Curious Neuron

These 3 leadership skills are important for parents

• Cindy Hovington, Ph.D. • Season 6 • Episode 9

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As I dive into leadership and business books, I can't help make the link with parenting. I think leadership books are the best parenting books!

I gave a workshop this week to a leadership team and realized how many of these tips applied to parenting so this week, I break down 3 aspects of this talk and give you some reflection prompts to apply this to your home.

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Speaker 1:

Hello, my dear friend, welcome back to another episode of the curious non-podcast. My name is Cindy Huffington and I am your host. If you are looking for a space that helps you nurture your well-being and your emotional health, then you are at the right place. I have a PhD in neuroscience and I'm a mom of three, and I think that parents don't have enough resources that support them in not just effective parenting practices I think there are lots of those but that bring you the science and bring you the information that you need the experts, in order to help you develop the skills you need to support your child's development and to nurture your emotional health as well. And that's what curious neuron is all about. And if you've been following me for a while, you know that that's not the way I used to describe it a few years ago and as time went on, I realized that I you know I could give you all the information you want or need when it comes to your child's emotional development. That's what my specialty is in. But if I don't show you and support you, if I don't support you, I guess, in helping you nurture your own emotional health, then there's no point. There's no point in you knowing that information about your child. It starts with you. So that is what I'm all about Today.

Speaker 1:

I want to talk about these links that I've been noticing, and I've spoken about this once a long time ago from a different angle. But the more I read these leadership books for the work that I'm doing, obviously as the founder of Keras Neuron and co founder of Wonder Grade the more I'm reading all these business books and all these leadership books, the more I see the links to parenting, and I think that the links are really interesting and very strong as well. So we're going to talk about that today, because I gave a talk to a bunch of people that lead and have groups that they have to you know support, and they also have their own leader, and I talked about what a healthy work environment looks like, one that will support their stress, not support you don't want to support the stress, but you want to minimize it and prevents burnout as well, and I thought that it was important for us to hear this as parents. So we're not going to talk about what this looks like for you at work. If you'd like that, send me an email, let me know but what we're going to do is make the links between this talk and what this looks like in your home, because you are the leader. But, as always before we begin, I do want to thank the Tannenbaum Open Science Institute, as well as the McConnell Foundation, for supporting the CuresNorm podcast. I know you probably hear this every single time. You're like what does that mean? So I am not getting paid to do this podcast.

Speaker 1:

This is on my free time, but it takes a team to put together a podcast and it takes a lot of time. Editing the podcast both the audio, the review, the review, the audio, the video that goes up on YouTube and finding people sending out emails, preparing the work in terms of looking at the research studies, preparing the interviews all that is a little bit more than a part-time job. So I do need people to help me out so that I can continue doing the rest of the work that I do, and I cannot do this without the support of these two organizations and anybody else who would love to support me. Of course, it just takes a lot of work and I'm grateful for the team that I have, because this podcast would not be here if it wasn't for the team of people that are doing this. So thank you, claudia and Sadie, for helping me out. It just means the world to me to be able to continue doing this because, honestly, I love everything that I do. But there's something so satisfying in preparing these interviews and having these conversations with these clinicians and these researchers that you know it allows me to be curious, ask questions and always think about you and how I could bring you the right information that will support you and your journey and your parenting journey. So I love putting the podcast together.

Speaker 1:

I also want to touch base one little quick second. You know that I don't talk too much about my personal life, but I did bring up my grandmother a little while back, maybe a few episodes back in December actually, when she had been hospitalized and had gone for a walk and forgotten how to get home. She has dementia and we hadn't realized how quickly it was progressing. She has been placed in. She was placed in January into a retirement home a temporary one and maybe three weeks after she was there we started noticing bruises and she didn't say anything about it.

Speaker 1:

But we noticed her behavior changing. She had been comfortable in the home and then, out of nowhere, she would start yelling at the staff that was working there. When they would approach somebody and she would yell you know, leave her alone, don't touch her. And when they would come into her room, when my mom and my uncle were there, they would just walk into the room and she would immediately jump and say get out of my room, don't come close, get away from me. Those Um signs happened very quickly and I wish that we would have questioned the first bruises. We asked the staff what was going on and we were told that perhaps she was falling. They hadn't seen it happen, um, but then it was immediately clear after a couple of days, when her wrists were completely black and blue all the way up to her elbows, that something more serious was happening.

