Robert Trout (00:01.422)
Hello and welcome to the Parenting Problems Today podcast. Today you have myself, Robert Trout, and Paul Arradondo from the Parent Trainers Team. And we’re coming in with a topic today that families struggle to conceptually hold in the beginning. When they do work with us and hopefully others that are trying to build plans and actionable steps.
for families to work with their teens, tweens, and young adults who are going through mental or behavioral health crisis, we are constantly in this state of bringing up a reality check. And the reality check that we want to talk about today is moving concept to action. And this is pretty straightforward on its face, but it gets into looking at the patterns that parents fall into when they’re desperate, when they’re looking for answers, when they’re
looking for the magic pill. They’re looking for the fast answer that will quote-unquote solve the problem. Okay? So today, and Paul, I guess I’ll dive in and then pass it off to you here. Just let’s start with just the generalized things that we see that are patterns that when families are stuck in a loop within the family system or sometimes just within the parent mental health.
that kind of lead to this idea. And the first thing that always comes up for me is where a parent, when I’m doing a training session with them or a coaching session, trying to build a plan, very often I’ll hear things from that parent where they’ll say, I know about that. I read about that. I learned about that on that podcast. I, you know, et cetera. And so often I have to be the one to turn to that parent and say, you already know about this. That’s wonderful.
My question is the professional who’s trying to facilitate change within your family system, not just for the kid, we’re always clear about that, but for the whole family system, my question to that parent always has to turn and say, you know this concept then, you understand this piece of autism. You understand this piece of depression or self-harm or depression or whatever it is, you know about this
Robert Trout (02:22.018)
This process neurologically great. You’ve read that book. You listen to that podcast. Wonderful. I usually find myself in this place to saying, okay, what are you doing? What are you doing with that information? And that’s where the parent gets this look in their eyes where they go. What do you mean? What am I doing with it? And in our world at parent trainers.com, this is a.
constant flow to move from concept to action for parents to wake up from a state of panic. Very often it’s panic or fear or something that’s holding them in this place of constantly seeking that magical piece of information that if they just knew this, everything would change. And in our work,
I find it so imperative to make sure that we deliver this message. So every parent that’s listening to this, when you know something, it’s not enough to know it. You have to develop the strategies, skills, and plans, the intervention plans, to put the concept into action for change to be facilitated. And I see, and Paul, I hand this to you, I see significant frustration, burnout,
depression, anxiety on the parent’s side when they catch themselves or we call them out on this place where they’ve reached where they’re just constantly inundating themselves with information without enacting any plans. And that burnout is detrimental to the family system. Your thoughts, Paul, before we get deeper into this.
Paul (03:50.206)
Thanks.
Paul (04:18.536)
feel like this is one of those topics that is really hard, as you said, for parents to their heads around. Because I think everybody wants to educate themselves. Everybody wants to do better. Everybody has great intention when they step in reading the book, when they watch some seminar or they listen to a podcast. And then we talk about the application, and then we talk about the practice, and then we talk about the learning curve.
And how those learning curves can sometimes be pretty extensive in terms of well applied skills and creating the space to fail, creating the space to practice, creating the space to reinvest. And you were just saying burnout happens and it does take energy to make change happen. I mean, I’m not going to try and sugar coat it. It takes energy.
because oftentimes these are patterns that you guys have been in, that family systems have been just perpetually going in cycles of. So yeah, it’s…
Paul (05:28.794)
It’s one of those.
challenging ways to even articulate on this podcast. Because it’s like, so what are you trying to tell me? Do things? Okay, now what? And so, you know, we’re gonna have to dive deep to give an example. We’re gonna have to say, okay, so here’s a concept, reaction versus response. A reaction is that knee jerk, emotive place where you’re probably speaking with intense tone. You’re probably showing some body language. You’re probably shutting your kid down or making them defensive.
Robert Trout (05:36.654)
Yes.
Paul (06:02.898)
that’s reaction. It comes from a part of us that is all about trying to generate safety in the moment. And it’s usually because we don’t feel safe. That’s where reaction comes from. And how do we change it to response? Well, response in essence is like slowing the moment down, creating a pause, which is a skill. And there’s so many different ways to engage a pause, from a deep breath to shaking your body out, to doing a body scan, to taking a quarter step back with one foot. I mean, gosh, we can go down.
a huge list of skills that we venture into to support parents and find new things to work for them. And then you got to do them. Then you have to have that part of you internally in cognitively that makes that shift that says, I’m supposed to be doing a thing right now. right. This is that red flag that is supposed to be my reminder to take that quarter step back and disengage and kind of soften the space in between myself and
you my child. So just that single concept, reaction versus response, we can spend a whole podcast on that, trying to describe it. And then again, the integration of the skill and the practice of the skill and that, as you said, making it actionable, you got to kind of unpack some stuff to get there. You know, the parent has to actually understand where the reaction comes from.
