The Wellness Connection with Fiona Kane
Real Conversations about things that Matter
All things life and health - physical health, nutrition, mindset, mental health, connection plus society and culture with Fiona Kane, experienced and qualified Nutritionist, Holistic Counsellor and Mind Body Eating Coach
Frank discussions about how to achieve physical and mental well being.
I talk about all things wellness including nutrition, exercise, physical and mental health, relationships, connections, grief, success and failure and much more.
Some episodes are my expertise as a nutritionist and holistic counsellor and some are me chatting to other experts or people with interesting health or life stories. My goal is to give you practical and useful info to improve your health and tidbits that you may find inspiring and that may start discussions within your circle of friend/family.
The Wellness Connection with Fiona Kane
Episode 84 Embracing Emotional Intelligence to Encourage Resilience in your Children
In this episode with emotional intelligence expert Steph Pinto; we navigate the complex landscape of emotional intelligence in parenting, where balancing emotional awareness with resilience becomes key.
Steph Pinto has a background paediatric speech pathology, and is now a leading coach and consultant in emotional intelligence. Through her compelling stories, Steph reveals the profound impact of understanding both our own emotions and those of others.
We discuss Steph's own experience of overcoming anxiety, both Steph and Fiona share how individually they had to learn a better way to manage their own emotions and relationships in adulthood. This helps to illustrate the power of emotional intelligence in building stronger personal relationships and enhancing parenting skills.
This is not about creating overly emotional children who think the world revolves around them! We emphasise the importance of acknowledging children's emotions without allowing them to dominate every decision, advocating for a modern approach to parenting that shuns outdated methods of emotional suppression while still including healthy things like boundaries.
Join us for this enlightening conversation that challenges traditional norms and acknowledges where some modern parenting ideas have gone too far, finding a balance, and ultimately championing the necessity of emotional intelligence for personal growth and effective parenting.
Steph's info:
Web: https://www.stephaniepinto.com/
Book: https://www.stephaniepinto.com/book
Podcast: https://www.stephaniepinto.com/podcast
Learn more about booking a nutrition consultation with Fiona: https://informedhealth.com.au/
Learn more about Fiona's speaking and media services: https://fionakane.com.au/
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Credit for the music used in this podcast:
The Beat of Nature
Hello and welcome to the Wellness Connection Podcast with Fiona ain. I'm your host, Fiona Cain. I've got another guest today. Her name is Steph Pinto. Hi, Steph.
Stephanie Pinto:Hi Fiona, how are you? I'm well, thanks. How are you today? I'm good. Kids are at school, so it's good.
Fiona Kane:Yeah, the school holidays are over. I have the husband that goes back to school. Everyone else has the kids that go back to school because my husband's a school teacher. No, are over. I have the husband that goes back to school. Everyone else has the kids that go back to school because my husband's a school teacher. So school holidays is different in my house, the same as it is different in your house, just in different ways. So for those who don't know you, would you like to introduce yourself?
Stephanie Pinto:Yes, okay, so Stephanie Pinto and I'm here in Sydney as well, just like you, and I have two kids and a husband and my work is emotional intelligence, anything and everything to do with emotional intelligence I love. My background actually is as a pediatric speech pathologist, so I kind of have that therapist background and obviously worked with kids for a long time and really got to understand and kind of get them if that makes sense, yes, but then, long story short, I sort of discovered emotional intelligence online, as you do, and I thought what is this like weird stuff that this person is posting? And I was just reading a few of what they were posting little clips and articles and stuff and I, I, yeah, pretty quickly became fascinated. So now I um, I've moved out of obviously being a therapist into an emotional intelligence coach and consultant.
Stephanie Pinto:Um, I will speak internationally at conferences and train um teams and organizations and I wrote a book that came out last year called from chaos to connection and that's how parenting with emotional intelligence raises kind, confident, resilient kids. And so, yeah, anything to do with emotional intelligence, I'll kind of write about it, teach about it, speak about it. Yes, and then a smaller portion of my work but I love it is that I do anxiety therapy for kids and teens as well, because that was my story as a kid and I didn't have anything. You know, nothing like what we have now back then 20 years ago. So that's kind of a bit about me and what I do.
Fiona Kane:Yeah, okay, great and congratulations. You know the book and the international conferences and things like that. I've been watching your career for a little while and it's been really great to see you thrive and see your message get across.
Stephanie Pinto:So congratulations on how you've come so far and I imagine you're going to be going a lot further than this yeah, I hope so, but yeah, it's wild, like if you, if you'd asked me five years ago, I I would have that's kind of when I started this. Actually, I would have said no way would I ever be able to, yeah, do half the stuff. Um, I do. I think it's really helped my confidence and my mindset and how resilient I am too.