Speaker 1:

My mom confronted the staff at this place, um, and of course they denied everything. And you know, part of you thinks, you know, maybe something is happening, that I shouldn't be blaming the staff. But here's the part that really broke my heart. Well, cause, we were still questioning, right, we? We had a feeling. So we changed her place and when we moved her to the new place, there was a repairman that was in the room and he was like oh, where were you before? And we explained that. Well, we told him the name of the place and um I'm not naming the place, by the way, here in Montreal because they're closing down, which I now found out because they're closing down because of neglect or maltreatment. So you know we didn't know this when we put her into this place that they were being investigated for that. Anyways, the man, the repairman that was in her new home, retirement home, said um, when we gave him the name of the place she was in, he told us that he had worked there for three weeks and what he saw in terms of the staff, what they were doing to the residents, uh, was inhumane. So hearing that just um Concordized. You know our thoughts and beliefs and and what we thought was happening. Thank goodness she's out of that place.

Speaker 1:

But the more I talk about it I posted about this on social media, the. What blew me away was the number of people that wrote to me saying that the same thing happened to their, their grandmother, their mother, their grandfather, their, their father, who are in a retirement home. Or some people even opened up and said I was one of those people that was being really mean and rude to my mother or my father. So one in six elderly Our views in any way by either find family member or a person um that is taking a caregiver in a retirement home one in six. Um, I never thought my grandmother would be part of this.

Speaker 1:

I didn't know how intense and how um bad of a situation it is, but I want to say I want to share this because, you know, part of this community is about like opening our awareness to the things and to um having conversations that we might not want to have or that are uncomfortable, and I don't want this to happen again to my grandmother and I don't want this to happen to your family members as well. So, please question the bruises. If you're being told that they're falling, take matters into your own hands. Um, I don't know. I don't know what the solution is, but, um, I just needed to share this with you and clearly the situation didn't get worse. Um, sorry, it didn't get better, um, when we think back to what happened to her at the hospital and they tied her down when she got scared and started pushing them away and you know I wasn't there but um, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I. Um, she's 91. So, yeah, all right. So let's talk about um leadership skills.

Speaker 1:

The reason why I was talking about a healthy work environment with this um group of people this week was because, you know, there's a lot of burnout, whether it's the education industry, it's any caregiving industry right now, or any work um workplace. We're looking at really high rates of burnout in parents as well, so it doesn't matter what industry industry you're in, and I think that we need to start thinking about what that means, right? So, if we're trying to prevent burnout, it's not just about the hours Actually, I would argue that it's not even about the hours of work. It's about, um, the quality, right. So it's it's about how satisfied you are and how happy you are in these environments, whether it's at home or at work.

Speaker 1:

And I've been reading the book called Eater, uh, eater's Leaders, eat Last, by Simon Sinek, and he talks about a few things that I thought were really important for his parents to know, because I think it does apply to parenting. He says that the this work life uh, conflict or, um, you know, struggles that we have it has to do with how safe we feel in that environment, and that that aligns with what I talk about with kids as well, right? So if you are not feeling safe in some sort of way because there's a very stressful work environment for whatever reason we're going to cover those soon Um, then you're coming home feeling very stressed and you feel like everything is not everything is balanced. But it's not just because of the hours, because you can be doing fewer hours but still feel that same um lack of safety, which increases cortisol levels and makes you feel stressed. It's about the quality of the work environment, and the same thing applies at home. You can have a great job that you love and you come home and you don't feel safe, for whatever reason, and you don't feel seen and validated and for you know, a lot of things factor into that. And when you don't, then you feel like there's an imbalance. But again, it doesn't have to do with the amount of hours, because maybe you're, you know, seeing friends every Friday night and maybe you're having date nights with your partner, but then you come home and the environment itself doesn't feel right. That's going to lead to this imbalance, or this feeling of imbalance, when it comes to your wellbeing and your emotions as well. So we have to take that into consideration and this continuous um feeling of imbalance, or we're going to go to the feeling of not feeling safe or feeling stressed. If it's prolonged and chronic, that's what's going to lead to burnout.

Speaker 1:

Let's just use the teachers as an example. Here in Montreal, teachers were striking for quite a long time in November and December. I think the French school board might have striked for almost two months. I might be wrong, but it might have been five, six weeks, maybe seven, so it was a really long time. Here we hadn't seen that and the reason. You know when I talk to some teachers I have a couple of workshops booked with teachers in March and April and when I'm talking to these teachers, trying to figure out like, what do you want to talk about and what do we need to try to solve as a problem, it's the environment.

