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Discover the Treasure in your Child - a conversation with Dr Roxanne Daleo
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Dr. Roxanne Daleo is a renowned clinician, leader, and pioneer in Health Psychology, is passionate about helping children discover their inner resources and realize their own self-worth.
A specialist in Paediatric Stress Management, specializing in working experiencing anxious situations, and coaching their parents.
In this episode of the Abeceder work life balance podcast Rest and Recreation Dr Daleo explains how children experience stress and anxiety and how they learn to manage those experiences.
Michael and Dr Daleo discuss situations that create stress for children, and how the behaviour of the adults in their life can influence how they deal with that negative situation.
You will learn simple straightforward techniques to help the child in your life to deal with stress and anxiety, even when you are feeling stressed.
Rest and Recreation is made on Zencastr, because creating podcasts on Zencastr is so easy.
If you would like to try podcasting using Zencastr use our offer code ABECEDER.
Thank you to the team at Matchmaker.fm for introducing me to Dr Daleo. Matchmaker.fm is where great hosts and even greater guests are matched, and fantastic podcasts are hatched. Use code MILW10 for a discount on membership.
Travel
Dr Daleo is based in Boston Massachusetts. Members of The Ultimate Travel Clubtravel to the USA and everywhere else at trade prices. Use our offer code ABEC79 to receive a discount on club membership.
Visit Abeceder for more information about Dr Roxanne Daleo and Michael Millward.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Rest and Recreation'
00:00:05
Speaker
Made on Zencastr. Hello and welcome to Rest and Recreation, the work-life balance podcast from Abbasida. I'm your host, Michael Millward, Managing Director of Abbasida.
Natural Ways to Calm Children
00:00:20
Speaker
Today, I'm going to be finding out about how to calm a stressed and anxious child in a natural way from Dr. Roxanne Dalio. We might also be finding out something about managing stress in parents as well.
Zencastr Promotion
00:00:37
Speaker
As the jingle at the start of this podcast says, rest and recreation is made on Zencastr. Zencastr is the all-in-one podcasting platform on which you can make your podcast in one place and then distribute it to the major platforms like Spotify, Apple, Amazon and Google YouTube Music.
00:00:57
Speaker
Zencastr really does make making podcasts so easy. If you would like to try podcasting using Zencastr, visit zencastr.com forward slash pricing and use my offer code, Abbasida.
00:01:10
Speaker
All the details are in the description. Now that I have told you how wonderful Zencastr is for making podcasts, we should make one. One that will be well worth listening to, liking, downloading and subscribing to.
00:01:26
Speaker
As with every episode of Rest and Recreation, we won't be telling you what to think, but we are hoping to make you think. Today's Rest and Recreation guest, who I met on Matchmaker.fm, is Dr.
Meet Dr. Roxanne Dalio
00:01:40
Speaker
Roxanne Dalio.
00:01:42
Speaker
I'm going to let Roxanne explain what she does, but I would just like to say that the slogan on her website, doctor as in Dr. RoxanneDaglio.com, is Discover the Treasure Within.
00:01:55
Speaker
So we're going to be talking about little treasures. Roxanne is based in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, and I have not visited that particular Boston, but when I do go, will make my travel arrangements with the Ultimate Travel Club, because that is where I can access trade prices on flights, hotels, trains, holidays, and all sorts of other travel-related purchases.
Ultimate Travel Club Mention
00:02:18
Speaker
You can also access trade prices on travel by joining the Ultimate Travel Club. There is a link and a discount code in the description. Now that I have paid some bills, it is time to make an episode of Rest and Recreation.
00:02:33
Speaker
Hello, Roxanne. Hello, Michael. Thank you for having
Roxanne's Childhood Experience with Anxiety
00:02:37
Speaker
me. It's a privilege to be here with you. Oh, I think the privilege is mine, Roxanne, but thank you very much for saying so. Please could we start by you answering the question that I didn't answer in the d introduction.
00:02:50
Speaker
What is it that you do? Well, what I do is I help children help themselves. And because when I was little, I had academic anxiety so badly that I could not read and I was you know just really struggling as a youngster.
00:03:09
Speaker
and it really made me aware of the teachers who were able to look past my disability and learning challenges and see me and encourage me rather than put me in the back of the line or skip over me, which is very devastating when you're only in first grade.