Fiona Kane:So, yeah, that's why I love it and really it's just do the next thing, then do the next thing and then do the next thing. That's. I mean, essentially, that's how you get there. If you get anywhere, how you get there, you just take the next step, don't you? Yeah, exactly. So. For those who maybe haven't heard of it, or have heard of it, but think it's just some weird concept what is emotional intelligence?
Stephanie Pinto:Okay. So I think sometimes people believe this is what I believed. Initially I thought, okay, emotional intelligence is being smart with your emotions, got it. And technically at the time I was probably the world's most emotionally unintelligent person, not because I didn't have the kind of personality style that would like erupt and get really angry and lash out. I went the other way. I was kind of, I went inward, I shut down, I was a people pleaser, I didn't speak up and things like that, and I mentioned a bit about anxiety. So that was still though me, not being smart with my emotions. I didn't have a handle on them. I didn't have a handle on them, I didn't understand them. I just I was a really good shover and I shoved them down and that kind of worked well for me until it didn't.
Stephanie Pinto:But let's if we go through the kind of more in-depth explanation of emotional intelligence, it's the ability to be aware of your own emotions and those of others in the moment and to use that information to guide your actions, make good decisions and adjust your behavior. So there's a whole lot in there, but like the pieces that I kind of pick out is that, yes, I need to have the awareness of and recognize the emotions building in my body when something is happening and I'm getting frustrated or feeling anxious. But I also actually have to have this like situational awareness of, let's say, it's my kids, or it's my husband, or it's someone at work, I don't know. I have to understand that they also. This is a huge thing. That was like a game changer for me to understand that other people's emotions and experiences were as true for them as mine are for me.
Stephanie Pinto:That like blew my mind because I was like no, you're being ridiculous, this is what we should be doing, like we agreed, and why are you making such a big deal? And then I realized, oh, my God, like I, you know how frustrating is it to have your emotions invalidated by someone. So, yeah, it's kind of that two-way awareness and understanding and using that information. Like I said, using that information to actually make good decisions, to adjust yourself and your behavior in a conversation or an interaction. This has probably saved my marriage, like my husband and I joke about that, but it probably has, because we're very different, we have different backgrounds and I think stuff like day-to-day at home with my kids. On the whole, it's pretty smooth. Yes, I have big emotions and they, you know, argue and stuff, but very rarely does it end up in like a power struggle and a yelling match, like that's just not, you know, and I'm not perfect, but yeah.
Fiona Kane:No, I am. I don't know about you. I can't understand why you're not. We're all so perfect. Anyone who watches or listens to this knows that I'm far from that. I'm quite honest. But I would say it saved my marriage as well, and I'm the opposite to you. I'm not really a shover down, I'm more of a shover in your face.
Stephanie Pinto:But I love. I love how you like I've you know I've spoken to you and I've seen you know I'm, I follow you online and things like that. But I love that you are not afraid to speak your truth and give your opinion and say what you think matters or what's important. Like without I would have and I'm coming out like I'm a recovering. You know, people pleaser, as they say, the fear and the anxiety of like, but what will they think of me and like? Will they hate me? Like that, just you know everyone is different.
Fiona Kane:But I admire that. I do think of that and I do kind of go oh God, people are going to hate me the more things I say. But at the same time, my need to get it out is stronger than my concern about what will happen, and it always has been. And it's getting stronger and stronger as I get older. So I'm going to put more and more people offside as I get older. Becoming one of those you know menopausal ladies who just says what you think.
Stephanie Pinto:I actually really admire that. I haven't told you, but like I do, I'm like, wow, I wish I could find some of that.
Fiona Kane:Sometimes I can, but some of that fire to be like hey, no, like that's not okay or that's wrong or anyway, I think you are finding it, because the fact that you're even talking about emotional intelligence and working with these issues, you are finding it. And I know that you have told me that you've had some pushback around it. So you know I understand that you you probably standing up more than what you think you are. That's true, that's true. So I have some questions then. So I'm a Gen Xer, so I grew up in a time where it's like shut up and stop crying, because I'll give you something real to cry about in a minute if you don't stop crying. I also, you know it was a time where, yeah, essentially it's just like kids should be seen and not heard and you should just, you know, go away and deal with it somewhere else. It's not my problem. So that's what I grew up with. And also just the we don't have strong emotions, let's not have strong emotions, we just don't do strong emotions, let's not have strong emotions, we just don't do that. That's not appropriate. And so I kind of grew up with the. I kind of learned to emotionally eat at a quite a young age, because that was a way of managing my emotions and pushing them down and making myself feel better, and that has obviously been a challenge that I've had throughout my life and that's affected my health and all sorts of things and other topic, other podcasts, whatever. So that's sort of. I grew up in that era.
