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Brainy Moms
Brainy Moms is a parenting podcast with smart ideas to help moms and kids thrive! Hosted by cognitive psychologist Dr. Amy Moore along with rotating co-hosts Sandy Zamalis, Teri Miller, and Dr. Jody Jedlicka, this weekly show features conversations and guest experts in parenting, psychology, child development, education, and medicine with practical tips to help moms navigate the ups and downs of parenthood. We're smart moms helping make moms smarter...one episode at a time!
Brainy Moms
Teen Mental Health and Eating Disorders: Tips for Parents | Bryn Miller
Feeling overwhelmed over the tumultuous teen years? Confused about your teen’s eating habits? Join us for a conversation with Bryn Miller, an experienced adolescent eating disorder therapist turned parent coach, about the profound impact of parental support on adolescent mental health and eating disorders. On this episode of the Brainy Moms podcast, Bryn joins Dr. Amy and Sandy to help parents to bridge the gap with their teens. Discover how she utilizes whole family healing to tackle the often-stigmatized experience of parenting teenagers, turning it into a dynamic period of growth and development.
We dive into eating disorders, examining the roles of genetics, culture, and environment. Bryn sheds light on the vital part parents play in supporting adolescents through these challenges, guiding them to find information amidst a sea of misconceptions. Through enhancing emotional self-efficacy and fostering a nurturing family environment, parents can significantly improve outcomes for their children. Bryn's insights underscore the importance of finding true belonging within oneself and the power of emotional resilience in battling societal pressures on body image and values.
The conversation doesn't stop there. Bryn also provides practical strategies for parents navigating the emotional landscape of their teenagers seeking independence. Learn the art of "scaffolding" rather than "fixing," offering support while allowing teens to tackle their own challenges. She emphasizes emotional granularity, effective caregiving strategies, and the significance of self-care while showcasing how parental love can transform the family dynamic. With insights from Emotionally Focused Family Therapy and Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Bryn equips parents with the tools to remain calm and connected, fostering stronger, more resilient family bonds.
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Hi smart moms and dads, Welcome to another episode of the Brainy Moms podcast brought to you today by LearningRx Brain Training Centers. I'm Dr Amy Moore. I'm here with Sandy Zamalis, and Sandy and I are going to interview Bryn Miller today. Bryn is an adolescent eating disorder therapist turned parent coach who empowers parents to get calm and confident so they can connect to both their children and the parents they want to be. She has a decade of experience working with adolescents and young adults with mental health issues, alongside their parents and caregivers, and she approaches parent coaching with the goal of whole family healing. As an expert in the field of caregiver support and a parent herself, she founded Bren Miller Parent Coaching and developed a signature five-step program called the Response Roadmap. She's going to join us today to help her mission of getting actionable tools in the hands of parents. Let's welcome Bryn.
Bryn Miller:How are you guys Good, how are you? I'm good, I'm good, nice to meet you, good to meet you too.
Dr. Amy Moore:I think you are just down the road from me. I'm in Colorado Springs.
Bryn Miller:Oh, no way that's so cool. Have you been in Colorado Springs a long time?
Dr. Amy Moore:We moved here in 2006. Okay, yeah, the South, yeah, so you've been here.
Bryn Miller:I actually grew up here. So I grew up in like outside of Vail and then went to college in California, lived there for a long time, lived in New York for a long time, and then my husband, who grew up in Denver. Actually, we moved back in gosh, it was 2016,. Right before my oldest was born.
Dr. Amy Moore:So yeah, yeah Well, my husband went to the Air Force Academy for college and said, ok, I want to retire here. Yes, he loved it so much. And then in 2006, he just got super lucky to get stationed back here at the Air Force Academy, so he was able to finish out his Air Force career and then here, and then we just stayed.
Bryn Miller:Oh, that's amazing. It's such a great spot. Yeah, yeah, I'm partial, I'm biased, but I love Colorado, sandra where are you?
Bryn Miller:I'm in Virginia. I'm on the other side of the country, but I agree, colorado is lovely. I do like Virginia though.
Bryn Miller:Oh, that's so nice, so nice to be close to everybody.
Sandy Zamalis:Yeah, yeah. Speaking of lovely spaces, I just want to sit in your room and I just want to get a cup of coffee and go sit in.
Bryn Miller:That's the vibe. I'm like, okay, come in. I'm like I have blankets, I have pillows, like kick your feet up, you know. So I want to create that space for people and for selfishly for myself. I'm here a lot, so I'm like I want it to be nice, yeah.
Dr. Amy Moore:Well, we are excited to talk to you, so nice to have you today.
Bryn Miller:I thank you guys for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Sandy Zamalis:So we love talking about teens on our show and parenting teens. We just always feel like there's never enough resources for parents out there for parenting teens, so share with our listeners. How did you get involved in this area?
