, that's just for her. I love that. She was telling me about how she doesn't get a lot of praise as an adult and as a parent. Right, True. Honestly.
- [19:44]
A
God, that's so real. So real. Yes.
- [19:47]
B
And so like this is someone telling her she's doing an okay job. Right. So I love, I love that. There was another mom telling me she had five kids and most of them were actually foster kids. And she was telling me it's really hard for her to schedule time. Like, she just doesn't know when these little pockets of time are gonna exist for her. But one thing that she loves is puzzles, right? So she loves like crossword puzzles, Sudoku, things like that. And so we, it took us a lot of trial and error, but we found a little pocket size sudoku for her, kept it in her pocket. When she had a moment, she could just pull it out and do it. It felt kind of, you know, at the beginning she's like, this is kind of silly. Why am I walking around with this little thing with me all the time? But it worked. It made her feel good. She felt a little bit of joy and achievement every time she finished one of these puzzles. And they're quick, right? These are not. These Sunday quick for her.
- [20:43]
A
I've never completed sudoku successfully, but I've been very impressed with her.
- [20:47]
B
Yeah. And it just worked. It was something that she felt like was not about wrangling kids. It wasn't about kind of, you know, figuring out what she's supposed to do with all these behavioral problems and you know, like, what did her therapist teach her like that she's supposed to do? This was just about her.
- [21:04]
A
Right, I see. I feel like that, that resonates so much for me of like, just like the, the moments when I do feel like even I'm taking a second are moments where I'm using my brain in some sort of intentional way. Like I feel like as a parent, one of the biggest things that's gone by the wayside for me is reading books all the way through, like over the course of say, a short period of time.
- [21:25]
B
Yeah.
- [21:26]
A
And just like even trying to find myself, like a way to read a chapter per day of a book that I want to read is like, you know, I can get one book from the library when I take my kids there and then focus on trying to get through it. And it's like, it recharges me a lot. One of the other things that you said, I feel like the first example you gave of the parent drinking the tea and looking at kind of this label reminds me of just how many times I've seen parents say I really underestimated the value of even a brief moment of trying to be present in something during the day. I've heard parents say, like, I taste my food or like I really focus on like tasting the meal or I'll focus on just like taking a moment to sit outside or take a three minute walk. And like the number of patients that I've treated where I've said, like, try this, let's see what happens. And they're completely pessimistic about it beforehand. And. And then afterwards they're like, I underestimated the effect. Like, yeah, it really does help.
- [22:23]
B
Well, you know, mindfulness is such a big buzzword and it has been for like the last few years, of course, or many years, I guess. And. And it's one of those things where it started to be like, what is mindfulness exactly? Is it just closing your eyes? Is it just deep breathing? And I think a lot of like the essence of what mindfulness is got lost with one of the parenting, parenting programs that we do in our group. It's called Bridges. And we have a very, very brief mindfulness component. And that's like parents favorite piece. We call it a focus skill. Right. And it's really about taking those couple moments. You know, you can listen to the audio. The audio is maybe three minutes long. But we also go over how you can do it for yourself. So it's just a couple seconds if it needs to be right. Or maybe it just means like, you need to take a deep breath, you need to walk away from a situation and then you can come back to it later, but just trying out different ways to make it work. And one of the things that I really love about that is that it is completely free and it is accessible to anyone who wants to try it.
- [23:26]
A
Right. And there's a billion ways to choose how you might want to access it via just the power of the Internet.
- [23:33]
B
I'm sure we could look in our phones and find 40 different apps just like within two seconds. Right.
- [23:39]
A
I've. I've talked about this a bit before, but, you know, when the pandemic hit, our daughter was five months old, our son was three and a half. And you know, when. When it happened, and all of a sudden I was working full days from home in a room with only a door between me and my two children, and then would kind of exit the room, working with patients who were in kind of some of the deepest depression of their lives due to the. The kind of, you know, way the pan. The pandemic kind of stopped the world. I started doing this thing where I'd take one minute to just take a few deep breaths before I walked out of the room. And even that. That's one of the reasons why you talking about trying to bring a certain self resonated so much with me, because I noticed I was so much less likely to bring the stress across the doorway and more likely to kind of be there for the kids in a way that I wanted to be just with a minute and just with, like, kind of focusing intentionally on what I was bringing across the door. And I think that's the power of redefining, you know, perhaps filling your cup the way you're defining it versus picturing, you know, a parent on a mountaintop having booked a luxury retreat for a week. You know, that kind of stuff.
- [24:46]
B
Right. There are no horseback riding kind of scenes involved. There's no, like, take me away Calgon. Right.
- [24:53]
A
Right.