Fiona Kane:Now, at the other end of things, you know, because I think sometimes things go too far, what I see at the moment is you've got uni students who sort of need a safe space, you know, and they, you know, and it's all about their hurty feelings and everything's about their feelings. And while I think feelings are really important and from an emotional intelligence point of view, you know, obviously, everything you said about being able to look at a situation and kind of make a sensible judgment about it based on all of the information, and have a sensible response, absolutely, but, on the other hand, everyone's emotions being the most important thing and and everyone should change everything for their emotion, it's, you know, gone a bit too far for me. So I think there's got to be a balance in there somewhere. But so what is it?
Fiona Kane:You know you said that you are teaching in regards to helping people raise children and like who are who you know, kids who can like we're pretty robust, my generation right, and I see a generation of not so robust and I feel like this emotional intelligence thing. Hopefully there's a middle ground somewhere where there's robustness but also not kind of not as bad as it was when I was younger. So tell me a bit about that, the middle ground with this and what your work hopes to achieve and achieves.
Stephanie Pinto:Yeah, I love that and I think emotional intelligence actually is that middle ground. A lot of people, at least in my circles, online mostly will have this idea that emotional intelligence means we're sitting down, talking about our feelings, we're helping our kids to like sit with them and, you know, really unpack them. And you know this is erring in the side of like permissive parenting, where this, as you said, emotions are like the big. You know, this is all we do and I'm like, no, that's unproductive, that's not, it's not realistic, it's not how the world works. And I think that's more if we think of like I don't know why I get this kind of concept or this metaphor of a river bank, like sorry, a river, and you've got two river banks, one on either side.
Stephanie Pinto:If we are that old style, which now is well, yes, I'll say respectfully like it's outdated, it's not underpinned by the neuroscience and the research and what we know about what builds resilient kids, as you said, I think you know mentioned emotional overeating. There's lots of things that develop from the too harsh and strict view of seeing emotions like put them away behind closed doors. I don't want to see them like you're weak if you've got those. So we know that's detrimental, but also on the other side of the riverbank. Too permissive, too soft too. Yes, okay, you're worried about school. Okay, let's not go today, like, well, you know that that's unhelpful.
Fiona Kane:Yes To children or they don't know, they've never heard no. They get to 25 and they still never heard the word no.
Stephanie Pinto:Yeah, and I wonder I haven't looked into this enough but I wonder if just with lots of things over decades, like generations and things, we swing from one to the other. With lots of different things in life, I think we swing against, like we go against what our parents did.
Fiona Kane:So Gen X kids like me were like well, our parents, you know, we were out until the end of the day, you know, don't come home till the street lamps come on, and that kind of thing, and we kind of go well, that wasn't right. And so then, yeah, we've kind of swung the other way, many of us anyway.
Fiona Kane:And look, I'm not a parent, so it's really easy for me picking on parents. It's just so easy from my comfortable spot here where I haven't had to do it, so I will just acknowledge that as well.
Stephanie Pinto:Yeah, well, no, I mean, you're bringing up a really good point and it's, if we're looking at what we what I say no quote, unquote, no works. This is just what the last, maybe even like 20 years of research has shown us. If we think about. You know, the nineties was called the decade of the brain because we had access to brain scans, mris, and we really started to learn oh, when we do these things repetitively, the brain develops in this way, and vice versa. So, basically, the general consensus is and what the research shows is that if we are attuned to and responsive to our kids' emotions, rather than shoving them down and stuffing them, then they will grow up on the whole to be resilient and successful.
Stephanie Pinto:It's not to say, like I said, that we sit down and we kumbaya and we're talking about emotions, but we don't have to beat them out of our kids if that makes sense and shame them, Because, as you know, there are implications for that, and I was just watching something the other day an Australian research looking at rates of anxiety, depression, self-harm, suicide and more.
Stephanie Pinto:Rates are just increasing. So there's something that we're not, that we haven't been doing right, if that makes sense. Obviously there's, you know COVID and lots of other contributing factors, but basically we need help dealing with our emotions and if we don't have the tools, then things don't go right. We're not logical robot kind of creatures. We are built on emotion and I think we need to honour them and listen to them and then move through them. Like I talk to parents, a lot and educators about help like just for ourselves, not even our kids, but can we learn to accept, recognise, accept, honor and value them, listen to them because they're probably telling us a really important message, and then we can process and release them, move on with our day Like that's it, that's done right.
