Raising Resilient Kids: Fostering Exploration and Happiness with Stephanie Malia Krauss Transcript

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JoAnn: Welcome to the No Guilt Mom podcast. I am your host, JoAnn Crohn, joined here by my delightful co host, Brie Tucker.

Brie: Why, hello, hello, everybody. How are you? I like Delightful. It makes me feel like a little decadent dessert.

JoAnn: You’re a decadent dessert.

Brie: Can you tell I’m on my Whole30 sugar free diet? I think about sugar a lot.

JoAnn: A lot, a lot. It’s so funny. I was just thinking during the intro, I was trying to enunciate a little bit because I’ve been watching see there I mess up a word. I have been watching and just like that, the second season, you know, the follow up to sex in the city and Carrie is recording her audio book about bigs death.

Brie: Thank you so much.

JoAnn: And they criticize her. She’s like, I am popping my peas and swallowing my ours. And I’m like, okay,

Brie: your R’s. What is

JoAnn: Swallowing your Rs. So maybe it’s like making them more like a W. Like you’re like, if you think of an R word, what’s an R word? Like razor, like razor, razor, razor, razor. Like not saying the R, but saying the razor.

Brie: I don’t know. I

JoAnn: I’m making things up really.

Brie: as somebody who had, two years of speech therapy in school for not being able to pronounce her R’s. What I did were W, what you did were W’s, right? Seems like that’s going backwards. But I don’t know. It was, I will say this, a lot of my speech, therapy for,if you’re singing, it’s gonna be a softer one because I did singing growing up.

that was funny because I would have to forget everything I learned in speech therapy to sing correctly because the director would be like, No, make the S softer and the W softer. And you’re like, but that’s how I’m not saying it at all.

JoAnn: I’ve never had specific singing instruction. I was in like a children’s choir at church and then I was in choir in my eighth grade year. But I, it wasn’t very strict. Like we just sing songs. I don’t remember any actual instruction on how to sing. So it was funny because my daughter, as I mentioned in this interview, is auditioning for a theater and she’s like, I’ve never sung before.

And I’m like, I can’t tell you how to sing. I have no idea. I just go and wig it. What feels best and sometimes it doesn’t turn out so well.

Well, I think you had some good things, like you gave her a note and you guys tried to match the note. I tried to match the note, which was great And then I found a singing lesson like your first singing lesson on YouTube that she can go and use But it really ties in to what we’re talking about today about helping your kid find their interests because oh my gosh Briee, you know as well as I do there’s a lot of avoidance happening today with kids

Brie: Oh my gosh, yes, I have that at home. one of my two is just. cannot get that kid to interact at all. And it’s funny because we also talked about this in the episode about how, the pandemic affected them. And my kiddo is a sophomore now, and it’s just the pandemic hit smack dab at that change from sixth grade into junior high.

So most of, that kiddo’s junior high experience was online. And I feel likeShe’s not the same personality and now there’s so much more anxiety about doing things and joining things and it’s an uphill

battle. 

JoAnn: there is a lot of anxiety. So if you are experiencing this as well, this is what we’re going to get into in this episode. We’re digging into how to help kids find their personal interests as well as make sure to listen for our guests advice on if your kid is avoiding something, how to expose them to those new things.

Our guest today is Stephanie Malia Krauss. She is an educator, social worker, mom, and author of the new book, whole child, whole life 10 ways to help kids live, learn, and thrive, as well as the book, making it what today’s kids need for tomorrow’s world. Stephanie is relentlessly focused on what kids need to thrive now and in the future.

So we hope you enjoy our conversation with Stephanie. Welcome to the podcast. Stephanie. It’s so good to have you here.

Stephanie: I’m so glad to be here with you.

JoAnn: So we are excited to start digging in to kids and their personal interests because a lot of what we see nowadays is kids have all this school and may not have the most time to pursue something personally meaningful for them. Can you give us kind of the rundown on why it’s so important for kids to have outside personal interests?

Stephanie: Absolutely. So, you know, it’s a really interesting thing when it comes to young people and how they learn and grow and develop. And I think for us as parents, we’re often in this deficit because we have this job to do. raising these little humans. we want them to do well. We want them to be happy and healthy and whole, but we often don’t get the training that we need in child development and youth development to really support them in practical ways and even like principled philosophical ways.

My background is in education and social work and I’ve been studying child well being for now 20 years. And one of the things that I have found to be true, across all of the research and my experience also in classrooms and running schools is that often what we consider to be the extras in life are actually the most essential for young people’s development.