Speaker 1:

And when you look at the research and what contributes to an increased um risk for burnout and risk of burnout in teachers, it has to do with the number of kids in the classroom. It has to do with the leadership quality that they're they're under. It has to do with the quality of the work environment. Again, are they feeling, um, that they have some autonomy? Are they feeling safe Is there?

Speaker 1:

I read a study that was talking about um, the, the, not bullying, but the between uh, you know, people working sometimes there's some conflict that leads to an increased stress. You don't feel safe. So we do have to keep that in mind. And what I like about Simon Sinek's um book that I'm reading is he talks about this circle of safety. And when at the workplace you have this circle of safety, which you know, somebody feels um, safe and feels like they could express themselves, they're not worried about somebody taking their job, they're not worried about losing their job and they feel that there's this united front of let's move this company forward or let's move this goal forward, and all of a sudden that stress level goes down. But I think the same applies within our home. Are we creating a circle of safety within our home for our kids, for us, for our partner?

Speaker 1:

Simon Sinek describes the circle of safety as feelings of belonging, shared values, a deep sense of empathy, trust, cooperation and problem-solving together. So if we take that into consideration, let's just start with the first one feelings of belonging. Does our child feel like they belong? I know the answer is going to be yes right away. My answer would be yes, right away. Of course, my kids feel like they belong. But when I actually take the time to reflect on that and you know that I've been journaling now for over a year I will journal on these types of questions, like if I'm reading this study or reading a book. I will go back to my journal and ask myself the tough question of does my child feel like they belong? And when you reflect on your past week, you might say things like well, actually, every time my child tried to join my world because, let's remember, it's an adult's world, not their world, which makes it really, really hard. They are consistently or constantly trying to join our world.

Speaker 1:

And what does that look like? Well, maybe we're folding clothes. And they come see us and say hey, mom, can I play with you? And you say, no, I need to fold the clothes. Well, can I help you? No, it's better that I do it, because I'm not going to do it a little bit more quickly. Ok, let's move on to another part of our day. Hey, mom, can I help you cook? No, it's better that I do it by myself. It's going to get done a little bit more quickly. But can I cut the vegetables? No, it's going to make a mess and I don't feel like cleaning it up after. Ok, can I set the table? No, because I don't want you to break any dishes.

Speaker 1:

I'm just using this example because this is the reflection prompt that led to me realizing I need to find ways to make them feel safer in this circle that I'm creating in our home. What's that circle of safety like? And feeling of belonging, you know, feeling that you belong in this circle means that I'm allowing them to join my world and I'm also joining them in their world, strategically and mindfully right. So if they say, come play with me, it's very easy to say I have a lot of things to do, but can I make sure that once a day I say yes, you know, or X amount of times per week that I say yes to their invitation to play with them, whether it's a quick uno game and I've said this many times it doesn't have to be three hours, it could be 10 minutes, 10 minutes, that's all it takes. A quick card game, If it's a younger kid, color with them, make a puzzle with them, play a cooperative board game with them, something.

Speaker 1:

And sometimes we anticipate the difficult moments, like if my child loses, they're gonna get mad. But I say great, let's invite those moments, because those are the moments that are going to teach our child how to cope with emotions. How to cope with unpleasant emotions Like what does it feel like to lose? What does it feel like to problem solve? Right, we can find the right piece for the puzzle. It's very easy to give up and walk away, but how does your child persist through that? That's where we build the resilience.

Speaker 1:

So, going back to that feeling of belonging, the reflection that I have for you this week is does your child feel like they belong in this environment that you have created at home? If you feel like it's not you know they don't always then where is their room for improvement? What can you do within your home to bring them into your world and make them feel like they belong Again? It could be something very small, like helping them, you know, allowing them to help you fold some clothes. It doesn't matter if there's a few socks that won't match. It doesn't matter if the t-shirts are not folded the way that you like it. Let's put those to the side to make sure that we create an environment. You don't have to do that with everything right, like you don't have to let your child bake a cake every single day and have to pick up the mess.

Speaker 1:

By the way, short story, true story. Couple of weeks ago it was early morning on Sunday and I was preparing waffles and I usually prepare them on my own and my kids kept saying I really, we really, really wanna participate and help you and I give them other tasks sometimes, but they wanted to make the batter for the waffles. Well, I said yes, but three kids coming into the kitchen. What it led to was each one wanting to crack an egg, but there's only two, each one wanting to pour the milk, but you only pour it once, each one wanting you get the point. And the batter was almost finished. I think it was. I think they had just mixed yeah, they had just mixed the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients and guess what tipped over the counter the bowl of wet batter that not only fell to the ground but went into the drawer that was right at the bottom of the counter, covered the Tupperwares that were in that drawer. That led to About 30 to 40 minutes of extra cleaning because I had to rewash all the Tupperwares in that drawer. Well, needless to say, I made the second batch of batter and told them not to come in the kitchen.