Fiona Kane:Essentially, it's data, right, so it's learning how to identify emotions and their data. The same as I always talk about data, whether it be I've got a pain in my foot or whether it be I feel sad or whatever in between, whether it's an emotional or physical but it's information, it's data and it's about what you do with that. So what you're talking about is being able to identify it and then, like you said, moving through it, understanding what it is and just figuring out what the next step is. But it's not sort of then I'm going to spend forever sitting in this place of oh, I'm in this emotion the whole world's got to come to my rescue because I'm feeling, whatever it is.
Stephanie Pinto:Yeah, you know, actually, something that popped in my mind as you were saying that, Fiona and I think this is really helpful is that if we can get out of the whole, you know we learned a lot of unhelpful and basically just wrong lessons about emotions. As kids we learned that they were wrong, embarrassing, bad, shameful sign of weakness.
Fiona Kane:You're just not allowed to have them, and you're not allowed to have them in public, and you're not allowed to have them around me because I don't know how to deal with my emotions. So the last thing I want you to do is have big emotions around me because I don't know. I've never been allowed to have mine.
Stephanie Pinto:Why should you have yours.
Fiona Kane:That was pretty much it.
Stephanie Pinto:Exactly, you hit the nail on the head, and so I think if we just can move away from that and into not that, you know, not swinging too far the other way Okay, we need to check in all the time with our emotions. Sometimes we just need to get things done, we just need to get in the car, we need to get to school or we need to finish this project for work, whatever it is. But can we start maybe understanding that emotions are as much a part of being human as having a nose or an elbow or a brain, just normal, natural parts of our humanity? Let's learn to understand them and work with them Like that's it.
Fiona Kane:Yeah, yeah, as simple as that, yeah, and you know the reason. You know respectfully, you would understand it's. The reason I'm pushing back on this is because these are the first of all. These are my questions, but secondly, these are the questions that I know a lot of people would be asking, and a lot of what people think about when they think of this is you know I won't go into the politics of it but a lot of stuff going on in the world that isn't necessarily so healthy, and I think it's easy to get this confused with that, which is why I just wanted to drill down and talk about what it actually really means and what it's about.
Stephanie Pinto:Yeah, actually, can I mention then, because that's a good point I was talking about resilience. The other day it was on a different interview and the theme was resilience like in ourselves, but in our kids too. And the question was does raising emotionally intelligent kids or talking about emotions and things like that, is that making them resilient or weak snowflakes? And I was like here this is me rubbing my hands together. I was like here we go and I said imagine, imagine a child who learns how to understand and manage their anger, understand and manage frustration or anxiety or disappointment of a breakup or of a bad score on a test or you didn't get that job you really wanted. Like, imagine when we're able to understand. Like really process and use some coping strategies to move past that emotion. Like listen to what it's teaching us, as you said, and then move out the other side, making good decisions or adjusting our behaviour.
Stephanie Pinto:That is resilience. It's not staying stuck in the little pit, it's the ability of this has gone wrong. I feel really awful about it. I'm so mad about it. What do I need to do now? What is this telling me? I should have said no when I said yes. I should not let that person into my life anymore or you know whatever it is. But then, like, imagine that the strength of that person being able to handle you know in a uh, what's the word? Um? That the adversities that are going to happen, unavoidable adversities in life, like I said, jobs, marriages breakdown, like losing kids, like lots of stuff, being able to understand it and manage it and move through the other side. I'm like that's resilience. Yes, it is. It's the ability to move through things because things are going to happen.
Fiona Kane:And that's true because I know that in my generation that I've seen what has happened to a lot of people around me who kind of did their just push it all down, let's just push it all down thing that works until it doesn't. Some of those people who are older, like sort of around my age or earlier, have started to have health problems or mental health problems or just really big challenges and everything kind of unravels suddenly because they can't hold it down anymore and then they've got a lot to deal with. So I do acknowledge that a better way is actually it's acknowledging the emotions and, as long as what you do with them is exactly what you've said, you learn how to identify it's data, it's information. What did I learn? What do I need to do now? How can I reframe things? That kind kind of thing. So if it's a process that you can use to move through something, to have a learning, you know to have to learn and to move forward then that's brilliant.
Stephanie Pinto:Can I share just because you were mentioning about some of those, some of the challenges of like shoving it down, that it kind of works until it doesn't?
