Episode 71: Stronger Together: How Families Can Tackle Childhood Anxiety with Dr. Kristel Thomassin 

Posted

In this episode, we chatted with Dr. Kristel Thomassin about how parents can help their family better manage anxiety. Dr. Thomassin is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology and the Director of the Child Emotion and Mental Health Lab at the University of Guelph. In her work, she studies how the family impacts children’s emotional development. Be sure not to miss out on this episode, in which Dr. Thomassin shares great insights into anxiety, and how families can manage this emotion at home.   

To learn more about Dr. Thomassin’s work visit The Child Emotion & Mental Health Lab’s website or check the lab’s Facebook page.

Transcript

Healthy Habits, Happy Homes Podcast

Season 7, Episode 71

Guest: Dr. Kristel Thomassin

 

Marciane Any (0:05)

Hello, welcome to the Healthy Habits, Happy Home podcast hosted by the Guelph Family Health Study.

 

Tamara Petresin (0:14)

If you’re interested in the most recent research and helpful tips for healthy, balanced living for you and your family, then this podcast is for you. In each episode, we will bring you topics that are important to your growing family and guests who will share their expertise and experience with you.

 

Marciane Any (0:31)

Our quick tips will help your family build healthy habits for a happy home.

Welcome back to the Healthy Habits, Happy Homes podcast. I’m Marci-Anne.

 

Tamara Petresin (0:45)

And I’m Tamara.

 

Marciane Any (0:46)

And today we’re excited to have Dr. Kristel Thomassin join us. Dr. Thomason is an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Guelph. Her expertise is in clinical child and adolescent psychology with emphasis on the impact of family on children’s emotional development. Dr. Thomason is also the director of the Child Emotion and Mental Health Lab. The lab works to uncover the ways in which families can help their kids develop strong emotional skills and then applies this knowledge to improve child psychotherapies. Welcome, Dr. Thomason

 

Kristel Thomassin (1:22)

Thank you for having me.

 

Tamara Petresin (1:24)

To get us started, can you just tell us a bit about yourself, your current role and how your education experiences led you to where you are now?

 

Kristel Thomassin (1:30)

Of course. So, I’ve always known I wanted to work with children and families. And throughout my education, I always sought out experiences with children and families. My classes focused on development and family training experiences; research experiences focused on children. I completed my PhD in clinical psychology at the University of Georgia in the United States. And I completed a one-year residency at Bellevue Hospital and the NYU Child Study Center in New York City. And then I moved to Boston, where I completed a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University. And throughout all of those experiences, I kept focusing on children, how they develop emotionally, the role that the family plays in that development. And also, in terms of improving children’s emotional functioning, understanding how our current therapies work for children across a range of conditions like anxiety, depression, disruptive behavior, trauma, and trying to understand or learn about ways to make those interventions more effective, because they don’t work for everybody. And so, we want to make sure that every child has the opportunity to access services. And when they do, that the services are actually effective.

 

Marciane Any (2:49)

That’s awesome. We are so excited to have you because our advisor also, I think, went and worked at Harvard. So, I’m just, like, “oh, my goodness, our faculty is so smart.” [laughter] So we’re very excited to have this conversation with you.

Parents teach their children about emotions and how to manage them. In other words, parents influence a child’s emotion socialization. Could you please explain what “emotion socialization” is and how parents and families influence this process?

 

Kristel Thomassin (3:20)

Yeah, that’s a great question. Emotion socialization is the process by which a socializer or socializer, so that could be parents, peers, teachers, important adults in our lives, actually teach children about emotions. So, that’s very broad. By teaching – essentially what I mean by that is you can have very overt and direct ways of teaching. So, you could sit a child down and say, “when you feel sad, it feels like this, and it looks like this.” And situations that might bring on sadness include missing out on a birthday party or having a fun activity get canceled or rained out, things like that. So, that’s direct teaching about emotions, emotion cues, emotional expressions. However, there’s a lot of socialization that really happens more subtly. So, for instance, when a child expresses an emotion, the response they get from their environment over time, those patterns of responses, actually shape the child’s understanding of what emotions are:  if they should or should not be felt, and if they should or should not be expressed or how they should be expressed. Right? So, if a child falls down, scrapes their knee and cries and the parent says, “OK, no big deal, like enough already,” that’s sort of teaching the child, “OK, I don’t really like that you’re expressing sadness. This is not an appropriate situation to express sadness.” And so, if this were to happen next time, maybe you do something else as opposed to feel sad and cry. And I’m sure if parents are listening to this, they’ll think, “oh, man, I’ve done that to my child. I’m a terrible parent.” And the point is the consistency of that responding. Right? Because just having it once does not solidify one specific message. It’s just if those patterns happen over and over again, that’s what the child will take from the situation. So, those are very subtle ways that the parent might not be aware that they’re socializing emotion in their child in that way. But through those reactions, the child is learning a lot.

 

Marciane Any (5:38)

That makes a lot of sense. I feel like I’m going to share my stories for a bit later, but that got my wheels turning where I was remembering different examples of, like, “no, that makes sense.” And, you know, the different things you unpack in, like, therapy and different things like that, like, “OK, that makes sense why I respond a certain way.” The consistent pattern to a specific, you know, emotion may have been this throughout like my childhood. So, that makes a lot of sense.

