The Umbrella Effect with Jennifer Forristal
The Authority Podcast - Jennifer Forristal
Ross Romano: [00:00:00] Welcome in everybody. Today's episode of the Authority Podcast on the Be Podcast Network. I'm joined today by Dr. Jennifer Forrestal. She is founder and c e o of the Umbrella Project, which is a positive coping curriculum used internationally by thousands of parents, students, and educators.
Jennifer has worked extensively with schools, researchers, and organizations in protecting the long-term health and performance of children facing unique challenges and her. It's called the Umbrella Effect available from Lioncrest Publishing, and that's what we'll be talking about today. So Jen, welcome to the show.
Jennifer Forristal: Thank you so much for having me.
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Ross Romano: Jen, one of the things that is put forth in the book as well as I think in the umbrella project overall, is that. In kids' lives, there's a one, there's a 100% chance of rain, right? There is a complete certainty that at some point in time, sooner or later, we're going to face challenges, adversity non-ideal circumstances.
It's not [00:01:00] always sunny skies. And so you propose that the right way to. Prepare for that is not to think we can avoid it, but to proactively develop the skills to navigate. Um, And this is, the concept of the umbrella, which we'll talk about comes from this and made up of all those component skills.
One of the things that I wanted to start with is thinking about the mindset. Necessary for the adults. In this case, our listeners of course will primarily be educators and many of them will be parents themselves, and they might be thinking about it through those, both of those lenses. But you talk about how right it's teaching.
Kids how to be able to do things they can control to address circumstances that they can't. And I think the same is true for the adults, right? And making those decisions about, okay, what can we and can't we control? What what is a healthy mindset toward that to not, of course try to. In vain [00:02:00] micromanaged circumstances that we really can't change, but also to not count ourselves out from being able to have an impact on circumstances we can change.
Right? And not think there's an inevitability that. Challenge leads to suffering and so forth to say, okay, how do I fit in here? can you talk about that a little bit? Just when you were working with I know you work with schools and also with parents of course, but developing that mindset to start to help kids develop these skills.
Jennifer Forristal: Yeah, that's just really the crux of parenting, isn't it? I think you're a new dad, right?
Ross Romano: Yeah.
Jennifer Forristal: you think about what you want for your child, what are those things when you think about them growing up? For me, when I think about my kids, and I'd love to hear how you think about it.
My natural instinct is to think gosh, I hope they make friends this year. Gosh, I hope they do okay in school. I just, I really want the best for them, right? I never think Oh, I really hope they have somebody in their class they don't get along with because, that'll be great for them.
I'm always thinking on that positive side, but [00:03:00] unfortunately life is really just not like that. And we do need a certain amount of adversity to build coping skills. They're coping skills for a reason. Skills take practice, and like the more we practice them, the better we get at doing them.
The very first sort of principle of the umbrella project and the umbrella effect in general is really helping parents take a deep breath and understand like it's gonna be all of it. They're gonna make friends, they're gonna have people they don't get along with. There's gonna be subjects that are better for them and really hard ones.
Some teachers are not gonna jive with the way your child learns, and some of them are gonna change your child's life. There's just, there's everything. Their world that they're growing up into has all these things, and so the. The idea that we need to relax a little bit as parents when things go wrong, understand that's part of it, and that's not something that we did as a parent, or that's gone horribly wrong for our kids, but just.
Something we need to accept as part of the journey of parenting. And I think when I had my kids, I didn't realize how [00:04:00] hard it would be to do that. When somebody's mean to one of my kids, like when they find somebody who's, really given them a hard time, my gut instinct isn't to be like, oh, it's o that's a good opportunity for them to build skills.
Like my gut instinct is to like, Give that kid a dirty look and be like, don't you come near my child. Like I, it's, you've gotta override your natural parenting instinct, I think, in order to parent that way, but, It is a really important and foundational part of the umbrella project. And I think what parents and schools and teachers and we all need to understand not only for us, but we tell our kids a lot about what things mean just by our reactions.
So when they come home, And or when they're in school and something happens, they don't do well on a test. Our reaction tells them a lot about what that thing means. That's awful. Must be the teacher's fault that you didn't do well on this test. Or, I can't believe that person said that to you Immediately.
The reaction is like, something's gone wrong. Something needs to be fixed. This isn't good. I'm like a victim here of the circumstances of my life.[00:05:00] We can also tell our kids lots of other things. So we can tell them, in our re response oh man, that sucks. And it's a normal part of life. In my book, I talk about a parenting category that I recommend people sit down with their kids and create, which is the sucks but normal category.