Bryn Miller:Yeah, it's a great question and I feel the same way and I love working with teens. I love working with parents of teens, and so I just get so excited. I think there's so much stigma around being a teenager and parenting a teenager and it's really such a cool time of life, it's such a cool time of development, and so I think we all need to have this paradigm shift around how teenagers are actually way cooler than we give them credit for, I think. But in terms of how I got into this work, when I went back to school to get my master's in mental health counseling, I knew I wanted to work with eating disorders. I was just really passionate about that work, really curious about that work, and as I got into my first internship placement where I was working in an eating disorder setting the kind of gold standard treatment for adolescents that are struggling with anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa is a type of therapy called family-based treatment and what it does is really empowers the parents of the adolescent to help the adolescent overcome the eating disorder. And so in getting trained in that work and starting to do that work, I had the opportunity to work with the adolescent, but also in conjunction with their parents and really like leveraging the love that the parents have for their adolescent in order to help them overcome this incredibly complex, incredibly challenging mental health issue, and it just watching it work over and over again felt kind of the closest thing to magic, and so I really fell in love with.
Bryn Miller:I fell in love with working with the adolescents, but also really fell in love with the parent and caregiver work, and so that's kind of this Venn diagram for me of you know, in a perfect world, you know, getting to support an adolescent but also getting to support their parents and their caregivers and helping them kind of come together, regardless of what the mental health issue is or whatever the struggle is, helping them sort of build a bridge. It's something I feel so passionate about and so excited about. So as I kind of started down that road and did that work, it felt like home. It felt like this is the work I'm meant to do and I've really been doing it since. So it's been, I think, 11 years since then and I've really kind of exclusively done that work and then parent and caregiver support work, kind of.
Sandy Zamalis:That's so cool. I just I can imagine how rewarding that would be for you as a, as someone working with kids and adults, to kind of help bridge and build hope for families okay, did I freeze or did you guys freeze, just to?
Bryn Miller:see it, to see it work. I think you froze for a minute. Yeah, you're freezing.
Dr. Amy Moore:Yeah, okay, I'm like I'm still moving and they are not. Hold on just a minute. Let me check my internet connection. Okay, it says it's fine.
Sandy Zamalis:It says it's fine.
Dr. Amy Moore:Yeah, all right, that's okay. We're human. Our listeners laugh at us, laugh at ourselves. I like it, we're just fine with that. We don't care, we only edit. We don't edit for content, unless our guest says oh, I wish I hadn't said that, otherwise, we just let it roll.
Bryn Miller:I love that. I love that we're all practicing imperfection. I'm here for it. Yeah, absolutely.
Dr. Amy Moore:So I really love that approach. I'm older than you, obviously, but you know I did my undergrad thesis on eating disorders, like a multidisciplinary look at eating disorders, and so historically they've been intractable, right Like really hard to treat, with a really high recidivism rate. Right Like, so, listeners, that just means they reoccur right after treatment. It doesn't always you, and I quickly realize so do you mom, right? And so we have to address any kind of mental health issue, eating disorders included, from the parent's perspective as well, right, we have to give them tools and they have to be willing and open to make the changes. Those changes start with them, not necessarily with the child, right?
Bryn Miller:Yeah, absolutely. It's such a huge, it's such a it's such a huge piece of the puzzle. And I think you know, when I have a parent that kind of shows up and sort of drops their teenager on my doorstep, so to speak you know my therapy office and they're like you fix them. You know you do this right Immediately, my thought goes to what's going on for this parent. They're scared, they feel disempowered, and what I hear from parents time and time again is I'm terrified, I'm going to make it worse. I've done everything. I know how to do. You're the professional, you know what to do. I'm terrified, I'm going to make it worse. I've done everything. I know how to do. You're the professional, you know what to do.
Bryn Miller:I'm lost, right, and I think this is what happens, especially in the face of mental health issues, but really just with parenting and adolescent. Like I thought I knew this kid, we were so connected and then, you know, overnight they woke up one day and now they hate me, you know, or they don't want to talk to me anymore. And I think, as parents, there's just so much that gets activated that if we don't help the parents sit with, okay, what is this fear that's coming up, or what is your own narrative of being helpless or your own narrative of your own self-blame around this, especially with eating disorders? We so often hear from parents like, oh, is this because I did this when they were little, is this because I struggled myself with an eating disorder? Is this because I don't like my body, right? And we always say no, no, no, that's not how eating disorders develop. But parents still have these really strong narratives of self-blame, and so often those are the parents that are like here, you know, you fix my kid because they're so scared that they're going to make it worse, right? And so, yeah, it's really fascinating of how do we help the adolescent, but also how do we help the parent, but also how do we help the parent feel more empowered, because when the parent can show up and support the adolescent, that's the win.