 

Kristel Thomassin (6:05)

Yeah. And I might add to like, I think this brings up a lot of memories for individuals. But if you think about multiplying that by your neighborhood and society and our country, what you get is, basically, some consistencies in how those patterns unfold. And that’s when you get, I guess, social rules about how emotions should be expressed and regulated based on different variables, like gender or age or cultural background. So, in some societies, you might have heard the expression “boys don’t cry.” So, if we’re talking to one boy, or a man, I guess, who thinks about their childhood, they may say, “oh, I can remember moments where I cried or I was sad or expressed a vulnerable emotion and was, kind of, where I got that messaging that that was not what I should be expressing.” But if that happens broadly across society, then that’s when you get more of these social rules about, like, men in general being less expressive or they shouldn’t express any vulnerable emotion and so on.

 

Marciane Any (7:24)

No, that makes a lot of sense. We were going to ask, like, how do social identities like gender, race and ethnicity change the way this process would look? And you touched on some of that. That makes sense because, you know, even just having different conversations with my husband about, what you said, about men in particular, it makes sense because sometimes there can be, like, “oh, I wonder why you respond to this or why just there’s different men around me who I wish were a bit more emotionally expressive.” But then them sharing, well, if the feedback when you are expressive is, kind of, like, the just “move on,” “shove it in” or, you know, “boys don’t cry…,” X, Y and Z, you can see why it’s a bit hard to be or feel like being that emotionally expressive is safe. And that’s such a thing that we see in so many different communities. And it can be really hard.

 

Kristel Thomassin (8:18)

Absolutely. And to address your question, I like to explain that the experience and expression of emotion is embedded within society. That includes social rules, scripts. So, I like to use the example of receiving a birthday gift they don’t like. How would we coach that child on responding to feeling disappointed or even angry that they got, you know, socks for their birthday? I don’t know. That seems to be a common one. But what is it as a society do we tell that child to do in response to that?

 

Marciane Any (8:56)

That’s a good question. If I got socks, I’m not going to, like, — which has happened recently — I was just like, “oh, thank you.”  I know when I was a child, because we didn’t grow up with a lot, my mom very much instilled in us that whatever you get, like, be grateful because there’s a lot of people out there who don’t have socks or who don’t have, like, this stack of pens. I got some pens once for Christmas as well. And they’re, like, “look, your family cares about your education.” There was always, like, this messaging about gratitude. So, now it’s, like, “OK, cool. Thank you so much for the socks.”

 

Kristel Thomassin (9:35)

Yes, for sure. So, even if your experience in that moment was disappointment, let’s say, right, because, I think, you know, especially if you’re in that family situation, you still know of other kids who are getting like big toys and fun things. So, you can still it makes sense that that child would feel disappointed. But our social rules tell us that even if you feel that disappointment, the appropriate way to express emotion is to actually express being grateful and thankful that the person actually thought to get you a gift or got you a gift or that, you know, that you’re actually getting something as opposed to nothing. Right? So, that’s a very common one. I think many of us would respond in that way. And that’s because we have these social directives. Yeah. Right? So, given the social context, most social identities like gender, socioeconomic status, cultural background, those all play a role in how we experience and express and regulate emotions.

 

Tamara Petresin (10:39)

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, honestly, it’s so embedded in, like, who we are and how we interact with our environment and then society, too, and, like, all those, kind of, like, social prescriptions almost and scripts and all those things as well, too. It’s really, kind of, like, eye opening to me, too. I’m like, “oh, my gosh, all these, like, I don’t want to say little things, but, like, they are kind of little things that over time end up being, like, really big things that, like, shape, you know, a child and their emotions and how they express them and everything.” And, like, it really is important when you think about all those things that make up who we are and how we interact with our world. So, yeah, it’s fascinating.

Shifting gears a little bit, talking about anxiety. So, obviously anxiety is a big emotion, and I think there are a lot of social scripts about anxiety that maybe we’ll get into a bit later. But anxiety is a challenging emotion that, you know, kids and families might experience. So, can you please share what anxiety is, what it isn’t and then how it might show up in children in ways that are different than typical stress?

 

Kristel Thomassin (11:35)

Yeah, good question. Anxiety is very tricky because there are some protective or helpful reasons why we experience anxiety. I mean, one could argue that that’s the case for all emotions, because emotions actually help provide you information about what’s going on and what needs to change for you to change your emotion. So, usually, like, with anger, that usually comes out of something being in the way of a goal that you want to reach or something like that, or sadness actually encourages support-seeking and people coming closer to help you. So, there are some helpful functions there. But anxiety is very tricky, and I think very prevalent in today’s society. Basically, it’s this feeling of worry or concern or apprehension about a potential threat or harm or an anticipated event. So, I could say, “oh, man, I have to do this podcast this morning and I’m feeling anxious about it.”  It’s not a threatening situation, but I could be apprehensive about, you know, “what if I mess up very badly? Will this cause harm to me or my reputation or my lab or my students?” So, then I would feel anxiety about that. I would worry ahead of time, potentially, about the podcast. This is very common to children in school and even students in university because you can experience anxiety about an upcoming exam or a test. Your safety is not in danger, right, which would be more like fear: you’re in the woods and there’s a big brown bear. You experience fear because you need to run away and, like, all of those things. So, it’s tricky because a little bit of anxiety will encourage you to study for that test. So, that’s helpful, but too much anxiety, you get things like freezing up or over-doing something like over-studying so much so that you don’t sleep all night and then you end up not doing that well because you didn’t get any sleep. So, things like that. And in children, it can show up in many different ways. And actually, this makes it very tricky for a teacher or a parent or even a psychologist to try to disentangle. Is this anxiety or something else? So, for instance, anxiety can look like concentration problems. Families who have a child who’s very anxious might say, I’m kind of concerned about, like, an attention deficit, like an ADHD-type of thing, because they can’t concentrate. And my response is always, like, “that’s possible. I don’t know. I have to access your child for that.” But if they’re also very anxious and they’re ruminating in their mind about all the bad things that could go wrong. Of course, they’re not paying attention because they’re, kind of, stuck in their own mind about the what ifs, right? “What if this bad thing happens” when a child is very anxious? They can also look shut down, withdrawn, scared to actually engage in certain activities out of fear that something, that it might go wrong, or it might also look like outbursts. A common term now is “big emotions.” Kids who experience big emotions – meaning like they go from zero to 100, you know, in a very short amount of time—they’re not just a little bit nervous, they’re very nervous. Not just a little bit sad; they’re very sad. And sometimes those outbursts or tantrums can be a sign of anxiety. And the last one, which I think we often overlook, is somatic problems. So, things like headaches, tension, like muscle aches, stomach or chest pains. And I think that could be a sign of anxiety as well.

