10 Aug Ep. 70 How Moving Affects Kids with Licensed Professional Counselor Lindsay Walter of EmotionalGrowthSTL

TRANSCRIPTION

welcome welcome everybody to the st louis realtor podcast i’m your host adam kruse here with my co-host shannon st pierre hello hi shannon we’re both realtors at herman london real estate group in st louis missouri and we are super excited today because we’ve got licensed professional counselor from the state of missouri lindsay walter here to join us and lindsay’s a child and family therapist and you might be wondering how we’re going to tie this into real estate but oh boy are we ready with questions lindsay so thank you for being here today no problem i’m happy to be here absolutely well shannon if you don’t mind would you start by telling kind of the story of you know what you’re going through and why we thought it’d be awesome to talk to someone like lindsay right right so you know not to make this a personal session but it is um the reason that the subject came about is because i’m in the middle of a move so we are selling a house and moving to another state i have two children one almost four one almost ten okay so two different kind of age brackets but um i definitely noticed a few things out of the ordinary especially and more so with the almost 10 year old that um that kind of brought this subject i think to light but what furthermore is that we help families all the time move that have children so from just you know moving maybe you know and it’s a very common thing right you start a family you’re in a starter home you’re ready to move up to something a little larger maybe move to a different school district right um and and then there is the occasional family that is um got transferred out of the area to another state or something for the a job or something so that’s how we’re tying it into real estate so back to your your comment adam but uh yeah so i think that we wanted to be better realtors and uh help families with children too right now yeah for example you noticed that your daughter didn’t like people coming in and out of the house is that your thing right so we will go through that you know like i thought we’d kind of try and have some method to the madness but it did she really did not like people coming into her room and i mean i thoroughly understand that when the people when we opened the house for viewing so when people trying to look at the house like and it does feel like a vision of privacy and that’s really where this was like that smack in the face going this whole process has been really hard um for all of us um the the kind of four-year-old is somewhat oblivious but uh she isn’t and um you know we’re not so so so i guess like where do you start when you have um a family and children who are cognizant of you know where they are because right and when so when you’re going to move to another area or out of state how do you start the conversation because the one thing that kids rely on so much is that security of what they know and home is what they know and this is the only house she’s ever known we brought her home from the hospital in the to this house right well i think you know being honest from the beginning and knowing it’s not just going to be one conversation it’s going to be hundreds of conversations right so don’t lie to them and only tell them when the moving truck comes correct you shouldn’t do that you should repair them i mean like you said the showing process for your daughter was really hard putting your house on the market like your kids recognizing like when we have to leave every day we have to make sure all our toys are put away you know we have there’s there’s other reasons than just for mom and dad right now or just you know to keep the house nice right now there so so to make it so that your family is a team and so from the beginning to let your kids know about like we have this ex we we have this experience we have this kind of adventure that’s coming our way and there’s going to be a lot of good things but there’s going to be some hard and sad things too right okay room for both of those things how did she know that people were coming in her room well i mean she knew just because well for because she knows right because she knows what the process is when you look at a house you go to every room she goes with me on showings occasionally like she’s she knows what i do and so um and i kind of relate it back to her and i said you know you’ve been with me on how many houses and you walk through other people’s bedrooms all the time and it’s just because you just want to see the room and the layout so for her i think she had slight advantage because she knows what you know people were doing they weren’t trying to invade and go through her drawers um but they were just trying to see the layout of the house like we have so many times so it sounds like you did a really good job of helping her understand and relate to experiences she’s had but i think for the overall good through the process of moving to first meet the kids with empathy to just meet them where they’re at and just be like you’re right that is really hard and weird to think about that people you don’t know right are gonna walk through your room and they’re gonna look in your closet like i don’t like that either right and just sit in that kind of and sit in that discomfort because often that’s all kids needs to say like oh okay right and then when you’re ready then you can move on to kind of finding the silver lining or normalizing it but meeting them first where their feelings are is going to help the process a lot and it’s so interesting i think of myself as empathetic but that what you just said seems like something that would be hard for me you know because if they’re like i don’t like this i would think i would go into like you know trying to make them happy mode and it’s so you’re saying start with just empathize right so that’s i mean that’s a basic parenting rule always right um in the parenting classes i teach because we so often as parents