Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: This is fostering conversations with Utah Foster care, where we have insightful conversations about parenting for bio foster, adoptive, or blended families to better understand the experiences we all face as families.
Welcome, everyone today. I'm Deborah Lindner, along with my co host, Liz Rivera, and I am going to be fully present here. Our subject matter is being present, and I'm looking at this whole thing as a teaching moment for me because especially before the holidays, it is a challenge for some of us. And so I invite all of you who are listening to do the same to focus on being fully present.
Liz, I promise not to jump ahead to my next question or think about what I'm doing, but to take a deep breath and be right here, right now.
[00:01:02] Speaker B: When we were talking about what theme, we wanted to have this podcast right before the December holidays, and we talked about different kinds of gifts, and somehow we came to the idea of the gift of presents, and immediately Ilsa came to mind to help guide us through that conversation. So not only are we hoping that folks are able to be present during this conversation, but at the end of the conversation, have better ideas about how to maintain that presence more often in their daily life. I actually met Ilsa years ago. She was presenting at a conference I was attending, and she actually did an experiential activity during her presentation that was all about presence, and it was so profound, I couldn't get it out of my mind for weeks, if not months, and it's still something that stays with me. And I had the opportunity to go up and speak with Ilsa after the presentation, and she was exactly what she was telling us about our lives. She was demonstrating in the way that she interacted with me in that short conversation. And then since then, we've had opportunity to work together in different settings. And when we talked about doing the gift of presents, I knew Ilsa was our go to for this conversation. So let's give a little bit of background. She is the past president of the Infant Mental Health association here in Utah. She is currently an adjunct professor at the University of Utah. When I met her, she was fully employed there, but she's pursuing other things, but still teaching on the side. And she's currently with United Way and helped me grow and is heading up that organization in Utah County. Ilsa, welcome and thank you so much for being here.
[00:02:35] Speaker C: Thank you so much for inviting me for this. I'm excited.
[00:02:38] Speaker A: Ilsa, just so our audience and everyone understands, can you first describe and define what is being, being present, what is presence in your vocabulary?
[00:02:49] Speaker C: Well, thank you very much for asking that, because I think when you are feeling present, you know it or immediately after you know it. And to define it is a little tricky. And contemplating this question, I think, for me, presence is when you completely lose yourself in an activity or with a person or even with an animal, you completely lose yourself. But then you also switch back to being aware of that and being in an observer role. I think that if you would always completely lose yourself for a long period of time into a person or into an activity and not stand back and have that reflection, then you might lose your sense of individuality, your sense of independence, your sense of self direction. And if you completely lose yourself just in being an observer and in your own self, you don't connect to what's around you. But presence, I think, is fluently going back and forth between completely being engaged in this activity or that or with this person or that, and then also, then going back to a more reflective stance and noticing what you're doing in that moment, because that also can help you redirect your presence in cases where you want to be more helpful. And so some awareness of the process is really important. But if you're just in awareness, then you're just thinking about it the whole time. So it's a combination between that awareness and then losing yourself into that moment.
[00:04:18] Speaker B: When you step back and you have that awareness of that moment, what are some things you might see? What are some things you might hope you might see? Or you also said something to adjust, what might give you a clue, you might need to adjust something.
[00:04:34] Speaker C: Yeah. So when thinking about parenting, which is my main field, and you guys are focused on parents and caregivers of children, when I think of parenting, it's important to have an awareness of who your child is in that moment, what they might need, how you can best be helpful to them, also your own needs. And so that awareness can mean something like, oh, I'm noticing she's really tired right now, and I need to give her some space. So it's that complete presence, I think, is to really tune into that child's mood and feelings and state at that time, but then also to go a little bit back, you know, into that executive functioning where you can notice, like, I may need to organize the situation a little bit, so help my child take a nap, for example. And for that, you need this executive functioning. So then it, it's like a switching back and forth between complete, utter presence and then also that awareness.
[00:05:32] Speaker B: I love that you said who that child is in the moment. I think sometimes, and I know I do this, that I have an idea of who somebody is in my head, and I interact with that idea of that person sometimes more than I interact with the real person in that moment in front of me.
