Episode 344: How To Raise Emotionally Intelligent Kids with Dr. Marc Brackett

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Capable is about helping parents raise kids who can handle big emotions, hard moments, disappointment and real life, not perfectly, but resiliently. We talk about why kids today have more support than ever, but less confidence in their own ability to cope. And how without realizing it, we sometimes step in so quickly that kids miss the chance to practice becoming capable. This book is full of stories from our counseling rooms, practical tools you can actually use and encouragement for parents who are doing their best and wondering if it's enough. In fact, we have 100 capable building exercises in the book that we are super excited about. So if you're parenting a child who feels anxious, sensitive, perfectionistic or overwhelmed, or if you feel that way as a parent, this book is for you. Capable is available now for pre-order and pre-ordering really does help get this message into more homes. You can find Capable wherever books are sold and you can learn more at CapableBook.com. Thanks for letting us share this with you. We cannot wait to get this book into your hands. Hey friends, welcome to the Raising Boys and Girls podcast. I'm Sissy Goff and I'm David Thomas and we're so glad you joined us for this conversation. Let's dive in. Dr. Mark Brackett is the founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and a professor at Yale University's Child Study Center. He's the best-selling author of Permission to Feel and the co-creator of Ruler, an evidence-based approach to social and emotional learning used in thousands of schools across the world. Dr. Brackett's research and work focused on helping children and the adults who care for them develop the skills to understand and manage emotions with wisdom and compassion. We are so grateful to welcome Dr. Mark Brackett to the Raising Boys and Girls podcast. And y'all, he drops and nugget about three-quarters of the way through that you're going to want to pull over and write down. Dr. Brackett, it is a joy to have you on the podcast. We love and respect and appreciate your work. In fact, I referenced your work in my last book and I love the tool ruler, which we'll talk about in a few minutes. Thank you. Absolutely. For parents who may be new to your work, could you share the heart behind Permission to Feel and what led you into the study of emotions and emotional intelligence? Yeah, this may take the whole podcast, but keep it brief. You know, obviously, you've read my first book called Permission to Feel. You know, life was tough for me as a kid and I had unfortunately abuse, sexual abuse. My parents' close friend, unfortunately, was a pedophile. And my parents were going through a lot because I had two brothers that both had challenges. They're older than I am. And so that was my circumstances, unfortunately, and didn't talk about it. You know, as many kids who are abused, I didn't share what was happening to me. And just to fast forward, you know, five years later, my mother's brother, who was an amazing human being, his name was Uncle Marvin, came into my life. And he was literally developing a curriculum to teach kids about emotions and used me as a little guinea pig. He created the conditions and I told him what was happening and my life totally turned around because of that. And so, you know, he gave me permission to feel, as I say. And then, you know, fast forward, I mean, I major in psychology. I decide I'm going to write curriculum to teach kids about emotions. I pull my uncle out of retirement. I get a PhD in psychology. I run the Center for Emotional Intelligence now for 24 years. And now I'm talking to you too. And we are grateful for that. Yes, we are. Thank you for sharing that part of your story. And turning it into something that has been such a gift to so many people. I appreciate that. Well, you often say all emotions are information. What does that mean for parents raising kids who happen to have really big feelings? It means they're going to have big feelings whether you want them to or not. So, you know, thinking that you're going to control those feelings is a delusion. And also that those feelings are bad is also not a great mindset. They're having feelings for a reason. And so, why not get curious about them and learn about your kids' experiences and then be a healthy co-regulator, I mean, supports them and better dealing with their feelings. I just think too great, Ron. And just, you know, when kids are having strong emotions, as you guys know, you know, it's an avoidance kind of thing. Like, you know, like you're triggered, you're activated by those feelings. I think the automatic habitual response is to like retaliate. Like, who do you think you are talking to in that way? Are you in need to calm down? Or you run away like my mother did and then lock yourself in the room or something. But the, it's a message of a need that's not met. So, be the learner and approach. It may be uncomfortable, but I don't understand