Speaker 1:

But we also had a really important discussion on not having to be the one that does everything, and not everybody has to stir once, not, you don't have to make it equal all the time. In the end, it wasn't that big of a deal 30 minutes in my life, it's not that bad. Will I make them? Will I? Will they do it every single time? No, but will we use that as an example? No, to learn certain things? Yes, I'll refer to it. And they've made batter the batter for the waffles again. It's just that I remind them what happened last time.

Speaker 1:

Anyways, all this to say we don't have find what works best for you. When we do feel like we belong, when we do have the circle of safety, it reduces the cortisol in our brain. So, whether that's you at work, you in your home or your child in your home, you are increasing Hormones that make you feel good, that make you happy, that make you feel empathetic, that make you feel connected, such as serotonin and oxytocin. So it is important that we think about this circle of safety within our home and I think it's a really good reflection there are.

Speaker 1:

There's something else that I covered with this group of leaders, and we talked about the three psychological needs that we all have, these innate psychological needs, and the three of them are autonomy, competence and belongingness. That belonging piece comes right back in. It's a core psychological need that we have. Whether we are five years old, 55 years old, it doesn't matter what, whether you're at home or at the workplace, we all have these three psychological needs. And that autonomy piece is what I want to touch on, because we've talked about feeling like you belong. But that autonomy piece is important because Sometimes we feel stressed or overwhelmed or, you know, frustrated at work because we're not getting that feeling of autonomy which we crave, which we need.

Speaker 1:

So we might have a boss that micro manages things, or you might be the boss listening to this, you might be a leader saying I do micro manage because I get things done right. Well, my friend, we need to talk about that, because a team, whether it's your team at work or your team at home, they need to feel like they have some sense of autonomy. And when we incorporate that again how letting our children help us, letting them make some decisions Then it changes the feeling of the environment to a safe one, which reduces the stress levels, which reduces you know, with a child, if they're not feeling Safe in any way that we might not even be able to realize, their behavior is going to change. The same thing for us. We're going to change the way we behave. When we are Constantly on this very low-grade level of cortisol, we're not going to be as empathetic, we're not going to concentrate as much, we're not going to problem-solve. The same way when we are regulated, when we are, cortisol levels are down. So we need to take that into consideration, those three psychological needs within our home. So the reflection prompt around that is Is my home environment meeting those three psychological needs autonomy, competence and belongingness for myself and for my children?

Speaker 1:

The last piece is an interesting one because, again, that link between parenting and leadership. So we've spoken about parenting styles, where the parenting style we should be aligned with is one that balances warmth and connection with their child, sensitivity towards their needs and emotions, and balancing that with limits and boundaries, and I've said this many times. But I think this is a very big misconception when it comes to positive or conscious parenting, or whatever you want to call it when all of a sudden these limits and boundaries have disappeared and you're your child's best friend. That's not what research suggests. We should truly be Making sure that there are boundaries and limits and consequences within our home safe, respectful, you know, leadership in the way that, like the child knows that you not just being in charge, but you are their guide, you are their leader and you are there to keep them safe and these boundaries and these limits and these rules keep them safe.

Speaker 1:

The second part is that sensitivity part, and and sometimes I post about the research around being sensitive to your child's needs and emotions and people will ask Me what does that mean or what does that look like? Well, it means that when our child, you know, is feeling something, whether it's anger or sadness or frustration, they have an argument with their sibling that you are validating their emotions, you are validating their needs and you are coaching them in a way that is strong, right and strong in the sense that I'm here, I'm co-regulating with you. I see that you're upset, but I'm here to help you calm down and I'm here to help you solve the problem and I will coach you through this and we're gonna get through this together. There's that sort of you know. You feel seen and you feel supported by the person that is guiding you, and that's important, whether you're the leader in your home with your kids or At the workplace, and the key to all this is empathetic leadership.

Speaker 1:

You the the parenting styles that Don't balance these two things that I just spoke about. So if we think back to the way that most of us were raised, it was more Authoritarian. So what I say goes I'm in charge, I'm the boss here. The rules, I don't care about your feelings. You know, sit up straight and stop crying, don't be a baby, there's nothing to be afraid of. Close the door to your room. That was the kind of parenting style that many of us were raised in, and a parenting style that many people still believe in, and A leadership style that some leaders still believe.