[00:05:50] Speaker C: Yeah, that's really, that's a really excellent observation. And I think that happens to all of us, especially when we're busy or don't have much time, or we tend to get a lot more in our head, in our ideas of also who other people are or who ourselves are, you know? And so instead of being completely open to that moment and that person and even to yourself and your own emotions, we tend to take over with our thoughts. And that is a way to escape the situation. Actually, to not be fully present is going into your head, going into your thoughts.
[00:06:24] Speaker B: I think that brings us into the next question. What are some ways that we can work to, I hate to say to not do that, because I think there are definitely times that's helpful. But how do we recognize maybe we're overthinking and that we're not fully present? What are some clues that we're not really there?
[00:06:41] Speaker C: So part of it, I've personally practiced for a long time buddhist meditation as well as mindfulness practices. And so that really has helped me personally to be more aware of my own processes, like when I go into thinking or not thinking. So part of practices like that can help you to become more aware of the process when that happens. But it can also reflect into moments where you start to feel really stressed. And so you notice you're feeling stressed, of course, but then you're trying to speed up. So maybe that's one signal, is we often try to speed up. We want our child to stop now, we want them to clean up the mess now, or we want them to listen to us now, or we even ourselves want to feel better now instantly. And that tendency to speed up is a sign that we need to slow down. Yeah. And then step back and have that presence, because that's the way we don't like that feeling of being stressed or being not listened to by our child or you know what? We don't like that. And so sometimes we then just go on faster to make it happen and control the situation. But in doing that, we lose connection with the situation and the people in it.
[00:07:55] Speaker A: How do we listen better when, you know, a child is talking, is speaking to us, trying to convey something again so we don't look at trying to control the conversation. Are there tips for just better listening?
[00:08:10] Speaker C: There certainly are, and it's a bit of a million dollar question because there are so many circumstances, and it does always go back to the circumstances. So perhaps one thing I would say is setting context and creating context can be one of the most important things to do. And what I mean by that really does depend on the age of the child. But if it's an older child specifically, and you know that you have only got two minutes and you see that your child has this long story that may go on and on, you're really interested in it, you may need to say, oh, honey, I love it, you know, but right now, we don't have time. Can we talk about this again after school, for example? So, meaning then there's a time set planned for it. So sometimes we may have to do that.
That's not possible if you have a baby or a toddler, usually.
But in those moments as well, even as in this example with the older child, if you make that short connection with the child and you're just like, wow, that's so cool. You really resonate with that topic. And that not just the topic, but with the liveliness of the child in that moment, you can resonate with it by utilizing your voice, your. Your. How you present yourself to the child. It doesn't have to be as exaggerated as I just, I usually model these things in a bit of an exaggerated way so that people can clearly hear it, but you don't have to go that far. But just show your enthusiasm and your excitement and your delight in that child, and then that creates a connection that can help them make the transition to, like, okay, right now is not the time. So that's one thing, is when is there time? Because if you are not in a mindset to do it, you have other responsibilities or you're just super tired or hungry or whatever, you know, you can be distracted by. That's not maybe your best moment to listen. The second one, I would say, is, again, that self awareness where you can see the bigger picture and you can see like, hey, well, I'm not feeling optimal right now, but I do have some time, and I can make myself present for my child in the next 20 minutes. And then if you have that awareness, then you can actively work on looking at your child and making those attuned reactions and attunement with that. I mean, tapping into their vitality of their story and having some small responses, you know, like, oh, that's so great, and, oh, tell me more. So some cues to have them talk a little bit more. And all you need to do is sit there and offer yourself warm gaze, your interested body posture. So I'm really big on nonverbal signals. Your stance, your body stance towards the child or the person, your eye. Gaze towards the person. If you feel yourself getting distracted, move back to those cues. Tune into their voice, tune into their eyes. And again, this may take some practice, but by doing that over and over again, you can foster or nurture that sense of connection.
[00:11:12] Speaker B: So what Deborah was talking about, how do I listen to a child? And one of the first things I thought is a memory of my nephew talking to me about Minecraft, which I find mind numbing.