So we put a lot of focus, for example, on school and performance and achievement. We tend to overschedule our kids. we are in a moment where young people are like the competitiveness of youth sports or the pursuit of excellence goes above enrichment and exploration. And in the space of.

how young people develop when they are able to get exposure to a whole range of things that they might like or they might not like. They’re able to figure out what they want to pursue, but they’re also able to figure out like how they learn and what they just like doing, like what makes life. Lovable, which is such a key priority.

JoAnn: There’s so much I want to dig in right there. And Stephanie, so many questions I have. and also your keen ability on how to ignore your dogs. Because I think that is something that is so nurtured in our podcast land when our dogs are going off, just be like, I’m going to ignore them.

And they’re being really silly right 

now.

Stephanie: oh my gosh. Listen, lemme just tell you that I knew I told you both before we started 

recording. This was gonna happen because I am, I’m in the middle of this, this book tour for this book called Child Whole Life. And so I had to replenish all of my travel sized items because I’m on the road a lot and I the day where everything gets delivered at once. And I knew it was just like podcast karma. Like the moment I’m recording, Amazon will come and my two dogs need to let me know.

JoAnn: Of course, that is 

Brie: Danger! Will Robinson! Danger!

Danger! 

Danger! 

JoAnn: the, what you said in there, is this extra is really what makes life worth living. And you mentioned the competitiveness of youth sports. And I really want to dig in because I feel that there’s so many times that I see parents, maybe it’s not my really personal close group of friends.

It’s really what I see in like our school Facebook groups. and like our community Facebook groups where they’re constantly concerned about their kids getting into the best teams, getting the best coach on the teams, getting this and this. and that creates so much stress and pressure for kids. And also how that isn’t necessarily what we’re talking about here. When we’re talking about personal interests for kids, there’s a really nuanced kind of thing going

Brie: I think that is important because I think a lot of times that message does get misconstrued. Oh, my kid likes to do, likes to play an instrument. Oh, my kid likes to do this sport. Oh, my kid likes to do art. And then all of a sudden we’re running with it at a thousand percent. And the question is where does that passion leave and then it becomes a chore or a job?

Stephanie: think that’s right. Performance is used as a proxy for purpose so often in the parenting journey right now, and I think that we have to give ourselves a little bit of grace. There is a ton of pressure from the other parents around us of this is just how you do the parenting journey now, and this is.

just how things are, and it’s more intense than it used to. And for me, my view is again from a child well being and development lens. I look at how often misplaced this focus on performance and productivity is to the real detriment of young people getting the rich developmental experience and enjoyment experience they need.

And we can’t neglect that they lost so much time from the pandemic. And so young people, like kids, they develop based on like social interactions, their friendships and play and all of those pieces. And so when we soak the joy out of it, when we just pull the joy out of it and say this is basically the job of being an athlete, or this is the job of being a student, this is the job of being.

JoAnn: a performer. We are really complicit in actually, denying them a fundamental piece of what it is to be a kid and protecting that. And what’s really crazy about that for me is, so I’ve worked, as I mentioned, in education for years. I was a teacher, I ran a school, but then on the other side, I worked in higher education and with employers is that I actually know that 

Stephanie: are optimized when all the lights are on and the kid feels super engaged and they are liking what they are doing and they are curios about what they are doing and that sense of novelty and growth is there.

JoAnn: When you say leech the joy out of things, that is something that I am so seeing in kid activities. Like I see it with my daughter in dance. She decided this year that she has had enough of competitive dance. She told me she does not find it fun anymore and she is going off of her team and into recreational and that’s somehow seen as a bad thing where I’m like, yes, we’re going to go have fun again because There’s so much pressure right now being put in kids in activities, not just by parents, but actually by the adults leading those activities where they feel like kids need to go and compete and they need to be the best.

And it goes above everything else in child development, where the specialization of that skill. Oh, could you tell I have anger against dance right now? The specialization of that skill is above making sure the child is happy in a whole person.

Stephanie: That’s right. Okay. So this is really interesting. So the research is super clear and I put this in my new book, whole child, whole life because I don’t think that we get this education that Not every young person needs passion in order to be healthy, happy, and whole, but every young person needs purpose and they need nurturing, healthy relationships, and they need community and belonging.

And I think that this idea of passion, pursuit of excellence, performance. It drives this really intense pressure where like you, my son, when we were talking about rec or select baseball, it was almost a bad thing to go back to rec. He felt pressure from his peers and from the other adults, from the other people coaching him, even though He could tell me that the experience of being on that rec team, endlessly more enjoyable.