don’t like our kids to suffer it’s so hard to watch our kids be upset so we jump into fix-it mode right but really to we want to raise children that become adults that are like healthy adults that can have healthy relationships right and so part of that is is teaching them how to know their feelings express their feelings in appropriate ways and letting them know that their feelings are okay there’s no bad feelings um it just it’s how what we do with those feelings that determines good or bad right so um and then at the so at the beginning of the process you know once we we also part of getting a house ready for sale is decluttering uh and as every parent knows because decluttering like toys and all those all that stuff is hard on a normal scenario you know most parents find you have to do it in the dark of night throw everything in a trash bag and put it off hide it into a corner until you can donate it um so that was a really hard process too like and i still had to do the dark of night little trick but um we also i tried to include her because i need to know actually if she did want to keep a lot of her stuff because nine it’s a much different than the four-year-old but right um and i found that she was holding on to everything and relinquishing anything was impossible right right well there’s so much changing right now mm-hmm right like you’re moving states you’re selling the house and moving away from the house that she came home from the hospital and like you said not to mention she didn’t even get to finish her school year right we don’t know if she’ll get to start an actual school when you guys move right there’s so much in the air that like her possessions probably make her feel safe right now so you recommend allowing her to just keep them all that’s a good question i think every parent is the expert of their own kids so i can’t get there’s not a prescriptive way but i think often saying hey what if we pack a box of these that we that i think you’re not going to play with anymore but we take we move them with us and if you want anything out of the box i’ll get it out of the box but after about a month of living in our new home if you haven’t wanted any of these things maybe then we give them to kids that need them that’s a good idea because i mean what it’s not going to be a few extra boxes so right um you know and i think that’s ultimately what i did is because you don’t have a lot of time to argue or try and help her work through every little possession so you’re like great you know what there’s certain boxes we gotta go great um so yeah so then you so that was that first process was like this is a lot harder and then it did get to the um you know decluttering the entire house and trying to get it for showings and then and then that’s when the room situation came about where she felt i think violated in a way and i’m um i don’t know she’s not wrong as a realtor i’ve walked into hundreds of bedrooms but i hated the idea of people walking through our bedrooms right right i don’t know how you feel adam but oh i never sell any of my own houses because i don’t want them coming through no that’s not why but i i totally can relate i can empathize how about that oh there you go look at adam growing using big words yeah i i think it’s normal for her to feel violated right how do you have them do that i mean only because she understood what i did and we’ve done it before how would you help another kid that didn’t quite understand why everybody was going to be looking at their room right so explaining to them about you know being able to say well if when we’re buying a new house don’t you want to be able to see what your possible new room would look like right like i know i would i would want to make sure that it was big enough and it had a closet and it had a it was bright enough like i want to know all those things if i’m considering buying a house that you’re going to live in that we’re going to live in as a family so to kind of so first to do the empathy and to say to her and be honest about your own feelings like yeah it’s uncomfortable for me too right i don’t like somebody looking in my closet or in my bathroom drawers or cabinets right that feels weird and then you can sit and work kids are complex people too we can say that’s weird and uncomfortable and also this is part of the process yeah so she i mean uh you know she wanted to pack up her drawers like all her clothes and specifically like oddly enough all her underwear she wanted to take all her underwear with us when we left the house because and that’s when i was like oh my gosh this night might be a higher level of something i’m not sure what’s going on because she took the most private stuff right yeah yeah the most private thing we we could have just thought about right now and she wanted to pack it all up and take it with her and i’m like i assure you no one’s looking in drawers or if they do that would be really weird by the way but um she went to that and that’s when i started to notice like some of that behavior going okay um you know wow this transition not to mention the pandemic everything is complete uncertainty in right now as it is but then also then now we’re going to uncertainty like we’ve never even seen our place where we’re going to an apartment and that we’ve never seen hold on let me ask a couple questions let me ask a couple questions sorry because the underwear thing and then um there’s kind of like three things you just mentioned here that i was wanting to ask about so lindsay should she have let her bring her underwear with him put it in the van with us right i think you have the conversation of what would make you feel the most safe right would it would you feel safe if we put a layer of folded t-shirts on top of your underwear would that be a step so that you’re like giving a little bit into her fears and anxieties but you’re not going all the way right like she’s still standing up to the anxiety does that make sense yes um because because taking them out with your her wooden teacher how to deal