Let's think about all the things that might suck that might happen this year that are also normal parts of life. At some point, you're probably gonna be in trouble for me. You're probably gonna do something as a child to make me, have to get upset. As a parent, that's okay, that's normal.
Like I, I don't have a hundred percent control over every moment of my emotional experience either. We can work through all these things and then that helps kids to know, okay, it's also normal for things not to. Perfect all the time, and I think, and I don't know what I'd love to hear as a person who works in school systems, a big part of what's hard for kids right now is the acceptance that things are gonna go wrong, and that's okay.
Ross Romano: Yeah. I and it's a challenge, right? To reconcile what we [00:06:00] know now as adults about all the thing, there's so many things that were so magnified at all stages of growing up. That's. Childhood, adolescence, and so on, all these things that at the time are caused so much anxiety or grief.
And now you're like, that didn't matter at all. And how do I, I don't know how to explain this. And yet, at the same time, you remember how you felt and now you put yourself in the shoes of your child. And I'm fully, my son only being two. I'm fully Prepared to completely crumble at any time that anything.
Cause I'm not, I have no problem admitting that look, he loves, planes, trains, cars and helicopters of all kinds stuff. Look, being a helicopter parent, he loves helicopters, right? I can't really help myself and. But yeah, it is all those those hard conversations that I think only way to have them is to prepare ahead of time to know, okay, these things are gonna come up.
We do need to address them [00:07:00] proactively. We don't want to. Unnecessarily expose our kids to things that they're not ready for or that are not appropriate. But also we need to define the bounds of what are the things that, that they are ready for, or what are the things that are just inevitable, right?
There's things out there in the world. You know nowadays, right? You're living out in the world, for example, and you hear somebody using foul language, right? And it means that what you might need to do is not. Try to ignore the fact that happens, but just have a conversation with your kid around, okay, these are the kind of things we do and don't wanna say.
And because you just need to address it, or, there's plenty of other better examples. But certainly it is it, it's a quandary and it's and there are the things that, of course we just can't control or. Even if we can control it temporarily, that's artificial because eventually we're not necessarily gonna be there to control it and the, it's going to [00:08:00] happen, whatever the, whatever that thing is.
And is it better to, have that exposure where we can have those discussions and work through it together and really consider. What coping skills and resilience and reaction in developing a, a healthy attitude look like versus saying that, okay by the time you go to college, you'll just figure out what's going on out there.
And then I'll still be a wreck right at that time.
Jennifer Forristal: Maybe more I think at least a toddler, you know where they are.
Ross Romano: Yeah. So what do you think about. Concept I'm thinking about of in introducing challenge, right? And deciding when that's appropriate. And sometimes that's for some of our listeners, of course, they think about this in terms of. Academics, right? Academic challenge and and how social and emotional skills and competencies are interconnected with that.
And, the ability to work through things that are difficult is, it that [00:09:00] all goes together with our cognitive development. And there's also a challenge in other areas of life to say, okay. You talked earlier about hoping your friends your kids make friends and Right.
That happens as they get a little bit older. At first they're super young and it's, we're setting up play dates, and then they go to school, and now they have to, navigate their own little social worlds and you're some of those challenges they're going to come about just by the nature of growing up.
And some of them it's okay, let's. Let's introduce something that we think is a little bit tough here, but it gives us a chance to see what skills are involved.
Jennifer Forristal: My gosh, so many great points you've brought up there. I could go back to about a hundred things, but let's take it back a little bit. You mentioned like how to know. When you should get involved, when your child's naturally presented with challenges, right? Is this the time that I back off and let them work on it themselves?
Is this the time that I call the school? Like how do you sort that out? So I have two different ways that I recommend parents think about this [00:10:00] question because this is a hard one, right? Like ultimately I think we can both agree some amount of challenge and struggle is important for develop. That's not really a question in the research.
We know that this is like a really important thing. And also too much stress and too much challenge leads us to use coping skills that aren't in our benefit, right? Like we know that what too much challenge does to the brain too, which is shut down some of the important parts that, that we need. As a parent, we've got this moving target, this sweet spot that we're trying to hit for our kids and how much struggle they're actually facing.