It was more fun. And so I just want to see a mama movement of, liberating ourselves and our kids To recreate, to recreate what it means to be a kid and to experience the full range of opportunities that make kids come alive, and keep them moving and keep them growing and keep them exploring.

Brie: I love that. I love that. We need to coin the term mama movement. We need to get that mama movement. It’s got to get going.

JoAnn: when we as moms really want to encourage our kids to try these new things, but then these kids have these other voices in their head telling them that, hey, and these are not great voices. You’re not so good at that one. Maybe you should go try something 

else.

and they have these other voices in their head where they’re not exactly listening to us or taking our advice just go have fun. How do we get back in that conversation?

Stephanie: It’s a really important question because I think the underbelly of what we’ve been talking about is that there is idea among kids because of the pressure adults put on them and because of how we’re creating these experiences, that they have to be the best, that they have to come representing their medals or their select jerseys or whatever the case might be.

So I was a fifth grade teacher, which means I alliterate so much. It’s a problem. Oh my gosh. Do you also 

alliterate? I always alliterate.

JoAnn: If you ever look at No Guilt Mom titles, you will see alliterations pretty much there. Those and acronyms. We do that a lot

too. Yes. 

Stephanie: So you’re going to be with me here, JoAnn, for a second. So I think about, kid interests with the first piece is exposure. The second piece is exploration. The third is experience. And then the fourth is expertise. And so I don’t think that we have to teach our kids that alliteration.

But I do think that we can reframe what the purpose of doing something is. So are you getting exposure to something but actually there’s space to Brieng your best friend with you and so it’s more of a social experience. Now as mom, I may want my kid to experience this because I actually think that they’re going to like it.

but I have to frame it in a way that makes the most sense. for exploration, it could be saying, we’re going to sign you up just for this week, or we’re going to try it. and the language is very low on pressure. and you have to match that with options. When you get up to the level of expertise, I have a child who.

is a diehard baseball fan and baseball player. He, this kid, baseball is life and I don’t understand it, but he really loves it. And at this point he’s 12. We are having active conversations about what does that mean he loses and what does he gain and what does he get on that team that’s going to support his thriving and what may he never get and then where else does he find it?

So I think. co creating with our kids when it’s developmentally appropriate, is really important. I’ve also seen really great experiences where when kids are little, parents and families saying we’re going to choose something artsy and we’re going to choose something active. and keeping that full range is really, really cool.

The last thing I just want to say super quick, JoAnn, is that my son had a, sport that he was really into and then he got out of it in the pandemic and did not want to go back. And I knew that he would love it. And he was super resistant and angsty. and I just had to let that go. And eventually he saw it again and just this week said I want to go back.

And so sometimes it’s also just. creating space and time.

Brie: huh. 

That’s the hard part, 

JoAnn: That is the hard part. And I love your alliteration of the exposure and expectation and expertise. We are gonna take a really short break and when we come back, we’re gonna dig a little bit more into how to get kids to take that risk to actually expose themselves to new things. 

We are back. And Stephanie just shared her three things for kids and finding their personal interest, that exposure, that expectation and that expertise. So now, Stephanie, I want to know with kids, especially when they get older, like I have a 14 year old, Briee has teenagers as well. It’s really hard to Get them to take that risk and expose themselves to something new where they might be the beginner and where they might mess up on things.

Brie: and I also wanted to throw in there too, right before the break, you made a great point about how sometimes it’s important to give them that space, and when they’re teens, it can be so scary. it is hard to give them that space because you know that time is ticking. Four years when they’re a freshman, three years when they’re a sophomore, like that time doesn’t feel limitless anymore like it did before.

Stephanie: There’s so much there. I think that there’s so many levels of kind of pressure points depending at what age and stage somebody’s at. So let’s do like teens, tweens, kids really quickly. So for teens, parents are often really focused on scholarship. College applications, thinking about school ending, and I’m here to tell you as somebody who worked in the higher education space that world is changing in really dramatic ways and that actually colleges and employers are much more interested in the transferable skills and experiences and that sort of holistic sick this is a well rounded person who has really unique experiences to bear.

so for example, at one point my kids did circus school. They took circus lessons.

JoAnn: I want to go to circus school.

Brie: Why is that suddenly popping up in our lives? I have heard that repeatedly over the last, year and a half, two years, and I’m like, where was this circus life before? 

