Hi everyone and welcome back to Airway First, a podcast from the Children's Airway First
Foundation.
I'm your host, Rebecca St. James.
My guest today is Angie Weber.
Angie is the mom of twins, a wife, a podcast host, and is the creator of the Parent Toolbox.
On a mission to break generational cycles, Angie has taken her knowledge of natural products
and the therapeutic techniques she learned through her own healing journey to provide
parents with more tools and tricks for their parenting toolbox.
You can find out more about Angie at theparenttoolbox.info.
And now let's jump into my interview with Angie Weber.
All right.
Thank you so much for being on the show today, Angie.
I really appreciate it.
Well, I'm so honored to be on here and to be able to hopefully share some really great
tips with your listeners.
So thank you for having me on.
Absolutely.
Before we dig in, and I do want to start with your personal journey just so everybody understands,
I don't think, and we were talking about this earlier, for most people this is going to
be a real obvious connection to what we do with airway and sleep-related disorders for
children.
But what drew me to you was when I found you and your website, I started thinking about,
you know, we've had a campaign where we've talked about, it's back there, the impact
of airway and sleep disorders on children.
You know, it is physiological.
There is a brain component to it, and there is an emotional component to it that people
just don't realize you go through this and it just kind of beats you down.
You know, speaking as somebody that lives with an airway disorder, it beats you down.
You know, when you have to go back to the doctor, you have to go back for treatments
and do this and that.
And then, you know, not only that, which I know, so we'll be touching on that, but as
parents of children with airway and sleep disorders, you just feel like you're on this
island by yourself.
You know, what do you do?
How do you help your children?
What's the right reaction?
How do I help myself?
You know, so that's really what we're going to be talking about today, just so parents
kind of understand where we're coming from.
So let's jump in, and I would like to start with your own personal story and your journey
that has led you to your website and your podcast, of which we'll put links all throughout
our show notes.
Awesome.
Yeah.
So my journey really started because I was trying to heal from some trauma that had happened
in my life a few years ago, and I was, you know, using some of the tools that I still
share and I was going to therapy, you know, pretty regularly, but I just felt like there
was a piece missing and it really came in to me, I think in the summer of 2021, when
I was like, there's something wrong within me and I need to do the hard work, unfortunately,
to fix it because it's not going to be anything anyone else says or does that's going to be
able to fix that.
I have to figure out how to do this myself.
And being a more holistic person to, I was trying to avoid if possible medication on
my journey.
And so one of my girlfriends actually introduced me to this thought of doing an outpatient intensive
treatment program.
And typically when we think of a treatment program, we think like, oh, you went for
drugs or alcohol or something like that.
But this program actually was specifically for anxiety, depression and PTSD.
And so when they say it was intense, it was, it was the hardest thing, the scariest thing
I've ever done.
And I was just talking to my husband last night about it actually, and it was the absolute
best thing that I could have done.
I learned so many foundational pieces that were just unfortunately not taught on how
to manage our emotions and our mental health and really figuring out like how all of this
is interconnected within our body and our mind.
And so I just started using so many of these tools and they were making such a difference
not only in my life, but also in my kid's life.
And it was like, oh my gosh, more people need to know about this.
So since 2018, I have been educating full time about essential oils and helping people
make more positive, healthy choices in their homes.
And so I did a class called the parent toolbox.
And it really brought together these therapeutic techniques that I had learned and also these
more holistic options that we can kind of pair together because I just really wanted
to share the information and give people some resources and tools that they could be using
to see good results as well.
And after the class, so many parents said to me, well, why aren't we taught this before?
Like why aren't they sharing this in schools when we're younger or even moms who are empty
nesters that said, I really wish I would have had these tools when my kids were younger
because I think they probably thought all I did was yell.
And so that was, you know, which I think a lot of us can can relate to.
And that's never the thoughts that you want to have when you think back on your parenting
journey or, you know, you assume that your kids, that's all they remember when most of
the time it's not.
I mean, if you ask the kids, you know, we went on, we went camping a couple of weekends
ago and I definitely got pushed to like my limit at some points.