the alternative, which is avoidance, denial, yelling, screaming. Yeah. Yeah. Well, one of your most influential contributions, which I mentioned is the ruler framework. Can you give parents a brief accessible overview of what Rulish stands for and why it works? Yeah. So, ruler is an outgrowth of the theory of emotional intelligence. That was cultivated or, you know, written by my mentors who are Peter Salovey and Jack Mayer. And those, they're both psychologists. One is at Yale, one is at the University of New Hampshire. And I was a student of both of theirs. And as I was building out the curriculum for kids, what I recognized was that we needed a bit more of an accessible framework. And I also thought that I think teaching the skills using an acronym is very helpful. So, recognizing emotion is the first R, that's self-awareness, social awareness. So, I'm paying attention to how I'm feeling. I'm looking at the two of you and I'm thinking like, how's this going? So, I'm trying to recognize you. Great. Thank you. The second skill is understanding emotion. So, where are these feelings coming from? Why am I feeling this way? What I find in my research is that most people mess up there. Most people think they understand emotions or why we feel the way we do. But most of us are wrong about that. For example, anger and disappointment. People confuse a lot. Anger is about an injustice. Disappointment is about an unmet expectation. And why is that important? Because when we're regulating an emotion which comes later, knowing the cause is really important for dealing with it. So, that's the U. The L is labeling with precise words. So, having a really good vocabulary. If you're angry, are you angry? Are you just irritated or are you enraged? If you're sad, are you just kind of feeling down or are you feeling despair? Are you happy or are you just content or are you ecstatic? Then there's the E of ruler which is expressing emotions. So, knowing how and when to express our feelings with different people across context. So, how do I tell you how I'm feeling in a way that you listened? How do I, if I could be journaling, it could be expressing my emotions through art and music. And then the final R is regulating emotions which is the book that I just wrote called Dealing with Feeling. Which is really, you know, the hardest skill in life to develop in my opinion. I still cannot believe that in my own life how I can allow or it just happens, other people just like activate me in ways that I am like worst self. Wouldn't that be nice if we could stop that? Exactly, it's like 30 years of research and writing books and running around talking about them and then I come home and I'm like boom! Triggered reaction as opposed to like Mark, remember, you're the director of the Center for Emotional Intelligence. Yes, yes. Well, we love that ruler has been implemented in thousands of schools across the country. What change have you seen when a school adopts this method and how does it feel like it shifts the emotional climate of classrooms? Great question. And so, ruler is, you know, the framework. It's also the model of the program that we've cultivated, you know, that is now in 5,000 schools and some in Tennessee. Although I have to say, I'm going to just put this out there. Your state is not, you know, it's a little challenging right now with this work. Just, I can't help myself but to say that. Please do. Because there's no, it's people have politicized emotional intelligence in ways that make no sense. This is not a political construct. You know, I think people should have whatever political views they want. But I also think that every kid needs to develop emotional intelligence. Yes. The framework says that leaders, teachers, students and parents should have these skills. And so we have to find ways to teach them these skills, whether they read books or implement our curriculum. And, you know, what I've learned over, this is now 30-something years of writing curriculum and teaching it, is that, you know, my primary interest is in kids. You know, I want every kid to navigate their emotional life. However, because most of the adults who are raising and teaching kids have never had an emotional education, they're not that great at implementing. And so what we have to do is figure out ways to support the adults in getting an emotional education so they can do a great job with kids. And so ruler teaches mindsets. So like we opened up like, are there good and bad emotions? The answer is no. All emotions are information. Can I learn emotional intelligence? Definitely. That's why I'd have no career otherwise. You know, we have to get our kind of our mindsets and beliefs in the right direction. Then we have to learn the skills, R-U-L-E-R. And then we have tools in ruler, which are like the mood meter tool, which I'm sure you're familiar with, which is the four quadrants in the yellow, red, blue and green, where you can plot yourself on the mood meter to understand your feelings better. We have a tool we call the meta moment, which is for