Robert Trout (00:00.483)
Hello and welcome to today’s episode on parent problems today. The episode today that myself, Robert Trout and Paul Arradondo, the two trainers are coming to speak about is kind of a nuanced subject. So it’s gonna kind of flow through a couple of different examples and topics because a lot of families when we’re working with them we get into the skillset of assessment and
What we want to do today is kind of answer some of the questions that have come up about what this is really for and how it plays a role in successful intervention strategies and processes with tweens, teens, young adults, whoever it is that the family is stepping into. And I’ll share that this subject today comes from a specific process that I just went through with an individual.
that I got to have a very open conversation with a person that went through programming hospitalization and things as a teen and is now in their thirties. And what they were sharing plays a huge role in this topic of assessment. So they were sharing that as they were in their process.
as a teenager, they were definitely going through depression and anxiety and feeling all the emotional kind of processes in line with hormone changes and who am I and feeling lost. This individual also had struggles in school, both social struggles and academic struggles. And they were expressing to me that when they were going through that, what they were hoping for, what they were
They in reflection, okay, let’s be honest. So this is years and years later So in reflection they feel like what they were hoping for was a process where people would recognize that they were struggling and offer some form of Step in like hey here. I am I feel alone and I don’t want to feel alone But again, especially as we know with teens they don’t have a prefrontal cortex so sometimes they have
Robert Trout (02:22.923)
a feeling of a need, but they do not have the language to ask for what they need. They’ve not learned those different capacities to ask directly for it. So when we look at processing at parent trainers, as we kind of go through this, like, okay, what is the first process when you start to recognize as parents, like, hey, my kid is struggling.
This story played a huge role for me in bringing this subject to today’s episode, because what happened was that the parents reacted to the different behaviors and things that this individual was going through. And for them specifically, it was depression and withdrawal in combination with physical cutting to control their pain. And to look at that process.
as a, I’m going to say a coping mechanism that they developed. So they’re trying to look at their pain and feel a sense of control and manage the depression symptoms that they were going through and the parents saw this and the reaction of the parents was to, in this one circumstance,
Robert Trout (03:49.075)
And we’ve all been there every parent out there has a Certain set of triggers from their past or just from the not knowing let’s be honest Like a big part of it is I’ve never been a parent before or maybe I am a parent But this child is going through something that I’ve never witnessed before so the reaction is what set the stage for this individual story to
get more complicated because the reaction from their parents was to say, hey, let’s go see a psychiatrist or a therapist. And the kid was like, okay, I agree to get help. That would be fine. But what the parents actually did was drive them to a psych hospital and put them into the psych hospital without their consent and without looking at like, what would this look like? So they ended up being at the psych hospital.
And this isn’t a bash on hospitalization or processes for intervention, et cetera. That is not what this is because the, it’s a needed service. It’s definitely something that people get to a point that they need a level of support outside of the home to reset or center or get, uh, direct treatment for medication, medication management or to begin a therapeutic process, all of that.
We honor that is necessary in a lot of cases. And when we look at the tools of assessment, we run into this wall where this family didn’t stop. The parents didn’t stop and say, okay, let’s look at all these levels and really question why we think we need to go all the way to a hospitalization. Because for this individual and their story and share, it really set up
a level of trauma that separated them from their parents for a very long time because they lost trust because there wasn’t the consent of this level of care. They were willing to start lower than this level, but they were tricked into going all the way to the hospital where they went through a traumatic experience and being held away from their family and it wasn’t what they needed.
Robert Trout (06:08.675)
That was really the core of the story that they shared with me was in reflection. It was too much, too fast and too soon in what we’ll call the therapeutic family process. But the parents didn’t know. They, they did the best they could. You know, there’s been a lot of work within that family unit over the years where they even honored, like they dropped him off and they sat in the parking lot and cried for two hours.
Right? Like there’s this like process later of looking back and saying, okay, why did we do that? So today we’re going to drop into this, this topic of assessment. And I use this story to hopefully illustrate to any family that’s listening that when we get scared as parents, the reaction is sometimes too far, too much, too fast because of our panic.
not because there was actually a need in the moment or a risk in the moment. So the skill set of assessment steps back. Okay, we know something’s going on, right? And most of our parents reach us at that point, right? It’s like, okay, something’s going on. We need help. We want to illustrate in this episode today that assessment is one of the nuanced skill sets that parents can
So that they first of all recognize that their reaction and the parents push towards getting help is sometimes going to be detrimental, at least in this moment, to the relationship, to the trust, and to the process that they’re gonna go through, short term and long term, with their loved one. So Paul, I’m gonna pass it over to you real quick after I’ve kinda given this first example and looked at this process.