And I later talked to my kids and said, you know, I'm sorry, mom and dad got frustrated
and you know, we're kind of cranky and my daughter's like, what are you talking about?
You know, so thankfully kids are pretty, pretty graceful for us more than they probably should
be.
But that was kind of the whole start of this is I just felt this need to get this information
out there.
And so I say that I really am on a mission to break these generational parenting cycles.
And I don't say that to put shame on any generation before us.
It's just that they did the best with the tools that they had.
But that doesn't mean we have to carry those tools with us on our own parenting journey.
Right.
And I will tell you, it's funny, your, your monetary or your mission to break those generational
cycles is one of the first things that grabs me.
Yeah.
We've all had stuff growing up, right?
And so we all, it's like, oh, I don't want to do that.
I don't want to do that.
But it's interesting because, you know, listening to some of, some of your podcasts, there are
things that, you know, you talk about, we gotta get rid of this guilt, this mom guilt.
Cause I'll tell you what, I've carried it all moms carry it, right?
And it's just, you know, to what extent.
And I think part of it is, you know, cause there are moments where you catch yourself
and you can hear your mom's voice coming out of you and you go, no, I don't want to say
that.
So I think that's, I think it's fantastic.
And it is something that.
Like you said, don't have guilt, we don't know.
And we say this a lot on this podcast, you know, especially in medical professionals
come in and we're talking about different diagnoses and things.
And we could have seen some of these airway issues earlier and we didn't catch them, but
we didn't know.
So to me, this falls in the same bucket.
You're right.
No one teaches this stuff growing up.
They don't teach you in the home act.
They don't teach you in any other class in school.
They don't teach you in the baby classes.
They teach you what to do with the baby, but not, you know, not how to do this.
So let's just, let's start with some basics out of the gate.
Because one of the things that parents deal with stress and anxiety that comes with all
of this, right?
Both for their children and for themselves.
You know, your, your, your kid is, you've just figured out, wow, your child has a breathing
disorder.
There's function of some kind.
And you're working with a myopunctional therapist maybe, or they just had the tongue tie release
or whatever your particular situation is and it's stressful for the, for the child.
And it's all these different emotions that are floating through them.
And then as a parent, now you're dealing with it.
What are some tools that, that we could use just as parents to calm and kind of center
and ground ourselves or with our children?
Yeah.
Well, there's so many.
And I just kind of want to make a caveat that when we do this work and a lot of the
parents that I work with, you know, of course they come and want to do like parent coaching
with me because they're like, my kid is doing this or that or, you know, they're having
this behavior.
How can I, what can I do to fix that?
When in reality, a lot of the times it's that unfortunately we have to re-parent ourselves.
Because like you said, sometimes we hear those things come out of our mouth that we just
like instantly want to grab back because we're like, Oh, no, that's my mom coming out or
that's my dad coming out.
And I said, I'd never do that.
And so we were really, a lot of us grew up being like suppressing our emotions.
So we were told, don't cry, don't worry about it.
It's not that big a deal.
Why are you upset?
You shouldn't be so angry, whatever it was that you heard.
And again, not guilt from our parents, but what that did is kind of like put a stop at
us tuning into our own body.
And instead of sitting in that uncomfortable feeling, we want to shove it down.
And exactly, you don't really want to deal with it.
So then when we come into situations where we're stressed out, we're probably going more
towards what I like to call survival resources.
So those are ways that we're just numbing out and trying to avoid versus trying to address
the emotions that are coming up, especially when it comes around stress.
And for your listeners in their situation, you know, I can't even imagine like having
to go through so many different medical hoops and doctors.
And I know that that also brings a layer of, you know, having to advocate for yourself
and for your child, and that can be so challenging in the medical world as a mom.
And so the biggest tool that I really like to educate my parents on is called the window
of tolerance.
And so there's some great videos out there.
It was coined by Dan Siegel.
He's a clinical professor.
He explains it really well.
I like to kind of break it down into more of a childlike version, just so it's a little
easier to kind of understand.
So I always tell people, pretend that you're standing straight, you know, in front of a
window, you're standing confident, everything's good.