So the first thing I recommend parents do is try to keep an eye on the ratio of challenges that they the child has in their life at that moment to their coping skills. One thing we have on our website is a free assessment of all of your coping skills. So it only takes about 10 minutes and you can really get a sense of which of the skills, which of the coping skills your [00:11:00] child is strong.
How big is their umbrella of coping skills? Are they, where are they in their development when it comes to that? So you can start there and get a sense, okay, this is what my child's working with, right? And then you could keep track of like, how much does my child have going on right now?
Because it's really about the ratio of reign to coping skills that determine whether our child can take on that challenge on their own. Or if they need us to step in with our big umbrellas of protection and do something right. Cuz we don't want them to be overwhelmed. And I think everybody I know.
Some point in their life said that was the straw that broke the camel's back. That was the last thing that just pushed me over the edge and I just wasn't coping well anymore. And really, there's a bunch of research out of Harvard that shows that this is the case. There's like this ratio going on.
So the first thing is keep an eye on your kids' ratio as best you can think about. Okay, is my child hating school right now? They have a teacher, they're not doing well with. My partner and I are fighting all the time, [00:12:00] and now their best friend has decided that they're not gonna hang out anymore.
Okay. That probably seems like maybe too much for that child to cope with on their own. And so you're thinking like, where can I get involved to help if things are going pretty great, your child's thriving academically, they just happen to have that great teacher that's really helping them along.
And suddenly, somebody who they thought was their best friend is being mean to them on the playground. Okay? Maybe that's a way that you can a spot that you can allow them to continue to go to school, day after day, work on it, see what happens, come home, debrief, talk about it, what worked, what didn't, send them back out again.
Maybe you don't need to immediately call that kid's parents and say, demand that this stops. There's so I like that ratio. Way of thinking about your ratio of umbrella terrain, and if you need a visual, like if you've got a cocktail umbrella in a monsoon, you're probably gonna start to choose pretty like different ways to protect yourself, [00:13:00] right?
That umbrella is pretty useless. You're probably not gonna choose positive coping skills if they're not gonna help you with the size of struggle that you have. Vice versa. If you have a big golf umbrella and it's sprinkling, you're probably pretty good underneath that umbrella. And we wanna be keeping a pulse on that for our kids that we know.
When should we step in as parents?
Ross Romano: Yeah. And within that within that example too, there's a couple of components that I would love to ask about. One is, The, I think the mindfulness and self-reflection required for a parent to think about, okay, how are the things that I'm doing or that are happening in my life, otherwise my relationship with my spouse or my work or whatever affecting my child, right?
Because that's an important part of it to say, okay, this is a lot for them to take on. I can't just be in my own head space. And the other part is developing, having developed the. Proactive dialogue earlier to say like for example, when I was a kid, if one of my friends I was having [00:14:00] a falling out with a friend, or we weren't getting along anymore, I don't think I would've said anything to my parents.
But, but you want, but you need to be aware of that to say, okay, this is a lot that's going on. And also the things. It depends, everybody has a, I think, a little bit of a different way of looking at it. And of course we know as grownups that in the grand scheme of things, Those, little childhood friendships ultimately, rarely amount to much, and yet they're so important at the time, right?
So it's about one, knowing what's going on, taking the time to really think about, okay how does this probably make my child feel? And then, Now, what should I do about it? But I think putting those pieces together and and setting the time for like reflection to put those pieces together must be really important to then having the right response.
Jennifer Forristal: Yeah. I think the umbrella metaphor itself is a quick and easy way to [00:15:00] externalize a little bit what's happening, cuz I, I find parents are really don't want things to be their fault. Like it's hard to take a really hard look at ourselves and what's happening in our life and how we're parenting.
It's a very sensitive time, and we love our kids so much. We don't wanna be making mistakes that might be impacting them. But the umbrella metaphor allows you to zoom out a little bit, right? And it's pretty easy to understand if I hold my umbrella over my kids forever, when they eventually wanna step out from under that umbrella.
If they've never had a chance to use theirs, it's not gonna be a. Functional little umbrella, right? Like we do need to find the sweet spot of those things. But one of the ways that I help parents start to reflect on this, even if you can't see the big picture yet of how all these things are fitting together.
One of the handiest things that I find is to ask your kids what they think things mean. So when they struggle, if they come home and they're, if [00:16:00] you're lucky enough to have a dialogue where they share with you, like my friend was really mean to me today, ask them what their story is about that.