When I say assessment, what comes up for you with our work with parents?
Paul (08:08.79)
Sure, excuse me. I mean, what immediately comes up is, what’s happening right now in this moment? Not what happened yesterday or what happened last week, because your child and even you are beyond that moment. What’s happening right now in this moment? And we often talk about this concept of important versus urgent, right? And so there’s this difference in understanding like,
These are important things to address, right? You want to attune to your child. You want to be curious with your child. You want to support your child. You want to understand what your child’s going through. You know, when we recognize these things as important, we can hopefully see that in that moment, there is safety. Your child’s no longer either hurting themselves, no longer inebriated, no longer in a dangerous position, and you’re…
You’re trying to co-regulate with them, you’re trying to be in space with them and help them slow down because there’s actually safety available. Now, on the other side of that, so that’s the important side, then there’s the urgent side. You know, urgency is when we’re really talking about maybe potentially a lack of safety, right? The kid is about to, I say kid, the tween, the teen, the young adult, your child is about to hurt themselves, right?
is about to hurt somebody else, is about to break something. And I’m not talking about like, I’m going to go down the street and kick blanks at, you know. It’s not a threat or a verbalized expression. It’s actually the action of those three things. Hurt themselves, hurt somebody else, break something. At that point, there’s no longer any conversation. It is urgent. So coming back to this idea of important versus urgent.
My hope is that for every parent there’s this capacity to objectively step back and assess, is this an important moment where I can pause and slow down and be curious and trying to attune, meaning what is my, what is not only my emotional experience, but can I get curious about the thoughts and the feelings and the physical sensations of my loved one?
Paul (10:25.866)
Like that’s the hope, right? And that’s, as you were saying, Rob, what keeps us in relationship, because the example you gave was a severance of relationship because there was a breach in trust, right? There was a decision that was made for the child who felt like it was an overreaction and ultimately probably led to some big severance within the dynamic in the family system that they’re probably still repairing on some level. And so…
If parents jump to urgency and we’re actually in a safe moment, that’s where we’re sitting in that reactivity, right? And so this assessment piece, hopefully the first step is to take a step back and go, what’s really happening right now? Is this important or is this urgent? And move from that place. Because if it’s important, we can pause. We can take some deep breaths. We can take care of ourselves.
so that then ultimately we can show up and be present with our child and not be wide-eyed and kind of talking quicker and being a little bit more aggressive with our tone and ultimately just regulating our child even more. Right. And so being able to do that first step of assessment then gives us the capacity to meet the next step because ultimately in the correct fashion, important versus urgent and ultimately meet the moment.
Robert Trout (11:48.759)
Yep. So in our work and in a lot of sessions that I have with families, I feel like a big part of my job is to back them up. Right? Because sometimes when we get into the phone call or video call with a family, they’re already at like stage nine, eight, you know, out of 10, right? They are reacting and part of our job is to help the parent regulate. So-
Paul (12:18.399)
Mm-hmm.
Robert Trout (12:18.411)
What I want to do is kind of look at assessment in a few steps. And the interesting thing is, is that every parent, every individual is a little different. So I actually really don’t like being like, Oh, do this first and this second, this third. It’s, it’s really, you have to get to know your nervous system and your awareness and your process as an individual. So if you’re out there as a parent right now and you’re like, okay, well, how would I do this?
Let’s give some examples of steps that they can put in their own order. Okay. I, I would throw out there kind of feeding off of what you just said that for me, step one is realize your own level of panic. Right. So, and again, that may not work for every parent. Some, some parents will start at a different step, but for me, I always look at the, okay, the story that you’re telling yourself.
Paul (13:05.622)
Mm-hmm.