And I was like, I just can't. But then when you were talking, you said, tune into the vitality of the child. And I thought, this isn't actually about Minecraft. That's not what I'm really listening to. I'm listening to the child. And if I can focus on that, the subject matter doesn't really matter.
[00:11:42] Speaker C: Yes. I love how you said that, because I recently was in a discussion about small talk, and the more I've been practicing this, the more I'm like, there is no small talk. Because even when a random person that you meet just start chit chatting and you tune into that person, this can lead to a very interesting conversation.
[00:12:00] Speaker B: I like that. So why do we find small talk so painful? There's so many of us find small talk because we are focused too much on the talk and not enough on the person, maybe.
[00:12:10] Speaker C: I think especially in this culture, and this is not just the United States, but I think many current cultures today were very focused on just the words, what the words mean, what words to say. Use your words. And I'm not saying that is not important, but I am saying we often focus too much just on the content of that. And so, of course, it can depend on the context, again, as always, so you're not that interested in this particular person, or maybe you're in a hurry. So those things are possible. But even in those moments, I think tuning into that person, it makes the transition also easier from usually. Sometimes they keep talking and talking, but usually it makes the transitions easier from that conversation back to whatever you want to do.
[00:12:53] Speaker A: One thing I remember foster parents talking about is, you know, when it comes time, especially during the holidays, but really, any time you're taking the children over to a relative's house or some function where you think it's going to be just happy stuff all the time, and so everything will be fine, that can be overwhelming. And so how do you prepare the child how do you also prepare the relative or person whose house it is for something like that?
[00:13:28] Speaker C: That is an excellent question. Of course, now, with the holidays, the holiday season, that can be disruptive for any, actually, even for adults, but for any child, I think especially those who have sensitivities, or especially children who have had difficult experiences in their lives, like children in foster care. And one of those things is change in routines. So you're not in your typical routine for eating. That's what we do a lot over the holidays, is eating.
Eating itself can be a challenge for children in foster care, particularly those who have experienced neglect. They can do food hoarding or keep eating food until they're completely stuffed, which can be an issue if you're going out in that environment.
And then there's all of the sensory experiences, like all the people talking and all the visual movement, or people suddenly in your space. Or for children who have experienced abuse, it can also be random triggers, like a loud voice or certain color, or even a smell of the food.
So these situations can lead to a child being more dysregulated than they would be in their familiar, safe environment. And like you said, then there's the adult, many of whom have expectations for how children should behave. And if you're a foster parent and you're listening to this podcast, you're probably very active in trying to understand your child and support your child who's in foster care with you, and to help them regulate their big feelings. But when you're in a situation like this, oftentimes there's so much stimulation that the child's nervous system is activated more than now. How exactly you prepare a lot of that, of course, depends. There's so many different needs, individual needs of children, and there's differences in the connection that you have with that foster child, which depends on the child's trauma history, on how long have you been with the child, how many opportunities have you had for fostering that really deep connection? And that's harder to do for a child who has, who has a trauma history. So this is all kind of sketching the background to your question, and depending on how old or how verbal the child is, of course it's always a good idea to go over what will be happening in the situation. What can you expect? We'll be there. There are lots of people and sounds and food and kind of preparing them for what you expect to happen. Another thing that I would really also focus on is those expectations of other adults. So as the parent of a foster child, you know, that they might be triggered more easily than other children, you know, that they might end up with a meltdown, or they might end up eating too much or saying something inappropriate or something that, you know, that the child does because they can't help it, because they get overwhelmed and dysregulated. And so if you have practices that work at home, like a secret sign where it's like, okay, let's go to a quieter spot, or let's take a little time out, let's take it together, you know, and take your child to a quieter spot. That can be helpful, and that depends a lot on your individual circumstances, your individual relationship with that child. But also it might be helpful to tell your family members, look, my child has been doing a great job in XYZ. So emphasize really some positives and enjoy those positives. I don't know, their sense of humor, or they can dance really well or something. Really strong points that are enjoyable, because the holidays are also a great opportunity to enjoy the silly things and the joyful things and the funny things and the peculiar things. And then also explain that sometimes due to just how my child operates or nervous system, how their nervous system works, sometimes I just need more space. That's one thing you can tell them, you can help them understand.