 

Marciane Any (15:28)

I’m sitting here taking all sorts of notes because, unfortunately, you know, anxiety is something that’s like very familiar for me. So, it’s something that I just need to manage on the day-to-day. So, it’s funny you mentioned the “pod [podcast]. Like, even though we co-host, we could still be, like, “oh, do they like us?” Like, “I hope we don’t stumble over our words too much.” Like, you know, there’s still a bit of that anxiety and worry that can happen. But thinking back to like when I was a kid, I definitely had, you know, some of those signs – even early childhood, like six, seven, where I did have trouble concentrating. I was so big on, like, ruminating about other things or what could go wrong or how I’m seen. Like, I remember every single, you know, presentation or something I had to do in front of the class beforehand, I was not OK. Like, even a week before the presentation, always nervous or looking shut down. Like, I did have family members, especially, like, in different open settings, be, like, “are you OK? Are you like this all the time? “Because I looked, like, shut down and it’s, like, I felt uncomfortable, but I didn’t know it at that time, and I didn’t know how to express it. And I just, kind of—what some of the responses I was getting back, I just felt like I was doing something wrong, and I needed to just correct my behavior. But I didn’t even know what to correct. It was just, like, “I’m anxious right now.” And then all the headaches and stomach problems, too. Like, it was always a running joke in my family. Like, if we went on a new experience or something and be, like, “I need to go to the bathroom.” And they’re, like, “are you nervous?” But it’s like, “no, like, I really am,” like, nervous tummy was a thing I’ve had since childhood. So, it’s just interesting now. You know, being able to process all that and things like that. I know what it is. But, you know, my family didn’t know what it was back in the day. I was a child. I didn’t know. But now when we’re able to have those conversations, we’re able to look back and be, like, “OK, that might be anxiety,” especially, you know, they’re seeing it in my younger siblings. So, it’s, like, because they, kind of, you know, saw that with me before and we were able to identify it as anxiety. It’s even helping with, like, those conversations with those who came after me. So, you know, being able to better manage it. So, yeah. Anyway, that just brought to mind, like, “yep, I remember showing a lot of those signs when I was a child.”

 

Kristel Thomassin (17:59)

And I think, like, you mentioned, we are talking more about it. Yes.  Which I think is good. We need to talk about it so that we can understand what it is; how to identify it. So, a young child is not going to be able to say, I” think I’m experiencing anxiety.” I mean, that’s the goal.

Right? But if they’re too little, they just know that something feels bad.

 

Marciane Any (18:22)

Yeah.

 

Kristel Thomassin (18:23)

Or they don’t want something. They don’t want to go to that birthday party because they’re socially anxious. Right? It’s kind of the responsibility of other adults surrounding the child to kind of be aware. And they need that emotion, language to be able to identify it. And then, on top of that, then we need to know what to do about it.

 

Marciane Any (18:28)

A hundred percent.

 

Kristel Thomassin (18:30)

Right? So, you have to know what it is and then what to do about it. So, I like that you mentioned that because a lot of the families that I work with – I’ll  work with the child, and the parent will tell me, “if only I would have had this when I was eight-years-old and I had to suffer for how long,” you know, and I’m working directly with the child and I regularly keep the parent up-to-date on what they’re learning and so that everyone’s on the same page. And the parent is learning right alongside the child in terms of skills and knowledge. And they find that very beneficial. They just wish that someone would have caught on to that and taught them those skills earlier on.

 

Marciane Any (19:24)

A hundred percent. We’re always repeating on the “pod’” [podcast], like, we have so much grace for parents because they’re learning just as much as we’re learning as well. This can be all, like, very new to them. And so, yeah, I’m just glad they have resources and people like you and what you do so that you can help these conversations happen.

Speaking of families, like, how can family dynamics influence a child’s ability to express and manage anxiety?

 

Kristel Thomassin (19:52)

This is a very big question. There are many, many factors that influence child anxiety. So, not to go into too much detail about things like genetics, things like that, but that’s a factor, right? Anxiety can run in families because of predispositions to feeling anxiety and experiencing greater levels of anxiety, but also, because, if there are other individuals in the family who are more anxious, then they will, kind of, display those behaviours or express those emotions and the child, you know, little ones are just sponges, they soak in all the information. So, I think when there’s a lot of anxiety in the household, which does happen, I think that’s something that does impact the child’s experience and expression of anxiety. I think. You have some families who are very expressive across all emotions. So, there are no, sort of, taboo or “bad emotions” to talk about, which I think is helpful, right? So, then the child is not suffering in silence because, you know, as soon as they express that they’re nervous about something, they get a response like, “I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine. It’s OK. You’ve done it before. It’s fine. Like, OK, move on to the next thing.”