Ask them like, oh, what, why do you think what do you think that means if somebody, not nice to you or what do you think it means that you didn't do well on that test you were hoping to do better on? Try to hear their story? Because it's quite surprising, as you alluded to this at the beginning of the interview, I think, but like our story, the way we see the world, it's easy to overlay that on our kids and imagine that's how they're seeing the world too.
But it's not, they're. Kids are like little like roommates living in our house. Like they're their own people and they're not us. And it's hard cuz like a toddler, it really does feel like they're like you, right? They're like an extension of you and you're making all the decisions for them. And but as they get older, they're not you.
And what they might be taking, the meaning they might be taking from their experiences. Might be very different from your experience of having a friend who was mean to you [00:17:00] when you were growing up. Very different. And not all stories need to be fixed. We're looking for stories that kids are telling that will help to serve them in the future.
Stories that help them move forward, propel them in the right direction rather than ones that are taking away from their belief in themselves and self-esteem. So if your child responds, you know what? I think I'm just not cool. Nobody likes me. That's not a. not a very good story for your child to hold about themselves.
If the story that they're taking from that friend being mean is I don't know. Actually, I heard their parents have been fighting a lot lately and maybe they're just taking it out on me. Maybe they're just having a hard time right now. Okay. That's like a pretty mature lens to look at something going on and you can see okay, that's empathy, right?
That's a skill. That is gonna help your child in the future put perspective on the things that they're experiencing. So I really think going back to that mindfulness like beginner's mind, where you just clear your mind and you imagine that you [00:18:00] don't know what your child is experiencing unless you ask them.
And then only fix and get involved in the things that actually need. And in that way, you don't necessarily need to know exactly all the things that are happening in your child's life at any moment and how you're impacting. There's a bit more complex picture. Just need to know in that moment, what is my child thinking feeling?
What is their story? Because I, I believe from everything that I've read and all the research that I've seen that we're not what happens to us in life, we're the story we tell ourselves about what that thing means. Many of us can have this exact same experience and take a very different story and a very different narrative from that experience.
And this narrative shapes how we go into the next interaction and the next. So knowing what your child's story is like a really powerful parenting tool.
Ross Romano: Yeah, absolutely.
Jennifer Forristal: Yeah, it doesn't require a lot of skill either, right? You don't have to do a parenting training course to just ask what do you think that means, right?
This [00:19:00] is just start to hear, ask more, get more curious about your child's experience instead of assuming it's the same as yours.
Ross Romano: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that, that makes a ton of sense. And and to that point as well, I want to definitely talk about some of the ways in which educators and parents can work together to support students in this skill development. Because, o of course, As challenging as it is for parents to make sure that they're, able to get an understanding of what's happening with their kid and how their kids are feeling and and what they might need at a given time.
Even more challenging for educators who have a lot of students that they're serving. But at the same time, there are things that a teacher might see that parents don't see, right? We all have a different view and a perspective on how kids are doing in different areas and how their personality is revealing itself or what's affecting them.
So it's opened up that conversation. Just wanted to talk about even just the conversations that [00:20:00] can start number one, and it can be initiated. On either end, but let's use as an example. Let's say that perhaps a school is using your curriculum, right? And so they have an idea of, okay, here's the skills we're trying to develop.
Here's what the approach looks like, and we want. Parents understand that as well because they're going to play an important part in that. What would some of those conversations look like between adults to start thinking about, okay, how do we support one another? How do we look out for the, the things that might be in your blind spot or my blind spot, or how do we maintain some consistency here so that the kids aren't feeling like they're having, a little bit of whiplash?
Jennifer Forristal: Yeah. So I'm glad you asked that question because I really do think that if we're gonna make some real progress in mental health, we all need to be working towards the same thing, right? Parents and educators, like we're stronger together. 100%. So the way that the curriculum is designed, it's teachers access the curriculum and teach it in the classroom, [00:21:00] and it works through all the different coping skills that we know play a piece in helping us take on challenges and thrive throughout our lives. The parent fluency piece, I think if we're all speaking the same language, It really makes a huge difference. We've had many social workers who are in schools tell us like what's great about the umbrella. Project metaphor is it's so easy to understand. It gives us a language to talk to parents, kids, teachers, everybody can converse in this language because it's not like this. Complex resiliency training that uses a lot of foundational knowledge that parents and kids don't have. The umbrella metaphor actually weaves a lot of research into this very simple metaphor, which is, life's gonna rain. You have a lot of different coping skills. You can't just have one like they weave together.
