A Non-Anxious Presence with Dr. William Stixrud

I'm joined by my co-host and co-author of The Self-Driven Child Dr. William Stixrud to discuss how to be a non-anxious presence for your kids when things feel stressful and scary in the world. As parents and educators, modeling calmness and confidence helps children feel braver.

Dr. Bill Stixrud is a clinical neuropsychologist and co-author of the bestselling books The Self-Driven Child and What Do You Say? His work focuses on supporting kids to build resilience, motivation, and handle anxiety.

Timeline Summary:

[00:39] - Introducing the idea of a "non-anxious presence" and why it's so valuable for kids.

[02:43] - Where Dr. Stixrud first came across this concept and what it means.

[04:37] - Children look to parents' reactions in stressful situations. Staying calm helps kids feel confident.

[06:16] - Accepting worst-case scenarios while remaining motivated to support your child.

[09:23] - Taking care of yourself models self-care and brings equilibrium.

[11:06] - The benefits of scheduling prescribed worry time.

[12:40] - Dr. Stixrud's 50-year meditation practice for managing stress.

[15:43] - Rats turning a wheel to activate the prefrontal cortex and reduce stress.

[18:31] - Validating children's difficult feelings while emphasizing their competence.

[21:02] - Making home a safe haven and modeling handling hard emotions.

[22:35] - The recipe for developing resilience: stress plus rest and recovery.

[24:09] - Being calm helps other people manage crises better.

[25:50] - Good sleep gives perspective on challenges.

[27:27] - Wishing for peace in the Middle East. Moving towards non-anxious presence.

Links & Resources:

·         The Self-Driven Child by Bill Stixrud and Ned Johnson

·         What Do You Say? by Bill Stixrud and Ned Johnson

If you found this episode helpful, please rate, follow, share, and review the Self Driven Podcast. Being a non-anxious presence helps kids handle hard things. Look for opportunities to model calmness, confidence, and coping. Wishing you peace in unsettled times.

If you have a high school aged student and would like to talk about putting a tutoring or college plan together, reach out to Ned's company, PrepMatters at www.prepmatters.com

Transcript

Dr. William R. Stixrud: 0:49

The difference between us and animals, if a Zebra is being chased by a lion, and it escapes, is stress hormones normalized in 45 minutes, when we're stressed, we can keep stress, high stress hormones for days at a time, weeks at a time, months at a time, longer. And so I try to move in this direction of being a non anxious presence, meaning part, that we're going to be more adept at handling really hard things when they do happen. And we do this in part by practice, it's by developing practices, including practices regarding the way we think, practices for throwing off stress, particular self care.

Ned Johnson: 1:29

Welcome to the self driven Job Podcast. I'm your host, Nick Johnson, and co author with Dr. Williams structured of the books, the self driven child, the science and sense of giving your kids more control over their lives. And what do you say, how to talk with kids to build motivation, stress tolerance, and a happy home? When things are hard, and feelings are hard, one of the things that we as parents and educators can do, it's most helpful to little people, is to as best we can move in the direction of being a non anxious presence. It's not easy to do, particularly when things are as inflamed as they are right now. And this is the week after the attack on Israeli settlers by Hamas out of the way to listen to this, but it's a lot going on right now. So we wanted to talk about what we can do to be a non anxious presence, why it's so valuable, and what are practical things that all of us can do. And it may seem a little life to talk about this when I'm really far away from the goings on, on the other side of the world. But it's when things are most hard that probably has its most valued. I'm joined today by of course, my dear friend and partner and scribe, Dr. Dwayne sticks rude, we're going to talk about and non edge. This presents a concept that we introduced in the self tripping child and followed up with a language of a non anxious presence in our book, what he's saying. And that Johnson and this is the self given child. Hi, Bill, boy, what a week. Yeah. Again, I feel like oh, my gosh, I almost feel can I even talk about this when I know so many people have such closer connection to that. Nothing but terrible things that are going on. And so it is hard to watch. And when things that it seems to me, we don't want to turn our back on it. But to be mired in the all the while is it's just it's a lot. Yeah. But before we jump into kind of what we suggest for folks to do is talk about this idea of a non anxious presence, where you stumbled on this and what we mean by that,