self-regulation. And then we have a classroom curriculum, preschool all the way to high school, where kids are learning emotion words and really thinking about the best ways to manage emotions throughout their development. It's so good. Okay, Mark, for the parent listening who's thinking, all right, this sounds amazing, but my kid's school doesn't use these tools, this framework. If a parent wanted to introduce ruler to their kids this week, like at breakfast, after school, bedtime, what's a simple routine they could start tomorrow? Well, a couple of things. A, obviously they can read. So, you know, read a book, a little self-promotion there. The other thing that you can do is download our app. So I worked with the founder of Pinterest, who's been Silverman, and my team and his team all worked together to build an app to cultivate emotional self-awareness. It's called How We Feel, and it's free on Android and iOS. And we have over 3 million people using that app now. So check it out. It gives you emotion vocabulary, it gives you ideas for regulating it, you can track your feelings over time. So that's cool. And I think to just say the, like, practically, like, from this podcast, you know, you got to read the book, you got to get the app. You still have work to do. But if I were to say, like, what can you take away from here and right now? I think one of the first things is monitor your thinking when your kids are having feelings. You know, are you going into judge mode? Meaning are you thinking, my, I got to, like, this is, you know, not an emotion my kid should be feeling. I got to fix it. Instead of check in with that. If that's not, nobody wants to be fixed. And these emotions are natural occurring instances. The second is, I think for parents, is that you got to give yourself permission to feel. So what is your mindset around your own emotions? And then the third I might say is, like, be a role model for talking about emotion. So what does that mean? Well, let's imagine that Sissy and David are my kids. Okay, we're doing a little role play here. Is that okay? Absolutely. All right. So you're going to be two of my children who are annoying me when I come home from work. Okay. Hey guys, how was your day? Dad, dad, dad, dad, dad. Sissy, I understand you. You want to, you feel like chatting about something? Yes. Yeah. So I have to let you know that daddy had a really, really rough day at work. And I just want you to know that I got into a fight with one of my colleagues and it's stunk. And I said something that was mean and I don't like myself for that. And I'm still trying to figure out the note I want to, you know, write to him to apologize. And so can you give me 15 minutes to just sit by myself and then we'll kind of check in and we'll figure out what we're going to do tonight. Is that, is that okay? Okay. Thank you. So what am I doing there? Daddy talks about feelings. Daddy regulates his emotions. Daddy reflects on his relationships. Daddy likes to problem solve about things that go wrong. Daddy talks about it. Right. And so that's what I think is the basic, you know, that we should help parents and nobody really learned that. You know, I just don't, nobody really learned the how of emotional intelligence. Thank you for that example. And now a quick break to hear from one of our incredible sponsors who make the podcast available. Sissy, how are the holidays for you? So fun. Family, friends, fun games and great food. We cooked so many great meals at the lake house for New Year's. But let me tell you what stole the show. 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So that study was one where we randomly assigned teachers to think about a good day at work versus a bad day at work. But we can all do that right? A day that I hated my job, a day that I love my job. But in this instance with teachers what we did is we had them then immediately read and evaluate an essay. Like a student essay, middle school. And the question was what how they had felt influence the way they evaluated the essay. So did their emotion kind of shift their perspective of the quality of the essay? And what we found was there was one full-gray difference just based on the mood of the person who was evaluating. But the kicker is that when we asked the educators, do you believe that how you felt had any influence over the evaluation? 