The bigger and stronger your umbrella is the more you can take. It's a very simple concept. So we've seen amazing results [00:22:00] from simply teaching parents and educators and students all at the same time. What these skills are, literally just knowing what the skills are, help you to use them more.
And we know that to be true too, that if you don't know. Self-compassion is, even if you do use it, you're likely unlikely to, feel good about that or even know what that means. So right there, there's a lot of value in. Just building the fluency for the skills. When we have a school that's running the curriculum and say they're talking about self-compassion or empathy or grit, we have parenting information that goes home so that everybody in the school and all the parents are learning the same language so they can, talk to their kids about it.
And then very simply, if you know the metaphor and you know the skills, the next step is just pointing it. As much as you can whenever you see it. It's all through the curriculum and I always laugh at the idea that. A coping skills curriculum needs to be a separate [00:23:00] unit because it's just, it's everywhere, right?
It's on the playground, it's in every subject. These skills weave their way through our lives in a very, almost like our core muscles, right? They're part of everything, and it's really just a matter of seeing that layer of the world and celebrating it in a more meaningful way. You might fail a test and be a kid who's really hard on yourself.
And this time, instead of being really hard on yourself, you tell, you have the chance to tell your parent or teacher like, you know what? It's okay. I know this subject's really hard for me and I'm just gonna keep working at it. And if you can see that self-compassion, it's like a win within a.
If that makes sense. So I think just the fluency of knowing what all these skills are is an incredible way to integrate parents and teachers. And then we have lots of report card comments in examples in our in our curriculum. But schools will then weave that into what they're telling parents, right?
Your child showed a great [00:24:00] deal of empathy this year and here's how that skill came to be. It allows teachers to highlight more than just academics or the learning skills, right? Like your child's a good listener or not, or they're responsible with their, bringing their schoolwork to class every day.
It's like this whole other layer of things to celebrate.
Ross Romano: And I've heard you also talk in the past about how there's a difference between. Resilience and post-traumatic growth. And I also wanted to touch on that and that, that relates to this as well. Particularly for the educator side where you're going to be teaching students whose starting points are all very different.
And of course that's always true, right? It's true academically and otherwise, but in this case could be acutely. Cause we're talking about proactive. Skill building here. But you may have students who you're building their skills around, [00:25:00] resilience and, but before they've experienced any significant trauma and others who already have or in the middle of it and it could look very different.
How might it, how might that kind of look different or how might it be important for an educator or, a parent to be aware of that? So they might approach it a little differently to really know. Okay. Either starting this process with a student and we're preparing them for the future, or, I'm starting with a student who this is already very much a reality for.
Jennifer Forristal: Yeah, a big part of post-traumatic growth is having a trauma. In the first place. And so why those two things, just to give a little background for your listeners who might not have heard me speak about this in the past. Why post-traumatic growth and resilience are different is that generally the higher your resilience is in general, the less likely you are to experience.
Trauma from a situation. So the less [00:26:00] likely you are to have post-traumatic growth because you, it maybe the thing didn't get to the trauma level in the first place for you. So they're inversely related. When we think about the umbrella project curriculum in schools, and we really thought long and hard about this.
We want it to be something that meets everybody exactly where they are. If you're looking for support for post-traumatic growth, for example, and you have some students in your class who have experienced trauma some of the umbrella project curriculum is about that sense of purpose or, taking a bigger meaning from the things that are happening to you in life, which are some of the things that often come out of trauma.
At the same time. Where there's kids who aren't in that state. Something like resilience, I always think about as how long it takes you when someone pushes you to get yourself back on center. So I think about resilience, like how long it takes you to get back to your baseline level of wellbeing when some, when you're knocked off balance.
So the goal isn't to [00:27:00] not feel anything. The goal is never to get to the point where you're. Not experiencing difficulties, it's to recognize. All the pieces you need to get yourself back to center within your control. So I have a teenage daughter, she's 15. And I would say like resilience is such an important skill at that age because I think almost every single day something knocks her off balance.
And she's a 15 year old, so she doesn't wanna do a lot of the things that I would recommend that she do, but, What she's learning is, for example, what self-care practices for her make her feel better when something has gone wrong, how she can nurture herself after experiencing something stressful in her environment.
But. The curriculum that we build and the way of parenting, if you read the book it, it's about meeting your child exactly where they are, recognizing what, what's strong and what's missing, and then [00:28:00] slowly helping them build into that skill that they might need. So I think. It's easy as a parent to just let life develop coping skills for your child and kind of cross your fingers and they'll probably get some strong ones and some weak ones.