Bryn Miller:You know, I always say to parents I'm going to be a blip on your kid's radar, even if I'm their favorite therapist and they fall in love with me and you know we do all this great work together. At the end of the day, I'm going to be. I'm going to be in their life for a year, maybe two. You get to be in their life forever. You're their parent, you're their mom, you're their dad, you're their step mom. You know whoever it is, and that I really want you to feel like you can support them, because I, when they're 30, when they're 40, that phone call is coming to you, not to me, as it should, and so it's such a cool way to support the adolescent or the young adult by supporting the parent or caregiver, but also the way in which it helps the parent and caregiver feel again like they know how to parent and that they feel good about how they're able to show up for their kid. So that's always such a cool kind of win-win for everybody.
Dr. Amy Moore:So you talk a lot about how you know, one of the biggest struggles that parents have is that they feel confused instead of confident, right, and, like you were just saying, they don't want to do something to make something worse because they're confused. Right, and the only way that we can help them become confident is to give them information, right, to give them what they need to know so that they do have the confidence to respond empathetically and confidently. So you mentioned some ways that eating disorders don't begin, right, that it isn't because the mom might have had one or said something wrong. So talk to us a little bit about what is happening there, like how do eating disorders develop and what should parents be looking for and responding to.
Bryn Miller:Yeah, oh, my gosh, that's such a big question but such an important question, and I think the first thing is just that there's so many variables and that the reality is that we don't know what causes eating disorders, just like many mental health issues. It's not like a COVID test where we can say like, oh, you have it or you don't. You know, or we can isolate it to this single gene. It's much more complex and complicated than that. That being said, you know, or we can isolate it to this single gene. It's much more complex and complicated than that. That being said, you know, there are people in the field of eating disorders that will estimate that the genetic component of eating disorders are up to 80%. And so so much of this is just pre-wired, hardwired genetic vulnerability in terms of you know how we kind of come into the world, and sometimes I'll hear families say, well, I never had an eating disorder, or no one in our family did. But it's complicated the way our genes all kind of express right. And then you also have the epigenetics, which is the relationship between the genetics and the environment, obviously the larger culture that we live in, and we live in an incredibly toxic culture when it comes to food and bodies and what we communicate to kids in particular, especially young women. But really we're doing it with men and boys now almost just as much about the value of the way your body looks, the way your body should look, how we moralize food good and bad, and right and wrong and there's just so much kind of in the air that we breathe, so to speak, in terms of culture and environmental factors, things like temperament. You know what is the sort of personality that your child is born with? What's their tolerance for uncertainty? Are they novelty-seeking, are they more risk-averse? Again, things that are really outside of our control.
Bryn Miller:So when we look at all these different factors that contribute to the development or the maintenance of eating disorders, we only have a couple that are ones that we can really do anything about, and one of them is the emotional avoidance component of eating disorders, in the sense that oftentimes the eating disorder behavior becomes a way to manage uncomfortable emotions. So how do we help an individual bolster their sense of emotional self-efficacy, their own sense of confidence of I can feel sad without having to restrict, or I can feel lonely without engaging in a binge, and that's about you know. How do we help you feel more confident navigating those challenging emotions. And then the other piece is the family environment. And so, while they don't, you know, while that doesn't cause an eating disorder, it is something where, if we can work with the parents and caregivers, how are we talking about emotions?
Bryn Miller:How are we talking about food? How are we talking about bodies? What's the emotional support look like in your house? How are we setting up structure or parameters so it's more challenging to engage in eating disorder behaviors? They're components that we have access to, and so we're going to put all of our energy. It doesn't, you know, it doesn't do us a lot of good to focus on your genetics if there's nothing we can do about it, or your temperament or the cultural environment. You know not to say that we shouldn't advocate, and, you know, continue to learn and, you know, be aware of our biases and all of those things. But what are the things that we can really get in there, and get in there quickly and help shift so that we're getting a better prognosis? And so those are places where we really help individuals make shifts, but also where we can really leverage the family environment.
Sandy Zamalis:What are some of the kind of misconceptions that are out there right now for parents on this topic? I know you know we were talking about that confusion for parents, but that's like the age of information. There's so much information out there I'm sure there's bad information out there. So can you navigate that with us a little bit? How does a parent really kind of work through some of that and try to get good information about these topics?
Bryn Miller:Yeah, oh my gosh, I know it's so. It's almost like the more information we have, the harder it gets to navigate Right. I think it's so tricky and there's so many misconceptions about eating disorders in particular, but I think you know the idea that it's that. It's that, the idea that it's about that it's vain or that it's surface level I hear this from parents all the time. Like you know, we didn't raise our child to be so worried about their appearance and I think what that really misses is the parent's opportunity to empathize with that. It's much bigger than that and it's less about oh, I want to look a certain way, and it's more about what the adolescent believes that will give them access to that's connected to a very real value of theirs.
