High Anxiety

Okay honey I got a quote on getting read to you.

Okay, I just read it in a book like yesterday and I want to know your first thoughts when you heard the quote is this. If you struggle with anxiety your child is up to seven times more likely to struggle with that herself. Welcome to family life today where we want to help you pursue relationships that matter most and will Dave Wilson and you can find his family life today.com or on our family life. This is family life today create things like that makes me fearful for parents as they hear that you now think I'll know but as I listened to that I also think wow this really is happening in our culture today and we really need some help in it because I've talked to so many parents that their daughters, especially in maybe I'm talking to mom's that have daughters but specially their daughters are struggling right now.

Well, we actually have the author of the quote sitting in our studio today. A family life today welcome for much of a sissy you so honored to be with you all.

You have one of the nicest smiles. I think I wish you all could be with us now as you'd be wanting to open your entire life to God, I'll let y'all know me well and Sissy Goff has written a book called brave footwork to begin today to find out what does that mean but it's a teen girl's guide to beating worry and anxiety. And it's really extreme to know this, that your therapist and your DayStar counseling in the streets. DayStar counseling ministries in Nashville and I heard you say at lunch over 2000 families are coming currently.

That is incredible. Now think about that sissy. In comparison to the 80 yes like what's different. We just weren't talking about an NAD semi when I was growing up, I do not remember ever hearing anybody else say they were in counseling which they likely were right and in fact I remember I was in a sorority in college and I remember three different girls disappearing for a semester and coming back which obviously something was going on right him. Initially, no one said a word which is tragic to me that we were missing. Stepping into each other's lives in that way, but thankfully were not anymore. Is that something that got you interested in psychology. No thought about which I would ask them if they were okay now, but the classes I was taking at the time.

Certainly mean it really was 1 foot in front of the other. I got up as one door at a time for us and that's that's how it happened for me what you've written several books yes I know she's written what is 11 books. She's a prolific author, honey, that's amazing. Remarkably written to me to your favorite book keep their favorites. The last three really happen and they all have been about worry and anxiety and and have all been different. The first when well so my publisher came to me. I love this publisher and working with that we are talking about a minute ago at Baker and he came to me and he said, so I read something in the last book you all did, which was our my kids on track and had written it with two map coworkers at DayStar and he said you write a line about how the average age of onset was 84 girls of anxiety which is now six which we can talk about that something.

But he said he just drop a little bomb you know you go there to minute when you go to easily you ever write a book for girls at that age and had never written a book for girls that young and as a therapist you can probably guess where we with this I said not writing about girls unless I can write one for the parents what you are talking about as we open up the podcast because it is a family situation. It's not just the chop so I end up writing raising worry free girls for parents and braver, stronger, smarter, for little girls and then that was they came out right before the pandemic started and then the pandemic hit and here I am now, of course, zoom counseling was watching so many adolescents in particular that I thought like were really struggling where's before that it had been elementary age girls and I just felt like I do something for these candidates and so I wrote brave and about six weeks.

While this was so worried.

We had a lot of time on Allstate and so I think those three books because it has felt like good grief.

I want to give these feelings and can't something because of struggle, and so much I think the felt need was so significant for me. That really those books. I felt like I should really get help in a way that I would never get to reach these families outside the loss of DayStar way to go. So it's been a real gift to me.

So is anxiety increase with boys and girls, but especially your writing about adolescent girls but I'm not just since the pandemic before the pandemic and then has a pandemic, you know, intensified that yes yes yes all the things that we read our my kids on track. Probably now, five years ago and at the time the statistics were one in eight kids right before the pandemic jumped had jumped to one and 414 kids. What deal with anxiety woke with girls twice as likely and then now were at one in three.

How kids yes it's just wild.

When I first started counseling think I probably would've said two out of every 20 you know it's just change so much. Now of course you're the expert. You know your your work with these families and these girls why I'm in the easy answer is in covert writing. Before I mean technology, which I love that you all have been having conversations about that technology is absolutely a part of it and I was working with a young girl and she and her psychiatrist now are talking back and forth and she said to me, just even looking at a screen. It and we can talk about social media because that's a huge piece of it too, but she said just the degree to which were bombarded with images and all these different things were looking at the screen. Our brains move into an agitated state that really mimics anxiety. So I think screens are huge part of it. The genetics are a big part of it. I have never sat with as many kids he will say things like, so bond that I got a 98 on that test, as I have in the last probably 16 months. I think there is a pressure that girls particularly feel today that that I don't think we felt. I worked with a group of high school girls as a small group, probably seven years ago so they're all high schoolers really active in all different sports in school. The school that they were going to is a high school that was pretty demanding, academically and as we would sit probably. I think there were seven girls.