Or “OK, if you want to go take a “time-out,” go to your room, relax. And when you’re, kind of, like, feeling better, then you can come back out,” which I think a lot of families do. It’s not one of my favorite strategies. Because it’s indirectly implying that “I can’t deal with this right now” or, like, “I don’t want to deal with your anxiety.” So even though taking a self-time-out, like cooling down or doing something else, is helpful, I think if a parent tells you that repeatedly in response to the same thing, then the messaging is “I can’t deal with this type of emotion. Go deal with it on your own,” which the child may not know how to do that. Right? And to be fair, the parent may not know how to do that. I think there are lots of different factors, all the way from:  just how much emotion in the household; who is it coming from; which emotions are more accepted versus not; and parents own emotion skills; how well they regulate emotions; and their family of origin where they learn their emotion coping skills. So, it kind of goes back pretty far.

 

Tamara Petresin (22:23)

Yeah, definitely. And it makes a lot of sense to, like you said, like kids are sponges – and this popped into my head, but I don’t know if either of you have seen the videos online where people are holding their babies and then they’re, like, close to a wall and they, like, smack the wall and then they react as if like the baby hit their head, but they didn’t. Right?  It just makes a lot of noise.  And then the babies start crying because they know how the parent reacted, like, “oh my gosh, are you OK?” Like, to me, that’s just like a perfect illustration of babies and kids, like, they react based on, like, you know – they look to older people to see how they should react in situations.  And, like, it really does make a big difference in how kids learn to process those emotions and regulate.  So that’s just popped into my head.  So, it’s, like, “oh my gosh, they really are sponges.” And our early experiences shape who we become so much.  But then I also, at the same time, I’m like, yeah, you know, parents, I think a lot of the time, too, as a child, you forget that it’s also your parents’ first time being a parent.  Like, this is their first time doing this as well.  And of course, they’ve had childhood experiences and all these things, too.  But I think it’s just really important to remember that you’re never too old to learn something new and maybe that self-reflection of, “oh, what could I have really used as a child?  And how can I give that to my child now?” And things like that can be really productive.

 

Kristel Thomassin (23:33)

Mm hmm.  I love that example, because—so I have a four-year-old.  She’ll try all sorts of things at home and will fall.  Right?  Just fall down.  And, in some instances, I’m genuinely concerned. So, I run in her direction. I’m, like, “are you OK?” And then she starts crying. She’s, like, “no, I hurt my leg”, or whatever. And I remember, there was this one time where she fell and I don’t know why, but I just burst out laughing because I don’t know. I don’t know if it was how she fell? I just know that I started laughing and she looked at me. She started laughing and I’m, like, “OK, so this was a very similar situation. But you look to me for my reaction.” And then if I’m, like, “oh, gosh, that was such a silly fall.” And then she laughs and then I laugh and then we’re good. Move on to the next thing. But, if I’m like, “oh, my gosh, like, are you OK? Let me see your leg.” And then it makes it a big event and she gets tearful, and it takes so long to get her back out of that because that was such a bad experience.  So, I’ll have to look for those videos.

 

Tamara Petresin (24:34)

Yeah, yeah, definitely. And even, I’m thinking to my nephew, I have a nephew, he’s almost 20 months now, 19 months, somewhere just over a year and a half, but when he was starting to learn how to walk, my sister was really big on being, like, “don’t react when he falls, like, stay neutral, because every time you he tumbles over he looks to us and is like, “am I OK?” And of course, my parents, too, are like, “oh, my goodness.” Like, you know, the grandparents, “are you OK?” And, like, me, too, to be honest, I’m like, “oh, my gosh, sweet baby, are you all right?” But every time we wouldn’t react, he would just like get back up, right? And try again. And so, it is interesting how much they look at us.

That being said, too, I’m assuming, you know, just the same way in these experiences, like kids falling and our reactions as well, too, I know that you’ve done some research and in your 2024 study, you explored how parental language during emotion discussions influence children’s emotional regulation. So, could you just elaborate on this work a little bit and how it might impact a child’s ability to manage their anxiety?

 

Kristel Thomassin (25:30)

Yeah, if it’s OK with you, I might go just a little bit broader than the question, because there is a whole body of literature on the language that parents use when talking about emotions with their kids. So, in a lot of the work we will record discussions between parents and their children and literally go in and count the number of emotion words that parents use with their child and how that might differ depending on depending on if it’s a mom or a dad talking to a child, or a son or a daughter, or, like, all those combinations and younger kids and older kids. And, so, there’s a there’s a lot of work on that. And, I think, generally, one take-home point is that using emotion language, even about negative emotions is helpful for child development because it does provide knowledge; it does provide language for the child to then use. To be able to express what they’re feeling, it’s part of development, part of the learning process. So, I do think it’s not the only factor that’s required, but it does help, I think, in terms of children developing good coping skills.

 

Marciane Any (26:41)

How can parents create a safe and supportive space for their child to express difficult emotions?