Stephanie: spoke to the social circus educators and was ready to run off and join the circus. They are the kindest, most amazing people. Everybody there. like the novelty factor is so high that even if there are nerves, everyone is new at something. So getting them into the space is really important.

So for teens, I think there’s an opportunity to really diversify interests in terms of What are the range of things that you’re super curious about that you want to try? And how do we just, I have a, a dear mentor who says you can’t be what you can’t see. And so if you talk about it in the context of we want to set you up.

for things that you will enjoy across your life. So what are things you want to try? do you want to try pickleball? Do you want to try swimming? what are those pieces? Some things may need to be explored privately. You could take virtual lessons. It’s not a social thing. I do want to point out with teens, that we are in the middle of an intense youth mental health crisis and with tweens as well.

And so we have to be really tapped into, are they nervous because it’s new or is this actual anxiety? And how do we support the mental health of our kids as they’re exploring these interests? And that’s true also if they’re on a team and they start to say I don’t know if I want to keep doing this or, I need a break.

JoAnn: Yeah.

and it’s really hard being a teen parent right now with mental health crisis going because you’re seeing a lot of avoidance behaviors where kids are just sitting at home and not wanting to get off of their device because that’s where they feel 

safe. I just had a thing with my daughter where, she is actually today auditioning for the school musical and girl has never sung before in her life.

She is super nervous about it and she’s okay. Talking like she’s my daughter. She’s good at that. But, it took a lot. It took a lot of support to get her to that point because as a parent, I saw that, Hey, you say you want to perform. You say you want to be Taylor Swift. here is something that you can get involved in that has like a very low risk of failure.

but even then there’s so much on them where she was afraid of being embarrassed. She was afraid of people making fun of her. She was afraid of being classified as quote unquote, a theater kid, which I took personal, like a personal insult against, cause I am a theater kid, but. All these things and just breakdowns like it is so hard to be a teen today and it is so hard to be a teen parent and you don’t know how or when you should push and how or when you should cushion

Brie: right, because those are all valid concerns she has. Those are all valid, very probable things that could happen. So how do you give them that safety you don’t want to say to them, like, yeah, that’s probably going to happen. I don’t know. Do you want to say that?

I just don’t. 

JoAnn: I say it I’m like probably but you’re probably gonna be okay.

Stephanie: well, remember for our tweens and teens right now. Area, the time when the most exposure and exploration happens, they lost because of the pandemic. And so now you have these peer pressure pieces of I don’t want to look like I’m not good enough, but also maybe I didn’t keep doing this sport or I didn’t have this opportunity to try this thing or I didn’t whatever.

 The other part here is modeling, like what is good for kids is so often good for us. So something I do in my own house that works with my tweenie teen and my teeny guy, my, my one who’s going into fifth grade is that I try to push my husband and I to also be trying new things and show them what that’s like.

So I took guitar lessons. My husband wanted to do archery. I got him archery lessons. and then what the, like, Yeah, what the mainstays are. I’m a swimmer. I want them to see that I still prioritize swimming. And interestingly, that I have an experience where I was a very competitive swimmer, but reclaiming that for pleasure.

so they see that it can just be a half an hour and it can be fun and that there can be play involved with that too. So stretching those interests across the performance all the way over to the play part is also back to mama movement, like something we need to reclaim. This is playfulness.

JoAnn: I think that is so important because through her whole audition process, I was like, I am way too into this. Like I’m really into this. And I used to act in community theater when I was a teen. And I was like, wait, It can I still do this? cause as an adult, you’re like, Oh, I wish I could be that age again where I could just go off and do this activity.

And it would be great. But you can do it as an adult. I found a community theater that’s going to have auditions. And I think I’m going to do it. 

Brie: That 

sounds amazing. I love 

that idea. 

Stephanie: you’ll be like the next Miss Honey and Matilda. I can see

it 

now.

JoAnn: the next show this one’s doing is Little Shop of Horror. So we’ll see.

Brie: that sounds awesome. Yeah.

JoAnn: We’ll see how it goes. But having like parents reclaim that sense of fun and that sense of joy is so important to show our kids because they see us in this work mode of constant productivity. And of course, what you said before, Stephanie, what you see is what you can achieve.

So if they see that’s adult life, who wants to make their adult life like that? Most of us are miserable doing work just all the time. And we need that sense of fun, just like our kids do.

Stephanie: That’s right. One of the things that has transformed me the most in, my writing and my work in the last few years was that I learned that our kids with the right resources and opportunities as an expectation will live to be at least a hundred. That like science has progressed and it can just keep us alive.