I felt overwhelmed for them by things that they were feeling. I'm thinking about back in high school. I love high school so fine you know there's some homework that wasn't too bad but I was so active.

These girls felt so overwhelmed by the workload of school. Then they felt overwhelmed by their athletic what they were doing athletically or artistically in music or band, but the pressure they felt for their grades. I'm thinking what's happening like it. I could feel it in the room every time they talk and then we say hey when can we get together next week. They didn't even have time has their workload was so overwhelming in their calendars for looked is that part of it are yes kids feeling so much pressure absolutely and at all ages. I think there feeling. I remember a she was 11 and 11-year-old girl who said to me she was seeing me because of anxiety. And she said to me ask my mom to stop scheduling some activities for me. It was too much which you know as grown-ups were supposed to be the gatekeeper's forum and sometimes we're just doing so much that our whole feelings living in this anxious place. So yes, I think there's way too much, and that's part of it to you, and we started you know started the program talking about parents feel anxiety is that because parents are over extended.

I mean what's going on it because again when when I first read the quote I knew and was going to say the same thing. I didn't tell her I was going to bring that up, but it made me feel anxiety thinking while I'm a parent that waits on me, especially if I still get to my home.

I would get anxious about that. So I asked help us out was apparent to do well so I want everyone to hear me say this very graciously because I mean that in every sense of the word I want this to feel gracious when I say this, but said the seven times is think part of it is because we as grown-ups today are really the first generation of people who are pursuing mental health and a great way I think were probably around the same age group and our parents morning. She just said were you I 40 year span.

Parents were not any of that. We were passing around a feelings chart that what I'm seeing in my office. Is this beautiful shift and parents who are saying we really want to pursue mental health and when I was going well let me tell you a story that probably illustrates this better than anything I can think of so if you were to bring your child to DayStar. We have a computer program called Thera bill that tells us why people are coming before they come for the first time in like I was sent to lunch the DayStar office is a house it's this cute yellow house with a white picket fence and a front porch and a swing in the yard and the offices look like living rooms and so when a family comes today.you forgot something bad about the animals had debts that we have five dogs on staff, which is one of my favorite parts of their own instead of 38 staff. I love that idea so I knew this little girl that was coming in for the first time he was eight and had anxiety. I knew DayStar was going to have already done some of the work of just setting her at ease. So I saw on their bill that she was coming in and I'm in the upstairs of our DayStar house and I came down the stairs and SR and as you have this enormous smile and so I smiled at her across the lobby and waved at her and she smiled really big back at me and I walked over and I won't say her name but I introduced myself to her and said I am Sissy, I'm so excited that you're a DayStar to give you a tour of the DayStar house working to go upstairs and meet my little dog Lucy. Who's gonna be so excited to meet you in this little girl is so cute and she popped up to follow me and her mom grabbed her arm and said do you feel comfortable with that and it had never occurred to this little girl not trouble for following me until her mom said do you feel comfortable with and her very kind, very well-intentioned mom followed us on the whole, to her and then sat across from our office the entire time we had a conversation and so as I do always a mess and the little girl out and brought the mom and at the end of the session and said I don't hear this conversation yet. So I said, your family history.

Do you have any family history of anxiety or anything else in this mom said while you anxiety grown up in my parents never understood what was going on with me and so now that was her own goal, understatement, under which she did a fantastic job with but and in the book. I had it broken down into understanding help and hope. She stopped at the understanding she wasn't helping her work to the anxiety and I think that's a big part of the problem is that when we course as apparent when you see your child in distress. What would you want to do. But step in and help. I said the two most common parenting strategies in light of anxiety are escape and avoidance. So it's easy to step in and rescue him from the situation instead of helping them work through it and every person who works with anybody about anxiety would say to work through the fear you have to do the scary thing and think that's part of it to you is parents are stepping in and rescuing rather than helping your kids work through it and that's I think that's part of where the statistics are and if you're listening in your is your apparent there is absolutely help we can do something different, just so that story is the quote we started with this little girl picking up the anxiety of her mom who had her whole life right is transferred to the older I get and the longer I do this work.