99% of them said no. And so what does that tell us? It says that how we feel does influence our behavior, but we're not really aware of it happening. So for parents this is like the same example we just had, but before I walk in I'm irritable, you know, for whatever reason. And I'm not really emotionally self-aware. I've had a fight with my colleague at work going back to that example and I go home and you're like, go ahead. Dad, dad, dad, dad, I want to show you something, dad, dad. If I could tell you one more time to not get off, Sissy, not get off. Like I got a headache. You know, that is not in the mood. Right? It's like boom, go right for the jugular. Because I'm triggered. I'm also like not having dealt with my other feeling. You know, and just sort of like everything's kind of a mess and I just go. But if I take a moment before I open the door to my home and I'm like, oh, really not. I'm going to go home right now. I'm so irritable that it's this person at work really drawing me out of my mind. But I feel bad about it. Okay, Mark, remember? You're going in as daddy, not boss who was mean to his colleague. Right. Okay. Then daddy, daddy, daddy, I'm more regulated and I'm like, honey, you're, I know you really want to play, you know, you want attention right now, but I can't give it to you yet. I will in a little bit. Give me some space and I'll be back. So the point of that is that if we can pause to reflect on our feelings for just a moment, it's not indulgence. It's not like a therapy session. It's a minute, 30 seconds. It'll just clean the slate to help us be the best versions of ourselves in that next environment. So good. And convicting, by the way. Indeed. Yes. Okay. And building on that, one of the other things I love that you write and talk a lot about is the difference between being an emotional scientist and a judge. And I'd love it if you would be willing just talk more about that and how it could shift us as adults and to helping kids regulate emotions versus just punishing the behavior. Yeah. So a scientist of emotion is someone who is open and curious and reflective, who wants to get granular and specific, who has a growth mindset around how they manage emotions. Meaning, ugh, then do good, I didn't do such a great job today, but let me be a curious explorer of new strategies. I got to try something else tomorrow. The emotion judge is someone who, you know, ignores, denies, wants people to suppress emotions. Is someone who is black or white, you know, gray, no gray. It's like, I feel like shit, I feel fine. There's nothing else. And who has a very kind of fixed mindset, which is, you know, son, this is who I am. Deal with it. Right. There's no, like my father had that kind of fixed mindset. My father really had terrible anger and he was very dysregulated and he'd say things like, son, this is the way I deal with things. You're going to have to learn how to deal with that. Great. Congratulations, dad, on being someone who's willing to learn new ideas. Right. And so the idea is that obviously, you know, the judge in the courtroom might be fine, but the judge in the bedroom is not great. Or, you know, I give out a relationship or, you know, on the dinner table. And so the, we want to be those scientists who are curious explorers to support people in understanding their emotions and regulating them, including ourselves. So is there anything else you would say to the parent who feels overwhelmed by their child's emotional intensity and or maybe their own? And where is a compassionate entry point into this work? You know, I think the parents, you know, it is easy to get overwhelmed as a parent is hard. And so radical acceptance that this is just an emotion is really kind of interesting to think about. Right. This is like a moment. It sucks, but it's a moment. It's not permanent because emotions are ephemeral. I think is a really important piece. I think the other piece of it is that we have, we need, you know, emotion regulation strategies, you know, as adults who are raising kids. It's part of reason why I wrote dealing with feeling because what happened was that, you know, people were grateful for permission to feel and, you know, it's now translated into 30 languages. They run around the world talking about it. That's awesome. But then people were like, I need more about what to do with my feelings. I need more about what to like, what is the strategy and, you know, breathing is great and it's an important strategy, but it's insufficient, you know, because at times if I'm, all right, that's enough. But if it's relational, like when my mother-in-law was living with us for like seven months, which was unexpected, you know, after three months, the breathing did not work. I was like, I'm breathing, I'm taking a deep breath and I'm even clear why you need to get out of my house. And so I needed new strategies and so I needed to shift my thinking, you know, I realized I was a narcissist that was like me, me, me and she's like, you know, anyone, 81 year old woman did not want to be around me either. And I had no empathy for her. It was all about you're disrupting my lifestyle and, you know, my making my life went difficult. Me was a pandemic. She's afraid of getting COVID. It was like a whole thing. I needed different strategies for that. I needed cognitive strategies. Mark, how would the best son-in-law self show up today? Hmm, not as a jerk. Maybe as more patient, maybe as with more compassion, maybe more curiosity. You know, she was really unhappy too. But I wasn't really concerned about her as very self-focused. Maybe I needed to get more social support. Maybe I needed to, you know, join a, I can't send my mother-in-law group. You know, but, or maybe I just needed to get more activity in my life. Maybe I need