 

Kristel Thomassin (26:48)

Also, a very good question, and I think one that’s on most parent’s minds. I think the first point I want to make is if the household has not been very welcoming of emotion expression, it’s hard to go from that to, OK, now the child’s expressing a situation that’s distressing to them. That they want to talk about. It’s hard to do like a full shift, right? Because the child has learned for, how many years, that maybe this is something that’s not talked about in the family. So, I think it does have to start a little bit young to try to send that message that “I’m always here to talk with no judgment, right?” Like, that’s very important it is not coming off invalidating. And invalidating can be punitive. Right? It could be minimizing. So, punitive is, like, “stop that or you’re going to have to go to your room” or “you can’t hang out with us”. So, it’s like punishing the child for expressing the emotion. Minimizing is like, “that’s not that big a deal.” Oh, I was, you know, there’s a birthday party and I’m the only one that’s not invited. Right. So, the parent probably knows that that’s not true. You’re not the only one at the school that’s not invited. Right? So, if you were to say, “I don’t think that’s true.” That’s minimizing and invalidating, even though it might be a correct statement. It doesn’t help the expression. Right? Because that’s how the child is feeling. If you thought you were the only person not invited all of us would feel probably that disappointment, you know. So, I think the validation piece is very important. And if there’s a history of that, there’s a greater likelihood that the child will not be willing to come to you to talk about difficult emotions. The second point, I guess I would say is there’s been a shift in parenting in terms of what’s expected of parents today versus maybe what was expected of parents in previous generations. I talk to my mom all the time about this, and I don’t know if she was validated for anything in her life growing up, you know, but that was just how it was. And little by little, I think that has changed. Over time, there’s an issue there. I think there’s a lot of pressure on parents today to do things just right—like, if you want to know how to support your child’s emotions, you Google it and you have to read at least, like, five hours’ worth of blogs and articles, and this and that and whatever. And then you’re left like with no solid answer because there’s not a single answer. But then you feel like if you’re not doing all the stuff and getting advice from everybody and, like, following all the media posts and, like, then you’re not doing it right. And so, I think for that reason, parents are very stressed.

In thinking about this, I would narrow it down to, like, maybe two or three points. The first one is just having a narrative for yourself as a parent.  How were you raised? What messages did you get about emotions, right? Anger is fine, but only for boys, not for girls. Or like, you can be disappointed, but you can’t be sad or depressed. Like, what sort of implicit messages have you received about emotion? And do you want your child to learn those or not? If yes, that’s one thing. If not, then you know you have to do something a little bit differently, right? And that includes any biases. If you have a son and a daughter, how do you think about emotions being expressed by each of them differently? So, just having that awareness, I think helps.

And then the message I would give parents is the emotion being experienced is almost always valid, right? So, parents often come to me because the child is anxious, and then they avoid lots of things, and they’re unhappy and all this stuff, right? That’s different because we’re talking about clinical disorders. But if you think you’re going to fail something and get kicked out of school, anxiety is a valid emotion. So, it’s not that the emotion is not valid. It’s that “before and after,” so, the thoughts that lead to the emotion, those are not accurate, right? And the behavior, so you’re angry because you really want chocolate cake for breakfast, and mommy said “no,” and you throw a tantrum. Well, anger is valid because you can’t have something you want. I would be frustrated by that too. But you can’t go around hitting people or punching walls and all this stuff. It’s the behavior that’s not a good response, right? And then, just what I said before, which is: if the child knows that the emotion, expression, or discussion will be met with validation, there’s a higher chance they’ll feel like there’s always a safe space to talk about difficult emotions and experiences.

 

Marciane Any (32:05)

Wow, I’m trying to put together my thoughts, but all of this is very helpful for me, someone who’s, like, “oh, I want to have children someday.” I’m like, “okay, yep, that’s self-awareness. Let’s continue to work on it and all of this stuff.” But, also just thinking back to my childhood, I feel like the space felt safer, and there was a lot more of those conversations that needed to happen. Like, the older I got and the more my loved ones, parents, in particular – but even some other loved ones who really were integral to raising me—started on their own journeys of healing and being more open to certain conversations about emotions, about mental health, and understood more about their own childhoods and what they liked versus what they didn’t like, what was helpful versus what wasn’t helpful… that helped open up the space for us to talk so much more freely and more easily. We had listened and we didn’t judge when I was growing up, that was so helpful just to be able to have conversations.

 

And then for me, it helped me be more gracious to think, “oh, well, when you were growing up, like, grandma or grandpa didn’t know,” like, it was just a different time. Like, all the things now that were getting “softer” is what my family loves to say. That just wasn’t a thing back then. It was more about survival, for my family in particular. They’re from the Ivory Coast… immigrant story to America, all that good stuff. Growing up was a lot about survival and about “just respect for your family,” and nothing else mattered besides respecting and honouring your family. And then when they moved to this country, it was all about, like, cultural preservation and also, like, you know, keeping the whole respect hierarchy. So, there was little wiggle room, I think, for emotional expression, because it was just seen as, like, disrespect, the way your emotions came out if it wasn’t done a certain way. And so, I think, just as time has gone on and we’ve been able to unpack that, it’s been so much easier to talk about our needs, our want, our experiences, X, Y, and Z. And then, again, I’m so happy for my younger siblings. Like, the older kids really are the guinea pigs. My younger siblings now are able to have just more of those spaces to have conversations about emotions and anxiety and different things like that and, you know, family being open to help and open to therapy and seeing it as a good thing, as opposed to, you know, it’s only for a certain group of people, that’s not for us. Like, “no, it’s for anyone and it’s super helpful.” So, anyway, I just really appreciate all the points that you gave and those were really helpful for, hopefully, “parent Marciane” one day and even just, like, “childhood Marciane” as well.

 

Kristel Thomassin (35:09)

I appreciate you sharing those experiences, because I think there are some key things that stood out to me in what you said. So, it’s not the first time I’ve heard about parents being softer today. I think there could be some truth to that, in some ways, and not for the main reason why that statement is being said. So, I think the main reason is, “oh, that fluffy stuff, like emotions.” Like, I remember when I first started as a graduate student, I was a Teaching Assistant for a course and the professor, okay, “like, who are you?” Like, first meeting, right?