I don't know if either of you all at fitness but I think every person I hate to say every at my age but I think really probably every person, he's type a or a one on any grandma fear anything. People has some degree of anxiety and what we learn to use as our primary coping strategy is productivity, and so especially as a type a person.

The most natural thing is for you to try and fix it and step in kind of correct and pave the road and a lot of ways for your kids. And so I think for those periods. It's even harder sometimes and I mean on this personality type. I want to do everything right and so I'm just trying so hard that it's harder to write the ship sometimes not had the right – and in its well-intentioned take us back to as we talked earlier about now were seeing the onset of anxiety starting at the age of CX know what is that look like, how would parents know that their child is struggling with anxiety. I love that you asked that question because it's it's different because it six. They're not gonna say when you change my schedule at the last minute. Maybe totally extra there just get a melt down coming home from school or they're going to get really angry and it's it's so fascinating to sit with parents because I think the two most common words. Parents use for girls at that age. When I sit with them and assist boys to girls or just leaving the statistics on anxiety, but they'll talk about control and manipulation, and they'll say things like they're so explosive with their anger and it's really when they don't get what they want so I'll try and kinda dig underneath that a little bit. Obviously as a therapist and say tell me some of the scenarios when exactly is that happening and it is often things like, well, we picked her up from school and she thought this was what was in a happen and then we told her we had to run five errands. First, or it's when I say to her. Now I need you to go brush her teeth right now and there's no lead time so it literally is when she has to be really flexible when that schedule is changing at the last minute. There's no predictability and they feel out of control and the awful this way. But if somebody at 3 PM told me that my day was gonna look totally different than I had thought here.

I had no control get anxious and make you mad yeah I might try and control it but think at that age. And so their emotions. You probably have heard this, but psychologists will say that anger is a secondary emotion right and there's often something else underneath that and so for most girls that I see that's what's at the root of their anger, incidents, anxiety, or it will often look to you like kids who get tummy aches, headaches that are recurring that you notice on Sunday nights before school starts on Monday or certain situations and and I think those girls often are little bit more perfectionistic and something I want to talk about the emotion because they think it's wrong. Yeah, they're the kids who want to be agreeable and want to please you so much and so they staff it comes out so I'm imagining a lot of moms or dads listening to that right now they picking check write check and now that causes them to be a little more introspective, like maybe that is happening in my home and I thought it was just that she was being overly dramatic, and I think that's what we can do like oh my goodness, it's not that big of a deal.

You know, stop being so dramatic and minimize it yeah right I think that I cash I'm imagining.

I think I did that sometimes is a mom like it's not that big of a deal man chillout you know and so but you know is he and a gram seven I mean there to but with that is parents are hearing that, like guide them now with that, like, should they start really kind of tracking a little bit more what their kids are their daughters are feeling. Yes, do you think it's really important magic with parents a lot about you know if you do marriage counseling for the first time and there's that whole thing that you learned that's really called reflective listening like what I hear you saying is that feel sincerely when they first explain it to you.

Yeah it will hurt such a difference. And so even saying that to your child can tell you're really sad, or I can tell that makes you worried or I can tell you're really frustrated. Let's talk a little bit more about you know that we just start with empathizing with them. I think really in anything parenting wise to start with empathizing is really important and typically have a first three go to use that ID with kids, so already. 20. I'm writing it down okay so a little brain chemistry 101 what happens for us when we get anxious, what, when were not anxious. We have blood flowing all throughout our brain including going to the prefrontal cortex which helps us think rationally and manage our missions when we get anxious every one of us, or when we get angry to our blood vessels in our brain constrict and it shifts the blood flow away from the prefrontal cortex and to the amygdala and y'all know the amygdala is the fight or flight part of our brain and so when I sit with parents, they will say so often she is acting like a crazy person which exactly the rational part of their brain, not even getting blood. It's just completely off-line in the literally it's making her crazy right yes it literally and until we can calm her body down or his body down. And this is at. These are the tools we would use with boys to so until we can get them calmed down.

The calming is what dilates the blood vessels of the brain again and it shifts the blood flow back, you're probably familiar John Gottman yeah I heard Dr. Gottman talk about marriage counseling that he makes the same sort assessment medically. One of he says when a man's heart rate is higher than 98 so the constrictions going on. Yes, he said the next thing out of his mouth is good be really stupid because of the height yet not able to reason that so like you need to step away from that conflict and settle it down and come back you say saving with a teenage adolescent girl or boy.