00:03:31
Speaker
Well, before you go, just to interrupt you for a second, because first grade is not a terminology that we would use here in the yeah UK. I know it's used in North America, but how old is someone in first grade?
00:03:42
Speaker
Six years old. Six years old. Yes. That image of a six-year-old being almost feeling written off by his teacher. Yes, exactly. And that's why you can't start early enough to empower your children with tools and tactics to help them calm themselves down because they have the capacity.
00:04:03
Speaker
So how did how did you go from being the six-year-old that felt written off by some teachers to being ah doctor? I know, what a question.
00:04:13
Speaker
Well, I think I had very supportive parents and grandparents who encouraged me to not be afraid to think out of the box, be creative in my assignments of homework, and to just keep going.
00:04:29
Speaker
Never give up. Never give up on yourself. My mom and dad used to say, Roxy, you have ah beautiful brain. It just works differently. And I think there are a lot of children and parents too, who just want to fit into the same old, same old, and they're not embracing our uniqueness, and that is really an important aspect of stress management.
00:04:54
Speaker
But basically, my first work after undergraduate college was to help allay the fears of hospitalized children.
Storytelling and Imagination in Stress Management
00:05:06
Speaker
The way I became familiar with my own anxiety and how I moved through it was to turn my attention away from the day and bring my attention inward.
00:05:20
Speaker
My father was a good storyteller, and he used to read to us, there were three girls in the family, or make up a story as we were driving around. And he would say, close your eyes, I'm going to tell you a story and go inward.
00:05:35
Speaker
And that was the beginning of my appreciation for the the active imagination that we all have. as children that can sometimes get drowned out by the time you get to adulthood.
00:05:46
Speaker
You know about that, right? Yes. Yes, I used to be a secondary school governor. Oh, right. so And one of the things that, so it's high school from an American terminology. Right. And going in on art day to see the work that the students had produced for their art exams and saying to one of the deputy heads of the school, know, there's so much creativity here.
00:06:09
Speaker
Yes. What's going to happen to that creativity when they leave school and are into jobs where the vast majority of employers won't actually ask them about creativity or ask them to be creative?
00:06:24
Speaker
Exactly. I realized that many of these children were so terrified of being in the hospital. They were awaiting major open heart surgery or perhaps they came in with a farm accident.
00:06:38
Speaker
they So many of them were struggling not only with anxiety, but with pain. And I realized pretty quickly I had to figure out a way to bypass the resistance of having them be just depressed and tuned out to opening them back up
Creative Arts and Relaxation Techniques
00:06:59
Speaker
again. And I use the creative arts, the expressive arts.
00:07:03
Speaker
It's one of the real important steps tools that every parent can count on to um access the child's inner wisdom and calmness because play is their natural medium for self-expression.
00:07:21
Speaker
And once you begin to decompress the atmosphere by bringing in the tools of the trade for for arts, like painting or clay, it gives a child the mastery and the change from no control to some control.
00:07:41
Speaker
And that's a very key factor in stress management because we know from the research where I studied at Harvard Graduate School of Behavioral Medicine, where Dr. Herbert Benson, who wrote the relaxation response, had investigated and researched Tibetan monks to study what happens to the body when they are meditating.
00:08:06
Speaker
And he discovered that it lowered the blood pressure, heart rate, metabolic rate, and it allowed the body to recover from prolonged stress. And prolonged stress without relief, I will just say to parents who are listening, the signs or symptoms of prolonged stress are things that we might ignore and skip right over as, well, this is just something in my daily life I have to cope with.
00:08:36
Speaker
like headache, muscle tension, stomach aches. Even for children, their habits of not having an appetite or not being able to sleep, any change in their routine would signal there's a lot of stress going on for them. And it's a way for you to appreciate that's where they're at. And let's take a moment to pause.
00:09:04
Speaker
To be play devil's advocate for a moment. Right. If the child is feeling stressed, then the thing to do is simply to distract them with something else, another activity. That's one method. But once you begin to develop a series of relaxation techniques, then you can introduce the techniques that Just to make sure that I understand. So the the actual art or a different activity to distract someone away from what's giving them stress.
00:09:33
Speaker
If you just did that, it wouldn't work. Right. They first got to understand, to recognize stress in themselves. Right. And then to have some sort of process of dealing with that.