Dr. William R. Stixrud: 3:33

yeah, years ago, one of my friends turned me on to this guy by the name of Edwin Friedman is a family therapist and a rabbi, that he studied systems, including family systems and the way schools work, and churches work and organizations work in corporations and synagogues. And he did a lot of consulting in these various organizations. And he concluded that any organization from a family to a corporation that worked best that the people in charge are not highly anxious, it was chronically anxious, and emotionally reactive, where they can communicate courage, as opposed to fear. And, and I think that that it's a really lovely goal. But with both our books, we encourage parents to think about the wisdom of moving that direction of being a non anxious presence in their family, it doesn't mean never feeling nervous, it doesn't tune in faint meaning never feeling anxious. It just means moving that direction of as usin saying that showing off more stress than you take on. And learning how to look at life in a way that you can see that you can we model for kids is a courageous attitude, and confidence that I can handle art stuff without becoming emotional well. So certainly when parents are calm, kids are calming, kids, you're calm, parents are calm, emptiness, the way the way family sees you all systems work. As we know all emotions are contagious. In the first book, we emphasize that stress is contagious, including our stress that gets pick up and vice versa. And the second book we mentioned that calm is contagious, which is the one of the mantras, the Navy SEALs they have to go into to to get really war torn areas and try to calm things down. There's all kinds of reasons why being a non anxious presence is really good for kids. There's also a reason why it's really good for us as adults to as parents and grandparents.

Ned Johnson: 5:27

And may that tick tock the other day about some of these points, and the comments have been really interesting and a lot of folks saying I can't get into my head and I can't stop watching and I can't stop thinking about it. And you know invites it's nature anxiety is fearful thoughts fearful thinking that we often can't Let's go up. And my head goes a little bit too, because we always talk about a sense of control. And it's a pickup and point that the two talks about there being a non axis president doesn't mean that you're never concerned upset, anxious along. But doing it in a way being able to pivot over to, and I can handle this and I meant I may have a brain that's a little bit peculiar, but for as long as I can remember, I've rehearsed in my head, just all kinds of terrible things, car crashes, and accidents, just all kinds of stuff, including when I would dream, and it would almost always end with and here's how I would navigate how miraculous and of course, mine, but how I would navigate out of that or how I would be able to handle it. And it seems to me that we can anticipate fearful things, terrible outcomes, and then just rehearse disaster, or we can have the similar situations and rehearse how we would handle them. And it seems to be that the added point that perhaps allows us to be less anxious, if you have the sense in this terrible situation, there's something I could do this constructive or in this terrible situation. I can handle it even it's just emotion.

Dr. William R. Stixrud: 7:06

Yeah. So many of the parents that I work with that they just have a lot of anxiety about to kids, because I only see kids that they're having problems. And what occasionally I'll see a sibling of somebody who just doesn't seem to have any probably, but they just want to find out what they're good at, and what's hard for him like that. But I only see kids if they're struggling in some ways. So parents are almost inevitably worried. If it was some parents, I say, what I want you to do is to think about what's the worst case scenario and work towards making peace with the worst case scenario? Meaning were I still love my kid 1,000%? Would I still do everything I could to support? Russia? Would I be as motivated as I possibly could be didn't get any kind of support or help if they needed? Yeah, even the worst case scenario? And an evolution your parents say? Of course I would. And when I used to do therapy, I used to ask the question, if you weren't really worried and upset about this, what are you afraid would happen? And the parents would inevitably say, either, that would prove the I'm a completely I lack compassion, and I lack empathy for people or a PhD, but I wouldn't do everything I could to help. I wouldn't be motivated. And I'd say, Are you saying that just out of love for your kid, you wouldn't be motivated? Do everything you could even if you didn't worry all the time? That I'd say, are you really saying that if you weren't worried about this specific name, you could be completely lacking in apathy that LSE bid or geological escapades. The other formative experience for me and dad was very early in my career, seeing this period of an eighth grader, grades a boy who was mildly depressed. And the dad started crying and said, this should be the happiest time in his life. And then he started crying. And he said, I just want him to feel good about himself. That I said respectfully, I think we can more convincingly helping feel good about himself, if we aren't worried sick about anxiety, or sorrow, or even grief. And this is as many people who had relatives in Europe or did Yes, we will. Grief is important. That sorrow is important. or anxiety, as you said, we wish we didn't have anxiety we'd be debt is part of the fight or flight is the flight part of the stress response. Right now we've talked about the fight or flight response. The flight part is anxiety avoidance, we stay away from things that make us suspect we need it, right. But the difference between us and animals, if a Zebra is being chased by a lion, in that it escapes, is stress hormones normalized in 45 minutes. When we're stressed, we can keep stress, high stress hormones for days at a time, weeks at a time, months at a time warmer. So I try to move in this direction of being a non anxious presence mean in part, that we're going to be more adept at handling really hard things when they do happen. And we do this in part by practice, since by developing practices, including practices regarding the way we think, practices for throwing off stress, particular self care, that allow us to be distressed to not be overwhelmed.