with anxiety right i mean and if right you want to work through pushing through the anxiety like often an anxiety bully right you want okay when over the anxiety bully however like there’s a kind of a systematic way to do that that you don’t want to just this day say oh nope we’re gonna i’m gonna strong arm you and i’m gonna put make you push through this discomfort so that we’re putting your underwear on the bed this time right exactly exactly real exposure therapy and we’re going to send adam to your parents in classes okay all right and then i was curious you know a lot of times in sales what we find is that we have to like some people sort of get emotionally stuck on their current house until they find their next house and then once they find their next house it’s like they don’t care as much about their old house you know some of those emotional i thought my son had to play basketball here kind of stuff sort of goes away i’ve noticed and so i was wondering if that would be one method to say like hey letting people through your room or whatever is part of getting you to that remember that new room that you love but i guess shannon didn’t have the opportunity to do that but would that be okay to kind of like in general to say like yeah but there’s this you know right yeah i’d say that’s absolutely true you want to be empathetic you want to be present to them and then give them time before you jump to the but it’s gonna be okay right but it is but kids can handle that right if you are empathetic and present then you can say remember when we walked through the room your the the new bedroom in our new house right i’m sure that kid felt uncomfortable too right but we’re so excited about moving there and we want somebody else to have that same experience and be excited about moving here so does that make sense yeah yeah and if you want your ice cream after the game then you have to do this but like if you want that new room that you love then you have to do that kind of thing [Laughter] um rarely rarely i would i would use bribes on just an occasion i was being i wasn’t joking so i’m glad you’re kind of answering it seriously because i like like i was saying we often have to get people to focus on their new house to get them to give up their old house so that’s you’re kind of putting that in the bride category i guess you’re saying yeah for kids i think you need to be careful with that because they see through it right okay we’re also sending the message that um your your feelings are too much or you’re feeling we don’t want to talk about your feelings we’re just going to make give you incentives to do what we want to do okay right okay so there are times for sure like make it fun make it exciting of you know like i know this has been hard with just even the idea of other of strangers going through your room so why don’t we go to something fun together right like that’s okay you can still get the ice cream right but but you don’t have to it doesn’t have to be tit for tat right so yeah okay okay well shannon i didn’t mean to i’m sorry i should say i’m sorry that i interrupted you earlier i just wanted to ask those questions and then do you have uh other questions or we kind of jump into covid related topics no i mean like the whole process i mean so you go i mean so i think it’s just it’s really hard so how do you take a kid who’s got a little bit more well who does have attachments in a town you know her school um which she didn’t get to say goodbye to number one so i’m already dealing with that then friends everything she’s known to a place that we don’t know at all and and so how do you help a child through that process so a few things one you’re going to try to they these kids need to be empowered our kids need to have something to do tasks okay right and so part of that can be them helping you brainstorm how to say goodbye to things how to make special memories right so maybe that is you go and take a picture outside of the school okay it is you contact that yeah these are cool this is cool this is good lindsay go um you know like her favorite places that weren’t chain restaurants but were like little neighborhood restaurants or things the park that she played in growing up right um having friends that she’s made at her school asking their parents to see if they’ll make like short little videos for her maybe or having a farewell parade that’s gonna make me cry yeah so it’s an awesome idea right though i think i just used a site called tribute.co for that by the way what is it tribute.co you can go and like people can make videos and send them to you sorry to interrupt lindsay oh no that’s good that’s good okay yeah so so creating you can create like an actual picture book right okay with pictures of special things but additionally you could also create kind of a virtual with like these videos okay so maybe that’s her giving doing a tour walking through your house right saying memories some of her favorite memories in each of the special places in your house okay right because that’s going to meet right now that’s going to mean a little bit to her but a lot to you probably but in a couple years she’ll really appreciate seeing that too oh my gosh okay right the neighbors taking pictures with the neighbors or of the neighbors having them video something okay right i’m writing everything down so sorry if i’m not i’m literally good you’re good but but helping her kind of create in a sense like a blog or a her own website it wouldn’t have to be public by any means but just where she could keep all of these digitally that she’s part of the process of recording these videos of having people you know i think some of them can be surprises like her friends from school or things but then she could also help video the neighbors and ask a few questions about you know asking your neighbors like do you remember when i rode my bike for the first time down your driveway or do you remember when i knocked my front tooth out on her swing you know like things like that um that those are special stories