to take those walks every day at the end of the day to get myself, you know, some breathing room and just movement in my body. And so emotion regulation, I think is the number one skill that parents need to cultivate and to recognize that couple things. One is that, you know, when a strong, for example, you asked about the overwhelm and like, what do you do about that? Well, number one is don't absorb it. It's not your overwhelm. It's their overwhelm. You have to understand that this is the feeling that that child is having. And it's not, you know, no one, here's a, here's a provocative statement. No one makes you feel anything. You are appraising a behavior that is probably correlated with other things in your life from your past that you are now calling overwhelm. Okay. So, A, that's just something to think about with some people like the yikes. But the second piece is that you could absorb it and start saying things like I travel parent, this doesn't work. Nothing I can say will work. And I hate being a parent. I hate my kid. I mean, parents go through all, I mean, you know this, they don't say it out loud, but they're feeling it and thinking it. Yeah. As opposed to maybe just maybe in an instance of this kind of like yelling overwhelm using a spatial distancing technique is a fancy term for something like creating a little television screen out of your kid and say, and become the observer of it, but not the adsorber of it. The. Oh, that's so good. We say it again. Be the observer, not the absorber. Yeah. I never said it that way. I like it. That's brilliant. But the, you know, because the absorber is, you know, the observer is saying, wow, my kid is having strong emotions right now. It's okay. I can either, you know, it's okay. Let it go. Let it go. This is what this is feeling right now. I don't have to own this. I can be supportive. I can try to be the scientist, the compassionate, loving scientist parent right now and honey, you want to take a walk? Honey, you want some space? Honey, you want some water? You want to hug? But I don't have to, you know, take it on. That takes skill. Yes, it does. Okay. Let's just be honest for a moment. At our age, we can't remember what we had for breakfast. Or where we parked the car. Or our login information for literally anything. If a website asked me to create a new password, I immediately need a snack and a nap. That's why I love that little purple shop pay button. You know the one where you're checking out online and suddenly there it is like a beacon of hope. No digging for your wallet, no resetting your password for the fifth time, one tap and you're done. It's the best feature in the chaotic world of online shopping. And it's powered by Shopify, the commerce platform behind millions of businesses worldwide and 10% of all e-commerce in the U.S. From global brands to businesses just getting started, Shopify helps entrepreneurs build beautiful online stores with ready to use templates, AI tools that write product descriptions and built-in marketing tools to help customers find you. Everything from inventory to payments to analytics is in one place, making life easier for business owners and shoppers like us who can't remember our passwords. See less carts go abandoned and more sales go with Shopify and their Shop Pay button. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at Shopify.com. Go to Shopify.com. That's Shopify.com. Okay, another thing we love that you have written about, talked about is how emotional literacy forms compassion and morality in kids. And I think probably every parent listening would say, I'm interested in raising emotionally intelligent kids who have strong character and empathy. So will you talk more about the development of that? Sure. I want to say one thing about that, because that's sometimes where people get uncomfortable because they think I am deciding what the virtues are, you know, for other people. And that's not the way we operate. You have to decide who you want to be. My job is to help you figure that out, but not to tell you who you should be, because that's not my job. My job is to be a coach, a mentor, an ally. And so I think the reflective process is really important for your kids. And most kids automatically want to be good kids. If I asked any kid, you know, how would you want your best friend to talk about you? What would you want them to say if they were describing you? No one's going to say I want them to think I'm a mean jerk who is nasty. Maybe one person out of 3,000 would say something. Yeah, but most people are going to say things like, like for me, like how do I want my team to see me? I want them to see me as curious, flexible, smart, caring, good listener. You know, I'm not all those things all the time. We can't be, but that's my aspirational self. And that's what we do with kids and adults. You know, as a student in this school and a learner, how do you want to be? As a best friend, as an athlete, as a husband and wife, how do you want to show up for your partner? How do you want to show up in life? How do