Ned Johnson: 10:12

And before we before we jump into some of the things they say, I want to circle back to two quick points. They made one thinking about parents who are worried sick about their kids, and you're helping them realize that they could let go of that fear about their kids, and still be motivated to everything that they could if they loved them, but my kids were gonna spend too much time at Children's Hospital and you walk in there and think every single kid in here is sick are really sick. And some of these kids are not going to have good outcomes, but to be as effective as they are the doctors and nurses over there have to To keep a certain equilibrium, and yet they've made it their careers to care about and care for sick and injured kids. Yeah. When I think about what's going on in Israel, and Gaza right now, I think that it's possible to hold a balance where we can both care deeply. But we don't jump into the deep end of the pool and feel things as intensely as everyone else might be attending to things that are scary, either on your phone or on TV, or even just in your head and thinking about that all day long to have your brain and your nervous system, they into just a constant stew of cortisol is not going to do good things for you, or anyone else. So one of the things that I suggested is that people literally schedule time to worry, meaning let's go and look at the news when we get up in the morning or nine o'clock or coffee breaker. And then again at lunch, maybe again in the evening, but to schedule times to worry about lest you find yourself thinking about or obsessing about it every minute of every day, that drip feed of cortisol, it's not too good for brains is it?

Dr. William R. Stixrud: 11:56

It's not too good for brains? No, it's over prolonged time ne it does bad things to bring. Maybe it's a really beautiful point. And when I see a therapy very often, I'd recommend it prescribed worry time. Because the Distressor acts on our brain are constantly alert for danger, that there's something that we're worried about, we aren't we evolved, we stopped thinking about it. Because our brain doesn't know the difference between a sick kid, for example, and a predator, you paid attention to something other than the predator, you'd be eating. So we evolved, that did not be able to turn our back on the threat. And yet one of the ways that we can take we develop a sense of control is exactly what he suggests it is by say, building my brand. I'm not going to turn my back on it. I'm going to look at this again in three hours. But right now I'm going to focus on this other stuff, it's safe for me to focus on something else.

Ned Johnson: 12:53

You know, another thing we talk about when the inflows of stress are not balanced by healthy outflows, stress. Everything bad that world happens from too much drinking to violence and just every stress, anxiety depression on on and on it goes. And in addition to script scheduling time to stress it feels to me like there's root value in purposely scheduling, in this case, increasing times to de stress right, more than anyone I know you may be the paradigm of a person who schedules time, and the things that are productive, that productively de stress you.

Dr. William R. Stixrud: 13:30

Yeah, so I had the experience of flunking out of graduate school the first time I went because I was so stressed and anxious and insecure. I didn't turn a work in for 20 quarters. When I work with other underachievers I say I went 20 weeks through it, and nothing popped that was desperate to be more functional. And when a person has literally said, there's anybody in this planet that needs to learn to meditate, it's you. So I learned transcendental meditation when I was 23. And within a couple months, my foot stopped tapping, this facial tic I developed went away, I could sit and read for two hours at a time as opposed to 12 minutes before I had to distract myself. And so I really had, I was young enough time that that I didn't have kids. So it is easy for me to to make it a priority my day, twice a day. And so I've done it twice a day for 50 years. So for me, I mean I we have this crisis of mental health in children, teenagers and adults, you owe crisis of loneliness. And these are all stress related problems. And if we just slept more, if we had more resources for if we were more regular and exercising, or meditating or doing whatever we do, this will be completely different.

