Author: Brian

In this podcast, Todd and Julie Fisher discuss how feeling competent and capable affects kids’ mental well-being. When parents are quick to step in to “help”, they rob kids of the experience to fail or make mistakes. While it’s often easier and faster to instruct them what to do or how to do it, what parents are really doing is robbing children of the opportunity to learn that they, themselves, can solve their problems. When parents don’t allow kids those crucial learning opportunities, what they are often saying (without actually saying the words) is “I don’t trust you to do it right”. Todd and Julie discuss how parents’ actions and reactions affect kids’ feelings about competence as well as ways for parents to step back and allow their kids to learn that they can become competent when they persevere.

In this podcast, Todd and Julie Fisher discuss problems young people are having with coping skills, particularly in the area of appropriate emotional responses to uncomfortable stimuli or situations. Young people seem to have trouble coping, and many fall apart when things don’t go their way. “[Parents] are enabling children to an extent to which they are almost helpless,” says clinical psychologist, Dr. Ellen Littman. Todd and Julie discuss why this trend seems to be increasing including: parental fears, the influence of technology, increased academic pressure, and fewer opportunities to experience failure, as well as how parents can help their kids learn to express themselves and their emotions in a way that is age-appropriate and helpful both to the child and to everyone they interact with.

In this podcast, Todd and Julie Fisher discuss the importance of support networks in relation to emotional well-being. When we have strong support networks, we are 25% more likely to be happy than when we don’t have people close to us that we can lean on. Todd and Julie discuss why kids need multiple support networks, what they look like for kids, why parents are only one piece of the puzzle, and how parents can help their kids find people in their lives that will support them and be there for them when they need a shoulder to lean on.

In In this podcast, Todd and Julie Fisher discuss how 21st century relationships differ from those of previous generations and the role that technology plays in that change and its impact on youth mental health. Digital natives are growing up in a world, where for the first time, they are forming relationships with people they’ve never met in real life. They talk, hangout and even date in a virtual world instead of the physical one. Because parents of digital natives grew up communicating largely in real life, there is a disconnect when it comes to understanding the new normal for relationships in the digital age. Todd and Julie discuss when parents should be concerned about relationships kids are forming online and how to set limits so that kids understand that real-world relationships matter more than virtual ones.

In this podcast, Todd and Julie Fisher will discuss why so many kids lack resiliency, which is the ability to cope with adversity and persevere without giving up. They explore how fear and technology have led us to rob our kids of opportunities to learn from their mistakes and succeed on their own. Todd and Julie talk about the creation of The Resiliency Puzzle, a curriculum for parents, educators and other professionals, that centers on learning to make small changes to what we do to encourage more resilient behaviors in our kids. The other episodes in this series will take a more in depth look at the four main pieces of the resiliency puzzle: Relationships; Emotional Skills; Competence; and Optimism.