Robert Trout (13:18.255)
is coming through at a volume level, a tone level, a presentation level, externally, as like crisis level 13 out of 10. Like, oh my god, what are we going to do? It’s the end of the world. It’s like, okay, catch yourself in that story. And very often that step is facilitated by
when you find that you’re going to either a coach like we are or to a co-parent or your own parents or a person from the community that you vent with and talk with you need to find that place where it’s like okay as I tell this story does it feel real to me and very often that that’s an
Robert Trout (14:14.043)
Can catch myself that all this feels so unmanageable and unsafe etc But I’m checking in with myself are the words that I just said true Right. Are we really at crisis level 13 out of 10 like or is that something? Internal that I can recognize because as I tell the story
and my nervous system comes down a little bit because I externalize part of the feelings and emotions that I have, now I can do, uh, okay, I am panicking. The situation is actually relatively contained, but I can’t see it until I get that energy out. So for people that have that person that they can call or co-parent or
Paul (14:40.964)
Thank you.
Robert Trout (15:05.847)
their own parents or community member or church member or whoever it doesn’t matter Someone to reflect back and just hold space so that you can get the energy out is very often step number one so that you can have that moment of reflection and Really look at the story. I’m telling is it real or is it something that I’m creating and it’s feeding that sense of panic that’s inside of
Robert Trout (15:35.351)
What would you say is another option? What’s another step?
Paul (15:38.918)
Sure. I mean, I think leaning on community, just as you said, is a great option. But what if nobody’s around? How do you take care of yourself? How do you slow down? How do you come back to healthy perspective? How do you, in essence, what you were talking about, Rob, do some reality testing? Is this true and real? And so when we are activated and our nervous system is in hypervigilance, and maybe we’re climbing that scale into fight, flight or freeze way up at like a nine out of 10,
Robert Trout (15:46.479)
Mm-hmm.
Paul (16:09.112)
to develop for your own self-care. Right? And, you know, what Rob and I are talking about is, like, you have to take care of yourself first. Right? In order to show up for your child, you know, as we’re talking about, your child might be in crisis. That’s true. And you need to be able to manage the crisis. You need to be able to see it clearly. You need to be able to be as…
objective as you possibly can while also being compassionate and empathetic to your child and the situation with clear vision, clear understanding. And so to slow oneself down, if community isn’t available,
recognize that we have all these physiological mechanisms that we can lean on. You know, there’s what’s called the dive response, where you can go and wash your face with ice cold water and it shocks your nervous system into taking a deep breath. The activation of taking a deep breath slows your heart rate, drops your blood pressure, actually helps to clarify your thoughts a little bit because when we’re in that hyperventilation and we’re kind of moving quick and you know, our heart rate’s increased,
it slows our cognitive capacity down pretty dramatically. So recognizing we have these sort of switches and knobs in our anatomy and physiology that we can actually employ if we strategize. So a couple of things, like I said, cold water on the face or grab some ice cubes and go hang out over the sink and just recognize that sensation of ice in your hand is going to be a very clear distraction.
from the stimulus, from the thoughts, right? And it allows you to slow down. And then another very effective one is the recognition that…
Paul (17:52.91)
We in our physiology, we get flooded with these stress hormones, one of them being adrenaline. And that you just can’t shut off, right? You just can’t sink your way through adrenaline. You have to expand it. So being able to do a bunch of pushups, you know, do a wall squat and breathe deeply, like go sprint. And if you’re not able to do so, like
do some air squats, do some burpees, do something to move your blood and bring oxygen into the system and use that energy to actually settle yourself, because that hormone needs to run its course. So being aware of how our body is trying to save us or help us, but in fact, it gets in the way of us being capable of.
thinking clearly. So expend the energy, do something really active. And the third would be use your breath. You know, the double inhale, exhale.
Paul (18:59.362)
That’s dumping CO2 out of the system so it makes room for more oxygen to come in, which again, slows the heart rate, drops the blood pressure. All three of those examples, cold, exercise, breath work, they are so effective. There’s tons of evidence of, in trial after trial around how they are three very dynamic, clear interventions for yourself, which you can also do with your child.
So being able to bring something forward, not only for yourself, but to support your child can, again, bring in that relational aspect. Have them feel like you’re attuning to them. Be supportive of them.
Robert Trout (19:29.491)
And
Robert Trout (19:43.363)
So let me step in because right now I guarantee you there are parents listening to this saying this sounds an awful lot like just self care and this is assessment and I want to be clear about that because as we’re talking about the steps of assessment you can’t assess I’m going to say correctly if you’re not grounded and clear in looking at the situation.
Paul (19:53.725)
Mm-hmm.