For a really long time, and that means that our kids are looking at the prospect of potentially like a 70 or 80 year working life, like a lifetime of work. And so one of the things that has done in my own parenting is made me realize that like joy and purpose. and growth and fun and play have to be mainstays or my kids are going to burn out.

And I don’t want them just to have a long life. I want them to have a life that is livable and lovable, I want them to have a. good life and to enjoy that. And so that has helped me to be like, Oh, the finish line is not 18. 18 is not even a quarter of the way through a possible 100 year life.

And so how do we slow our role and figure out what are the things that are. are really life giving. And also, let’s just be honest, we’re recording during the, hottest week and hottest month that the world has ever seen. It is a challenging time to be growing up. And so we have a moral obligation as parents to prioritize fun and play and downtime and enjoyment because life is really hard and the world is worrisome.

we need spaces that are rich and light and Brieght for our kids and for us.

Brie: Okay.

JoAnn: Tell us a little bit, Stephanie, about your book, Whole Child, Whole Life. www. wholechild. org

Stephanie: So Whole Child, Whole Life, 10 ways to help kids live, learn, and thrive really builds on so much of the conversation we’re having. in the middle of the pandemic, I had a different book come out on what young people need to be ready for the future. That’s called Making It. And so I was doing this pandemic book tour, in my basement, through Zoom and every time I would finish talking about what kids need for the future, somebody would say, Hey, Stephanie, I see that you’re a social worker and a mom, I’m afraid my kid is going to burn out or give up before they get there.

Like what do kids need to be well right now? And so for me as somebody who’s always focused on now and the future, I was curious if there were a set of practices. that would support my kids, our kids in childhood that were the same, that would also support them as adults, which means also support us as adults.

And so went after that information. So whole child, whole life is about how do we understand the full and whole of who our kids are, health, wise, developmentally, the people in places that they’re a part of, what that does, their strengths, their struggles, but then what are these core practices that we as parents can prioritize?

We can use actually as like our checklist when we’re looking at a coach or a team or a program or a community theater to say is this going to support their thriving or not? And how does that help us make the choice? but then eventually they become. internal self care practices for kids. So these are things like prioritizing mental health and nurturing healthy relationships, building community and belonging, but also seeking on wonder the things that are big and wonderful in the world.

JoAnn: I love it. And every parent should go and get this book. and use it as their checklist, Stephanie, it’s been amazing talking to you and I am going to take away from this discussion that I need to really push myself to do my personal interests so that I am modeling that for my kids and they try new things as well.

Stephanie: Thanks. It’s been such a pleasure. I can’t wait to hear what plays you’re a part of with community theater and maybe you and your daughter can do a play together.

JoAnn: Possibly. We’ll see. That’ll be coming up. We’ll see how today goes with auditions and then we’ll go from there. See if she likes it.

Brie: So can I just say I love how, our pets sometimes like to podcast bomb. It’s fun. 

It’s fun when they like to come and say

JoAnn: the pets, the pets and landscapers like to podcast bomb too. Anybody doing work outside the 

Brie: Yeah. Yeah. Just life in general. it’s so fun trying to record when you don’t have a podcast studio that you’re going to. And so this is how we do it. People get a glimpse into real life.

JoAnn: real life and it’s not perfect and we’re constantly navigating it. But Briee, I had a question for you because I talked about what I was going to personally pursue out Yeah.

Brie: No, no, you don’t get to just throw me out there like that. I didn’t know. Uh, let’s see. I I hadn’t I feel like my outside pursuits are i’m enjoying what i’m doing, which is i’m enjoying Going out on the water, learning more about how to do that kind of stuff. I’m trying to think because I feel like that’s that there is a criteria involved in this question that I’m not sure if it matches me, 

JoAnn: think that the water thing works. 

Brie: I 

was going to, well, I was going to say like a criteria of building a skill or being social ish. And you know what? One thing that I am doing that pushes me out of my comfort zone, honestly, and you’ll laugh at this because you’ll be able to be like, yeah, I can see that is traveling.

I’m enjoying traveling. You’re right. See, you’re all like, yeah. I enjoy traveling and going places, even a trip for the weekend. And just driving two hours North. to get out of the heat of Phoenix. I enjoy 

that, but I 

get 

JoAnn: laugh because, yeah, I know, because the woman I had to push to do TSA pre check.