Stephanie Pinto:Yes, I had a a mum come into one of my programs, or she wanted to come into one of my programs. This is like two years ago and I have never, ever forgotten this because it just like it rattled me. I had to like close my laptop, go out and just like take some deep breaths because I was just really she wanted to come into the program. She was struggling with one of her three children and their big emotions and his and his challenging behavior. And she said but my husband like we're out on the farm you know we're pretty Aussie he like I love this stuff, but my husband's really not, he's not into it, but I would love him to come along and like watch some of the videos. And I said, look, I'll, I'll do a call with him, I'll do a phone call or a Zoom, whatever. Anyway, it ended up being a phone call because he was literally out on the farm somewhere in like rural New South Wales and I want to say, like a lovely guy he probably swore like a farmer. But I just understood that that was how you know, that's the culture. But he was really against everything that I was trying to explain about, you know. This is why we have to understand why your son is having these big emotions, like what's going on with him, and really be kind of meet him where he's at right, rather than what the father used to do, which was like threatening and punishments and stuff like that. And the father said you know what I don't really want to hear about all this emotional stuff. Like I don't have time, we're on the farm, the boys need to be working on the farm, like that's that. If they're not, you know, going to be part of it, I kind of don't care. He said I have bigger things on my plate, not just the farm.
Stephanie Pinto:In the last I can't remember how many years I think he said two or three years. He said in the last two or three years I've had three of my farmer mates he used a different word but end their own lives because of the stress and maybe the fear of losing farms and money, finances, like all of that stuff. Like just that was what he was getting at and he didn't say it like that, but essentially that was what happened. He'd lost three of his mates in the last few years and I I was like gobsmacked, like this was me a couple of years ago, and I just thought, oh my God, like how do I respond to that?
Stephanie Pinto:Um, but in my like I'm I've got a bit of like I'm buzzing as I tell, because I still remember it so raw and I just remember thinking what has to go on or what has to go so far wrong that men and this is not just men, it's women but cannot tolerate that level of stress, emotion like fear, anxiety or depression, like what's underneath all of these challenges and these mental health challenges like to go that far, like that's the inability to understand and work through stresses and adversity and the emotion that comes with that. And they obviously had not the right coping skills or the tools like to get through it. And I just couldn't obviously explain that in the phone call and he wouldn't have heard it anyway. But I just thought, oh my God, like he obviously doesn't see the connection between you know there's so many I know it's a sweeping generalization but so many men out there who are just they haven't been taught how to deal with their emotions or they've been taught to shove it down and get on the farm and do your work.
Fiona Kane:Yeah, and in his defense I see where he's coming from from. I could see why he feels so overwhelmed with all of that stuff. The stuff that you know that the women are talking about seems like you know, weirdo kind of, uh, soft, soft stuff you know. So I could understand why he didn't recognize it and if you've got all of that stuff on your mind. That's the thing too. It's like, and it's not even a situation of and I know that you're not saying this either, but it's not a situation of, um, that you know he was somehow stupid, or or that all that men or well, people in that situation aren't able to understand at all. It's more just, uh, that when you're in it and when you're really in it, and when you're up to here in life man, woman, whoever you are you just cannot see the forest for the trees. So you can't take in information.
Fiona Kane:And even if you go back to that Maslow's hierarchy of needs right, so Maslow's hierarchy of needs, what is it? It's like food, water, shelter, something along those lines. You've got to feel safe. And if you can't feel safe, safe, you can't really develop in a spiritual way or develop really an emotional way. So he's clearly not feeling very safe, and he's probably got a really good reason for it as well. So I totally get that. But I also get you kind of um going oh my god, how, how can he not you know? Oh wow, you can't you know, and that's really tough, and sometimes it's the people that really need the help that aren't the ones that get it or don't get it at that time. But let's just hope over time things have changed for him.
Stephanie Pinto:Who knows?
Fiona Kane:Sometimes you don't end up working with that person, but sometimes there's a seed somewhere that happens in that time and you know you hear later some good stories out of those things as well, where the person has. I've had a situation where I've got a lot of my clients are women and their husbands. One of them in particular used to call me the hoodoo guru. You're going to see the hoodoo guru. I like that band. So it's like there's worse things to be called, but they have funny names for me and stuff like that. But it's like there's worse things to be called, but, uh, they have funny names for me and stuff like that. But uh, but yeah, I.
Fiona Kane:That's pretty full-on though, and it's and it's and it's, and it's a weird paradox, isn't it, that what you're offering is what could have helped, but um but when you're in that and you know, and obviously it couldn't have helped with the immediate of you know, maybe he was about to lose his farm and all things going, going on. So obviously it couldn't have directly helped with that, but it could have helped with a lot of the underlying issues that you were talking about. That is why they're in that situation in the first place.