My six-year-old 50-year-old exactly the next question is how do we common that said, this is my favorite way to deal with kids. So what happened is I haven't put their hand on their leg talk and it with everybody do that competent picture hand on your leg and there's another one just that I'm driving the car is tape so we call the square breathing I caught square breathing with girls now Mac counterpart, David Thomas.

He does leather work with boys at Taser.

He calls it combat reading, waited yet sounds cooler and he learned that term from some Navy SEALs that really is a think that what they're going to do is there in a draw square on their leg very slowly with each line of the square. You're gonna breathe a different way so in pause for three seconds. In the corner out pause for three seconds and the corner in pause for three seconds. In the corner out pause for three seconds. In the corner. 20 seconds and deep breathing resets.

The amygdala holds all it takes 20 seconds now, I will have a lot of kids or a lot of parents who will come to me and say we tried the square breathing and it didn't work. But what happened was that before thinking about emotions on a 1 to 10 scale. There starting at eight you got it started to pour. When you know when you're about to say something that you knows can be triggering down child or your teenager to say let's do some square breathing while we talk about this or for me.

If I'm about to go into something that I knows gonna make me anxious sometimes before I speak of an unit for a long time. I'll still get anxious Allstate over the side of the staging area can be so good for parents to because as our kids are starting to get anxious. It creates anxiety and us of knowing how to respond in kind or each other, yet calms us down as well yes, but if they are innate will and they've already gone there. Is there anything we can do when you feel like okay she's super out of control yet have a move if there unit of teenagers it's can be harder to get them to have anybody and he said I want you to come out around the block therein to say whatever little ones you can say what you correct.

Take a lap around the block or go run up and down stairs one time now. I am in the longer I do this work with all these anxious kids, the more I'm into incentivizing kids and so coming up with often. I will call them brave beads and so when kids when I child will just on their own. Do the square breathing or when they'll say you know an adolescent say handy to go for a run with them out think you give them a brave feed but you would say so proud of you. Way to go for doing that on your own that you just knew you needed it in that moment, but with younger ones to say that you just turned a bright beat for doing the square breathing so create your work in the system.

You know that we come up with and set up any time they use basically a positive coping strategy rewarding them for that. Here's what I'm thinking is, I'm here in this about open an adolescent girl walk through.

This is where we started up like I need to do this as a parent you know I go start with me and then be over coach my son or daughter right exactly as really it's almost looking mirrors like men and like you said, understand on-site assays. Sometimes you're doing the square combat breathing. Yeah, I think it's something that God calls us to do.

You know it's easy to look at like I a been think of this whole time flipping is for six be anxious for nothing in the question often as I can't stop being anxious. How do I do that, and you've given us some tools and say you can, Gotto help you do this and you can help lead your kids to do it to. So it's been really really hello, I'm excited that we hit the first one of being able to learn how to calm down as we talk about, square breathing or not done yet or not it will be fun to hear what the number two and number three strategy are and I think to. I think a good reminder as we close, as one of those ways that we can even do our square breathing and one of the things I've learned to do and may be used on this as well. Sissy is I can just take those breaths and I can pray is absolutely Lord Jesus, help me to calm down.

Help me to remember who you are. Help me to remember that you are in control and I think bringing in the power of Scripture. The power of the Holy Spirit who abides in us. If we know Jesus that feels so good to bring him into it as well. This is been so helpful, you just made me more relaxed. By the way you said that no shortage of today can lead us to become anxious or fearful of that's true for us. Think about what it's like for adolescent young women in our culture today. As parents we need to be alert to this reality and know how to step into her daughter's life and help her deal with the anxiety or fear. She's feeling that's what this series with Sissy Goff is all about on family life today.

It's also what Sissy is book entitled brave is all about. The subtitle is a teen girl's guide to beating worry and anxiety. A great book for moms and daughters to go through together a book that we got in our family life today resource Center you can order it from us on why the family life today.com or call one 800 FL today to order if you'd like to understand your daughters emotions better and learn ways that you can help her battle against worry and anxiety go to family life today.com to order your copy of sissy Goff's book brave or polished order at one 800 FL today, one 803 586-329-1800 F as in family L as in life than the word today. Though I don't know about whether your calendar is starting to look more crowded in the weeks and months ahead.

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