Bryn Miller:And so so often when we start peeling back the layers of that body image distress or the you know, I want to weigh X, or I want to lose X number of pounds, or I want to look like so-and-so on Instagram that it's not this surface level vanity that it's really about, because then I'll be accepted and then I'll feel better about myself and then I'll have more friends and then I'll feel more confident and then I'll like myself, you know, and so it's really about this kind of outward manifestation of this belief that that's how you get the things that are really important to you. That's so often even it getting kind of conflated with academic success. You know, this idea of I work really hard and I control what I can control, and part of that is having a 4.0 and getting into an Ivy League school and part of that is, you know, I maintain this really rigid approach to my eating right. And so I think, you know, really helping parents empathize that this isn't because your child is vain, you know, or really kind of surface level, it's connected to their sense of not being enough underneath on some level, as most things are for most of us, I would argue, and also the function that it serves that in some way, whatever the eating disorder behavior is, be it restriction, binging, purging, compulsive exercise, laxative use, you know anything under the sun that so often it's also about managing those emotions that are uncomfortable.
Bryn Miller:Emotions that are uncomfortable, and it's partly why, when we're working with individuals, but also when we're working with parents and caregivers, a huge focus, the type of therapy that really kind of underpins the work that I do, is called emotion-focused family therapy.
Bryn Miller:For that reason, because we want to help parents and caregivers increase their confidence with their emotions, so that they can show up more confidently with their adolescent's emotions, so that their adolescent can get better at managing their own emotions, and that not only is that going to help them kind of combat whatever eating disorder behavior is showing up, but it's also going to help them build more resilience so that they are better able to manage all of the feelings that come up being a person in the world for the rest of your life, without going to some of those avoidance strategies, be it self-harm, be it, you know, avoidance of the feared stimulus like we see in anxiety, be it engaging in rituals like OCD, be it substance use, you know, when I can sit with uncomfortable feelings without feeling like I have to reach for something to make those feelings go away, then we've got a child that has a greater, a greater resilience to anything that kind of comes their way resilience to anything that kind of comes their way.
Dr. Amy Moore:Okay, so what I'm hearing you say is that many times so restrictive behaviors or eating behaviors or binging behaviors have to do with really they're really values-based decisions that the teen is making. Right, because I want to be accepted, I want to be loved, I want to be included and I feel like this behavior will get me to that goal. So normally, you know, values-based decision-making is well A a therapeutic strategy. But and normally that can be a good thing, right Does this choice behavior align with your values? Right? I mean, that's the heart of ACT, but yeah, it it's. In this case, it actually is driving unhealthy patterns. So then, how do you redirect? How do you redirect that? Because this is something that this teen values deeply to be included, to be accepted, to be loved. So they think that this is the path to get there and they have control over it, right, so they have that autonomy kind of tied in with that issue as well.
Bryn Miller:Yeah, yeah, and I'll take it one step further. It gets positively reinforced by the environment that we're in. Yes, right. So I can't tell you how many kids I've worked with who are at this really unhealthy low body weight where we're talking about hospitalization or they're having heart issues, where it's actually medically dangerous, and they have strangers come up to them on the street and say what's your secret? Tell me what you do, right, and again, that kind of speaks to this incredibly toxic culture that we live in that does value people based on their body size, right, and that's the reality of the world that we live in. And so I think this is also a really important thing is not gaslighting these kids into saying you know well, why do you think that? That's bonkers? You know they think that because that's the culture we live in, right, we all get those messages and they're not wrong that their weight stigma is real, weight bias is real, that people that are in larger bodies are discriminated against, right, and so you know, when you get into those values, it does become very murky and very tricky, and I think part of it is we can honor the value underneath.
Bryn Miller:So, let's say, we have a kid that's engaging in restriction because they were teased for their weight and so they think, you know, if I was in a smaller body, then more people would like me, I would have more friends, people wouldn't make fun of me, I would belong, I'd feel better about myself. They're not crazy for connecting those dots again in the culture that we live in and they might even have that lived experience of wow, people did treat me better, people did stop teasing me when I lost all of this weight. And what was the cost of that? What did I have to give up? And is that the kind of belonging that is really of value? It does? It gets really murky and it gets really tricky, but trying to help someone really pull apart, is this actually you and what you want? And are you really getting what you want from this? If you restrict and lose weight and now the cool kids want to hang out with you, are those really the people that you want to spend time with? You know what's the what is the values kind of embedded in that versus what does it feel like to? You know, to kind of steal a Brene Brownism, find that belonging in yourself, that it's not about fitting in, it's about belonging to yourself and that authenticity and we carry that wherever we go and the difference between confidence that comes from people complimenting you on your body and the confidence that comes from I know where my worth and value as a human being lies, and it's in who I am, not how I look. But again, I say to kids that I do this work with you are gonna feel for the rest of your life like you're swimming upstream in a culture that is going to tell you everything otherwise and with the you know, proliferation of all of these weight loss drugs and how that's everywhere in the world. Now, I mean, it's just, it's really fascinating. Kids are growing up in a really complicated world when it comes to all of these things, and so I think you know, getting back to your question honoring, of course you want friends, of course you want to, you know, have romantic relationships, of course you wanna, you know, feel like you're taking care of your health these values. There's nothing wrong with these values. These are great values to have.