Stephanie Pinto:I get that this is really challenging a lot of people's blueprint of how they were raised and all those moments like I don't know millions of moments where we learned or were taught, like I said, you know, you know not to have those emotions or to put it away or to stop being a drama queen or to stop being ridiculous. Like you know, we, we learned Um, so it's really yeah, it's um challenging that. Those that programming, I want to say because it feels very um, it feels wrong, it feels like new age and stuff. And I'm like I get that. Like this is why I rest a lot on the research and what that says and of child development, neuroscience and psychology and stuff like that. Because even for me, like I have a I have a health science degree in speech pathology, so that makes me feel better because I was, it was drilled into me to use evidence-based practice, so I was like, okay, I can't really get on board unless I know.
Stephanie Pinto:And now there is, there's oodles, like one of the books behind me is it's called Permission to Feel by Professor Mark Brackett and he is the founding director of Yale University's Center for Emotional Intelligence. So in one of the most prestigious universities in the States there's a whole center dedicated towards the research and development of emotional intelligence for kids, for adults, in the workplace, in teams, organizations. Everything and not one shred of evidence, shows that, like, when done right, when trained and learning emotional intelligence, you know that you're going to end up being this kind of soft snowflake and like it's's all really really positive um outcomes. So that that makes me go okay, like I'm on the right track yes, yeah, and you know the other thing too.
Fiona Kane:We're all learning in all of these things. So the more we learn, the more we adjust things. Or you know, this, this bit was good, that bit didn't work out, whatever it is, so it's all about learning as you go along and looking at the evidence and looking at uh, you know, looking at what's happening in front of you and what you know, not not ignoring when things sometimes we get caught up in, oh we, this is the right way, and then we don't look at what's in front of us and what is working, what's not working. So it's also looking at what works. But this, uh, you know, so far, as far as I can see, uh, this seems to be a much better strategy than the one before. You know, look the other thing too.
Fiona Kane:In regards to something else that I've seen a lot of, I remember I worked in a health food store years ago and I had a woman come in and I feel for her. She had lots of kids and I don't even know what that's like, so it's really awful, but she had a little boy with her, and what I see happen a lot in families is children get labelled. You know, that's a good one, that's a bad one. We all get labelled as whatever, that's a funny one, that's a smart one, whatever it is, and I think that's really unfortunate because I think that we often then live into that role, whatever the role is. But had the the naughty one with her, and she was telling me about how he's got ADD this, that blah, blah, blah, and he can't control himself and whatever, and he's going, mom, mom, mom, mom. And she's like shut up, shut up, shut up, he's going, mom, mom, mom. He was telling her he needed to go to the toilet, right, and this went on for like quite a long time.
Fiona Kane:He was only a small child, I don't know, I can't remember now, but six, six, maybe eight, but probably six and mum, mum, mum, mum, and she's like go away, go away, stop being naughty, like he was just like, oh, you're being naughty, you know. And then eventually he sold his pants and the floor and, you know, number twos. It wasn't pleasant, right, but then that was her evidence for why he's bad. And I was, oh, my brain was about to explode because I was thinking, oh, my God, you've just, in front of him, gone on and on and on about how bad he is and how you can't concentrate, can't do it. So you're teaching him that he's bad and that he can't do all these things and whatever. You've totally just not listened to him for the last however many minutes where he's been trying to clearly communicate to you that he needs to go to the toilet. And now he's done this thing and you're going to shame him and use it as a confirmation of what a bad child he is.
Fiona Kane:And not only that, but God, I could have just imagined she'll be telling that story everywhere about she's the victim and how the child's so terrible. So the the victim and how the child's so terrible. So the child will get shamed everywhere forever about that story. I mean, he's probably an adult now, so long ago. But oh, you know, what are your thoughts around that? Around sort of like, when we label children, as you know, put them in different roles and kind of in my opinion, I think so often really cements them in a certain role for life.
Stephanie Pinto:Yeah, yeah, it can. And I have another parent of mine came to mind where she had three children and one was the naughty one. And I totally understand that when you're labeled with something it's almost like a cage and it feels it becomes your identity and we know that the words that we speak to our kids become the inner voice. So that happened to me. I'm sure that happened to a lot of other people and it's kind of like a self-fulfilling prophecy. So, yes, you know, that's understandable.