And also, I think, the judge inside of ourselves address that as well, because as any parents, I think, often feels the judgment of other people, and then you feel responsible for always keeping your child perfectly in line and always obeying and never freaking out, but that's not realistic. And so to also stand strong and be like, okay, no, I'm here. I'm a beacon of a haven of safety for my child.
And I will be that even in this new, different environment, regardless of what other people say.
[00:18:16] Speaker B: I like that. And that's what you become present with is that present piece of yourself that is that secure base for that child.
What about people who are uncomfortable being known, being seen, and you're trying to be present with them and they're trying to hide from you? I've known children who, probably because of what they've been through there, they almost want to be invisible. How do you present with somebody who doesn't want to be seen?
[00:18:45] Speaker C: That's a great question. And I think I haven't really said this out loud, but in most cases, we presume that there's going to be eye contact. Because typically, when we connect to another person and we listen to them, we're talking to them, communicating, we tend to make eye contact.
An eye contact can be very uncomfortable for a child who has experienced bad experiences or hasn't actually had the experience of being in close eye to eye contact with a person in a situation that was safe.
Because one thing that is important to emphasize as well is that this sense of connection that humans make, we do it to seek safety and reassurance and to know, is this current environment where I'm currently physically at? Is this a safe place? Can I go out and explore? And in order to figure that out, what we do is we look at other people.
Even if it's a room full of strangers or you're in a different country, you don't speak the language. You'll look at other people like, okay, is it okay for me to start moving this way towards the food?
We check in with other people, and that's what children do when they're little. They will look at their caregivers to see, like, okay, am I. Is this safe? So, even in a situation that is technically not dangerous, but the parent is getting really stressed, like, we can. We got to get out of the door. Oh, my gosh. It's five minutes. We're only in five minutes.
[00:20:12] Speaker B: Oh, my God.
[00:20:12] Speaker C: Get your shoes. You can hear my voice. You're probably getting not calmer, and I'm probably a little more stressed when I'm like, help. So, children hear these cues, and even when it's a serious situation and the parents can stay really calm, the child typically tunes in to the parents cues, and they're like, oh, something's going on. But I can be assured because my adult is showing cues of safety.
Now, children who have grown up with less than optimal relationships, let's say, or even full neglect or maltreatment in any other way. Their nervous systems have not learned to utilize these cues of safety that most of it use, which includes eye gaze, a smile, a voice that is calm and melodic. So the child may not be able to pick up those cues.
Now, we can try if they are open to other cues, though. So, for example, instead of eye to eye contact, are they willing to do a drawing with you and talk to you side by side and not looking at each other's faces? Are they open to do a movement together where you mirror the body movements, but not necessarily eye to eye contact, not necessarily even talking? Are they open to singing with you or being silly with you? So, those are all examples of trying to tune in. And also, I do need to say, we may require trauma treatment for that child to learn how to be more open to these cues of safety. But we can also try and find other cues than the ones we typically use with other people. One suggestion that I have is you could try if the child's open to it. Most children do copying, imitation type of games especially. Of course, we do that with babies, but toddlers love to copy other people. But you can do games like that where you copy even just movements of each other. Again, take the focus off of the face and voice so much and the talking, but bring it to, you did this like this. You made this little jump, and I do it, too. So connecting with them in a more nonverbal way, movement type of way, that may work, but it's very individual, so you have to watch the child and see if that works.
[00:22:30] Speaker B: That's great advice. I've been hearing lately there's some concerns around mindfulness and trauma that that actually could be triggering for some people if they have a trauma history.
[00:22:44] Speaker C: Yeah. And I actually, I can't remember of the author now, but there's a whole book written about that, and it relates back, actually, to the child you mentioned who just doesn't want to look into your eyes, and they're not open to that connection because, in fact, those connections have become triggering and traumatizing. So that presence basically means it's not safe. Even when you're doing mindfulness as an adult and your stuff comes up, it's not safe to quiet down. But some people's nervous systems respond by shutting down and keeping active. This is what you can see in children a lot. Keeping active might be a way to not shut down. And so some kids with trauma responses, they're with constantly moving because that keeps them out of this state of calming down. And because it's that response when a mouse is being chased by a cat and the mouse plays dead and all your systems go really slow, that you're breathing in, your heart rate, and that is potentially deathly. If you keep doing that for too long, you actually die. So the mouse can die if they do it too long. But babies and children do this as well. If they can't escape, they can't use their fight or flight. They go into that freeze mode and quieting down our bodies because they associate that with, if I'm not constantly moving, then I'll be in a state where I could actually die.