When you're like that, this is where we're in our sweet spot of emotions when we're thriving,
we're able to communicate, we're able to receive.
And so if you're standing in front of that window, you can see that the grass is green
and you can see the sun shining and you can hear the birds chirping and you can smell,
you know, the dew on the grass or whatever it is, like that's again, where we're thriving.
Now there's little things that are going to happen throughout our day, right?
Because otherwise it'd be pretty mom boring, you know, so maybe your kid forgets their
lunch or they spilled a glass of milk or, you know, you forgot something on the counter
and you're on your way to work already.
Like those little things happen.
But what we really want to start paying attention to and start observing is when are we starting
to get outside that sweet spot of emotions?
And so there's two extremes that you can go to.
You can go to hyperarousal, which I like to call high activation and compare that to if
you were bouncing off the ceiling.
So this is kind of our fighter flight mode.
If you're bouncing off the ceiling, you're not going to be able to exactly tell what's
going on outside that window because you're going to be moving too fast.
The other extreme, we can be in hypoarousal or what I like to call low activation, which
is our freeze mode.
And that's like as if you were laying on the floor underneath the window, you're not really
going to be able to see anything going out that way either.
So what we can do is we can start tuning into our body so that we can be more proactive
when these situations, these triggers and these emotions come up and we can start kind
of taking a pause and saying, you know, what are my thoughts like right now?
What kind of emotions are coming up?
What kind of body sensations?
What kind of body movement or urges am I having right now?
Are any of my five senses dulled or are they heightened?
And so we just start really kind of trusting our body to give us these cues and really
listening to our intuition.
And that's usually the first step.
And like I said, unfortunately, we have to do this for ourselves before we can expect
our children to do it because they are like little sponges and they will show us the best
and worst parts of ourselves based on what they see.
And so we really need to be practicing it before we can expect our kids to be practicing
it.
But once we start identifying those things, like let's say that it's in the morning and
your child gets very anxious and stressed out in the morning and it's because you have
to go to school or to daycare or wherever it is, you know, if you really step back and
kind of start observing, maybe it's because you're trying to fit too much into a 20 minute
window.
Maybe that's the frustration that's happening.
Maybe we need to lengthen that by 10 minutes, you know, so we can start kind of identifying
these little things and we can also start using more healthy, safe resources or coping
skills.
So that's breathing, essential oils for anger.
I love actually to talk about anger because I think it gets a really bad reputation where
no feelings or emotions are bad.
Everyone has them.
And so when it comes to anger, for example, we don't have to bottle it up where we might
just burst at the seams at some point.
We can do things like push against a wall, scream into a pillow, stomp as hard as you
can outside on the ground.
Maybe you play the drums on the couch.
There's so many little things that we can do to help release that energy and help us
get back into that sweet spot of emotions instead of just trying to bottle them up, which is
going to do more damage to your nervous system and possibly create more stress down the line.
I agree wholeheartedly and especially that part about anger.
That is such a misnomer.
And again, like you said, it's what we were taught.
I can't, you take it, you squish it down, but it does come out at the worst time.
And I think as you said, you know, with kids, that was one of the first things I noticed
as a parent was to see that come back to me where I would watch my children squish it down,
all these things.
And I'm thinking, wow, that's not good.
But it's like you said, you have to kind of figure it out for yourself before you can
mirror it and then help them process.
Yeah.
And again, it's not a mom guilt.
We didn't know.
It's how we were raised.
So how are you going to know?
How are you going to know?
And it does have, as you mentioned, it does have physiological impacts throughout your
body.
Which I do want to mention, there is a podcast that I will put a link to in here where it
talks about, and I apologize, I cannot remember her name, but I will find it, put a link,
because it was really, really good.
Your body remembers trauma.
Unfortunately, yes.
Yeah.
And it has these lasting effects, which again, to me, is why this is such an important conversation
to have, not just for helping ourselves, but our children.
They're dealing with breathing issues and ADHD and all the other symptoms that come
with that, the sleeping disorders.