Brie: I’m like, Brie, you need to go. 

get, I get so nervous about traveling and I can’t, and it’s not the, like we go on plane. I felt like I’m, I’m scared of flying or anything like that, but I think it’s just, it’s because I’m not used to it. I love the end result and it is, it actually does fit in really well to what we’re talking about, right?

Like how your daughter, we talked about how like she’s. Trying out for, theater, right? And how she’s nervous about all the things that could go wrong, but she knows it’s fun and she thinks that she would enjoy doing it. I know I’m going to love the traveling once I get there, but I’m so nervous about all the things that could go wrong beforehand.

So it’s about facing those fears, trying to get over them so that they’re not so big. And eventually 

they’re like, 

secondhand, like, I’m

not afraid of getting on the water. I know how to do that now.

JoAnn: because you’ve probably had enough mishaps that have happened on the water that now you have the confidence that not just that you’ve gotten over your fear, but you know what could happen and you also have confidence in your ability to handle the situation.

Brie: I guess I would say Traveling 

traveling, 

is my thing. Trying to 

JoAnn: we got to put you more in charge of travel plans to have 

Brie: No, I really love my travel friends, hint, hint, 

and you guys taking the lead and me that just follows behind. Just tell me where to go. Put me in the direction, I’ll walk that way.

Cause you know, I’ve had enough mishaps on travel. just this last trip where our passports for the kids didn’t arrive until the day before we had to leave. The day before. Which was awfully stressful. But you know what? It’s an experience you do the traveling with your kids and you’re modeling it to them that it can be fun. 

Because there are stressful things that happen that are involved in traveling, but you’ve modeled it in a way that you try to be like, hey, it’s okay, it’s fun, we can still make it work.

JoAnn: It’s all about that flexibility when it comes to travel. That’s I think what trying new things is about the flexibility and especially with our kids who are avoiding stuff. That’s my big fear. I don’t want them ever to be scared of something and not do it because they’re scared. Like I accept not doing it because I tried this before mom.

I don’t like it. That’s fine, but I don’t accept that. I’ve never done this before. it looks interesting to me, but I’m really scared of what will happen, so I’m not going to do it. no, that doesn’t fly. You need to go try it. Give me some real data here and some real experience.

Brie: and then trying to find the space for that. that was another thing that I really felt like, Stephanie, I, you have to hear repeatedly is that sometimes the best you can do is give them the space. they want to do it and you would and you want to be able to say to them like listen You clearly are excited about doing xyz and your fears valid, totally hear you on them, but you got to try it anyways.

giving them the space sometimes to just be like, yep, I hear you. That’s really scary. I’d love to see you do it, but it’s all up to you. And then God just hoping that they come back to it because yeah, avoidance is a real thing coming from a family that has three people out of our five diagnosed with anxiety.

Anxiety 

JoAnn: mean, 

Brie: monster.

JoAnn: anxiety is a real monster. And I’m one of those people who’s also been diagnosed with anxiety and I see it in my kids as well. Anxiety has some great things about it, though, which, it’s a challenge otherwise, but there’s also some things where you take the best care of your anxiety if you make sure to put in the self care and that joy back into your life, but you can’t put joy into your life if you’re not trying new things.

So it’s like this vicious. cycle where recognizing, okay, this fear, this is preventing me from trying new things. And so first it’s about fixing your treatment for the anxiety first. Like I was reading a book called real self care by Dr. Pooja Lakshmin and I want her on the podcast so bad, but I was also listening to Mel Robbins podcast.

Who is also Mel Robbins. You’d be great in the podcast too. I’m just pitching everyone. If anyone knows those people, can you just make an introduction, but. Something that is repeated over and over again is if you know the steps you have to take, to make yourself happier, but you just can’t Brieng yourself to do them, it could be a case of where if you have depression or anxiety, your symptoms aren’t being managed really well right now and you need a different treatment plan.

And once you talk to a doctor. And get on a different treatment plan and find something that works. You’ll find it much easier to take action on those things that you know you need to do. Cause I think there’s always the thing where people think they can overpower anxiety and depression and they are mental, like biological things going on in your brain.

And. You can’t just overpower it. You have to get treatment for it. So that’s my un expert advice for the day. Just based on my own opinion and experience.

Brie: if you loved this episode, go out there, get Stephanie’s book, Whole Child, Whole Life. It is a phenomenal book. It has a lot of great information and I feel like it’s also easy to zoom in on what you’re looking for in that book too. Like I like how she has it structured. 

JoAnn: next time, remember the best mom’s a happy mom. Take care of you and we will talk to you later.Brie: thanks for stopping by.