“Tell me about your background. What do you study?” And I’m, like, “I study emotions” and, like, and he said, “you believe in that, like, emotion stuff?” Like, meaning this fluff, and I was like, “um, yes, I do, because that’s the research.” So, I do think, I don’t agree with that. I don’t think emotions are fluffy and soft and all of that stuff. However, I do think the pendulum sometimes swings too far to the other side, where if you only validate the child’s emotion and everything in that situation, like the tantrum, like everything, right? So, the child is tantruming in the checkout line, at the grocery store, because they want a candy bar, and you said no. And you shut everything down to just say, “I know, you’re really sad. I know.” I don’t, personally, like, I don’t think that’s sufficient, right? Because it’s not appropriate behavior. If I’m sad or upset about something, I’m not gonna, like, cause damage to the environment that I’m in or the people that I’m with, like, I’m not gonna hit people and throw things at people. So, we can be validating that. But I think sometimes when the pendulum swings too far, that’s where the soft comes in, that we then have no boundaries left for teaching appropriate coping strategies that the child then can feel like they can express themselves properly, and skills that will make them more effective as they get older.

 

Marciane Any (37:23)

That’s a helpful distinction. Yeah, boundaries. That’s a whole conversation in and of itself.

 

But that that makes sense. Like, you know, the emotion is fine. Just like you said, if I don’t get a piece of candy, I am disappointed. I’m angry, because I can’t get what I want. But yes, I can’t start to throw things or hit someone or, you know. When I was nannying, it was always biting with toddlers for some reason. That’s not appropriate. So, it’s, like, we can validate the feelings, but the behavior, you know, set boundaries and just be, like, “that’s not appropriate.” If I’m bleeding, or I’m hurting, I can’t now go and make someone else feel that too. That’s not kind.

 

Tamara Petresin (38:05)

Yeah. And I think one thing, too, that’s stuck out to me, too, as you’ve been talking, Dr. Thomassin, too, is just the pressure on parents. And how, you know, the five hours of Googling, and it’s so true, too. And even if you go on Instagram and social media, and there’s all these accounts by these, you know, “parenting experts,” and they’re selling all these courses that are seemingly like almost like the basics of parenting, right? It’s like “how to deal with your toddler’s tantrums,” “how to, like, you know …” and all these things. And I think the reason why those courses and Instagram pages and everything like that get so much popularity is because parents really do care, right? Like, they want to do the best that they can. And there is this pressure, and I think it’s exacerbated by social media too, to be perfect and to, you know, react in the perfect way every single time and to, like, you know, teach your toddler and your children how to manage their emotions so they grow up into, you know, emotionally intelligent, well-functioning adults. And like, of course, that is so overwhelming, right? And given the fact that, you know, of course, it comes from a good place, I think that a lot of parents don’t feel necessarily confident that they have those skills to do those things. And some of your research, as well, has highlighted the significance of parental self-efficacy or parental confidence in emotion socialization.

So, what strategies can parents employ to boost their confidence in supporting their children’s emotional health, particularly in regard to anxiety management?

 

Kristel Thomassin (39:25)

Mm-hmm. My first recommendation, I don’t know if it’s going to land with your audience, because again, I think there’s this idea that if I just work hard enough, if I put in like 150% into this, I’ll be close to perfect. But my first recommendation is to follow the “good enough parenting principle.” Parenting has to be good enough, right? You don’t need to be a superstar; I don’t even know what a superstar parent is, you know? And there’s so many movies even about this. I don’t know, like, that you put in every single ounce of energy that you have to be the perfect parents and you bake the cupcakes and you, like, you know, are every single sports game and you’re on the PTA and you’re, like, all this stuff and then you have no energy or anything left for yourself, which in and of itself is not good for your children, by the way, but follow the “good enough parenting principle.” Because everything that you just described, Tamara, that is anxiety to me. Just hearing you describe that, I felt my own anxiety increase, which is like, “oh gosh, there are coaching things online? Why not? Like I should look into that, you know?” And that is not helpful for you, physiologically, emotionally, and it’s not good modeling for your child either. So, I think we all need to give ourselves a break. We need to lower the bar. Children have been surviving for many decades with parents that were not both around, children were never the priority decades ago. You know, you’re meant to be seen not heard and you don’t join the adult table, and you don’t…, you know, like, all of those rules. Yeah, now it’s different. But there’s no such thing as perfect parenting. So, everyone needs a break, I think. So, that would be first. Yeah, first piece of advice is just to know that if you do things a little bit differently, or there was that one emotion you didn’t validate last Saturday—that does not cause any harm to your child.

 

Tamara Petresin (41:42)

Yeah, that’s really helpful. I think the “good enough parenting,” – and I feel like that’s actually advice I’ve heard within, not within parenting, but doing my PhD—that’s actually one of my advisors’ favorite things to tell us is like, “good enough is good enough,” like, with writing, don’t obsess over it. So, it’s kind of similar in certain ways, right? Like, you could always work more on that manuscript, you could always revise that a little bit more, right? But it’s, like, you do at a certain point, just have to let go. And “good enough is good enough.” And I feel like that’s s.  true in all facets of life. So, that’s really, really helpful.