So I'd love to chat a little bit about that and some of the things that you learned during
that podcast about what does that do to you?
How does your body actually record and remember these things?
Yeah.
I mean, our body is this magnificent thing, right?
Like there's so many things that it can do and it can create and it's just, it's an amazing
thing and it's so complex.
And so sometimes when we go through trauma, we think, okay, well, I'm done.
I'm over it.
It's all good.
And then a couple of years later, you can be in the middle of a store and all of a sudden
like something comes up, you're like, whoa, where did that come from?
It's because our body, and there's a book called The Body Keeps The Score.
I have not read it yet.
It's very technical, I heard, and kind of science-y.
And that's not necessarily my jam.
So I haven't dug into it yet, but I have heard like some great things about it.
And the thing is that, yes, the body does keep the score.
Even if we think that we're over it, we've shut it off.
We've tried to move past it super quick.
It doesn't mean that it's still not stored in there.
So our nervous system can be out of whack.
It can be in our subconscious and maybe we just completely avoided it and we wanted to
shut it off.
But the truth is until we actually address it, until we do the healing around it, it
can show up in multiple ways.
It can show up in skin conditions.
It can show up with our moods, our behavior, our stress level.
And again, some days you're like, everything's good.
I'm great.
And then all of a sudden something clicks and it's like you're totally transformed back
into that trauma and you're not really sure how it even comes up.
And so I would just tell your listeners, especially with children who are going through these
medical issues, really work on bringing that to the surface so they're not suppressing
it, so that they don't have to sit hopefully in a therapist's office in their 30s trying
to unpack all of that because it is a lot of hard work.
Sure.
Yeah.
And especially another thing you don't realize, and again, this is personal experience.
You have this child that's going through this and they're getting TMJ surgery and they're
going through myofluminal therapy and all these things.
And then you take them back to a doctor and they suddenly start acting kind of weird and
you can't figure out why.
Yeah.
I mean, it's in there.
It doesn't matter what age it was, it's in there somewhere and they don't maybe not
have the words to express, hey, I've got some PTSD.
That was super traumatic.
I know I was like, hey, I can do this and I'm a little soldier through it, but that's
a lot of load to carry for a little person.
It definitely can.
And when I was going through my trauma, I remember I had went to the doctor's office
and they called me a couple of days later and I had no idea what they were talking about.
I completely blacked out during that.
I was so confused a couple of days later when they called me and I was like, what are you
like, it was the craziest experience.
I was like, what are you talking about until I like really looked at my calendar?
I was like, oh my gosh, I did go to the doctors the other day and I didn't even remember anything
from it.
So imagine if these children are getting these medical procedures at a young age, like it
doesn't mean just because they're young, they're not going to remember.
It can be stored in their body still.
And again, we have to try to help encourage and nurture them to work through that trauma
so that it doesn't come up later in life if possible.
Agreed.
And the book that you mentioned, I do have, I would have to go to get highly recommended.
We'll be linking it in the show notes for people because it is outstanding and it does.
It really, like you said, just because you're little doesn't mean it's not in there.
There's a lot in there.
One of the things that you're also a huge advocate for has to do with more natural, holistic
these kinds of treatments and support for your body and your mental well-being.
And you talk a lot about natural options like essential oils.
So for you personally, why is that such an important path?
So I actually used essential oils when I was in labor with my twins.
And so when I say, obviously, I don't know the hardships that all of your listeners go
to with go through with the medical procedures and seeking medical advice for the specific
issue.
I remember when I was pregnant, I think we went through about seven different doctors.
Like I was so adamant about being an advocate for myself and my babies even before they
were here because I just didn't sit right.
Some of the stuff they were telling me in my gut.
And so I used essential oils just because someone in my birthing class was like, I heard
they can work and I was like, I'll try anything.
I'll stand on my head if I don't have to have a needle put in my back.
So an epidural was always just something I was terrified of.
So I used them during my labor.
They were amazing.
I was able to do an unmedicated natural birth with my twins.
It was great, but I didn't have any support going forward about what do I do next.