Or you can zoom out a little bit and say okay. Right now my child is super empathetic and very kind, and so we've been really leaning into doing more of that cuz that's what they're good at, right? But every time they have to transition to something new, it's really difficult for them. Their cognitive flexibility is really weak.
So how can we add a little bit of parenting attention on that skill so that when things happen in their life, they're a little bit more able to bring themselves back to balance or that. That's hard for them has been practiced so that it's a little easier.
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Ross Romano: So we referenced the skills. Quite a number in this book, and I wanted to do a little bit of a lightning round here to go through a handful of them that are presented a little differently. E each of these skills, whether it's empathy, resilience, intrinsic motivation, mindfulness[00:29:00] May fit into the umbrella here and be presented a little differently than how they are typically integrated into an S E L curriculum.
But there also are specific skills here that I have not seen as frequently featured. And so I wanted to go through some of those and have you define what you're talking about with them and why you think they're important. So I wanted to start with authentic.
Jennifer Forristal: Okay. Authenticity is really your ability to show up as yourself, and why I think that is such a critical skill is because, If you never show people who you really are on the inside, you will always know that you're presenting yourself slightly off of who you are. And in doing that, it's almost impossible to ever experience what it feels like to have unconditional love from someone else because you are adding conditions to who you are.
You're changing yourself slightly for the, for the person. And in doing that, even if that person thinks they love you unconditionally. You'll never believe that they do because you've added [00:30:00] conditions. So why I think authenticity is such an important skill and helping kids lean into who they really feel like they are is cuz it allows them to open up to relationships and find the people in their life that they're really gonna be able to be authentically themselves.
So that's not to say. Independence to the point of shutting people out, but more like opening yourself up to be loved by the people who will love you.
Ross Romano: Excellent. How about cognitive flexibility?
Jennifer Forristal: So cognitive flexibility, this is one of my favorite skills. Cognitive flexibility is the skills that allows us to adapt to changing. Situations, and I think there's a lot of talk right now that adaptability is like the skill that kids need to thrive in the future because the world is changing faster and faster, and whether you like it or not, you're gonna be asked to adapt to changing situations much more than what maybe we grew up with in our generation or before that.
Cognitive flexibility is, and it's a fun skill to practice, right? If your [00:31:00] child likes routine and likes things exactly, just the way that they have always been. Change it up a bit. Maybe drive to school a different route, or, do something different. In your, change your living room around, change the furniture around, challenge that skill and engage your kids in doing that to allow them to thrive in the future.
I think Covid was like a prime example. You could see the kids who didn't have very strong cognitive flexibility yet. Because when you're asked to, okay, now you need to go online, now you're back at school, but it's gonna be different like this. Nothing was predictable. And so that's exhausting for a brain that likes predictability, right?
Certainty is a thing we like certainty. So to practice the opposite of that certainty is a really powerful way to help your kids thrive in the future.
Ross Romano: Excellent. Here's one of my favorites, but I can't, I couldn't think of another time when it had necessarily been presented as much for kids, although I'm sure that's not the first time, but integrity.
Jennifer Forristal: [00:32:00] Integrity. Yes. So I don't think there's ever a time that's too early to start teaching kids about how what you do and what. You believe should match each other, right? If we're, it's, it comes up so much in childhood. I'm surprised it doesn't come up more as something we teach kids because so many teenagers, for example, are not doing what they believe.
Like their values and their actions aren't matching each other. I say they wanna be a good friend and yet everything that they do is against that. So I think integrity is a really important relationship skill to teach kids and I think a lot of role models out there actually now for kids like integrity's not high on the list of things that kids are seeing a lot of, we love to point out incongruencies and integrity.
In the big public sphere, right? So learning to think about what their values are and then how their actions might [00:33:00] match that, I think is a way that we can start to make a difference in the quality of relationships much earlier for kids.
Ross Romano: Absolutely. So we have a couple of more the first being realistic optimism.
Jennifer Forristal: Yes. So this is a great one too, because. Is a powerful skill, right? It's good for us to hope for the best for ourselves and, believe in ourselves in a way and in our lives that things will turn out well if we put effort towards the right things. The realistic part comes in because the research shows us that we still need a plan.
We need still need a plan A, B, and C, right? We can if optimism looks like just plan a. It's pretty easy to get derailed or to just quit when that doesn't happen, and change direction or do something else, right? Realistic optimism is about understanding the possibilities of what might happen and still, still feeling positive about.