that she’s going to want to remember okay that’s an awesome idea so oh my gosh she loves videos too or empower her to use them okay so basically um hire a photographer and like go around do photo shoots at all the fabulous places you can just use your cell phone right just use your cell phone make it again yeah so go around and say goodbye um or get do photos every place that she can think of that’s i mean i think that’s a great idea as hell have a brainstorm mm-hmm um um and then so once we kind of get to that point and i love that video especially from each of her friends i think one of the coolest things too about this uh pandemic is that everybody’s gotten used to doing online video chats so i feel like that that’s been in our favor in a weird way to go it’s not um you know you can still do a video chat and to stay in touch with your friends so then once we kind of get through this scrapbook um project video projects is there a moving day like goodbye like process that you would recommend or something to do i mean so i would for every family it’s going to be different but to think of and and i’m using like this word loosely but a ritual or a ceremony something that celebrates right the time and thanks the house right a little marie condo thanks thanks for um for all the ways that it served us right so for every family it’s gonna be different but i think finding something for your family maybe it’s like you guys always have great dance parties in the kitchen and this is your favorite song and we’re gonna do it one more time right or fighting something that is something special to your family or we always play horse on the driveway or we always you know we’re going to do one last thing before we say goodbye to the house okay i love that yeah we dance around a lot in the kitchen that’s actually a really good idea so to remember like this was a place that we learned to do this together that we became a family cool okay oh gosh uh because this is going to be hard for both of us right all of us all of us um to leave but it’s uh i think it’s going to be really cool to do this um and then when you get there like so we transition i guess um and we go to the new place how do you acclimate there okay especially right now right so a few things i would say i know you guys haven’t even seen the apartment but i would google earth it i do street view so she could see it she could see where it is on a map you can show her where target is you can show her where you know like i’d show her where a few favor her favorite things are the school that maybe she’ll go to some day [Laughter] right but additionally to if you have like the outside of what the apartment building looks like that kind of thing i’d also say when you move there and how long are you going to be in the hou in the apartment do you know well it’s uncertain right so i mean just to add another layer we’re planning on about a year and maybe buying a house we just don’t know which area we want to be in and so that’s kind of adding layers of complexity but let’s right for that say about a year you know okay so i’d say the first thing to do besides getting the necessities of like toiletries and a few things in the kitchen unpacked is to unpack the kids rooms first to make them feel like their space is comfortable and they have what they’re comfortable with what they’re used to and so do you recommend putting up right now we don’t have a ton of uh photos like friends necessarily on our wall we have a couple of our art pieces do you is there something in a way to decorate a room to help them you know uh you know pictures of the friends pictures of their favorite places or does that make it more difficult to just transition like sometimes i’d rather just not see it i don’t want to deal with it and that’s me and that my adult issues probably i don’t know but um let her know if you’re available after this lindsay first yeah so it’s just rather not see it i want to move on because it’s it’s hard enough but how does a kid do that right so i’d ask her what she wants i let her lead the way but also just like when some when we lose someone because this is a major loss that you’re all gonna have to grieve you’re moving towards exciting things right but so you’re gonna feel excitement and that kind of thing but also apprehension and fear and you’re gonna have to grieve the loss of st louis and all you new here and so just like when we lose a person that we love we’re constantly thinking about it you know people are afraid to ask us how we’re doing because they’re afraid to bring it up but we’re always aware of it right and so for our kids we have to be able to bring it up on a regular basis even if that’s going to make us uncomfortable we need to say to them you know when we get into this apartment do you want your room to look just like this or should we add some pictures of things should we print out a photo book how would what would make you feel the most comfortable and the most loved okay i like that i can really relate to that like what you said about getting there and setting up the room first i i thought that was interesting that you said that and probably not someone’s instinct right you’d probably get the kitchen and all that set up first but um i know that if i was gonna come and stay at your house tonight the first thing i would want to do is know where i was going to sleep like i have to get my bags i need to know where i’m going to sleep and then i can come and hang out otherwise some people just put their bags by the front door and figure it out later i’m like how do you do that i need to know where i’m going and so i can understand that that a kid would really need that yeah um so then the other day let me what i think is really every new play is always a little bit um scary in essence if you know so besides the whole move just going to stay someplace sometimes it’s scarier for kids and i sent this email the other day too adam and i thought it was such an adorable idea this um inspection company offered up it’s a home inspection company