So we kind of went back to, you know, are just same old, same old, getting stuff from
the stores, you know, grabbing stuff off the shelves.
And then about when my kids were about a year old, I started doing more digging into like,
what are we actually bringing into our homes?
And I was focused mostly on the physical aspects of that.
Like all these toxins that we're bringing into our home unknowingly because we think
when we go to the store and it's on the shelf, everything is safe, right?
It's not.
Right.
It's not.
Unfortunately, and we can see that throughout history of products, especially well-known
products, you know, being pulled off the shelf and then they say, you know, oh, we
reformulated it and all this kind of stuff, but it should be raising some red flags for
you.
And so, yeah, when my kids were about one, we started diving more into essential oils
and started just kind of replacing items in our home.
And at that point, I thought everything was fine or good enough.
I mean, I thought we had the same amount of sick days as everyone else did.
Nothing super odd of the ordinary.
But then when we started using more natural products and essential oils in our home, I
looked back and I was like, oh my gosh, we haven't had any sick days now.
And I have more focus and I have more energy and I'm in a better mood.
And so I kind of just like stood back and thought there's something to this.
Like we need to start replacing more things because although the physical attributes of
toxins can definitely lead to illnesses and, you know, the amount of exposure we have to
that and we can't control everything.
We can't eliminate all of it.
Yeah, but we can do the best we can in our homes.
And but then I started learning more about, okay, well, when we're using these toxins,
you know, they're creating unbalanced hormones and that's going to create more stress that
could create more weight gain that can create again, skin, you know, issues, brain fog,
stress, all these different things that are tied together.
And so yes, I love educating people about essential oils and how easy it is to just
make these simple swaps in their home to just be again, more proactive with our health because
we live in a very reactive society of it is, you know, I have a stomach ache.
I'm going to go take something for it now.
I have a headache.
I'm going to go take something for it now or whatever the case may be.
Instead, if we just started taking more of those proactive tips, which we were kind of
talking about before we even started recording, you know, about how working out and things
like that, those are proactive steps for our health because someone actually just shared
this on a meeting yesterday that a man without his health has one wish.
A man with his health has a million wishes.
Oh, and that really puts it because we never think anything's going to happen.
But then once it does, then we have to go in that reactive state versus what if we were
just a little bit more proactive and that encompasses mentally, physically and emotionally.
Absolutely.
And as you were talking, it's interesting.
I mean, so much just goes through my mind, which again, I'm going to tell parents over
and over, please go to your website because that's what happened when I went to your website.
I would find one thing and another thing and another thing.
There's a book I'm reading right now called Dirty Jeans and that's one of the things it
talks about that I don't want to quote it incorrectly, but it was over a million industrial
chemicals are out there.
And if you go to the CAS website where they catalog these things, you know, just acceptable
ones, there's over 350,000 in the US, in our homes, in the products, on the shelves, in
the grocery store.
You're listening to Airway First with today's guest Angie Weber.
You can find out more about the Children's Airway First Foundation and our mission to
fix before six on our website at children'sairwayfirst.org.
The CAF website offers tons of great resources for parents and medical professionals, including
videos, blogs, our recommended reading list, comprehensive medical research, podcasts,
and so much more.
We also encourage parents to join the Airway Huddle, our Facebook support group which was
created for parents of children with Airway and sleep-related issues.
You can access the Airway Huddle support group at facebook.com, backslash groups, backslash
Airway Huddle.
If you are a medical professional or parent that is interested in being a guest on our
show, shoot us a note via our contacts page on our website or send us an email directly
at infoatchildrensairwayfirst.org.
As a reminder, this podcast and the opinions expressed here are not a medical diagnosis.
And now let's jump back into my interview with today's guest, Angie Weber.
That's mind-blowing to me and I think about that when, you know, conversations I've had
with Dr. Susan Maples, for example, one of the things that impacts kids so strongly, allergies,
and we don't think about it, but if you have a chronic allergy, guess what?
Now your kid's a chronic mouth breather because their mouth's always going to be open to
Canberra, you know, and they're going to have sleep apnea.
And here we go.
Now we've started the process.