- [24:53]
B
It can be whatever you want it to be. I was talking to my sister earlier today.
- [24:58]
A
Yeah.
- [24:58]
B
About, you know, what does she do for self care. I've never asked her this before. Like, what do you do? And she came up with a bunch of different things, but one of the things that she brought up was I just like to be outside. Right. And so when she can. So, for example, like, if her son is in daycare or maybe her husband's able to watch him for just those moments that she needs to just be outside.
- [25:20]
A
Yeah.
- [25:21]
B
Not in the house, not near her work, just in a new space so that she can kind of clear her head. And it doesn't take long. It doesn't have to be 10 minutes or 15 minutes. It can be a couple seconds. It can just be a breath outside. And then you come back in and you feel so much better.
- [25:39]
A
Absolutely. No. So I also, I'm sitting here thinking like the great thing about this is that every example we've given is something that one can afford and can do. And I'm sitting here also being like, but are we disenfranchising those who just like to be underneath a blanket inside as well?
- [25:58]
B
So.
- [25:58]
A
Okay, got it. You are that. So your, your self care is underneath a blanket indoors, right?
- [26:05]
B
It's yes. And a big part of my self care is letting go of. How do I want to say this? I think a lot of times in our society there's this bragging rights to waking up early and bragging rights to staying up late working and not needing a lot of sleep and you know, whatever. I don't do that kind of work on like chronotypes and things like that. But I do know I work best when I sleep a lot. Like more than the average person. And that's, I don't need to feel guilty about that anymore. And so I've just fully embraced that. It's become a running joke with my friends while they'll, you know, they will suggest something we do on the weekend. And it's in the morning I'm like, well you guys know I'm not going to be there because I will be sleeping in. And that's, that's what works for me. And it's, it's, it hasn't changed. Like my behavior itself hasn't changed that much. I still am getting all the sleep that I have always needed to get that I've been guarding as well. But letting go of the, the guilt and this sense of this, I don't know, like better than thou for sleeping less, that has helped me a lot. So that's actually a big part of my self care is being under the covers inside.
- [27:20]
A
I can't tell you the number of folks, I mean I think you're just going to be encouraging to a number of listeners just because I can't tell you the number of people I see in the office where it's not that they can't arrange their life to get more sleep, it's the guilt. Like the thought that the kids go to bed and I should be able to do more after they go to bed and I should be able to wake up exactly when they wake up and then get ready for the day. And even with single parents where like for example the kids could be self sufficient a little bit in some approved activities like a little time in the Morning to give you a little bit more rest. There's still so much guilt with, like, not being up ready to cook them breakfast when they're there and like, that kind of, you know, letting go. So.
- [28:00]
B
And stay at home, walking the walk. I think stay at home. Parents feel a lot of this guilt too, right? Because there's this sense of, like, well, I'm. I'm home with the kids, but, you know, my child is on a field trip or they're at school or something, and they think, well, this is the time where I should be tidying up, I should do laundry, I should do the dishes. Like, maybe I should get, you know, started on taxes or things like that. But maybe they need a break, right? Maybe they also just need to take a nap.
- [28:27]
A
And I go back to the fact that, you know, so much of. I think the work with parents is going back to the developmental factors that matter in a society that tries to tell you that everything matters. And so when we'll go back to quality of relationship factors between parent and child, it's like, if we're to ask children 20 years on, you know, what would you have valued most about your parent? I have never heard. Well, they always got everything on the to do list done. They definitely. And they never cared for themselves, and they sacrificed themselves entirely for me. Like, that kind of stuff. Like, we, we generally will hear, like, I wanted them to be around to laugh with me, or I wanted them to be around to play with me, or I wanted them to, you know, ask me about my day or be around to talk to me or sit with at meals. And it's like, I'll go back with parents and be like, those are big bang for your buck items. How do we get you present for those and not worry about some of the other little stuff that might be kind of like coming into this. So I know we've got a wrap in a moment, so I have one last question that's very scientific and gets at what we've got. And then one question, just about resources. So how. The first question, which is more scientific but maybe also abstract, how do we feel like we know if it works when parents are filling their cups? What would you say to that?
- [29:39]
B
Well, one of the things that we often do in therapy or often different types of treatment is we will ask parents to just rate their mood before and after. So that's one thing parents can do is, you know, you know what? I'm feeling like a four. I took a nap. Now I feel like a seven. Right. So you, you have just this number. Subjective, but still, it's how you're feeling of you feeling better in multiple ways. I think the other thing is if you notice that you are a little less drained. Right. You also know that it's working.
- [30:12]
A
I like how that that also entails the possible assumption that you could be somewhat drained at all times, but you could be less drained than you currently are.