Bryn Miller:Is the eating disorder actually getting you what you want or is it actually taking you further away from those things?
Bryn Miller:Because what happens is it tends to grow bigger and bigger.
Bryn Miller:It has this kind of snowball effect where, even if it started out by getting you some of the things that you want, it tends to take over.
Bryn Miller:You know, most people that I work with will do this exercise where we do a pie chart of okay, if a pie chart represents 100% of your waking thoughts and feelings and behaviors in a given day, what percentage of that is driven by thinking about food and eating in your body? And people that are in the throes of this will say, I would say, on average, between 80 and 90%. They are thinking about food in their body and so think about the rest of the parts of their pie chart that have to shrink down pretty small to allow for that of okay, where's the energy towards school and friends and your family and your hobbies? And how do we make those pieces bigger and start to shrink the piece that the eating disorder has taken up? So it's kind of this false. It gives you this false sense of moving towards your values, which can be very intoxicating and very tempting, which is why eating disorders can be so intractable, like you said. But when we really look at it, it's tending to be doing the opposite.
Sandy Zamalis:I love that your work is really parent focused and parent centered. This particular topic that we've been discussing is a really emotionally charged topic. For parents it's like a life or death situation that we're kind of talking about in some regards, but you can also expand that out to lots of other things that are going on in a teen's life. So how do you help parents kind of deal with that peace and stay calm, Because that calmness is what's going to help get them through it right. If they're escalating, that's only going to fuel the fire and then cause all sorts of issues on top of what they're already dealing with.
Bryn Miller:Yes, absolutely, and I think it's one of the biggest things that you know. When parents come to me and I say what are your goals, you know, one of the first things that comes out of their mouth is I want to be able to be more calm in the face of this. And, to your point, it is. I love it, it is. Is it a cat tail? Yes, I love it. She was dying to get up here.
Bryn Miller:Oh my gosh, we have to let her. She wants to be in the conversation. I get it. That's amazing.
Bryn Miller:But being calm in the face of this, like you were saying, it runs counter to all of our wiring, as the parents and eating disorders do have the second highest mortality rate of any psychiatric illness other than opioid addiction, and so it is life and death. Also, the rates of suicide with people struggling with eating disorders are incredibly high, not to mention what we've been finding out about, you know, despair and suicidal ideation with adolescents already, especially since COVID, and so, yeah, I mean the stakes don't get much higher for a parent. But again, like you said, you can sort of extrapolate that to also talking about vaping and drinking and you know all the other things that parents of adolescents are navigating, driving a car, and so, yeah, it is counterintuitive to stay calm in the face of your child's struggles, especially when they're really intense. And so much of this is because of that interpersonal neurobiological wiring that happens during the attachment process, where we get very literally in our brain.
Bryn Miller:We are wired to our kids right that when you talk about a child who's in distress, you think about a baby that's in distress. You know we think about fight or flight. A baby can't fight and a baby can't flight, right, they're not even mobile. You know, they're these little blobs, right, but what are they wired to do, instinctually, is cry, and they cry out for a caregiver, and this is how we've kept our species going since the beginning of time. Right, because the caregiver, then, is wired to respond to the child's cries. Right, and this is how they get taken care of, this is how they manage distress, and so that wiring is there for us and for our kids, and so to stay calm in the face of your child's distress is actually very counterintuitive, right, we're not wired for that. We're wired to get right on the roller coaster with them as they're getting whipped around and we're getting whipped around, right, and to try and fix it right.
Bryn Miller:Oh, we want to fix it Well, and that's the whipped around, right. And to try and fix it right, oh, we want to fix it Well, and that's the other thing. Right, like that's our first, that's our knee jerk reaction, right, like our kid gets distressed. We get distressed right along with them and our next impulse is we want to fix it right. And, of course, so natural when they're little, you know, oh, you have a boo-boo, here's a Band-Aid. You know like, oh, you're sad, I'm going to give you a hug, right.
Bryn Miller:But what happens as they get older? It just gets so much more complicated than that. And I can't tell you the number of times that I had an adolescent in my office and I'm like, if you had a magic wand, you know, and your parent could just understand something that they don't get, what would you want them to know? And almost invariably, the first thing out of their mouth is I don't want them to fix it, I just want them to listen, I just want them to hear me, I just want them to be there, right? I had this brilliant adolescent that I worked with and she said you know what I told my mom the other day? And I said oh God, tell me, what are we going to get? And she said I told her you trying to fix me is the problem. And my brain just about exploded and I'm like, okay, I'm going to write that down. And again, it's so natural because we see them in distress and our knee-jerk response is we want to fix it. But what happens is that in trying to fix it, we miss the opportunity to sit with them in whatever they're struggling with and to help them help themselves, fix it, which is really where that resilience gets built. It's really where their confidence in handling their emotions gets built. When we come in and we fix it for them, on some level, it communicates. I don't think you can do this on your own, that we're not communicating a confidence to them. And we don't do this intentionally, of course. Our intentions are oh my gosh. We want you to not feel sad, or I want you to not feel angry, or I want you to not feel lonely. It's so well-intended as parents, and yet what happens is we totally miss our kids and we miss the opportunity to again Brene Brown.