it happened to be just an email they offer monster free certificates so to the kids when you’re buying a home and i was like oh my gosh this is the cutest idea ever but then i went back and i circled back to a conversation i had with a girlfriend several years ago where she you know there are some parents that don’t like the idea of those kinds of things because then the parent is then acknowledging uh of sorts i guess that there are monsters or monsters are in fact real so what is your take on the whole like monsters you you know the whole monster spray monster free certificate like how do you approach that because that will most certainly come up because there will be new sounds you know there’s just it’s just different um so until you get used to all those kids say you know there’s a monster under my bed right right well i think every parent knows their kids best and so it’s going to be different but i think against again always meeting our kids with empathy and being like you know these noises are weird to me too they’re strange like i’m aware of every sound where at our old house everything was just background i didn’t notice it because it was it was so comfortable for me right um for some kids they’re gonna think that’s fun to have mobster spray or a certificate right and those are if if a kid is gonna think it’s fun go with it if it’s gonna add to their fears that’s when i wouldn’t right um if if they’re not already saying that and like and you acknowledge it in a way that’s going to make them more anxious then don’t do it but if it’s like if you could say like if you know your kid well enough that you know that they’re gonna think it’s kind of funny to be like look we got the certificate they inspected and there’s no monsters right some kids will eat that up so yeah i could see my little uh the four-year-old kind of eating that up a little bit because he does that even now he’s like there’s monsters in the middle of the night and i’m like hmm right i’m not sure what he’s talking about really and let your tenure so this is another great way that your 10 year old can have a job as part of this process is to let her be in on that to say like let her help him like make the monster spray do all of the things right be excited about their certificate she knows it’s not real right but but she can make it a good thing for him and a fun thing for him okay and that will make her feel grown up and that will make her feel like she has a role to play yeah um that’s interesting yeah because then because there’s this book we read that i just love and it’s uh in the end there’s all these monsters that come into this little girl’s room and in the in the end she just she figures out the one thing that monsters hate most is kissing so she kisses them all and they all run away screaming i’m like this is the best book it’s right it’s funny yeah so i’m like well that’s how i tell my little guy that’s a little the younger one i’m like well just kiss him poor monsters and he’s like oh okay i mean i don’t know that that’s the right and correct response for every kid but yeah for him it seems to be kind of a like a way of dealing with it right right you mind if i pop into a covid question sure well so kind of what i’m wondering is now because not it’s not really coveted question but it’s because of covid question i guess because of covet a lot of kids are home getting schooled at home or whatever and so i was curious from your perspective what should people who are buying homes that have kids be looking for in the houses and if you are staying where you are what should you be doing and and so as an example is it important that a kid has a set place that they do their schooling homework every day or you know like an office or even if it’s a certain seat in the kitchen or whatever or can that just be switched up or what can people be doing to give their you know what their home or to help their kids through their weird cove attempts yeah i think i think the most important thing whether it’s your current home or you’re looking at a home is you want to to create a space that is is homey and relaxing and a place that you’re going to enjoy right we’ve lived prior to covid at such a fast pace that we wanted our homes to be decorated beautifully and we wanted them to be comfortable but let’s be honest how often were we in our homes for all all weekend very rarely right and now we are and so i think we’re beginning to look at our homes in a different way of we still want them to be decorated beautifully but we want it to be a way that really comforts us comforts our kids is comfortable it’s it serves how we use the space i’d say for kids it’s going to depend on the kid older kids probably want to set space where they can have time to themselves to get schoolwork done younger kids are you know it’s going to be really hard for younger kids to be on a screen and so they’re going to need to be in a more common open area where one or both parents are available to them right they also want to feel part of something because the best part of school for most kids is is the socializing and that’s been taken away and so they’re going to need the community of the family during the day and so making sure and even our teenagers are going to need that too so making sure that they have their own space but have there’s also room in the house it doesn’t have to be a big house but that you’ve just created space for them you know for your teen or older elementary student if they want to come and work at the dining room table so that they’re closer to you and i didn’t know if that was okay then every night to clean their stuff up so we can have dinner at the dining room table or if they needed to have like a set spot i guess it still is a set spot they just don’t have little stuff on them right i think i think so that’s a really good question and i think you do that together and you have a special place that you put their things right like a a basket that slides into a bookcase or that kind of thing or even your if it’s in the