I know for adults, they typically recommend to still do both, but maybe take a break and do trauma treatments and then come back to meditation because it can also be healing to see what's happening in your mind.
But also, in those cases, oftentimes we recommend more movement based mindfulness activities, which are.
[00:24:28] Speaker B: Yeah, which I don't know very much about, but maybe something like rowing, like rhythmic kind of movement.
[00:24:36] Speaker C: Rhythmic is really good. Yes. And so it can be done in any type of sports and stuff, but dance is the one that I always go back to. Or even just movement. Silly movements. Copy those mirroring activities that I mentioned as well. I don't know if you have heard of the practice called special time. This is a practice that parents can do with their children to foster connection. It's promoted by hand in hand parenting, and there's some other parenting experts, but you set aside ten to 20 minutes and you tell your child, we're going to have special time. And you can call it by the child's name, special Julian time. And we're going to have it after dinner every night, or we're going to have it every Saturday. We set a time and during this time the child can do whatever they want to do, however they want to do it, except for a few safety rules. And typically it's best not to have screen time. But if it's a child that has a lot of hard time with being in the present directly with a human, then if they want to talk about Minecraft, you could do that, but that's a chore. Typically it's best to not have screen time, but other than that, the child can jump on the bed or play in the mud. Things maybe that you normally would not allow or want. And all you are is like full of wonderment. Type of observer was like, wow, oh my gosh, it's splashing everywhere. But you're not telling them how to do it, not telling them not to do it like that, but you're basically just present with them and completely just delighting in them, enjoying them. And if it's hard for you to do that as the adult, you know it's only going to be ten or 20 minutes, but when you do this consistently, the child will see, oh, my adult keeps showing up for me and completely lets me be who I am in this moment, in all of this.
[00:26:19] Speaker A: I beckon back to my own child raising years. And you're right, I should have incorporated more wonder into the holidays and also done fewer things, fewer engagements, fewer parties. And since I've kind of learned that that's what I try to do now, I don't say yes to every single invitation and oh boy, we could go on and on, but we always want to leave our audience with some resources. And so are there any, any resources that either you or Liz, our director of education, would recommend for parents and foster parents.
[00:27:07] Speaker C: Yes, of course. I do need to say and want to share that. Help me grow. Utah is there for all parents in Utah with a child from zero to eight. And we can have individualized resources like mindfulness practices or play based activities or things like special time for your individual situation. So that's one thing. And then I mentioned hand in hand parenting, which is a parenting website that promotes special time. But they actually have five parenting tools in a book called listen by Patti Whipfler and Trisha Klein. And that book basically is all about being present in multiple different playful ways. So that's a really good one.
[00:27:49] Speaker A: Liz, any final thoughts from you?
[00:27:52] Speaker B: Just thank you, Ilsa. I could listen to you for hours. There's just so many nuggets of wisdom in not only why it's important, but also ideas about how to maybe adjust it to the individual parent, individual child situation is so rich. And I hope people will listen and listen again to pick up on all of those pieces of wisdom you shared with us today.
[00:28:16] Speaker A: Thank you, Ilsa. And we will have the websites for help me grow Utah and hand in hand parenting on our webpage. So we want to thank you again, Ilsa. Thank you, Liz Rivera. You're always educating us because you're the director of education and we learned so much from both of you. Also, thank you to our producer, Marshall Shearer Davis. And I want to end this podcast again with saying you don't need to know everything to become a foster parent. You just need to be willing to learn. And we learned a lot today. Thank you both. For details on foster parenting and so many other ways you can get involved, go to utahfostercare.org dot. This has been fostering conversations I'm Deborah Lindner.
This has been fostering conversations with Utah foster care. Thank you for joining us. For more information, go to utahfostercare.org. we'll see you next time.