you want to show up on the football team? And I think that's an important exercise for people to go through because it just, it brings them back to their values. And it helps them aspire to be the best versions of themselves. So as a parent listening, you can ask yourself, how do I want my kids to see me and talk about me and experience me? So are you parents? I am. You are, okay. So as a parent, as a dad, how would you want your children to experience you, talk about you? What attributes come up for you as important? Loving, dependable, good listener, supportive. Wonderful. Now question for you is, have you ever said something to your kids that you've regretted? Oh goodness. We don't have that much time on the podcast. Right. So you have, we all have, I mean, how many of us have not like done that no do over thing. But you know, if you were having a rough period with your kids and before you open the door to your house, you pause and said, I'm going to show up tonight as a dad who's loving, supportive, who's a good listener, caring, etc. It would bring you to a different place before you entered into the house. And then when your kid is whining a little bit or whatever they're doing, you would approach it with a little bit more love, compassion and listening. So that's, that's kind of what we do with, in terms of the moral value piece of it, but it's really for you to decide. I can't decide who you should be. I can ask you questions about what makes you think that's important and that you think more reflectively about it. But I can't tell you the type of person you should be. It's not my job to do that. But it's, I think it's my job to get you to think about the best version of yourself, especially if you're my, if you're my child, I think I have the right to do that. And I think I have the right to do that as your teacher because you're a part of a community. And I want people in my classroom to show up as the best versions of themselves. Well, let's shift a little to talking about teenagers who we all know sometimes are not the best versions of themselves on any given day. So what trends would you say you're seeing in teens today, emotionally, socially with technology? And how might the ruler approach uniquely help parents navigate what teenagers are facing? Yeah, I think it's interesting. I was in a meeting for a big part of today around adolescent development, actually. And, you know, obviously the things that are in the news and we're talking about incessantly, you know, AI and social media. You know, those are big pieces. I was, you know, thinking about it though, and I was a little on the board chair of this organization. So, you know, I got to speak and I gave my evaluation of what I thought, just an insight that I had. I really hate is cool. And I was not a good student. You know, now my professor, you know, it's like, what? How is that possible? But I really, and I, you know, I write papers and I read and I do public speaking. Like, if you looked at me at like 11 or 12, you'd be like, I'm not sure what's going on with this guy. You know, I just was not academically oriented. I had depression and an eating disorder. You know, just really not a good place. And I'm sharing that because, you know, I was terribly bullied, bullied, bad, bad, bad. And that was, you know, at 13, that would be 43 years ago. Do you know that their rates of bullying have not decreased in America in 40 years? Wow. Same number of kids are being bullied. It changes in terms of back then it was like, you know, being punched, punched in the bus or spit on or made fun of in the playground. Right. We do it differently now. We use social media. We do other things. But it's still bullying. It's still meanness and cruelty. I don't think people are any meaner or less meaner. I just think we have more ways of seeing it. But my point is that we like to invent new ideas for why the world is getting worse. AI, social media, and of course, they're tools that have been built that don't necessarily support healthy development. But I don't know, back in my days, it was something else. You know, it was video. I was like, addicted to video games. I literally got to the arcade and spent hours in the freaking arcade and lose myself, you know, playing Gallagine Pac-Man. Yes. I don't even know. But what's that? Or I would, you know, whatever it is. And I'm going down this rabbit hole right now because I had an atiphany that it's just about intimacy and connection. That we just, we have just failed for a century or two or more in helping people connect. Like really, really connect and feel safe. Like I didn't feel like I could be my true self when I was a teenager. Same thing. I can't be my true self. At the core, it's the same reasons because they don't feel safe and comfortable, you know, with their identity or whatever it might be. And so, yes, AI can exacerbate things. Yes, social media can exacerbate things. But the symptoms, you know, the symptom is that I feel like I don't belong. Alright, I don't feel connected or supported or valued or appreciated. And