Robert Trout (20:08.803)
So this, what we’re really looking at here is yes, we’re doing assessment, but the first step to me is always assessing yourself. Can you be objective? Can you see the reality of the individual in front of you? This child that is probably in pain or reacting or angry or whatever it is, can you step back from that and have the tool that comes next.
to be able to step forward and to intervene and participate in a way that isn’t reactive. So in reality, I just want everyone to hear that this is assessment. Are you capable of being in it right now in a grounded way? That’s the you have to do that or the rest falls apart, which is why I look at this as, yeah, it’s kind of step one, but you may want to start somewhere else or need to start somewhere else. So
I’ll shift into a second skill set within assessment, which is to look objectively at outcomes because our brain goes towards the most horrible possible options most of the time, right? Because it’s fear boat based and driven. So it’s like, okay, is you know, my kids going to die or they’re going to hate me forever or, you know, whatever thought any parent has.
We have to turn that in a different skill set or different direction is just for the parent to be able to look and say, okay, is my child in mortal danger right now? Right. So, for example, kids that, you know, they snuck out of the house on Sunday, it’s Wednesday, you just found out that they were gone and they were partying on night with their friends and all of these things. There’s that reaction.
right that comes to, oh my God, they they’re doing these horrible things. They could die if they’re doing drugs or, you know, they could get pregnant or they whatever, like there’s so many fears that come out of those scenarios. But very often the step for the parent and the assessment is to take that breath and to say, is my child going to harm themselves permanently in some way? So that’s physical harm or death.
Robert Trout (22:25.091)
Is that really on the table right now in this moment? And for most parents that can turn to that, it can be a very objective yes or no. Yes or no. If it’s a yes, we, within assessment, that would lead to a completely different direction than a, oh, actually, no. They’re at school right now. I just learned that they were doing these things this weekend, and yes, I’m scared.
The story I just heard from this other parent that’s telling me what happened, et cetera. But the fact that the answer is an objective no allows for a different orientation for different intervention strategies and work therapeutically as a family for the family container. And just knowing the answer to that question, yes or no.
would solve so many reaction issues within family systems, at least in my experience, because a lot of families, they didn’t ask that question. The parent just reacted, right? Drove to school, took them out and said, you’re going to therapy right now. And drove them somewhere and it’s like, you have to talk about this. There wasn’t a relational connection, just the reaction and very often an overreaction.
So that yes or no, the objectiveness of it is a clear step that helps so many parents to be like, there’s only one question I need to start with and that’s this. Then they can move on from there. Anything you wanna add to that or something that comes to mind after that?
Paul (23:59.447)
Mm-hmm.
Paul (24:04.29)
Sure, yeah. I mean, yeah. I mean, ultimately, there are so many different situations that every single one of these families, and probably you who are listening to, you might not be able to relate to the examples that we gave. You might have a child who is on their tech and not going to school. You might have a child who is depressed and stuck in bed or anxious and can’t find the will or the desire to do anything. And so, you know,
some of the assessment that we also have to look at is not only about safety, but about willingness or capacity. And so the difference between willingness and capacity is somebody can feel motivated. Someone can feel like a desire to engage. Somebody can feel like they want to take a next step. There’s a willingness to do so.
Paul (25:01.514)
Maybe they don’t know how to think themselves through that. Maybe they’ve never had the experience of it. We can think of this as like assessment around social anxiety or deep depression, deep persistent depression. We can think about it around addiction, technology addiction and so forth, right? And so again, coming back to this idea of safety, we can slow down.
especially in moments like that. If your child hasn’t gotten out of bed for three days, yeah, that’s hard. And your child’s safe, right? And so we can take a moment to step back and assess what is the next good step, right? What can I do to support my child? What are my options? And so part of the assessment is that, what are my options?
Is it something that I can do? Again, this not only is the child’s willingness and capacity, but it’s also the parent’s willingness and capacity. Because I have not met a single parent who doesn’t have the willingness to step in and try and support their child in some way, shape, or form, but their capacity to do so and have it be effective. Maybe that’s riddled with fear and anxiety from their own childhood or, as you were saying, Rob, stories generated from.
you know, the potential outcomes of pushing somebody further down the path of depression or trauma or what have you, but recognizing that, again, to slow down and take a step back and say, am I capable of intervening in this moment? Am I capable of being with my child in this moment? It’s not a question of willingness.