About that that future outcome. So an example of where I might see this [00:34:00] I had a patient who had just started university, came in for anxiety, and she was absolutely crushed by the idea that if she didn't get a certain mark on this exam, she wouldn't get into this next school. She would never be able to follow this very linear path to her dreams, right?
Which is. I think where realistic optimism comes in is like there are many paths to your future and it's hard to pick this really distant thing and then think that there's this one path, right? It's The realistic optimism part is that I will probably have a job in the future that I love. Here's what the direction that I'm aiming, and within that, here's plan A, B, and C.
If that doesn't work, here's plan A, B, and C. If that doesn't work, here's plan A. So you're mapping out towards a positive future.
Ross Romano: Absolutely. So the last one here is you, and you referenced this a little earlier in the interview, but I think it's worth touching on again, self compass.
Jennifer Forristal: I don't know if you're familiar with Kristen [00:35:00] Neff's work and self-compassion, but self-compassion is being kind to ourselves when things go wrong. It's having a sense of common humanity that everybody struggles and that's okay. And then it's, not over identifying with our story and getting really caught up in that, but being a little more mindful, being able to just be with our present moment.
And why I think this is like a critical skill is we see massive plummeting in self-compassion around grade seven. Kids are generally okay coming along, but as we get to middle school and kids are really hard on themselves and others at that time, self-compassion goes to a, an abysmal lo.
And still in all of the rooms of adults that I've ever done the umbrella assessment for self-compassion is by far the lowest skill. But if we beat ourselves up, everything, every time something goes wrong it's just adding insult to injury every time. Like it's like kicking yourself when you're down or having an inner bully and, I don't know how we've come to the thought that's helpful in [00:36:00] motivating us.
That's why most people say that they do. It is like it's motivating. If I'm mean to myself when something goes wrong, I'm probably not gonna do it anymore. But if you zoom out on that a little bit and think if I could have my best friend following me around all day, commenting on my. My life and what I'm doing or my bully from high school, following me around all day and commenting on how crappy I am, which one of those is gonna better motivate you to wanna get outta bed the next day and keep working and work harder and grow, right?
It's pretty counterintuitive to imagine that high school bully is a motivator for us, but that's what we do to ourselves all the time. We introduce self-compassion as early as kindergarten in the umbrella project, and really start to get kids into the thinking that this is an important skill for them.
That it's important to be nice to yourself when something. Something goes wrong and to treat yourself like you would a good friend, and so that by the time they actually really start to [00:37:00] need this skill, it's in there, right? They've heard about it multiple times through their school years. They know this thing exists and that it's something they can use to protect their wellbeing.
Ross Romano: Excellent. Thanks. And before we wrap things up here, and we've just gone through a handful of these skills independently, but I did want to make sure that it's clear the. Interdependent nature of the skills, right? And for example, if you have a really well developed skill for grit but without purpose, then ultimately you end up unfulfilled, right?
If you wanted to tie that together in just talking in general about how these all fit together. Like you mentioned earlier, right? You can't just have one coping skill. It's this entire kind of ecosystem that makes up the umbrella. But why is, why is that important? Why do they not work as well on their own as they do in tandem or in combination?
Jennifer Forristal: Yeah. I think we've all. Probably met people who have a really over-indexed one area of their umbrella [00:38:00] in education. I see a lot of teachers who are so heavy on like empathy to the expense of. Their healthy lifestyle. I can't tell you how many teachers I see in my medical practice that I have to convince to take the time to eat well or take a little break during the day or get to, leave the school in time to maybe get that exercise in that they want, like they, the skills each serve a really important and pivotal piece and without them, they can go the opposite way.
Grit can be the same, right? Some people can just buckle down and work for river towards his goal, and if they're lacking empathy, they often can't understand why other people can't do the same. So you see that skill being particularly conflictual sometimes in workplaces cuz it's like that. If you can't understand why somebody else, why that might be hard for somebody else and why they can't work like you can, right?
There's a lot of conflict and tension that develops[00:39:00] with people who have really over-indexed on one skill. And then I think over time, like the empathetic, get more empathetic cuz it's the skill that works for them, the coping skills, they just keep using it and using it, right? The gritty get grittier.
We're missing, zooming out on the big picture and seeing oh no, actually each piece forms an important part of. Of an umbrella and each of them does something a little different, and the more of them we have, the more protected we are, like a little, like an umbrella with holes. It might still work.