that's what we have to solve for. That's what we have to focus on, in my opinion. The best example I have of that, you know, just to go to developmental psychology for a minute. I was visiting a kindergarten recently and a little boy was in the balloon and made me their filling dad's that. And I said to him, you know, do you want to say more? And he goes, no, I said, you know, any reason why I don't want to bother you. And so the here's a five year old has already learned somehow through our society that his feelings are a burden. That's the issue. That's the deep issue. Wow. We could keep asking you questions for quite some time, but we're going to respect your time. And simply first say thank you for giving us this time and for creating such valuable tools that I think are, again, not only an offering to schools, but an offering to parents at home as well. And so to that, where could parents listening find all of your work, what you've written, what you're doing and also even access to be able to talk more with them. Kids schools about incorporating social emotional learning. Thank you. So I think the first, you know, I use LinkedIn and Instagram mostly. So if that's someplace you go for stuff, I post things regularly about the work. The second is I have a podcast that's very focused on emotional intelligence. It's called dealing with feeling, which is based on my new book. The third is my website, which is just mark bracket, m a r c b r a c k e t t dot com. And from there you can access both the ruler website, so learn about our work in schools. You can look at the research that I've done. You can read articles. You do a lot of writing for newspapers and magazines. And I think that's really, you know, that's it. And then if you want to read a book, you can read permission to feel or dealing with feeling. Download the podcast. I'm download the app, How We Feel, which you can find on my website too. So lots of stuff available for people. Yes. Well, thank you. Thank you for the really important work you're doing and thank you for your time with us. Thank you. And we have to see if we're going to end in a little bit more positive note. Okay. We want to hear what do you think? Yeah. Well, let me ask you. I never did this before. Okay. What is your, what is the, what's the takeaway? You know, we had a half 45 minute conversation. What, what's the takeaway that you think is valuable for yourself or for parents? There's so many. I got distracted for just a second by how much I loved Gallagher. I have to admit because I think we're right about the same age. Impact me. Impact me. But I really do think that I have always really valued as a therapist that when I walk into the room that whatever is going on with me, I can set aside. I like being able to do that because like you mentioned before, I don't want it to be all about me. And I think what you said about the research you did with teachers does remind me that even when I feel like I'm setting it aside, it still can really impact the person that I'm sitting with. And so thank you for that. Yeah. So self-awareness around how you're feeling. Yes. When you're seeing your patients and just maybe, oh, I'm angry, you know, at David, you know, not David. Yes. You know, there were so many things you shared that I think I'm going to be thinking a lot about going forward. But I think one in particular, I loved your challenge of parents imagining their kids on a screen and I can observe and not absorb that that's possible and not take on all that emotion and not feel responsible for ending it earlier and quote unquote solving all of that. And the beautiful reminder you gave us again that I don't think we can give ourselves too much of emotions are going to pass. They're going to come and they're going to go. And so I love all of what was in that message. And I think that's a great takeaway for every one of us. If that was your first time to say that, you need to say that a lot more. We're going to be quoting on it too. I know. I should have recorded myself, but we have the podcast. We got you. We're going to give you credit every time we talk about it. All right. Thank you. David, what a team we have that we get to call friends who help make this podcast possible. Chris, our engineer, our management team at KCH. We are thrilled to be a part of the That Sounds Fun Network. Our music was created by the insanely talented Dave Haywood of Lady A. And if this podcast felt helpful to you, please consider subscribing, liking, sharing all the things. We are grateful for you and cheering you on always. From the co-author of Attached, the book that reshaped our understanding of anxious, avoidant and secure attachment styles comes the new audiobook, Secure. Dr. Amir Levine's latest research shows that those with secure attachment styles feel more at ease, both in their relationships and within themselves. Learn how to rewire your attachment style and unlock stronger relationships, better health, greater resilience and more fulfilling life. 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