Ned Johnson: 14:43

I don't have 50 years of meditating because I would have been three when I started. I've been doing I don't know it's been a decade anyway, now and to your point, I am about as protected, but my sleep almost design my children and exercise regularly and meditate. When I think about that, it's moments like that when things are really going south, in a hurry going sideways. As they were gonna, you know, I'm five miles away from my kid and what you know, it's like, okay, so what can I do? What are choices here and you'll you sure want to be more helpful, rather less indeed, to think more clearly rapid less. And I am grateful to do that kind of pre emptive work to have a stress system that can handle things when they when they get more intense. So yeah, and I remember, gosh, I remember you know, most people are old enough to remember 911 And I was watching it, watch it and watch it and get to the point here now as well. And at some point like I have to stop watching this. And I remember I mean, at least were part of over the line. I'm in DC, September 11, was one of the most spectacularly beautiful autumn days, you know, I mean, it just it was bluebird sky and bright and crisp. And one of the darkest days in America, when the most beautiful days, at least remind everybody, and like, you know, I'm gonna go for a walk. And my wife and I went live and walk because you can if you again, if you have this inflow of stuff, if you don't do things to get it out, it's pretty hard not to have it overwhelm you. Yeah, yeah. You know, I read the papers everyday to know what's going on. But I can read the description of war, and know how bad it is. And think about what I need to get help. I don't have to see the images of it, to know how bad it is to think about how I want to help. Yeah,

Dr. William R. Stixrud: 16:32

I think it's to net just in relation to parents, you know, I think about we've got to this idea of how important the sense of control lives in part to the work of of Steven there. You know, I didn't have you know, classic study rat, a rat be in a plexiglass cage with with with tails outside the cage and with little electrode on it, and we'll inside the cage, and a rat, a good shot doesn't like it per Institute is a wheel shot stopped, rat B gets shot through the wheel, nothing happens. Until rat a turns his bow, it rat a has this experience of something stressful happening. And when you're under stress in your prefrontal cortex activates, that Deb has done your stress response, you think about it. So you've been a situation that has been very challenging, you're coping with it. It's not that stressful. What's really stressful is when you start to feel oh, my God, what I'm trying to do here is such feel helpless. Oh, well, it was really stressful, because coping is not particularly stressful. So you'd have low stress hormones, turning that wheel. And that even after several times, even we disconnected the wheel, he turned that wheel but and he still wasn't very stressed just the prefrontal cortex, dampening down the stress response. And in many ways, we want kids to have enough experience of stressful things happening, and being able to deactivate their prefrontal cortex. So they go into coping mode. And ideally, if we, if we move, choose to move in this direction of the non anxious presence, we're going to increasingly be able to go into coping mode, and stressful things happen and condition our brain to go there as opposed to major avoidance or panicking or freaking out under stressed it really helpless. If we want that for our kids, we can both model it. And also from from the very early animal studies in that done 1950s We know that if a key something stressful happens to a kid, and the parents watching the kids Herzing look to see how the parent reacts. If parents react says you got this honey, you know that? It's a very different than

Ned Johnson: 18:27

pick, panics. Right? Right, right, it's

Dr. William R. Stixrud: 18:30

more much more likely to cry. Again, it's not that we should never feel anxious. Besides that, we should never worry. It's not that we should never feel sorrow or grief, that it's good for kids to see me as a Martian. It's also good for kids to get the message that even though it's painful, I know I can handle it. And I know you can chew it, even though it's really hard to express empathy. In a space program supported parenting of anxious childhood emotions program, really prob about a year, the trees, childhood anxiety, and OCD. Just working with parents, the first thing periods are taught to do is make supportive statements, which is empathy. I know this is really, this is really sad, it's really scary, whether you'd really be really nervous about this. And yet, I'm 100% confident you can handle it. I've been in stressful situations, this is really hard. And I know I couldn't handle like an are up to