00:09:44
Speaker
Right. But then what is it that then move on from, I'm picturing in my head here. Yes. stressed Technique to manage the stress, reduce the stress like sorry reduce the stress. Third step to do something that moves you on from feeling stress that is a positive action.
00:10:04
Speaker
That's right. right The first thing that that I do when youngsters are acting out or having too much anxiety is to use the arts to bring their attention to the present moment.
00:10:20
Speaker
And that's the fastest way to do it without resistance. Once you have their attention, then you can use the sound of a bell or painting as a way for them to synchronize their breathing.
00:10:35
Speaker
And your breath is the keystone to stress management. So the first thing I like to teach parents to do is to help their children to learn how to diaphragmatically breathe or breathe very deeply.
00:10:51
Speaker
And the simple way to do that is to understand that it is the exhalation, that breathing out, that turns the switch off on anxiety.
Diaphragmatic Breathing Exercises
00:11:05
Speaker
There's like an imaginary switch in the base of the brain, the medulla avalangala. And when you breathe out, when you exhale, that begins the system to decompress.
00:11:20
Speaker
Now the simple way to do this with kids is to blow bubbles or to blow out a candle because they will naturally take an inhalation and then exhale, breathing out.
00:11:35
Speaker
And for for parents, stress is a perception of threat. Something in the environment is causing you to feel upset and you don't maybe believe that you can cope with this stressful event. So there's two parts to something that's stressful.
00:11:58
Speaker
One is that you perceive a threat and the second is that you don't believe you're equipped to cope with that stress. So the two features that really do make a difference in the physiologic reaction raising the heart rate, blood pressure, and metabolic rate, causing a rush of chemicals to go through your body, is happening inside the mind.
00:12:27
Speaker
The brain is making meaning of whatever is in front of you. When you as an adult understand that, it helps you to help your child to see the world differently.
00:12:41
Speaker
If a child sees their parent or an adult in a situation which they can interpret as being stressful. Yes. And sees that adult dealing with that stress in a positive way. Right. That will...
00:12:58
Speaker
Let's lead by example, I suppose. That will result in the child understanding more about stress management by seeing adults deal with stress constructively.
00:13:12
Speaker
But... The key is understanding what stress is and understanding the various different techniques that will work for you in different situations to enable you to manage your stress.
00:13:28
Speaker
Yes, exactly. The first one is that if the parent realizes it's a an inside job, it's an interpretation, something that you're looking at, something that you are stressed about,
00:13:43
Speaker
You're assigning a meaning. And if the meaning is, oh my God, this is a terrible thing is happening and we'll never get out of this. That's a very negative. Yes, very, very negative.
00:13:54
Speaker
it's so And i can I can totally get what it is that you mean. Right. when yeah if you If you as an adult yeah have a child with you there is this pressure on you that I am responsible for that child.
00:14:08
Speaker
And no matter how bad it gets, I don't want that child to
Parental Modeling of Stress Management
00:14:12
Speaker
know the situation is bad. Right. Well, the other thing is that when the parent models a different reaction, then the child learns how the parent has calmed themselves down.
00:14:26
Speaker
And therefore, they're able to repeat or model the behavior. So if the mom says to their youngster, I'm going to take a few deep breaths, you can do it with me right now.
00:14:42
Speaker
And just calm ourselves down. i know we can do it. I know you've done it before. All you have to do is breathe and breathe with mommy and just take a moment.
00:14:55
Speaker
I think everything is just going to be all right. but we need to take a moment to really pay attention to how our body is feeling nervous and we want to talk to our body into feeling less nervous.
00:15:13
Speaker
And we can do that by taking a deep breath, breathing out, blowing out a candle or coming to the back porch, blowing bubbles for a few moments and just letting ourselves take this time together to really release the tension and the upset.
00:15:32
Speaker
Yes. And it's all about that breathing technique, isn't it, really? Well, that's the key. That's the first one. And it's really helpful when you're using tangible, get we call them symbolic gestures or objects to help children get a handle on how to turn something that's upsetting into a different ah meaning.
00:15:58
Speaker
I often tell parents, you can use a pair of sunglasses, or i even have rose-colored glasses that I play with with the kids that come to me, and just say, let's put on a different pair of glasses to see things differently.
00:16:16
Speaker
And so when they put on the pair of glasses, it's like another way for them to take an abstract thought and put it into concrete forms.