Bryn Miller:She talks about how, when our kids are struggling, it's like they're sitting in a dark room and our first instinct as parents, is to walk in the room and be like flip on the light switch. Why are you sitting in the dark? Don't sit in the dark. That's stupid, right, and they don't want us to do that. That's not what they need from us. And so can we walk into that dark room and sit with them in the dark room and say I can sit with you in the darkness, it's okay that it's dark and I'll be in this with you until you're ready to get up and turn the light on and be with them in that moment of struggle so that they're not alone in it. But then they know where the light switch is, which they never find out if we keep flipping it on for them, right?
Bryn Miller:But some of that is also like we communicate that the darkness is bad. By coming in and flipping on the light switch, we're saying to them oh, we don't do darkness, and the reality is that life is full of darkness. Life is full of trials and tribulations and pain and loss and suffering, and so we want our kids to be able to navigate that. We want them to feel confident in being able to handle that, and we can help them build that by sitting in the want to go in and flip on all the light switches because it breaks our heart to see our kid in the dark, right, and that's where it gets to.
Bryn Miller:This idea of the first step with parents is always you have to figure out what's getting activated for you in the presence of your child's struggle so that you can manage that yourself.
Bryn Miller:You have to manage your own distress before you can help them manage their distress, because otherwise you're going to run around flipping on all the light switches and kind of rob them of the opportunity to do that, but also inadvertently communicate that darkness is bad and darkness isn't bad. Darkness is part of life, right, and so, yeah, and darkness isn't bad, darkness is part of life, right, and so, yeah, it's. A big, big part of the work is helping parents have greater awareness around what's coming up for them in these moments that are really challenging, coming to that with a ton of kindness and compassion and not judgment, because we tend to do that too with ourselves. And then how do we help you get regulated and calm so that you can turn around and sit with them in the dark and have the patience for them to feel around for the light switch, you know, which sometimes takes longer than we'd like by nature that they feel like if I don't fix this for my child, my child will think I'm a bad parent.
Dr. Amy Moore:Right that my child expects me to fix things for them, so if I don't, then they're going to feel helpless because there's no one fixing their problems. I think that's a misconception, that yes, when your child is five you probably need to fix the problem, but when your child is 15, your role changes a little bit in this.
Bryn Miller:Absolutely, absolutely, and I think it is you're hitting this moving target right and that when you know, if you think about from the time when they're born, you have to fix everything for them. They are so helpless, you know, for such a long period of time. And so there is this transition of at what point do I step back and let them figure it out? And then, what are the places where, even when they're 15 or 20 or 25, that I do need to intervene in some way because there's a health and safety concern, that there's a danger there? And I think that gets really tricky too of where do I step in because it's actually not safe, right?
Bryn Miller:And yeah, I think that's such an interesting the juxtaposition between the parent thinking, oh, my child will think I'm a bad parent if I don't fix this for them, versus the adolescent sitting in my office and being like, oh, my child will think I'm a bad parent if I don't fix this for them, versus the adolescent sitting in my office and being like, oh, will you tell my mom to stop trying to fix it all the time.
Bryn Miller:And so it's kind of an interesting conversation of like, if you think that, maybe ask your adolescent, like, if I didn't, you know, help you write your essay at midnight on a Tuesday, right? And I think there's also the distinction and this gets so nuanced but the distinction between scaffolding and fixing, like fixing is like okay, I'll write your essay for you, which we don't want to do, right, but scaffolding is okay. I know it's hard for you to focus because you also have ADHD or because you know you've had so much going on this week and now we're doing this at the last minute. How do I help, support you to figure this out and provide some of that like safety net or kind of like the scaffolding right, with the intention of I'm going to gradually pull this off so that you're able to do it. It's kind of the difference between the training wheels and like riding the bike for them, you know, but I think some it's not always, you know crystal clear of where that that line is, you know.
Dr. Amy Moore:Right and we don't want to step on their agency and independence either. Like I, I found that what was the most effective with my kids as they were teens was to ask how do you want me to show up for you right now? Yes, because sometimes they do just want you to come in and tell them how to fix it right, tell them how to solve the problem or do it, but a lot of times, like you were saying, you just want to sit in, that they just want you to sit in that space with them, to recognize that they're hurting, to hold space for those big feelings so that they know that they're not alone.