Ned Johnson: 19:21

I imagine that depending for folks who are listening, depending on how your kids are, and they see this thing to talk about whatever and it's easy for you, for many people, and they find themselves since at a loss of what what do I say, right? And so when a kid is upset about, you know, Israel or anything else, it can be really easy to fall into something like you know, we'll it'll all be okay, well, we don't necessarily know that. And I don't like to like to say things I know to be true. And that can also unintentionally kind of sweep aside that feeling of like, let's end we're we're done with we're done with our feelings. To go back to what you just said Bill of the validation like, oh my goodness, sweetie, this is really scary. This is hard stuff. And then the validation, you know, you know, this is hard for me too. But, you know, I think that we're brave people and I think we're gonna find a way to to handle this, you know, and so by validating you recognize that you have this is a lot particularly for a kid who's you know, doesn't have the experience that you as a parent have, and to emphasize the competence that you can handle this. So because it's this message of Courage isn't the lack of fear, right? It's been fearful and saying, I'm getting you to get through this like rabbit This is terrible. And I can handle this I don't like it at all these are I don't like how this feels. I don't like being like this paragon school for kill your children. The protagonist was upset that he had failed to, you know, he thought it was his job to protect his friends and he wasn't able to do it. And he was feeling so bad and I couldn't, I couldn't keep you safe. And his friend turned him and said something like, you don't need to make us feel safe. You did something so much more important, because you made us feel brave. And it's a tricky thing, right? Because, you know, we as parents are wired to protect and soothe our kids and we want them to be we want them to be safe, right? What's curious in this situation, if we're here, and we're not, you know, in the middle of a warzone, they are saying, but they can learn to be brave, even by sitting with and not having to sweep aside, we certainly don't want to toxic positivity and say, you know, it's no big deal. Let's just go watch Mickey Mouse. Right? To say this is yeah, this is really hard stuff. And we're a family in handle. You know, I've learned to handle hard feelings

Dr. William R. Stixrud: 21:52

that are second book, you know, we talk about the the challenges faced of people of color, and in people living in communities that aren't as safe. How do you balance? You know, keep reading to your kid, then you got you got to keep yourself safe, without making the kid overly anxious. So I knew that

Ned Johnson: 22:09

what I would say is part of that is making home feel like the safe base. Yeah, I was lecturing at a local school about what he's saying. And at the end of the signing books, and this mom came up to me, she was an African American woman. And she said, I bought this self driven child during the summer of 2020, which remember, height of COVID. Right? George Floyd, Black Lives Matter me everything. And she looked me in the eye. And she said, she said, I bought that book in 2020, when it felt like America was hunting people who would look like my kid. Yeah, 14 year old. And she said, But I determined that I was going to make home feel like a safe base. Yep. And it completely changed my relationship with my kid. And yeah, I mean, you're it's such a good point, though. I mean, what I experiences, what I experienced and what someone else experienced what they experienced. But we can go up because we know that the the recipe for developing resilience, right is difficulty adversity, plus support, adversity, plus coping. If we can make home feel like the same day, it's in part by our dean and non anxious presence. It's a place where kids can have stress recovery, after stressful things, whether that school or friends, or even things that they're watching today, this

Dr. William R. Stixrud: 23:24

psychiatrist at Columbia University has another formula for resilience. And it's stress plus rest, the recovery piece, I think, which is which is the sleep and the meditation piece. And certainly, when we're really stressful things happening, it is harder to sleep. And it's where it's nice to have a secondary way to calm your mind, you know, and many people, they sleep better, they exercise a lot. This even laying restful, it really prioritizes remembering how important is this stressful things are happening for ourselves and for our kids. This is to take care of ourselves and model self care.