dining room even like a buffet that you open one of the cabinets and there’s school stuff that can easily be taken out and easily stored um but that it’s all it’s not like it’s just their things are a second thought and they’re a nuisance and you want them to be put away you want to do it in a way that kind of honors them right and then in the morning help them get it out maybe depending on their age okay well that makes sense because i mean if you think about it at the end of school day um i mean when i go to pick up my daughter uh she they’re cleaning up everything they’re putting their pencil boxes all back together and then they go put them back on the shelf so they’re kind of do essentially doing the same thing so you just kind of so now instead of a shelf at school it’s the buffet that’s right a cabinet which is becoming toy chat and it could feel like there’s some kind of um closure to that too saying okay we’re putting this away for the day so that we can then go and play outside and enjoy our family and and have fun and do other things so it’s the ending of one task to kind of start the rest of the day that’s involved um so then in the midst of like moving i mean to try to kind of take it to the next level i mean i think everybody’s kind of struggling especially with kovid staying at home homeschool working um how do you like one of my biggest concerns is i’m going we’re moving to a state where we’re not going to go to school um i will no longer be working but we are isolated we have no chance of making friends i can’t get out to meet people so i’m kind of like i can’t think of a bigger and more perfect recipe for almost disaster like so how do we keep that from happening how do we keep sanity right right for both of us so you’re so this is where you’re gonna have to make yourself get out of the house every single day uh-huh and it’s um you’re moving to a cold state so start doing it right away um and then buy really warm clothing um because and and i know you can’t go to all the normal places right that you would normally go to but i i don’t know how your family feels about nature and parks and hiking hates them terrible no i mean but i think sometimes it’s also the age difference right we could go for a small hike but we still have a four-year-old that but yes i mean parks are a great way to get out right for now and that’s all for now but i’d also say are you moving to minnesota you said yeah yes okay so what you’ll see in minnesota is people go out all year round yes even when it’s like you know zero degrees outside and there’s a lot of snow people just keep living their lives yes that’s what i hear we’re in st louis we tend to like hibernate right and kind of hide at home um but yeah so making sure you get out every day to places like parks um like you said very short hikes with a four-year-old i think that’s a good experience a good way to to explore different neighborhoods because you said you guys don’t know what neighborhood you want to settle to and so if you’ve done the research and as a realtor i’m sure you’re pretty good at that of kind of picking out the five or six key neighborhoods you want to look at well like make it your mission to try all the parks in each of those neighborhoods you know make it your mission to get a milkshake with your kids obviously curbside or whatever or visit the coffee shop safely and sit outside while it’s still nice that are in each of those neighborhoods so you can test the walkability and all those types of things having that as a having that as a task may give you more to do yes yes um explore each and every little park and every on every corner and they have a lot of lakes like parks with lakes and so and then how do you handle this the social or lack thereof situation like here we have friends and we can we do still go see them we so how do you handle considering school there won’t be school it is does your older daughter june now yeah she does yeah i don’t know what you think about zoom lindsay or if it’s okay for her to keep zooming with her friends here or what absolutely so my daughters hasn’t seen her best friend in five months even though they live two miles away because their family has amino suppressed family members and they zoom every week right probably an hour and a half right so making sure that that’s scheduled so she has that to look forward to um i’d also say um the next door app which you’re probably familiar with oh yeah or facebook once you’re kind of in that zip code to see what’s going on because if if kids there are doing virtual school too there’s probably a lot of families or accommodation there’s probably a lot of families that are looking for social distanced play dates of some sort okay and things to do there’s probably so certain certain sports are are safer than others right so i don’t know if your daughter likes to play any sports but that could be a way to meet other kids oh gymnastics yeah i was gonna stalker are gymnastics uh classes opening here they are yeah wow they’ve done a lot of things i know and a couple of families that have that are going back to gymnastics oh i did not realize that they’re doing into that they’re taking care of the things that’s to keep it safe so that could be a great way for her to to meet people and for you to meet or just do something mm-hmm ice fishing you know yeah i don’t even like regular fishing fishing is just going to be a no no so lindsay i’m sure you had your own thoughts and expectations for this podcast today is there anything that we’re missing or that we should be asking or we want to make sure that you say you know that’s a good question um i think we’ve mostly covered it but i think recognizing your kids are capable of both sadness and fear but also excitement right and that just like you they’re going to feel all of those things and that’s okay um and just helping them feel understood and heard and also doing those little things like rituals or ceremonies right so saying goodbye you can do like a saying hello ritual to the new apartment you know