Speaker 1:

You know, if we want to keep our employees, you know, aligned and Remind them that I am the boss and I'm in charge, then I need to have strict rules and if you follow it and if you don't follow it, sorry then there are consequences. But now we know that that's not the way to minimize stress levels and create a circle of safety within your workplace that you need to feel safe and supported and validated and To have an a leader that is empathetic. It doesn't mean that they say that they let everything go there are still boundaries but that empathetic leadership is what leads to you Feeling like you're connected to that person, like that you're respected by that person and that you are human. That matters. Well, the same thing applies in our home, my friends.

Speaker 1:

We do need to remember that, even as a leader that you know implements very strict boundaries for a child, we still have to be an empathetic leader, and that empathetic leader will help decrease cortisol levels so that home environment, where we are leading our home environment, does it feel safe and organized and does it feel like we are not organized in the sense of clean. I you know. I mean organized in the sense of I know what I'm doing as a leader. I know exactly what happens on this day. I know exactly what happens when you behave this way. I've got things under control and I am your healthy, empathetic, compassionate leader that also knows how to apply boundaries. That's what the child is looking for, same as we are looking for in a leader when we are working for someone. And a stressed leader. A stressed out leader Leads to a stressed out team, and we see it in our home. When we are not well, behavior changes in our home and we see it in our kids. Just think of one day when you're tired or you know.

Speaker 1:

The estimate now is that there are 66% of parents that are burnt out, and if this is true, that means many of you listening right now probably have the symptoms of burnout and that means that you are struggling with certain symptoms that might be leading to you struggling with supporting your child and their emotions. Actually, to end this episode, I want to talk about the three categories of burnout. So the first one is emotional exhaustion, the second one is Depersonalization, also known as cynicism, and the third one is reduced personal accomplishment. The most significant one that shows up right away is emotional exhaustion. Emotional exhaustion is very different than feeling stressed, because you might get these bouts of energy when you're feeling stressed versus the complete lack of caring when you're burnt out. It's, it's, the emotions are gone, so you might have a child who's like I need you and they're crying and they're, and you might not even have the capacity to show empathy or care. And that's really important for us to say this because you might think what's wrong with me? Why don't I care? I should care. I don't care and I don't know why, but that might be an early sign of burnout. So if you are seeing any of these three symptoms and if you search on Google burnout symptoms or burnout, I Think there's a scale, the burnout scale. If you search for this online, you can see what the questions are, and I don't want to go through all of that. I don't want you know. You can search for that online.

Speaker 1:

If you feel that these three categories are, you can relate to them. Cisna cynicism is when you know you just start criticizing everybody and everything and there's nothing. Nobody seems to be doing anything right, and the reduced personal accomplishment is just when you feel that you're not doing anything right anymore. You're not. Doesn't matter how hard you try, I'll never get it. So what's the point of trying? You really do have to consider speaking to somebody about this.

Speaker 1:

If you can relate to any of these three categories, all right, my dear friends, I think I spoke long enough, but I hope that you can relate to these and I do hope that you take a moment this week to reflect on a few of the prompts that I mentioned. And don't forget, if you're looking for more reflection prompts and you're like you know what, cindy, I really enjoy the ones you post on social media and the ones you do mention on the podcast I'll put the link in the bio to my reflective parent workbook. It's 100 pages and, don't worry, you don't have to do it all in one shot, but I've divided it into problems that we need to solve. For example, you're having a lot of arguments with your partner. You feel like you can't balance work and life anymore. You want to support or build or work on the relationship between you and your child. Or maybe you feel like your emotional health has, you know, deteriorated and you don't know where to start. I Break it down into categories so that you can say, hey, this is the problem I have. I want to work on work life Balance. So I'm starting with chapter two and here all the reflection prompts I need for that.

Speaker 1:

I just want you to have everything you need in front of you and if you leave a review for the podcast because you know that's so important and I really need more reviews and I need you to subscribe to the podcast click on that button. I need you to leave a rating and a review. Send me an email at info at curious downcom. I will send you a code to get $10 off this 100 page workbook. So it comes out to $10.99 to get this 100 page workbook that you can use throughout the year to support your emotional health and well-being. So just send me an email again info at curiousNoroncom. Everything is in the show notes that you need. Thank you so much. I'm going to put the episode as well. That's focused around other parts of business that I think apply to Parenting. I'll put that in the show notes so that you have a few more episodes to listen to. Thank you for being here and for listening. I hope you all have a beautiful and wonderful week. Bye.