00:16:27
Speaker
It makes it easier for them to replicate it later on when they're alone and they have to use their own devices to calm themselves, to calm themselves down or to see a problem in a new way.
00:16:42
Speaker
There's a whole range of different lessons here, not just for a child, but also for their parents. Is it reasonable for me to suggest that we are seeing more stress in children because we are seeing more stress in adults and we're seeing more stress in adults because of the world that we are creating for ourselves is much more stressful.
00:17:07
Speaker
There's much more argument, for example. Something happens that you don't like, you have to find someone to blame. You want to shout at the whoever person you perceive to be responsible for your accident, your delay, your misfortune, whatever it is.
00:17:26
Speaker
And that creates a whole culture, I suppose, of Our response in the and so like the basic form, people talk about either fight or flight.
00:17:38
Speaker
And in a meeker time, we might have done the the so like the flight. We'll just ignore it. Never mind. yeah know We've had a meal we didn't like, but they just leave.
00:17:49
Speaker
We won't come back again. yes Now we've got much more of the the fight. I'm unhappy with this. someone's Someone's responsible. Someone's going to put it right for me. Don't waste my time. And we get very aggressive about it. So that's what our children see.
00:18:05
Speaker
But actually, we are further along than the spectrum, so to speak, of evolution or maturity or whatever it is that you want to call it. And we now have the free choice to actually say we can take a position somewhere within the middle of that flight or fight um spectrum and say, actually, the place we want to be, the behavior we want to exhibit is Something has gone wrong.
00:18:32
Speaker
What is it that's gone wrong? What's the impact on us? How do we make that impact to disappear? How do we move on positively? And that means we have be the adult in the room, not just for the child that's with us, but also for the other adult that we need to get to do something.
00:18:53
Speaker
And we're looking for a constructive conversation with a constructive outcome. from a negative situation. Right, exactly. And we're talking about discovering the treasure within.
00:19:07
Speaker
and one of the pioneers in the field of human potential, Jean Houston, used to open up her presentations with this question. What is it that allows certain individuals to tap their creative power, their intelligence, even their genius,
00:19:24
Speaker
to do wonders in music, art, literature, science, even healing, while others flounder in despair and confusion, cut off from their resources within?
00:19:37
Speaker
What makes one individual take up challenges as opportunities, facing the unknown with the spirit of adventure, while others see difficulty as reason to go numb, unconscious, giving up?
00:19:52
Speaker
The one essential factor that each one of these individuals has in common is that they are able to tap into and are familiar with inner visioning for self-direction.
Jean Houston Quote on Creativity
00:20:07
Speaker
They know and believe the ideas and images that come from within spark their inner energy to create, compose, and recharge themselves with resourcefulness.
00:20:20
Speaker
It's a very powerful introduction. It's talking about people being responsible for themselves and then link that to the things that you've just been saying of creating the adult in the room who's going to find the solution rather than just sit there and say, well, someone's to blame.
00:20:41
Speaker
It's not me, but someone is to blame. It's like that saying, someone will deal with that. Mm-hmm. Someone will put that right. And actually, to create the treasure within our child within our children, we also need to find the treasure within ourselves. Perfect. And we need to say that I am someone.
00:21:02
Speaker
In that quotation, when you talk about resource or resourcefulness, Just being a resource is to be directed by someone else.
00:21:14
Speaker
To be resourceful is to take the initiative to be someone and to work to find the solution. Not necessarily to do it yourself, but to ask someone who can say yes the right questions to make sure that they can and will say yes.
00:21:34
Speaker
You've said it beautifully. Roxanne, before we started talking, I could not have said it. and It's only by listening to what you've said that I'm feeling like, yeah, oh excuse me I get what you're saying.
00:21:46
Speaker
This makes sense. This makes sense. The child that we are trying to be supportive of being a parent or guardian of, is looking to us, because we're taller, older, for guidance on what to do in every situation that they find themselves in.
00:22:04
Speaker
If we are stressed, we teach that child to be stressed as well. We have to take the adult role in the room, be the parent, be the guardian, and demonstrate something that is different to what the child is feeling. The child will feel fight or flight.
00:22:24
Speaker
Yes. We as adults need to find that part of the between those two which enables us to find the solution. I suspect once you've learnt the techniques involved in doing that like you said getting to the point where like I'm feeling stressed I can be open, honest, transparent, authentic with the child that I'm with And tell them, you know, this is the sort of situation where we need to take a few deep breaths just to clear our head, calm us down, and then we see things differently.