Ned Johnson: 24:02

And when I keep thinking about is, even if your kids aren't or people around, you aren't picking that up right now. Simply doing those things for yourself. You can be a stress sponge, to other people, you know, and it's just it's not always intuitive, that one of the ways that you can help other people is simply being less stressed yourself. Yeah, my brother was a disaster in the book was, again, it's a paramedic. And so paramedics folks don't know tend to be frontline workers and get things when it's really kind of wild, wooly, and then bring them in to try to get them stabilized them to get them to the hospital where they can do more advanced treatment. And so he followed a patient into the ER, I was there with a bunch of folks in the ER nurses and near ER doctors. And one of these people at the end of them turned to him and said, Thank you so much for being here. Your composure made it so much easier for us to do our work.

Dr. William R. Stixrud: 24:59

Yeah, yeah. In both our books, we talk about a low sense of control being the most stressful thing you experience. And so when things feel we talked a lot about this during COVID, things feel really threatening, you know, the, what makes nefs life stressful is nuts. You know, it's novelty and predictability, perceived threat, and low sense of control. And moving in COVID. I mean, to just check all four boxes, right? And so what do you recommend people do in part, focus on what you can control? Right, right. Partly as you control one, I worry, what will what am I worry times how much I worry, the job that we can choose to exercise or not? That I'll mention that I read a study in Germany recently, I've been sending during the pandemic The title this study was it's all about control. And it was a study of the effects of exercise on the mood of young adults. And not surprisingly, exercise had a lot better mood a lot better positive, more positive mental health, with adults who didn't, their active ingredient was increased their sense of control, they could do something. You just remembering the day that it's not necessarily something stressful happens that we feel overly anxious when we suddenly touch this will happen and we don't know what to do. Right? You know, that your work at times is stressful as as is mine, I deal a lot of really very distressed people. But because I I've done this a long time. And I usually you have some idea what to do. I don't feel stressed by you know, I just I just spent an hour people try to try to cope with it. You're just how do we cope here? What can we do?

Ned Johnson: 26:40

Yeah. And I answered that, of course, making sleep a priority. And we talked about this, but I'll emphasize it again, that we think about so often when we're tossing and turning late at night, you know, anxiously deviously trying to think these things through. And if we get a good night's sleep, we wake up the next day, and we feel better. And it's not that the problems have changed. It's simply that with a more rested brain, we'd increase the sense that I can handle what life has chosen to throw at me right now.

Dr. William R. Stixrud: 27:13

Yeah, yeah. You know, and when we're less anxious, it's easier to let kids solve their own problems, because because we're mammals, we are wired to protect our young and deceive them. And yet the way they because we have to do that when they're little. And as they get older, if we continued all that protecting in the suiting, we weaken them, because they are undeveloped, that, that that coping brain, and to develop the confidence where you go into a stressful situation, and not be overly stressed by it is, you know, I've been in situations like I've been, I can handle stressful situations where we're calmer. It's easier to remember not not just to jump in, and try to solve problems in Parkers, because juggling solves neutrals problems, makes us feel less stressed, because we're doing something. And yet what's most important for our kids, they said, We express confidence that they can handle it, not try to jump in, because you're gonna say, is there a way that I could help? Right? What can you take to do to make this better, we're less anxious, we were less reactive.

Ned Johnson: 28:17

Well, for folks who are listening, and all of us with our attention, turn towards the Middle East. And the hard times there. If you have friends there, if you have family there, we can only wish the best of outcomes there. And that peace comes back to that core world, which too often feels like it doesn't have enough of that. In the meantime, I hope that you can be a non anxious presence or move in that direction. Because whatever your connection, intense or distant, it helps you and everybody that you know, to move in the direction of union about anxious Bill. Thanks for joining me that I'm Dan Johnson, the host of the self driven Job Podcast. Thanks for listening. Hey, folks, Ned here. Over the past 25 years, I've talked with 1000s of parents of high school students, parents who care deeply about their kids education and how they deal with stress and the pressure to succeed. But these parents need to work with a team they trust won't just pile on more pressure to achieve better grades and scores. This is why I started prep matters in 1997 to create a different kind of experience for test preparation, tutoring in college admissions planning. This podcast and my books reflect our company's philosophy and approach to helping students if you have a high school student and we'd like to talk about putting in place a plan, please get in touch with us, visit our website at prep matters.com or call 301-951-0350. That's 301-951-0350 Thanks