Robert Trout (07:04.043)
Thank you.
Robert Trout (07:14.766)
Thank you.
Paul (07:25.618)
You know, and so one of the things that we will talk about in our trainings and, know, I engage with every single parent that I work with is like, Hey, you know, if you want to create change for your child, it has to start with you.
Robert Trout (07:38.916)
Absolutely. Yeah, and there’s… This is a very broad subject and I want everyone to hear that and that’s okay. This is also the cornerstone of so many family systems problems and I’m using air quotes here. Parents show up with the problems all the time and so often when we dig into the whole family system
The kid even, the kid will say, oh, well, they think they know everything about me. Because they read that book and they watched that documentary and et cetera. But no one ever asked me how I’m feeling about this or what I want or what I think would make this better. And that’s just one example. A lot of parents, yeah, you asked them. That’s great.
But did you ask them twice? Did you ask them four times? Did you use language that was imperative to motivational interviewing that allows that kid to create their own therapeutic language and expression and to show up in it in a way where they’re not the problem child or the identified patient. And that’s a whole podcast episode by itself is when a kid gets put into a box by the family and
That’s a very natural thing. Our brains kind of do it. It happens. And a part of our work, I think, is to help families deconstruct it. So that’s why we’re coming with this conversation today is the deconstruction of the box is very often where the steps come in, where we’re going to get rid of all the concepts, everything you think you know because of what you read or listen to or process through.
As a parent, you have to let that go because your kid truly is an individual. Just because they’re depressed doesn’t mean that their flavor of depression, and I love that, their flavor of depression is the same as that book you read or that construct that you went into for one specific practice. All intervention strategies have to be individualized. That’s just the truth. All.
Robert Trout (09:57.546)
Intervention strategies must be individualized on the person level and the family systems level. That’s just the reality is your family is different than every other family. So if you found out something that worked for someone else, great. You have a concept. Now we have to pull that concept into pieces and reform it into a manner of presentation, intervention,
And then steps, actionable steps around boundaries and implementation and process and my God, time. How fast can you integrate this solution into your family and have it be open for reception from the kid and the rest of the family, siblings, other co-parents, grandparents, everyone has to be involved in this. Time is its own level in this where when you deconstruct this,
What I guess we’re going to try to say in this podcast is when you deconstruct concept, you know you’re doing it correctly when you reach actionable steps that are paced for your family, for the neurological process that your kid is in and you. When you see it start to flow in a way that change is possible, that’s where we reach the success of a parent saying,
I see the behavior that’s bothered me so much and I am going to now step in not reactively but with a plan, with the skills to implement that plan and an openness to an outcome that I don’t even expect. You know, I’m hopeful for one outcome but I’m gonna leave room. I’m leave room for whatever this becomes.
Because as long as it’s different than whatever it’s been before, we’re making progress. And we have to be that accountability for so many parents to help them realize that things have changed over a week, over a month, over six months, or a year. Things take time. And action comes from actually implementing these things into steps that can be used on a daily basis.
Robert Trout (12:19.842)
We’re looking for those protocols, actions and interventions that you don’t have to think, what should I do? You can instead say, I see what’s happening and I’m going to step into dad role right now, right? Staff dad, not, you know, whoever I am as a person and all the actions and energy, et cetera. I’m going to step into this. I’m going to say professional, semi-professional role of saying, I see the mental illness. I see the behavioral challenge.
I see what’s happening for this person, and I know that I’m the capable adult here. So I’m going to build safety and intervention to get them through it so that we all show up differently on the other side. All of that has to be taken into account when we really look at concept to action. Thoughts on that?
Paul (13:13.766)
Yeah, I think this is a good point to take a step back and recognize that a lot of parents feel like they’re flailing in the dark when it comes to understanding their child. this whole conversation is about stepping into action. And I have so much gratitude for every single parent who goes and educates themselves about symptoms, signs, behavior patterns, you know, all of the things that help them ground into a little bit of empathy.
a little bit of patience and opportunity for them to slow down and have some perspective. And for goodness sake, hopefully not take it so seriously. And we also meet a lot of parents who are at their wits end where their kid is acting out in really intense fashions and they see the behavior as the problem.