Stephanie Pinto:But I think you know, as we were talking before about the farmer story and you made a really good point that you can see how he kind of got to that space. Probably he was in his 50s, I want to say. So you know, you can imagine farmer family and back in the sort of 70s, 80s anyway, and I think, with this parent, or you know, without knowing lots, I just think what, what must have led to like how, the challenges that this parent must have endured with not knowing how to understand her kid, not knowing how, how to deal with his maybe big emotions, or you know the anger or the lashing out or the, the constant, you know attention seeking or whatever. Like you know to, I can just see. You know, if I had her paradigms, if I had her beliefs, if I had her experiences, maybe I would have responded or reacted in the same way, which is not the right way, like I'm not saying that, but it kind of makes you think.
Stephanie Pinto:Well, people are doing I think this is for kids and this is for adults people are doing the best that they can with the knowledge they have, with the level of consciousness that they're at, with the circumstances they're in. Most of us really are doing what we can, and sometimes it is full-on struggle street, especially when we have kids with different challenges, different needs, neurodivergent needs and things like that. And our world, oh my gosh, our world is not set up for neurodivergent kids, it's not set up by them, it's set up by neurotypical people.
Fiona Kane:I only saw a snapshot of her life, so that feels very judgmental, but it's just showing you an example of um where we can go wrong. And, like you said, though I I don't believe, I think for the most part, most parents are are doing the best they can and none of it's intentional. They just if you don't have the skills, if you don't have the tools and and no one did it for you and and we you don't learn, and then you just do the same thing with your kids, sort of thing isn't it yeah exactly.
Stephanie Pinto:Yeah, it just kind of repeats. We repeat the cycle and it takes one person in one kind of level of a generation, I think, to just do things differently and to fathom that things could be done differently. Maybe I can listen to my kids, maybe I can be more respectful of my kids and listen to when they need something. It doesn't mean I have to give it to them every time, but I'm letting them say I want this or I need that, or I don't want to do that or I need more time.
Stephanie Pinto:You know, I think a lot of the time, a lot of the time, I hate to say, we treat kids like second-class citizens and what they say doesn't matter and their opinion and what they say doesn't matter and their opinion, it doesn't matter, um, it's not important.
Stephanie Pinto:We, we have the deadlines, we know what needs to be done. We need, you know, we have all the plans for the day. But I'm I'm just wondering with whether we could show the same level of respect to kids, um, and their emotions, because they've got big emotions, like kids are a ball of emotion, let's face it. But can we respect them, and even in just the way that we talk to them, like I would never say to my husband, can you go get my charger? And he's like I don't know where it is, I don't care. I said go get it, you know, or just because I said so, or don't question me. Like there are things that we say to our kids that, oh my God, I would never say to my husband. And if he said to me I'd be like what the hell, babe?
Fiona Kane:And of course it doesn't mean you don't have boundaries, and it doesn't mean you're not the parent. It's not that at all. It's just respecting that. That is also another person, that's all.
Stephanie Pinto:Yeah, yeah, we still get to make the decisions at the end of the day.
Fiona Kane:I'm aware of time, but just quickly before you go, could you maybe give me just a little bit of an example of what emotion, like emotional, intelligent parenting might look like. So, say, you do have a child, that sort of uh, is uh having a having a meltdown? Can you give me maybe a little, just a little bit of an example of the way you'd respond to that? Rather than you know well, in my day it was shouting and yeah, that kind of thing. So how would you deal with something like that?
Stephanie Pinto:Well, I can give you an example from this morning, because we had a somewhat stressful morning because my son wanted to go in the car to school, which we usually do, and my daughter wanted to ride her bike. And it's down to me because my husband wasn't. He was not, he's getting ready for work and everything, so he couldn't take them, and so my son started to get really, and he's 10. So this is not like a two year old or a toddler, and so this is, this is the other thing I think parents think, oh, my God, you know, it's okay for babies to cry, maybe it's okay for toddlers to cry, but at some stage or at some age we make this decision that kids shouldn't cry when they're upset or when they're really mad or frustrated about something. They should be able to hold it together Anyway. So that's another, that's by the by.
Stephanie Pinto:But he was getting more and more upset and I was reason, trying to reason with him and say, look, yesterday you did get to ride your bike, cause he did, which was out of the blue. And I said today your sister wants to ride. I know you don't want to, but, like you know, one day, one day, let's make this fair kind of thing. And he said no. I said, look, you can ask your dad if we're going to, if he has time. He didn't. So, in terms of like emotionally intelligent parenting one, I was trying to keep myself cool and calm as possible without me flipping my lid, because it's inconvenient, like we had 15 minutes to get to school, just enough time to ride and obviously enough time to drive. So I was keeping myself cool and noticing that I was getting a little bit frustrated with him. But I did my absolute best not to, you know, shame him and be like you're so selfish. You know you can't even let your sister for once ride yesterday. You row. So I didn't do that, but I was trying to. I often just think how would I, how would I disagree or or resolve this conflict with another adult? So I was trying to say my piece. I was listening to him. He was like but I really I just don't want to ride today. And I was like, oh.