You have a dysfunction that, like you said, if we just go back to the root cause, so,
you know, why not try to be a little more intentional with what we bring in the home?
It's just, again, it's that shift, right?
If we can shift, you know, the kids will be able to shift.
Absolutely.
And it could possibly sound really overwhelming to some of your listeners of like, oh my gosh,
now I have to replace my home.
Yeah.
You know, and you need to kind of have it as a mentality of like, if you're trying to
eat healthier or maybe lose weight, if you decide I'm only eating broccoli and chicken
every single day for the rest of my life, you're going to give up after about day three
or you're going to be really crabby.
And so the same kind of thing, if you're trying to incorporate some more of these like parenting
techniques or natural products into your home, like just know every little step is still
a step forward.
You don't have to replace every single thing.
You can start, for example, with the oil breathe at night to see if that helps your child throughout
the night more, you know, just start with one little step and then you get to decide
the pace of your journey.
I love that.
That is huge.
And yeah, absolutely.
Because in other words, it is overwhelming, especially when I'm finding the more you read
and the more you find out, you're thinking, oh, I have so much to do.
Another thing that I really like that you mentioned, and I can't remember where I saw
this on your website, but we have to let our kids fall.
And again, I know a lot of people are like, what is that?
Have to do it anyway.
I think it actually has a lot to do with it because if we're, my opinion, so focused on
doing everything for them, you know, because you feel bad, they're having to go through
all this airway stuff or they're having to go through monofilamentation therapy.
I think there's a difference between supporting them and overcompensating going too far.
To me, this is a personal thing for me.
I have always believed that I wouldn't fall at home because that's where they learn.
But you know, why is this something that a piece of information that you honed in on
and that you advocate and teach to parents?
Why is this so important for us as parents to be doing with our children?
Yeah.
I absolutely love that you brought this up.
So even before I started doing all the parent tool box and parent coaching and the podcast
and all that, we had went to a sermon at our church and it was all about parenting.
And he was talking about the different types of parents.
And of course, he brought up helicopter parents, but he also brought up a new term called lawnmower
parents.
Yeah.
And so those type of parents try to mow out every single obstacle they can for their
child understandable, right?
Because we want to see our kids happy.
We want to see them thrive.
We don't want to see them suffer.
Like I am guilty of this sometimes where I am so protective over my kids innocence
right now of their childhood where I'm like, you there's so many other things that you're
going to have to worry about as you get older.
Like I just want you to enjoy it.
So you know, end of school.
Yeah.
I have a paintball fight.
Like I don't care.
Like get messy, do whatever you want.
Like just enjoy it.
However, the problem that comes in here with this and he was explaining this sermon was
actually kind of triggered by an article that had come out at the time about professors
from colleges getting calls from their students parents saying, why did my kid get this great
in college?
And so yeah,
We try to like hold my face still.
I'm sorry.
Right.
Exactly.
That visual reaction.
Yeah.
I'm not going to lie.
Still have my mom make me doctor's appointment sometimes when I was in college, but I never
had her call a professor to see why I got a certain grade, you know, right?
So the whole point of the sermon was with these lawn mower tactics.
What's when we think we're doing really good for our children, what we're actually doing
is we're not letting them strengthen their suffering muscle.
And there is going to be a point where we are not there to mount the obstacles.
So if we do not teach them the strategies and these coping skills that are healthy and
safe, if you're not there, they're not going to know what to do.
They are going to get rejected at some point in their life, whether it's from a job, a
contest, a sport, a love interest, whatever it is, if they don't have those tools in their
own toolbox to get over those failures and rejections, what are they going to do?
I mean, there is a huge rise in mental health issues with children.
Unfortunately, there's a huge rise in suicide among children.
So if we're not having open, honest communication with them and allowing not only for them to
fall and, you know, give them these tools, but also allowing them to see us fall to know
that my parent is human too and look at they recovered from it, I can as well.
And again, being able to use these, I'm just such a huge advocate of making sure we're
using safe and healthy resources versus going to these survival resources that so many of
us do to numb out these issues where survival resources can look a lot of different ways.