Bryn Miller:Yes, absolutely. And I think when I, you know, when I work with parents, I always say you know, 30,000 foot view. This work is about a marriage of the empathy and the compassion and the listening and the validation and the practical support, and sometimes it's 90-10, sometimes it's 50-50, right, but that we don't want to skip the part where we're helping them, put words to what they're feeling, before we come in and problem solve. You know, okay, how can I best support you? Right, and then we come in with some of that like very practical problem-solving sometimes, and sometimes we don't even need to do the practical problem-solving.
Bryn Miller:You know, it's like, oh, you had a tough day with your friends and you're feeling really lonely and you're worried, where you kind of fit in in all of this and it makes you wonder if you're ever going to find your people. And that's so tough. I mean, that's just, that's so painful and I can sit with you in that. And then there's not a ton of problem solving to do because that's theirs to figure out. We can't make friends for them. You know, we can't solve the teenage drama that's happening, right, even though, gosh, we wish we could, but just sitting with them and helping them again put words and process is helping them build those emotion regulation muscles that are going to also kind of inoculate them from reaching towards those things that we those more destructive or maladaptive coping that we reach for when we feel like we can't handle those emotions.
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Bryn Miller:Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So yeah, this really kind of came out of taking all the work that I've done, you know, with families and really informed by my own experiences as a parent I have two kids myself and just feeling like in those moments I had this experience with my own kids of feeling like I've got all the tools in the toolbox. I am an advanced certified therapist in EFFT, I'm a licensed professional counselor. I've been doing this for 11 years. I parent coach, right, and yet in these really hard moments with my kids, it felt like the bottom fell out and it was like I can't find my toolbox, I don't know where, who moved my toolbox right and I'm sort of like groping around in the dark. And it gave me such empathy in that moment for these parents that I'm working with, where it's even more complex and complicated as it is with adolescents and young adults and mental health issues, and I'm like you know what I need in this moment? I need a, I need a, one, two, three, four, five. Like I need a step-by-step process, like it can't be ambiguous, it can't be like I can't be like which tool do I pull out of the toolbox? Like no, I need to know it's A to B and B to C, and so that was really the birthplace of what I call the response roadmap, which is my five-step curriculum for parents, and it's really designed to be both like a micro and a macro where you use these steps in the moment, but also it can more broadly help us, kind of 30,000-foot view. Okay, what are we doing, you know, to address this big, more challenging issue? But effectively, the first step is called recognize, um, and this is where we always start and I I always say this is the metaphor for this is you know, when you go to the mall and you don't know, you know you're like I have to go to Nordstrom, but I don't know like where, how do I get there? The first thing that we find on the map is that big star that says you are here, right, because if we know where Nordstrom is, but we don't know where we are in the mall, we're not getting to Nordstrom. And so we find that you are here, and I really help parents work on their own skills of what's happening in your body in the moment. What's the narrative that's getting activated in your brain? I'm a terrible mom, I'm doing it wrong, I suck at this. So-and-so, is a much better mom than me.
Bryn Miller:You know what are the narratives that get activated in that moment. Can we put a name to what we're feeling, Can we label it and that's a lot of that cool research around emotional granularity of you know. Can we really kind of drill down, can we increase our emotional vocabulary and then we use EFFT to really talk about what we call caregiver blocks. What are the big things that get activated for you in the moment? What's the fear and the helplessness and the hopelessness and the shame and the self-blame and the grief, these big feelings that get activated for us as parents when our kids really struggle, and how does that kind of take us down a rabbit hole? So, really starting to recognize and be aware of when we get triggered, when we get overwhelmed, what pushes our buttons, where our brain goes, so we can catch ourselves, so that we can step two, which is regulate, to reconnect with your values and this is regulate, really pulls from a lot of DBT skills of like how do we get calm in the moment? Because, as the parent or caregiver, it's our job to stay as regulated as we possibly can in the face of our child's distress. This is like getting off of the roller coaster and staying on the bench you know, like, where they get off the roller coaster and then we want to, from that place, like so get really calm. How do we get as calm as we can, given the the circumstances, so that we can also reconnect to our values?
Bryn Miller:Who do I want to be, as a parent, for my child when they're struggling, I want to be a safe space. I want to be an anchor in the storm. I want to be the lighthouse. I want to be a coach. You know these are things that I've heard from parents over the years, but you know, kind of, what's your North Star. So even when you feel lost, take a deep breath. Who do I want to be for my kid? I want to be a kid. I want to be a parent where they feel like they can always tell me how they feel. That's a huge one for me, and so am I showing up in a way that's facilitating that? And if not, can I get calm so that I can right?