Stephanie Pinto:So the emotions were running high for him and in the end because I thought, well, it's not fair for you to get kind of what you want, I guess, two days in a row. I'm one parent. I've got to split my decisions fairly and so we stuck with like this was my boundary, we're going to walk like I'm going to walk and you can ride, or you can walk with me. So I'm not going to flip and go, okay, fine, fine, fine, fine, and let my boundaries go and be like fine, you win. Because you're so emotional upset. I was like I'm going to keep it fair. I've agreed to walk and ride. You know my daughter will ride her bike and you're allowed to be upset with that. You're allowed to be disappointed, you're allowed to be really mad at me because you're not getting what you want. It doesn't mean I'm going to change my decision just to placate you or to avoid the yelling and the tears, and I don't want you're so unfair. So so I was allowing him like this is the other thing I think we don't.
Stephanie Pinto:For so many of us it's really hard to tolerate these loud, strong, messy emotions from our kids, because it wasn't tolerated in us, so that's our blueprint. So I had to, kind of it's easier now, but for a long time I had to work against that feeling of like shh, shh, you're too loud. Like stop it, I don't care, just get in the car, you know so yeah, so that was me kind of navigating and he was upset and kind of like halfway to school but he was writing and he was still a bit argumentative and I was just like I I know now because I learned, you know, a little bit about the nervous system and fight or flight to just let it go. When he's in that level of fight flight kind of, he's so dysregulated that none of the logic is going to work for him. He'll still find, and he did, he still found. But but remember last week when so he's, you know what I mean. So I just I just said I know you're unhappy, but we're walking and we're writing, and so we got there.
Fiona Kane:You acknowledge your parents' feelings, you stay calm, you let them have their feelings, but you still make whatever the decision is you need to make, and sometimes that might be going with what they've said. Sometimes that might not be. So, yeah, that sounds pretty good. I'm aware we're running out of time now. There's so much more we could talk about. I might have to book you in another time. If people want to get in contact with you, obviously I'll put your details in the show notes, but what's the best place for them?
Stephanie Pinto:to contact you? Probably a couple of places. The easy one is my website, because it's just my name, so that's stephaniepintocom. I also have a community on Facebook called let's Raise Emotionally Intelligent Kids. Let's.
Fiona Kane:Raise Emotionally Intelligent Kids. It's a Facebook group.
Stephanie Pinto:Yes, it's a bit of a mouthful, but that's a great place to be. And if you do listen to or if you like to listen to, lots of different podcasts because I know obviously people are here listening to yours then mine is called Emotionally Intelligent Parenting, so that emotionally intelligent parenting, and I'll put links in the show notes as well, and your book again just before we go. Yes, my book is called From Chaos to Connection.
Fiona Kane:So from chaos to connection, all right. So I'll put all the links in the show notes as well, and just quickly before we go, because I never liked it. I hate it when people talk down to men and the intention of this wasn't to do that and I don't think we have there is. I'll find it and put a link in. I can't remember now, but a rapper put a song out last year and it was about how he sat in the driveway crying when he got home before he could come in and face his family, and I think it's just.
Fiona Kane:You know, let's acknowledge that men are going through a lot in this world and it's really tough as well, and um, and they're doing the best that they can, and and um, and we we're not right about everything, they're not right about everything. We can work together. But anyway, I'm going to put the link to that song because I think that that men are doing everyone's doing it tough in different ways, and men have a particular tough time at the moment, uh, in in the world. So, um, I will put the link in when I, because I can't remember the singer's name anyway. Thank you so much, steph, I really appreciated having you here today and thanks so, thanks so much for your valuable time thank you.
Stephanie Pinto:I want to say a massive thank you because I know that you are so flexible as well, with me having to kind of change things a couple of times, and you are so understanding. So I'm very grateful to be on and to be here and I love everything you do. I just think that your stories and your shared experience from probably the little amount that I know that you share with people is really really valuable. So thank you for doing what you do.
Fiona Kane:Well, thank you, and thank you to everyone who's listening at home and or watching on YouTube or Rumble. Please like and subscribe and share and all that jazz, and then we're going to keep having real conversations about things that matter. See you next week. Bye.