different little things of saying like hey guys let’s remember like this is our first night and just trying to make it special right this is our first night in our new home even if it’s only for a short period of time like we’re gonna make lots of great memories here right just voicing all of that you’re really setting a tone right for the how you want the culture of your family to be right and how how you want to just set up kind of the environment moving forward even though it it’s strange it’s a strange time with the pandemic yeah strange i can still remember the first night we moved into like my childhood home we were laying on the floor in this big room that there was and just i can just still remember that was i don’t even know right 30 years ago and i can remember that that night right right now why do you remember it it was just weird the house was empty you know we didn’t have furniture there yet i think our family was together we were laying on the floor looking at the ceiling i guess we probably ordered food or something like that i don’t know it’s just uh i can remember it i don’t know why yeah it’ll be interesting because that’ll be us you know we’ll be sleeping on air blow-up beds until our stuff arrives you know because it goes on a truck and you don’t know when it’s going to necessarily arrive so you’re right um well lindsay do you mind if we ask just for you to tell us and let you know the listeners or watchers or whatever a little bit about your business what are what are your typical like i don’t know if you call them customers clients what you know for people listening how do they get a hold of you or like just tell us a little bit about your business if you don’t mind yeah so um i’m at a partnership um call and our business is called emotional growth counseling services our office is located in downtown clayton um myself and my partner katie foizey is her name and unfortunately right now because of everything going on we’re still seeing clients virtually we have been for almost five months um and for the most part that’s been okay but um we’ll continue to do that until it’s safe for families to come back to our office we specialize in kids teens and families often that are dealing with anxiety or mood disorders high functioning autism but then katie and i also have this specialty working with adopted kiddos um and their families because a lot of adopted kiddos struggle with just understanding their adoption and attachment and um that kind of thing so we work a lot and we teach parenting classes for parents of adopted kids even parents who have adopted kids at birth because there’s a lot of challenges that still come with that so so kids have a certain up to a certain age generally come with their family whatever their family is and then once they get to a certain age then they can start coming to see you by themselves correct so if if a teen’s under 18 then the intake would have would be with the parents not the child no matter their age if they’re under 18 don’t come to that that’s just the parents and me um and then i depending on the situation if it’s a struggle between the parents and the child then i may want to see them together sometimes but i have a lot of teens that drive themselves or now that we’re doing virtual therapy right now or telehealth you know the parents don’t play as as large of a role and that as well so and i see a lot i see a number of adults that aren’t attached to families and um i worked at st louis university with college students for five years so i love that twenties age group too so interesting okay i was a quote unquote bad kid growing up so my parents were always sending me to counselors and stuff like that and i can remember sometimes you know the whole family was there and sometimes it was just me this wasn’t all the time shannon but just like a few times throughout my life i can’t imagine you being bad adam what often the bad kids without becoming like the most you know successful or whatever absolutely responsible yeah well and my hope always would be working with a family is that a kid never feels like they’re the problem but that the family is the client right the whole family yeah and a lot of time i mean well just like shannon i’ve been learning a ton just in the last hour or whatever their parents have a lot to learn too you know i i would love to go to any counseling sessions that my daughter has to go to because i am still learning every day about how to be a dad you know yeah absolutely well no one else got to do that right we can we can copy what our parents did or try to unlearn some of what our parents did um but we understand the human brain now so much better so that has to come into play in in our parenting well do you have a few more minutes because i’d like to keep asking you questions if you don’t mind sure uh shannon do you have a couple more minutes too yeah go ahead i’m i’m interested well i mean it’s just you know how i mean what kind of chances do you get to talk to somebody like lindsay you know it’s really cool um we my friend was telling me recently that she was driving through a parking lot and she you know at the grocery store and she stopped at the stop sign and then she went to the next one and stopped at the stop sign and then pulled into a spot maybe a little quicker than she should have whatever but she said the lady that was behind her stopped her car waited for her to get out and then started yelling obscenities at her you know and she called her the f-word and that the and all this other kind of stuff and then like flicked her off and screamed at her and then drove off and my friend was saying like i said oh you know thanks whatever but she was saying that the lady in her opinion just didn’t have any coping skills or didn’t like never learned coping mechanisms or whatever right and i don’t know if you would agree with that but i’m going okay like add the weight to my shoulders right now how do i make sure that my child or children get coping skills so is this what you’ve been talking about like