And we key in on that when we’re doing our coaching is, know, all right, let’s look at the behavior. Let’s think about how we can meet that moment. Let’s actually do some front loading. Even before we have that next moment, let’s review that after the fact, if we need to do repair and create space for a clear conversation about how we’re going to try and do it moving forward. And the process goes on and creating the space for each parent to take a deep breath.
and understand that they are looking at the long game. When we look at a problem or we look at a behavior, it’d be great if it just went away, right? It’d be great if we could just snap our fingers, swipe of the wand, you the behavior went away. And really what we’re talking about in terms of moving concept to action is recognizing that when we’re looking at action,
We’re thinking long game and it’s so much more layered than just a singular problem, a singular issue, a singular behavior, a singular label. It’s who is my child? How do I get to understand them more? What are they really struggling with? How do I find supports for them? What does it mean to actually show up with them and for them rather than trying to push them in a certain direction because you think that’s what’s best.
Robert Trout (15:04.259)
Yes.
Paul (15:30.59)
How do we create the space for a process to help grow your child into a healthy young adult? Because that’s the purpose of all of this, right? It’s not to stop that singular behavior. It’s who’s your young adult going to be? How are they going to launch from the home? What are they going to carry with them? What’s the relationship you’re going to have when they finally leave the nest? So when we’re talking about putting concept into action,
It isn’t as pointed as here’s this certain behavior, here’s how you meet it. It’s so much, there’s so much more depth to the process, which is why we often start out with a ton of assessment. You know, who is your kid? Who are you? What’s your family system? How are you functioning? All those layers. So it is conceptual, but in that sense of then putting it into action, we’re doing it from a place of awareness as well as
Robert Trout (16:25.494)
Yep.
Paul (16:27.678)
clear intent and clear sense of purpose. So as we continue this conversation with concept to action, hold that, understand that it’s not just a singular step. What we’re talking about is the unfolding of the process.
Robert Trout (16:46.486)
Absolutely. And I absolutely agree with you. don’t like, I don’t want to challenge the idea that parents shouldn’t educate themselves about what’s going on for their kids. That’s not the point of this conversation. The point of the conversation is how many parents forget that that’s not the answer. And I know that sounds ridiculous, but I want everyone that’s hearing this to hear us saying it’s normal to seek answers.
Paul (17:03.74)
Right. Yeah, that’s not the end game.
Paul (17:16.222)
Mm-hmm.
Robert Trout (17:16.736)
especially when you’re uneducated in the first place about what’s going on. mean, how many parents I’ve met that, you know, they, went down a rabbit hole where it’s like, my kid was diagnosed with autism and now I’m an autism expert. And I say, great. I’m glad you understand what’s going on for them neurologically. And you can witness all this. And then I say something to the effect of
Since you know that they have autism and what’s going on for them, et cetera, what have you put into place in the home to support their needs around the things that you’ve learned? And that’s where the parent goes, I still don’t know how to do that. I understand what’s happening for them, but I don’t know what to do for them. And that’s the action step. And I guess if anything that I’m doing right now,
Paul (17:57.49)
Mm-hmm.
Paul (18:05.533)
Right.
Mm-hmm.
Robert Trout (18:11.21)
on my platform when I get, you know, talking to a group or whatever, I’m always going to lean into that and say, too much psychoeducation is part of the problem. It just is. I’m not saying don’t get educated. I’m saying don’t think that the solutions over here on this side of the equation, the solution parents are really looking for is how do I live with this kid? What do I say to them to build a relationship? How do I intervene when they have
something that starts to push against our family system or values or society, you know, whatever it might be. All of that, all of that is over here on the action side of here are things that you can say questions. can ask language techniques, neurological techniques, body language techniques, like all these things that we teach all the time through our intensives and et cetera, where it’s like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, put this in and God, how many parents have we helped that?
Paul (19:01.512)
Mm-hmm.
Robert Trout (19:08.074)
You know, after working with us, they go, my God, where were you six years ago? It’s like, we were here. You just, know, you, you waited, you went down the rabbit hole and then you got to the point of saying we need help. And when you need help is where you start to find this. Like, okay, either you do it or someone else has to do it for you. But no matter what the solution is oriented into that actionable lifestyle change intervention strategies. So.
Paul (19:16.531)
Yeah.
Robert Trout (19:35.426)
That’s the underlying message to concept to action is educate yourself and never forget that you’re also going to have to participate in the development of strategies and processes for your family. Not just that kid, the whole family system is going to be involved in adapting to a structure and system and practice to support the mentor behavioral health process. That’s the only way through this is the work.
to do it.
Paul (20:06.888)
I wanna actually give it a good solid concrete example. And I mean, you mentioned autism spectrum, ASD. One of the classic general symptoms is slow processing speed. Anybody who goes and educates themselves conceptually on processing speed being slow, how do you make that actionable? How do you carry that into the conversation?
Robert Trout (20:11.662)
Go for it.