And yeah, and I think to the reason why that sounded so anxiety inducing, too, as I was listing off all those—probably gives just a little bit of insight into what my brain looks like. All the things going on, right? I’m like, how quickly I also spiral. [laughter] Yeah, like, it’s just really interesting, like, having that moment to just be, “you know what, good enough is good enough.” And just leave it at that. And let it be.

 

Kristel Thomassin (42:34)

Yeah. And I don’t know if you’ve ever had a situation where you worked extra on something, and you actually made it worse.

 

Tamara Petresin (42:40)

Yeah. Oh, definitely.

 

Kristel Thomassin (42:43)

Yes.

 

Tamara Petresin (42:44)

Yeah.

 

Kristel Thomassin (42:45)

Yeah. Or like you’re taking that test, and you have your answers and you’re like, “actually, no, I’m gonna go change my answer.”

 

Tamara Petresin (42:50)

And then you were wrong with, like, you change it on the multiple-choice question that you were, you know, you were right with your gut instinct. So, that’s so true. Like, yeah, yep, “good enough is good enough.”

 

Kristel Thomassin (43:00)

Overdoing it increases your anxiety, puts too much pressure, too much stress. And then you actually end up not being the best version of yourself. Yeah, which is counterproductive.

 

Marciane Any (43:12)

So true. 100%. Putting that on my wall.

Switching gears a bit, you’ve investigated the role of family expressiveness in children’s emotional ability across different racial ethnic groups.

 

Can you please explain these two concepts and discuss how cultural variations and emotional expression within families might influence a child’s anxiety levels and coping mechanisms?

 

Kristel Thomassin (43:41)

So, family expressiveness is basically the verbal and nonverbal level of expression in the family. Some people might like a lay term, maybe, like how emotional a family is—I don’t like using that term personally, because I think it has negative judgment associated with it. But it’s basically like how much is emotion present within the family in both, like, words and nonverbals. I can think back to about when I was growing up and having different friends and going to different friends’ homes, like, for play or whatever. And I remember one time, the parents, like, the family was together, and they were just talking, and, like, it was a different language. So, I don’t know like what they were saying. But I was like a little bit scared because I didn’t know if something bad was happening. But they were just like, very enthusiastic and emotional about things. They were just like emotions were all out in the air everywhere, very tangible, more intense than maybe some other families. And that’s just how some families are. And that does vary by cultural background and how different families and also different cultures, broadly speaking, value emotions, and how they express emotions. That’s one thing, I guess, I would say about family expressiveness in general, emotional ability is the frequent changes in the type or intensity of emotion that’s experienced or expressed, right? So, a child will be labile if they go from zero to 100 very quickly. You know, they’re happy one minute, but little thing happens, and then it’s just, like, so distressed, tears or tantrum, you know, that’s a very quick sort of shifts. And to have lots of those shifts, that’s high lability. So, those are all different types of emotion, variables or ideas or factors that we may be interested in across families. And each of those will vary, again, by different social variables, like we talked about before.

 

Marciane Any (46:02)

No, that makes sense. When you were talking about, like, the language, I was, like, “oh, yes,” in our household, like, we are West Africans, very expressive. Every Saturday, some of my favorite memories, were being woken up by either my mom or my dad talking to family overseas, because they’d be yelling; they’d be laughing. It’s like the house was filled with joy and their voices. But at the same time, I’ve had friends come over, and my family will be explaining something or talking or telling me to do something, and it can sound very aggressive. And it’s like, “nah, this is their happy voice. Trust me, you’ll know when it’s aggressive.” But we’ve even had to have conversations about that. Because if that’s the voice, just normal, their aggressive voice, and more of a sensitive soul. It’s like, “I can’t receive that well when it’s, like, that aggressive, could we have maybe, like, you know, more calm conversations where the same message comes across?” But as a child, like, remember, I’m still a child. It seems like this is how I would talk to an adult if we’re in an argument. But child me, I’m a bit scared. Y’all are bigger than me.

 

Kristel Thomassin (47:21)

And I think—not to get too complicated, but especially for individuals that have different cultural backgrounds, where parents were born, let’s say, in whatever country, and they came to Canada, and children were born here, or, and then they go to school in Canada, and they learn those values and those cultures as well. But many parents want to maintain their home country or their home culture. And there’s different levels of acclimation to the original home culture. And that can create some differences between children and their parents, in terms of how much they, sort of, latch on to those more specific ways that in this situation, like how emotions are expressed, right? So, I do think, as individuals move to different countries—this is all over the world, not just to Canada—you’re kind of farther from your home country, and it’s very hard to maintain that home culture, you have to work very hard at it. But then you have children, and then your children have children. And then, so it’s, like, that gap is much greater. And I think that does lead to discrepancies, you know, you have the grandparents, then with the grandkids, who are, like, “second gen” [generation] Canadian, right?

 

Marciane Any (48:47)

All of that makes sense. And I was, like, “that’s legit,” [legitimate] in our household, because my siblings, you know, were the first ones that were Americans in my family. So, there was that culture where it was just, like, “you know, back home, this wouldn’t go.” And I’m like, “well, we all go to school here, we’re born, we’re raised here, it’s a different culture, you know, we’re trying to balance both cultures, like not lose our cultural identity from like our ancestry.” But at the same time, like, this is where we’re born, this is also our home. So, it’s always just like finding that balance and can definitely come with some challenges. But, you know, a lot to talk through and have grace for both, because it’s new for them. And it’s new for us, too.