Bryn Miller:And then the next step, step three, is called respond effectively. And this really pulls in EFFT, emotion coaching, which is this three-step process of validate their feelings, come to it with emotional support and then follow up with practical support. And this kind of gets into that conversation we were having of how do we help them. Know, you know it's dark. It's okay that it's dark, we don't have to be afraid of the dark and I'm here with you and tell me if you need some help finding the light switch right. That's like you know how do we operationalize that and we actually have scripts that we like pull out and pen to paper so parents feel more confident having these really hard conversations.
Bryn Miller:And then step four is refuel, which I used to talk about as self-care. And then all the parents you know everyone's eyes kind You're going to end up broken down on the side of the road and it's going to be a bigger pain in the butt than if you had pulled into the gas station when the light went on and filled up right. And so really talking to parents about taking care of yourself is non-negotiable. Your loved ones are downstream of you. What you do to take care of yourself has a direct and huge impact on them. And so really reframing that, that kind of paradigm shift, especially for moms, I have to say, is how do we refuel?
Bryn Miller:And then step five is reflect and repeat. And this is just this idea of like okay, we got through that really tough moment. Take a time out. How did it go? What went well? What would you do differently? What did you learn? Because every moment is an opportunity to just learn how we're going to move forward.
Bryn Miller:And then the repeat is we hold the hope and we never give up, because that's what we do as parents, and it's one of the reasons I love doing the parent and caregiver work, because there is no one as motivated, there is no one as motivated, there is no one whose love can move mountains. If we leverage the way a parent loves their child, I mean the superhuman things that parents can achieve. You know how do we hold the hope, even when it's really hard, as it can be, especially with eating disorders, but really just with. You know the day-to-day struggles and so really kind of give parents a place of like. Okay, here are the direct steps of how do we operationalize all these awesome tools we have in our toolbox and use them in a way that will help you be more effective.
Dr. Amy Moore:So, Bryn, I know you have to go because you have a client and so A we would love for you to come back. I think there's so much more that we could talk to you about. Would you be willing to have another conversation with us?
Bryn Miller:Of course, Okay great, I don't know if you can tell, but I love talking about this stuff.
Dr. Amy Moore:We can tell absolutely, and we don't invite people back very often oh well thank you, I'm honored, yeah, so we would love to talk to you some more, but these steps are available on your website. You actually have a free graphic that people can download to be a reminder, but you also have, like, an online course and a coaching package so that parents can really dive in with you, right?
Bryn Miller:Yes, yeah. So I kind of take all this curriculum and sort of get it to people in a handful of different ways, with the goal of getting this into the hands of as many parents as possible as easily as possible. Just because I believe in these skills and tools so much, and so I do I have an online course. It's got about seven hours of material, kind of broken down into these bite-sized modules with handouts and resources, and with that I do a monthly coaching call. So even if you just do the online option once a month, you can kind of drop in and do office hours and pick my brain and we can we can, you know, kind of go through like, okay, where are you getting stuck or what questions do you have, and so that's a really cool option that's accessible to a lot of people. And then every once a quarter I run a small cohort, so five sets of caregivers, and I'll move them through the online course over the course of eight weeks. So you get that kind of added support, accountability, and then you get in the room with other parents that are doing this, which I think is just so important, because a big piece of this is feeling like you're the only one who's struggling with this, when it couldn't be further from the truth, and so I do that once a quarter.
Bryn Miller:It's the next one's opening up at the end of March, and then I also do the course alongside one-on-one coaching. So for people that are like, no, I really want to get in the room with you. I really want to deep dive and kind of tailor this. We combine the online course with the coaching, and then there's a ton of freebies on my website. So there's a video all about using some of these skills and what are some of the foundational skills. That comes along with a companion workbook. You can access some of the first few videos of the course. There's a ton of stuff on there. I do a newsletter that I send out once a month that I try and keep you know entertaining, hopefully.
Sandy Zamalis:I was going to say I had looked over and they were really fun. There's a lot of fun little memes in them.
Bryn Miller:Yes, I'm like we need some gifts in there to like break it up a little bit. So, thank you. The goal is that it's I'm like, okay, I want people to feel excited to read this and then put a bunch of resources in there. So I send that out every month and then do a lot of speaking engagements and trainings with providers and groups that are looking to use some of these skills as well. So, yes, lots and lots of ways to get in contact with me and always looking for more ways to kind of help parents connect to this material.
Dr. Amy Moore:All right. Well, Bryn Miller, thank you so much for being with us today, and we look forward to having a second conversation with you soon.
Bryn Miller:Awesome. Thank you, guys so much.
Dr. Amy Moore:All right, moms. Thanks so much for listening today. If you like us, please follow us on Instagram and Facebook at the Brainy Moms. If you'd rather see our faces, you can find us on YouTube at the Brainy Moms. You can find Sandy on TikTok at the Brain Trainer Lady. And if you love us, we would love it if you would leave us a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts so that we can reach more moms just like you. That is all the smart stuff we have for you today. We hope you feel a little smarter. Catch you next time on the Brainy Moms.