Am I capable of going in and attuning to my child and asking a question and not having my child feel like I’m interrogating them, right? Not having my child feel like I’m berating them for the 10th time, right? Being able to disrupt some of the cycles of communication that maybe have perpetuated some of the behaviors that the family system is in, right? The loops that we all find ourselves in. So being able to take that step back and going, hmm.
Paul (27:16.122)
What am I contributing? Is this, again, willingness or capacity for myself? Willingness or capacity for my child? Because maybe it isn’t me having a conversation with my child. Maybe it would be effective to bring in a friend of my child’s parent that they have a good connection to. Community member. As you said earlier, a therapist or a pastor.
you know, somebody who can actually connect with your child and they feel safe with, and they feel like they can open up to, and again, attunement, having that ability to drop in with that child and have them feel safe enough to express maybe something that they didn’t feel that there was an environment to do so in the past, right? They haven’t found the connection to be able to express, you know, what…
what’s really happening for them because we know this generation of kids, they feel like they’re supposed to have all the answers. They feel like they’re supposed to be able to manage it and that’s some of the reason why there is so much depression and anxiety, unfortunately.
Robert Trout (28:24.163)
Yes, and just to turn that, there’s also all the parents that are thinking the same thing, that they’re supposed to have all the answers that they’re in that process. So there’s a lot of correlation between the child’s experience and the parent’s experience. And a lot of the problems that we’re working with families on today, around technology and gaming and social structures and all of these things play a huge role into the like…
Paul (28:29.854)
Sure.
Paul (28:39.924)
Certainly.
Robert Trout (28:52.143)
How do I find relationship in the process? And I do wanna be clear to everyone that’s listening to this from what you were also just saying that that’s one of the assessment questions. Am I the best person to work on whatever it is? Doesn’t matter on the depression, on the getting out of the bed, on the technology, on the et cetera. Am I the best person? Because a lot of parents lose sight of the fact that
Paul (29:08.095)
Right.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Robert Trout (29:21.663)
Yes, you’re the parent. You’re also a human being. You have your own personality and history and etc. And sometimes, especially those teenagers, they’re in a developmental process with becoming who they are, where they might be in between phases of testing who they are. And in the in-between phase, they hate you.
Paul (29:24.119)
Mm-hmm.
Paul (29:46.542)
Hmph.
Robert Trout (29:50.047)
Not because your mom or dad or whatever, it’s just the person they are in that moment is not going to get along with the person that you are. There’s that like, well, you have to love me, but you don’t have to like me. So within that is that assessment question of, am I the best person to step in to work with this or not? And then seeking the.
Possible solutions, which is you know, that’s not a part of assessment It is part of assessment to figure out what are some of the initial options that is part of assessment You know do I need to get them into therapy or just have more time with? Another family that’s going through similar things, but they’ll listen to them better rather than me or whatever it is it’s taking the ego out and saying
what structure within our life can we change to move forward from? But that’s a whole other process. So just looking at the assessment of is, am I the best person to do this? Are they in the head space to be able to work on this? All of these are the questions that are gonna be most relevant in developing the strategies and interventions that ultimately can create the change that parents are desperately looking for. So.
Yeah, from that, I guess I want to point out that with a lot of the other families that I’ve talked to, there are so many stories of what I call the overreaction. So, within that, let me step into the, okay, your kid’s on technology all the time, and they’re gaming, or they’re on social media, or whatever it might be. Very often, parents step into a
what is an overreaction of I’m taking you 100% out of all of it. Taking the phone, taking the tablets, no TV, no like just everything. And I want to speak to that overreaction because of how common it is. And let’s use this idea of assessment now and let’s take it back a little bit where it’s like, okay, the overreaction is ground zero taking it to nothing, etc.
Robert Trout (32:11.083)
Within assessment, there is a piece that so many parents miss, which is the replacement. If I’m going to put in a structure, a boundary, a change in how we live, such as taking all this technology away and removing them from their social group and the people that are listening to them and guiding them through things within their peer group, etc.
If you’re going to do that, a part of assessment is stepping back and saying, I’m going to set the structure to work on this and here’s what my role is going to be, but as I make these changes, what is going to replace the underlying need of the child? Again, tween, teen, young adult, it doesn’t matter. They’re doing whatever the behavior is.