 

Tamara Petresin (49:33)

Yeah, and even you just saying that, Marciane, too, like, my parents are also immigrants, like we’re Serbian. And so, I have, like, distinct memories of, like, hanging out in the basement with my friends, and my mom would be upstairs, and she would yell my name, because she needed to grab something from the basement. And my name sounds differently than it does in English, right, in Serbian. And, I remember my friends always being like, “Oh, my gosh, she’s mad at you.” And I was like, “no, she’s just like saying my name.” So, it’s just interesting, too, because I think like language is a really big part, too, of, like, how we like interpret emotion and those discussions as well, too. So, it’s just interesting to think about that piece of it as well.

 

Marciane Any (50:08)

When should families consider seeking professional help? And what does that process typically involve?

 

Kristel Thomassin (50:14)

Yes, families can seek professional help whenever they want. So, I don’t think it’s a requirement, at least in my opinion, that you wait until there’s a significant problem with anxiety, or any other sort of symptoms like depression or anything like that in order to seek help. I work with lots of families who they know that when they were little, like the parents, they had a lot of trouble with anxiety. And now they’re starting to, like, “Oh, I just noticed, a few times this happened, I’m worried that my child may have some little bit of anxiety, too.” But they’re not old enough to have faced more challenging school things or peer things and it hasn’t fully come out. That’s still a really good time to seek some support. The treatment will be shorter, it’ll be more direct, more solution-focused, we’ll give you some skills that can even be applied for future developmental transitions. So, I don’t think it’s necessary for parents to wait until, like, things feel bad, and it’s disrupting the family environment and things like that. So, that’s one thing I would say. The therapeutic approach will differ based on who you work with. But I will say of the various child diagnoses or problems that we have, so, again, like depression, anxiety, trauma, disruptive behavior, and all the treatments that are recommended for those conditions, anxiety treatment tends to be the strongest of all the treatments that we have to be the most effective. So, actually, treatment for anxiety is quite effective. And it typically focuses on exposure therapy. So, from a cognitive-behavioral perspective, you address the thoughts that go along with the anxiety: “I’m going to fail, and then I’m going to get kicked out of school. And this is terrible. And I’ll lose all my friends,” and that sort of thinking that is likely not accurate. And the behavior, which is that “I’m not going to want to go to school. I’m going to stay in my bed. I’m not going to go to that social event, because I’m socially anxious.” And basically, it teaches the child and the parents about how to identify the anxiety; how to label it properly. So, being able to know that you’re not going to the social event, because you’re actually anxious, but you would actually like to go. And we work with the child on practicing being brave in those situations. So, the therapist becomes sort of like a coach. So, if anyone’s done any sports, or had a tutor, or all of those things are skills that we practice. And having a coach is really helpful for that, because they’re sort of masters at whatever sport, or whatever thing you’re learning, and they can help coach you through that process. And then you learn those skills for the future.

 

Tamara Petresin (53:04)

That’s awesome. To close out the podcast, we like to give families three practical take-home tips. So, considering everything we’ve talked about today, what are three tips that can be shared with our listeners to help them manage anxiety in their family?

 

Kristel Thomassin (53:17)

Yes, I love that question. Number one:  validate and normalize the experience. “So, I hear you when you say you’re anxious about X situation.” You’re not the only one in the world who’s been anxious about a test, or who feels or worries about going to a birthday party, or whatever situation it is, right? So, validate: “it makes sense, you would feel that;” normalize: “you’re not the only one.”

Number two, I would say, resist the urge to over-protect the child by removing them from the situation, or doing the thing for them. So, let’s say you go out to dinner as a family, and the waiter or waitress comes around, “what will you be having?” Parent orders their food, the waiter looks at the child, child is quiet, terrified to say anything. Assuming they’re old enough to be able to order their own food, which I think is quite young, like my four-year-old can order her own food, right? I think what happens is the parent will notice the anxiety, will feel distressed, because as a parent, it’s very distressing to see your child in distress, feeling it, and you want to save them. And saving them will help in that moment, just in that moment, but does not help them long term. Not saving them, the parent has to tolerate the anxiety. But you can actually encourage your child to order their own food. And then they do it, and they have a success. And then they feel accomplished, like they’ve mastered that situation. And they’ll feel good about it. And then it reduces the anxiety long term. Right? So, the urge is I’m going to order for them. I would say, take the extra five minutes, 10 minutes, coach them on how to do it. If you have to say it together, like, any sort of close approximation to what you want them to do is the way to go.

And the third one is praise and reward for bravery. So, praise them for the fact that they order their own food, even if they were super quiet, or even if they, you know, we’re supposed to say, “chicken nuggets with fries,” and they said “chicken,” it’s only one word, they said something, right?

 

Marciane Any (55:47)

Yeah.

 

Kristel Thomassin (55:48)

So, you want to praise that. And you want to reward the behaviour in whatever way works. And that doesn’t have to be a financial reward. It can be a “high five,” or a special dance or a special handshake that you have or anything sticker. So, anything that is age appropriate, and we’ll be reporting to the child.

 

Tamara Petresin (56:09)

Incredible. Those are such helpful tips. Honestly, I wrote them down in capitals and put a bunch of stars on them. So, I’m gonna lock that away somewhere for future use. But thank you so, so much, Dr. Thomassin, for taking the time to chat with us about how families can manage anxiety and for sharing your knowledge and your expertise with us on the Healthy Habits, Happy Homes podcast.

 

Marciane Any (56:26)

You’ve provided us with such helpful tips. And we hope our listeners can take away some of these useful tips that you’ve shared. We’ll see you next time.

 

The post Episode 71: Stronger Together: How Families Can Tackle Childhood Anxiety with Dr. Kristel Thomassin  appeared first on Guelph Family Health Study.

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