You can huddle under one side, but as things get more and more stressful in life, You start to see the holes really impacting somebody's wellbeing. And the research really supports that. Like you can take any of the two skills and put them into a research database and you'll see how they impact each other.
Autonomy and resilience. Tho there's, they're all connected, like the fabric of an umbrella. They weave together and support each other.
Ross Romano: You're like, since we have, parents [00:40:00] listening, you may have like radio controlled cars, fresh in memory, and if you're really good with both joysticks, you can balance it and go straight down the. Path. But if one or the other is stronger, you just, you can go really quickly, but right into the wall. So you kinda have
Jennifer Forristal: Exactly. That's a great metaphor.
Ross Romano: and be able to lever them all together. Excellent. Jen as we're wrapping up here, one of the questions I've really been enjoying asking our guests lately is for their book recommendations. In this case, I think it would be a great idea to ask you for two one, just for a book, that our listeners may enjoy reading.
It could be something you've read recently, something that either does or does not relate to the content in your book. And then if there's anything that. Our listeners may enjoy reading with their kids and that might be something in particular that relates to development of these skills or just, kids growth and this process of growing along with them.
Jennifer Forristal: Okay. First one, a book for yourself. I recently took a few months off of some of my work [00:41:00] commitments because I was feeling extremely burnt out. I have a toddler, I have two teenagers. It's been covid. I have two met multiple jobs, and I just felt like I was really not anymore. Like I was just starting to really feel the effects of all these different things.
One of the books that I read was called Radical Wholeness by Philip Shepherd. And what radical wholeness is about is getting back into your body in a different way. So instead of feeling like you and the world's out there and you're just coping along as your own individual little person it's about getting deeper into your intuition, deeper into your sense. Your whole sense of being like body and mind together and why I thought that was so valuable. Is it really? To the heart of what we were talking about of like how it's hard to have a pulse on what's happening in your life, in your house with your kids. I think a lot of parenting is, there's some intuition there.
You have to be, you have to slow it down [00:42:00] just a bit to really feel like, how are you doing? How are we doing together? What is, and I think that book does a great job of teaching you. back to sensing, like when you sit with your child, how are you really? Y I know you're saying no, nothing's wrong, but I feel you.
And something's off what, digging a little deeper into yourself or others so you can stay balanced as a parent too. So that's my book recommendation for parents. In terms of a parenting book, I love Lisa Dewar's book, untangled. I don't know if you've read her stuff. It's about the development of the teenage girls brain.
But how I like it as a read with your teenager is that for each chapter, if you have a preteen and or a budding adolescent, it works for girls and guys too. When you read that book, talk about each chapter, each developmental stage with your child so that they know. A little bit about what's coming for them and that they can feel it's normal.
One chapter is about, for example, How your child, as they crest their teenage years, will probably want more [00:43:00] time away from you. And that's okay. But a lot of parents take this really hard, and really to heart when their child wants to be in their room all the time or with their friends instead of with you.
It's a hard little transition. So having a conversation as you read each chapter of this book with your child Hey, you might feel like this. You might feel like you wanna spend more time away from me or in your own space. How you know, how's the vibe of your room right now? Do you like it? Is there anything we could change?
So that you can create that space? And then when they start to feel it, they don't have to worry about your feelings and theirs. They can just deal with the layers. Which are difficult of adolescents without also feeling like they have to think about you and them. They can just, lean into those.
So I love that book for that. I have a parenting top five that I put out every month. It's just a free newsletter. You can sign up on our website for it. And I also put out. Like five of my favorite parenting things from the month that I've come across. So there's a kid's book in there this month that if you [00:44:00] wanna, wanna know what I'm recommending, you can check that out.
But that's also a way to regularly get a little drip of parenting coping skills growth. I think we're a little overwhelmed by information as parents. So the top five is just if you're gonna do a couple things this month, here are a few that I'm thinking about that you could tweak or change to improve your relationship with your child.
Ross Romano: Great. And yeah, so listeners in the show notes below, we will put links to those books, radical Wholeness, untangled, and we'll also have The link to Jen's website where you can find out more about the newsletter and heard the rest of her work, and of course, where you can find the book. Check out all of that below.
Please do also subscribe to the authority for more in-depth author interviews like this one or visit be podcast.network to learn about all of our shows. Jen, thank you so much for being on the authority.
Jennifer Forristal: Thank you for having me.
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