They’re doing it because it’s serving them for a need, psychologically, emotionally, socially, whatever it is, they’re in it because they found something that feeds that need within them. So within assessment, when we’re really slowed down and we’re looking at is there actual danger or not, what kind of changes do we need to be? Is it me or someone else that’s gonna work on this?
Then we get into the, okay, things are about to change. I’m going to intervene. When the decision has been made to intervene in any capacity, I really wanna stress that this piece is missed so much of you can’t just take away. You can’t just shift. So a part of assessment is looking at the financial capabilities that you have in your…
family system and dynamic of, okay, where can I put financial resources to replace what I’m about to change so that the need can be met in a different way? And sometimes that’s as simple as, okay, I’m taking the phone and technology away, and I’m going to make sure that they’re going to have, I’m going to drive them. I’m committing to financially pay to drive them to friends’ houses after school or to…
Robert Trout (34:36.811)
join a team for sports or whatever. It doesn’t matter. Whatever you’re looking at, you have to look at the replacement that’s going to help serve the need. Because to take away, as we know, and not replace creates chaos for especially teenagers, but at every level within this process, because it’s a total withdrawal. So they either fight even harder or they
They retreat. And so we’re looking at relationship and within relationship and assessment, there is that piece that you need to slow down and say, how am I gonna replace what I’m changing and putting restriction on how it’s done maybe, whatever that might be. What are your thoughts on that? Anything come up from there?
Paul (35:27.262)
Sure, I think in terms of trying to be a little bit more analytical, there’s three buckets that we often talk about in terms of trying to understand where a child’s motivation comes from and why they’re doing what they’re doing. And Rob, you hit on one of them, especially around video games, a sense of belonging, right? Like they feel socially connected to a process, to a people, to a community, right? There’s a sense of…
purpose in that, in that regard where they’re creating goals. And especially within communities, setting up those goals to ultimately show a sense of self-worth, right? Show like this desire to again belong. And the more they invest in it, the more they feel better about themselves. And so then the third aspect of it is structure. They probably spent a bunch of hours on it.
That’s just the nature of it. They are dedicated to it. And so it’s serving them in all three layers. And for some of them, it might just be one or two. It might be just the structure and the sense of purpose because they’re playing a video game or they’re doing something that actually isn’t about belonging. But think about it through those three lenses and actually ask them about it. It isn’t about your assessment from just your own personal perspective. It’s about you getting in there and asking, hey, why do you like that game?
Robert Trout (36:23.991)
Yes.
Paul (36:53.278)
And I know you’re probably thinking, I don’t care why they like the game, but that’s actually an important thing to ask them, ask them what their goals are in the game, how far along they’ve gotten in the game, how much time they put in the game, how many people are connected to while playing something like that. And we can flip this into like the lens of addiction. Why do you like that substance? How is it serving you? What are you getting out of it? How does that make you feel more connected to something or to yourself or away from something away from a harder.
thing to manage. All of this is about trying to understand and attune so that we can then create a path or at least understand what a better path might look like. Because when we’re coming from our story we’re often coming from a place of assumption, especially if we haven’t asked the questions. So if we’re coming from assumption, you’re not actually doing assessment.
You’re just making up stories and you’re trying to figure it out from your perspective. If you actually get in there and you ask questions, then you’re doing assessment. You’re gathering data, you’re gathering information, and especially if they’re safe, take the time to do it. It is so important to slow your process down, to be able to help them.
Robert Trout (38:02.311)
M.
Paul (38:08.194)
vocalize it, right? Have them have a bit of their own self-intervention by being more verbose and having to explain where they’re coming from in their perspective and why they’re doing what they’re doing because who knows how often they actually get to say those things.
Robert Trout (38:23.819)
Yes. And I want to make sure we touch on a piece of what you’re saying is when you’re doing an honest assessment, you’re removing judgment.
Paul (38:36.446)
Yes, so important.
Robert Trout (38:38.579)
I mean, any parent that’s listening to this, I don’t care what’s going on. That child is solving a problem for themselves. Whether they’re cutting or doing drugs or video games or social media addiction or whatever it is, sneaking out of the house. It doesn’t matter. You can tell me anything. The truth is, is that they are meeting an internal need. And yes.
Paul (38:48.992)
Mm-hmm.