- [30:20]
B
We're talking about parents, they're always drained. So I think that's the reality of it. I think the other thing that maybe is more long term is noticing how kids start to value self care as well. Right. So recognizing that self care is about you filling your cup and it's about being able to avoid burnout and do, you know, be the kind of parent that you want to be, but then also that you're modeling for your children. This is the type of lifestyle that I want for you. I don't want you to be burning all cylinders at all times, running on empty, harried, stressed. That's not the kind of lifestyle that we usually want for our kids. Right. Or for anyone that we care about for that matter. Right. We want our friends and family and our children to be able to regulate and be able to say, this is where I need to take a break. This is where I need to do something that's just for myself. And so I think kind of in that long term, being able to see that our kids themselves are learning self care habits and are like that, it's becoming intuitive for them can be one of the biggest markers of self success.
- [31:26]
A
I love this. It's like you're leaving parents with a thought of like, if they ask their kids right now, how do you recharge your batteries? And if the kid says, I don't know, we can work on this together. Like it sounds like in that moment, like there's more of an opportunity for us to think then, okay, how do I fill my cup? And how do I also make sure my kids know that a cup can be filled instead of just the hectic nature of family life?
- [31:45]
B
Right, Right.
- [31:46]
A
So last thing. And we can also include this in show notes as well. Can families engage post podcast with your work?
- [31:54]
B
Absolutely. We have an Instagram that's really active. It's Engaging Families Lab at Instagram or
- [32:02]
A
at probably if they go on Instagram and they search that, they will find it.
- [32:06]
B
Yes, they will find us for sure. And we have a website, engagingfamilieslab.org we do a lot of work in Arizona, but we also have partners kind of nationally where we do some work. And so we'd love to hear from families if they're interested. We have a lot of different studies going on, including, you know, one study where we're trying to learn from parents what kind of messages engage them, what. What do they like to hear, you know, if they were to be part of an app, and, you know, what are the kinds of praise notifications that make them feel good so they can engage in any of those types of things with us.
- [32:38]
A
So if they're in particularly the Phoenix area and want to shape the future of parenting in the United States, there's going to be ways that they can contribute to that or they can follow on Instagram nationally or look at some of the partners that you uplift.
- [32:52]
B
Absolutely. And we'd love to hear from them. We're always, you know, kind of like the motto of our lab is learning from families. So we want to hear from families as much as possible. They're the experts, not us. We're just trying to figure out, you know, putting the pieces together of what we're hearing from lots of the parent experts.
- [33:08]
A
Well, Dr. Joanna Kim, thank you for helping us fill our cups on the Thriving kids podcast today. Folks who are listening, you will find some of the things that Dr. Kim mentioned in the show notes. And again, yeah. Thank you for being our guest today.
- [33:21]
B
Thank you. This is so much fun.
- [33:24]
A
I agree. This filled my cup a little bit.
- [33:28]
B
Oh, well, what do you do to fill your cup?
- [33:31]
A
Oh, see, that's the ending question right there. The answer is listen to heavy metal music, spend time outside with my kids, which I think it is the intersection of me feeling like we're doing, like, cool stuff and exploring the world and also being able to delight in them as they discover stuff. And then beyond that schedule, at least once in a very long while, one date with my wife, you know, just so we can talk. Not in code, over little people's heads. Yes. I think is really those things, for me, are the biggest cup fillers.
- [34:08]
B
Yeah. And I love that you mentioned multiple things. Right. Because they all feel like a little different piece of you.
- [34:13]
A
Right.
- [34:14]
B
And I think that's so important.
- [34:16]
A
And one of them can happen. Like, I can listen to Metallica right now after we finish.
- [34:19]
B
Right.
- [34:20]
A
I might have to wait a little while to see my kids later today. And then, you know, my wife and I might have a date around November. But still, they're all filling my cup.
- [34:27]
B
Yeah. Metallica for you. The Cranberries for me. And then.
- [34:30]
A
Ooh, the Cranberries. Okay, so just small side note, that was one of the first CDs I ever bought in one of those magazine articles. It was like, 10 CDs for the price of one.
- [34:41]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [34:41]
A
Oh, my gosh. Yeah.
- [34:43]
B
And then you get a CD every month, and then your dad yells at you, like, what's going on? What's the spill in the mail?
- [34:48]
A
Right, right. But I. I mean, the Cranberries, like, that was like, an awakening for me as a teenager into, like, whoa. Like, that's awesome.
- [34:54]
B
Oh, so good.
- [34:56]
A
Okay. I like it. Cranberries and Metallica. People can listen to that and see what's going on.
- [35:01]
B
Sounds good.
- [35:01]
A
Yeah. All right, thanks.