Paul (20:32.696)
And if you’ve had any exposure to the understanding of processing speed, it really is this recognition that neurologically somebody who is a slow processor needs a couple more heartbeats to take in information. And so we on the other side of that have to be conscious of our pace in the conversations. Like that much pause to create the space.
like this pace to offer the opportunity for them to neurologically stay in the conversation. I use this phrase, keep their brain in the game. And really what we’re talking about is creating the space for them to feel safe enough that they don’t have to get big and get eruptive and push back because that’s almost like a placeholder behaviorally when they’re feeling overwhelmed. So that’s what we’re talking about when we’re talking about
concept of action is like, now that I know there’s processing speed challenges, what’s the actionable step? Okay, I have to slow myself down. Even if I’m frustrated, I have to pause and take a deep breath for myself and help myself feel safe for them to stay in the game, for them to keep the brain in the game. There’s so many things that I should be mindful of. And I don’t expect any parent to be perfect after me just saying that. Because again, we go through so many more layers of training and understanding to then apply that.
But that’s basically what we’re getting at in this conversation is there are a lot of concepts that are really beautiful gifts for your child for you to understand. And when we’re talking about creating the space to apply actionable steps in the understanding of those concepts, that’s where we see the disconnect. So really what we’re bringing forward is create the space to.
seek out mentorship, to have somebody like ourselves, I mean, reach out to us. These are great conversations, I love these. To create the space for you to feel empowered to meet your child in the understanding of who they are and recognizing that that understanding only gets you so far.
Robert Trout (22:41.506)
Yep. Yeah. And I guess maybe we’ll move towards kind of the final thoughts on this. I guess the message that I want each parent to hear about concept to action is don’t forget the action. Okay. Educate yourself and develop the skills no matter where you need to or how to work towards the daily strategies of supporting this person.
either yourself or others, build a team, know, lots of things from us on that, but build a team to support every element of this so that you’re not alone in it. And that team might need you to teach them some of the skills. They’re not going to take the time to do all the research on the concept that you did. And to be honest, it’s not even necessary. The truth is, is what people are looking for are the daily interaction, intervention,
strategies, relationship strategies for this. So become a teacher and as a part of that in every teaching level you’re going to hear this across the board. Everybody needs to understand that you’re going to enact a skill and especially in the beginning it’s going to fail over and over again and you can tweak it a little bit but you also have to hold strong for the change to happen. So this isn’t a one and done I tried it and it didn’t work it’s
Concept to action and then action action action action fail fail fail fail half work half work half work work work work all of these steps are what we talking about there short term to long term and No judgment no judgment parents are doing the best they can and we’re here to support parents across the board and There is that moment of saying like okay. I need help. I’m getting burned out I’m losing that strength that energy in that process
That’s where you need somebody, whether it’s us or someone else, but you need a team to start helping move that energy towards success versus being worn down over time. Cause time is the real killer here. It really is. If you took all your time to look at concept and no action, then the processes that happen neurologically or mental health wise have probably already developed countermeasures and counter attacks and
Robert Trout (25:05.368)
Process is to keep things the way that it wants to be kept not the person it meaning the mental health process The neurological process the developmental process all these processes kind of have a life of their own and That’s what we’re looking at is changing all that over time right with love and relationship and patience and and Boundaries and interactions and all the things that are necessary to create lasting change
That would be my kind of final lesson is take the time to translate that build your team and find support to move all that concept that you’ve learned into actionable steps. That’s where you’re going to find success in the long term. It always will be.
Paul (25:53.746)
think the last thing I’d like to say is, and it’s reiterating something that you said just now, Rob, is getting your team together and recognizing that.
There may be one person in the family or maybe multiple who are struggling with mental health challenges via diagnoses or behavior patterns or what have you. And to be able to…
to rally the troops, at the very least the co-parent, but very cautiously siblings. And that’s a whole other conversation in itself. And really what we’re trying to offer in this moment in that sense of help people help each other is think about the family culture you’re trying to cultivate. Think about the safety you’re trying to cultivate. Think about the
those priceless moments where you guys can make eye contact and it feels soft and genuine. And how do you get there? How do you get back there? And creating the space to have the conversations normalized where it is about like expressing challenging emotions and being able to have that feel. I don’t want to say easy because those are never easy conversations, but they end up becoming more productive.
and healthy. So when we’re talking about changing into action, that’s what we’re talking about is moving towards the health, moving towards the connectivity, moving towards that grounded sense of family. And yeah, that’s what we do. That’s why I’m so passionate about this. And I know that’s the same for you, Rob, is to create space for people to really feel the safety and the love of family. So
Paul (27:46.33)
learn all you can and let’s talk about how to actually put it into action, how to make it work.
Robert Trout (27:55.31)
So come find us at parentrainers.com. Do one of our six week intensive trainings and join the community. Find support and let’s get your family moving. Action.