share empathy with them and stuff like that or is there other things related to that absolutely i think that’s a perfect i think your friend was right on that that this person was so frustrated by her drive that by her driving that she could treat another human being like that right that she could go out of her way to stop the car and treat another human being yeah like that she couldn’t control herself probably right she probably i had to do it i had to scream nasty things and and how many times can we see that in our children especially like a four-year-old adam i don’t know the age of your kids but she’s under 102 and one in the belly okay okay so you see that same kind of meltdown i have to do this right now and then under two don’t you yeah um starting kid yeah so so that’s gonna be um just like you said learning to help them learning to be present and be empathetic with what they’re feeling um for younger kids shannon like your four-year-old or adam you’re almost two-year-old to um help them name what’s going on if they’re having a meltdown or really upset to be like are you upset because i wouldn’t let you x y or z right but doing it in a really loving tone um often they’re gonna say they’re gonna be like yes and right and that’s gonna they’re still gonna be upset but that’s gonna bring them down a little bit right there’s there’s researchers that actually study toddlers meltdowns which sounds horrible to me but they found that if you can help them name what they’re feeling and what made them feel that way it’s going to take the meltdown way down okay interesting and that’s something that i need to like learn how to do as a father obviously yeah i have learned i mean like i mean that to give um emotions names like with my four-year-old like we’re going through he’s frustrated i see you’re frustrated right now or lately they’ve the the two kids have been added a lot more and i’m like oh my goodness what’s the problem and they’ve heard him come back lately and go the problem is and you know you love it the problem is i didn’t get enough cheers it’s whatever her sister’s doing to her so that’s the problem the problem is her but right but the problem is she’s mean yes but he’s starting it off and i mean like and it does work i think what’s been hard lately is uh you know especially through this covet it’s also been transition for me so i haven’t been as patient and doing finding those words i’ve been short um you know as well through this process because we’re going through so much right but i feel like i’m going to ruin him no matter what i feel like kids are going to end up in therapy no matter what you do all parents just kind of like yeah absolutely absolutely yeah you know grow up to blame their parents for everything but i guess my goal would be to minimize the therapy and the amount of therapy they’ll need um but i haven’t been doing great lately i always say that my parents were too perfect and that messed me up i have heard you say that i haven’t i never i never learned how to have conflict and love at the same time because i never saw them fight you know so it’s been a so they really messed me up it doesn’t matter you just blame your parents it doesn’t matter so i think the cool thing about today’s podcast is that we can say like the theme of it basically is how to take shannon’s daughter from every time there’s a showing she’s kicking screaming and feeling violated or whatever to use some of these tips that lindsey’s given us to now every time there’s a showing maybe shane and your daughter will be running around with you making sure the lights are on and you know and like the beds are made or whatever right if they can we can take them from a freak out to a help out but it’s interesting little changes right if little things would have made a major impact it’s really cool i think i think also the biggest takeaway that any anyone any family moving though can um go through and do those storyboards of sorts or that scrapbook even if they’re moving to a different neighborhood and you know the kids get attachment to those houses and their rooms right so i think this could help anyone moving that has children i think it helps us i think that’s a good idea even for me because i’m like oh my gosh this is the house that we brought our kids home to and you know started our family so i think for me that that piece of advice is actually going to help me um transition better well i’m sure that driving her around to her school and all these places and taking the photos is going to be cathartic or whatever for you too i would assume right yeah i think so lindsay knows what she’s doing wow look at lindsay so i think it’s really going to make a big impact though well i’m positive i’m glad i really appreciate it so i mean we really appreciate you being here and taking the time i know that you know you guys work at home everybody’s going a little bit you know life is not normal for any of us for sure so let’s we’ll we’ll wrap this up if that’s okay with everyone but lindsay do you mind telling us how people can get telling anyone listening how they can get a hold of you if you assume that you want new new customers absolutely so the best way would probably be our website which is emotionalgrowthstl.com okay um we’re also on facebook and instagram so you just google emotional growth right if you look up emotional growth or and st louis you’ll you’ll find us okay so i love it this has been amazing i hope everyone listening will call you at least for me my plan will be probably to share this podcast with clients you know for years to come for them to listen to and hopefully reach out to you and stuff like that so you’ve been super helpful uh today and in the future already you’ve already helped people in the future that’s exciting awesome cool okay anything else you want to say before we wrap it up i don’t think so thank you for having me happy new year absolutely my pleasure thank you very much shannon great idea for a topic yes okay go work on my scrapbook now okay take care thank you guys