Robert Trout (39:08.159)
We can look and say that’s negatively impacting our family system, our relationship, maybe their education. Like there’s all kinds of things that those things are impacting. That is true. And so many people fall into the trap of judging what those behaviors are and what they’re doing. When in reality for a clear.
Paul (39:17.269)
health.
Paul (39:21.122)
Mm-hmm.
Robert Trout (39:37.047)
Honest assessment we have to look at it and say why? Level of safety Can I do it or do we need someone else and? Can I be present in relationship with this person without saying? That’s so stupid. Why are you doing it that way? You’re ruining your life Listen to me and all of your problems will be better
Those reactions are from judgment versus the, oh, I see you. And I’m working with you to find the needs that these things are meeting. And now we’re going to move from assessment towards intervention. And that’s a different conversation. But just to clarify, it’s finding the process and options, and you or me or relationship, et cetera.
Paul (40:12.811)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Robert Trout (40:36.151)
Now we can move towards intervention, which is we’re going to change how we’re living. And I hope you hear that how we are living. It is not a one way street or a one target here. This is a family. There are multiple people involved. So it’s going to be a we process, not a you process.
Paul (40:44.807)
Yeah.
Paul (40:57.938)
And to put a finer point on what you were just saying, Rob, when you’re doing assessment, you’re not problem solving. You’re not going in there and trying to figure out solutions. All you’re doing is gathering information. So if you find yourself wanting to give a suggestion or give a directive, or you feel like you have the, you know, the golden nugget that’s gonna fix everything, hold that back.
Robert Trout (41:05.175)
Yes.
Paul (41:21.858)
Right? Because it’s not about you in that moment. You’re trying to understand about your child. And if you go in with solutions, it’s no longer about them. It’s about you trying to fix them. And ultimately, in order to truly understand where they’re at.
you have to be able to slow it down. And even in thinking about having that conversation, this goes all the way back to the beginning of what we’ve been talking about, slowing yourself down and preparing yourself to hear something that makes you uncomfortable. So as you’re thinking about having this conversation, if you’re walking down the hallway, check in with yourself. Is your heart starting to beat faster? Are you starting to feel tension in your body? If so, turn back around.
Go grab some ice cubes again. Like, drink some water, eat something, shake your body out to try and loosen yourself up and prepare yourself for hearing something uncomfortable. And be aware that your facial expressions are gonna impact them. Your tone is gonna impact them. Your body language is gonna impact them. And it might actually open them up or it might shut them down. And so again, this goes back to, are you the one who’s right for this conversation?
Because if not, that’s okay. There’s no judgment. And in fact, I’ve worked with dozens of families that the best decision they made is they outsourced the conversation because their child was more than willing to have that, like the deeper conversation with another adult because there’s so much story between a parent-child dynamic. There’s so much defensiveness or resistance often.
Robert Trout (42:36.375)
It is okay.
Paul (43:03.218)
especially if you know a family system is further down the road of discord and Distance from each other so being able to bring somebody in who can support who can soften who can be understanding who can try? And be non-judgmental who can just listen who doesn’t feel like they need to solve the problem if that’s not you again It’s okay if you feel like you can do it Prepare yourself for it, right?
Robert Trout (43:29.699)
That’s where you get into the training for the skills to be able to do it. Some people, I mean, in fact, most people lack certain abilities because we didn’t learn it. So as you look at assessment, if you’re listening to this podcast right now, I feel like we should close on this idea that you have to, you have to start with assessment.
Paul (43:34.893)
Right.
Paul (43:41.826)
Mm-hmm.
Robert Trout (43:59.199)
If you start from reaction, any reaction, it doesn’t matter. You create the risk of making things worse with the best of intentions. So no judgment, just acknowledge that there might be some skills that you need to learn and use the questions, the different options that we went through today. Just start there with the, okay.
If I can figure out what’s going on in the level of risk and what I need and what they need and how these things might come together, what our options might be to start. And those options will change over time. They are not set in stone. Then from there, you can move towards the initiation of intervention strategies and changing boundaries and process of relationship and all these things that we’ve talked about.
in our videos and trainings and on these podcast episodes. So just know and hear, assessment comes first because with good, honest, direct assessment, you can actually make a plan that can succeed. Reaction often equals trauma and separation and just this process that makes it so much more complicated maybe than it ever needed to be.
Reaction is the opposite of assessment. Assessment is what we’re going to encourage you to step into and figure out the process that works best for you. Thanks for listening.