00:22:58
Speaker
yeah and then we can work out what it is that we need to do next. And getting the child to do that with you yes is a way of training, educating them that that is the right sort of thing to do when they feel how they can see you being.
00:23:15
Speaker
They can see the change in you as well. that That's right. That's important. But here's the thing. It's not just understanding what to do, but why it works and how to apply it is what we're up to right now. So what I want to say is the reason I'm so passionate about teaching young people and their families about these strategies is because when I was developing my own knowledge through the Harvard Medical School Division of Behavioral Medicine,
00:23:47
Speaker
It was in the late eighty s when it was a time when the pioneers in the field of research called psychoneuroimmunology were getting groundbreaking results.
00:24:00
Speaker
Psychoneuroimmunology is merely the study of the psyche, our emotions, trigger a cascade of neurochemicals that communicate through our body and to our immune systems.
00:24:15
Speaker
that either promotes healing or inhibits it.
Psychoneuroimmunology in Stress Management
00:24:19
Speaker
And therefore, when we learned through this psychoneuroimmunology I'm so glad that you sort of like slipped up slightly there, Roxanne, because I have been wondering how I am ever going to pronounce all of that.
00:24:35
Speaker
It's like on neuroimmunology. Yes, it's a mouthful. It is. it's It's the essence of the stress management key to ten the solution because the research gave us the information about a patient's mood, their attitude, their beliefs affect the outcome of disease.
00:24:59
Speaker
And when a parent understands that there's a moment of stress and they have something they can do about it, there is a moment where they do feel more empowered because they have a strategy that they can employ today, Roxanne, what you've done is, well, you've got me completely interested in everything that you've been talking about. And I have learnt an awful lot from just this one short conversation.
00:25:29
Speaker
I'm also thinking that we have really just started to scratch the surface of what is a very important topic, and a very detailed topic as well. so yeah know For today, i have to say massive thank you.
00:25:46
Speaker
And also, please, will you come back and let's explore this in more detail? Oh, I would be honored to. I would love to come back for another conversation.
00:25:57
Speaker
and That would be great. We will organize that. So for today, thank you very much. i have really enjoyed our conversation. And like I say, there are things that I've said in this conversation, which I would not have imagined myself being able to say at the start of this conversation. So thank you very much for that. And I look forward to our next conversation with great enthusiasm. Thank you very much.
00:26:24
Speaker
I am Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abbasida. In this episode of Rest and Recreation, I have been having a conversation with Dr.
Matchmaker.fm Mention
00:26:33
Speaker
Roxanne Dalio, a childcare expert.
00:26:37
Speaker
You can find out more information about both of us at abbasida.co.uk. There is a link in the description and also a link to Dr. Dalio's website as well.
00:26:48
Speaker
I must remember to thank the team at matchmaker.fm for introducing me to Roxanne Dalio. If you're a podcaster looking for interesting guests, or if like Roxanne, you have something very interesting to say, matchmaker.fm is where matches of great hosts and great guests are made.
00:27:05
Speaker
There is a link to matchmaker.fm and an offer code in the description. At Rest and Recreation we promote positive health. Knowing the risks early is a good place to start with positive health.
York Test Health Assessment Promotion
00:27:19
Speaker
That is why we recommend the annual health test from York Test. York Test provides an assessment of 39 different health markers. The annual health test is conducted by an experienced phlebotomist who will complete a full blood draw at your home or workplace.
00:27:36
Speaker
Hospital standard tests are carried out in a UKAS accredited and CQC compliant laboratory. You can access your easy to understand results and guidance to help you make effective lifestyle changes anytime by your secure personal wellness hub.
00:27:53
Speaker
There is a link and a discount code in the description.
00:27:59
Speaker
I am sure that you will have enjoyed it listening to this episode of Rest and Recreation as much as Roxanne and I have enjoyed making it. So please give it a like and download it.
00:28:09
Speaker
To make sure you don't miss out on the future episodes that we I will be creating with Dr. Roxanne Dalio, please subscribe.
Conclusion and Podcast's Aim
00:28:17
Speaker
Remember, the aim of all the podcasts produced by Abbasida is not to tell you what to think, but we do hope to have made you think.
00:28:25
Speaker
Until the next episode of Rest and Recreation, thank you for listening and goodbye.