But I mean, we can say drinking, smoking, gambling, bad relationships with food, all
these different things.
They're lashing out, they have road rage.
Like let's start rebuilding our toolbox with healthy resources so that our kids can see
that and develop them on their own too.
So again, they don't have to rewire when they're in their 20s and 30s.
Right, right, which is huge.
And I will put a link in here in case parents haven't seen it.
We do have it on our website.
And I don't want to get it wrong.
I can't remember.
It was 2021.
I think it might have been 2022.
But a surgeon general actually put out his report and said, children's mental health
is our number one focus.
Because again, like you mentioned, the suicide rates are so incredibly high.
And the other part that is so interesting to me as a mom, to see it is the depression
and anxiety.
It's such a very, very different world.
I've caught myself so many times where I have to step back and think, OK, yeah, I did
all these crazy things and I was in AP, all this stuff and did carry these crazy loads
and worked two jobs and went to college.
And it's a different world.
So when we were able to come home, we came home.
The whole world shut off.
We were home.
If you were lucky, you had a phone in your room.
But even then, right?
It's never off for them.
It's constant with social media and FaceTime and you name it, it's always on.
And they're not sleeping.
So we're all back to that, you know, bio functional impact.
Yeah.
And they don't know how to deal with it.
Yeah.
And I say, I'm so glad that I did not grow up with social media.
There are so many.
I just had a conversation with someone the other day about this and he was actually focused
a lot on Gen Z kids.
And you know, we were talking about social media and, you know, we do hear a lot of bad
things about social media.
And one of my biggest platforms on it is don't try to overly protect your child by saying
you can't have social media because it is a different world.
And they're just going to do it behind your back anyway.
Exactly.
And it's also going to be incorporated into their job at some point, like the future,
like all the AI stuff coming out, like they need to be on top of that because that's going
to have a huge impact on the career that they choose.
And so again, that's where these open, honest communications start happening.
And you don't, you can still put boundaries and rules and expectations around these types
of things.
But we need to be able to actually talk about it with our kids versus just pretending like
it's not there.
And of course, our mental health can be greatly impacted by social media, but I love that
there's more conversations around anxiety and depression.
I think that the pandemic definitely brought a little bit more to light about mental health.
I've always been a huge advocate about mental health.
I think that we have a long ways to go still, but I love that the conversations are being
started.
I think they just need to be identified a little bit more because I personally went
into my program thinking I had really bad depression.
And once I started tuning into my body and figuring more things out, I'm like, oh, I
actually have really bad anxiety.
I don't have that much depression.
It's anxiety that I've been feeling, but I was just mislabeling it.
Right.
And you learned holistic, healthy ways to deal with it, which I think is, is also hugely
important, especially with these kids that are already dealing with all these other health
issues.
Let's not throw more on that.
And we've talked a little bit about this opening communication and why it's so important.
So just to explore that a little bit more, you have a child that is maybe dealing with
some, I don't know, it could be PTSD because they've had maybe team J or some other earlier
in their life surgery or something.
And they just remember it.
Or whatever it is that has set them off.
And now, you know, here we are at this doorstep, they've got to go in and have malfunctional
therapy or tongue release or a palate expansion, whatever it is.
Because as a parent, though, you know, this is going to increase their health span, which
is what we want.
How do you have that kind of an open conversation?
You know, it's, you know, what kind of boundaries do you set up?
Because, you know, let's say you're talking to a five, six, seven year old, you don't
want to terrify them either.
Yeah.
So, open and honest kind of communication is super important to start modeling when you,
when they're as young as you can, honestly, because kids are going to remember these types
of things.
So when I talk with parents who maybe have teenagers, they say, well, why don't they
want to talk to me?
I feel like something's wrong, but they won't share with me, you know, and it's because
we can't expect all of a sudden this light switch to flip when they get older.
And they are able to, you know, all of a sudden like, oh, I'm going to go talk to mom and
dad about the issues that I'm having at school, even though we've never done that before, you
know, now I'm going to do it.
Right.
Like we need to model that from a very young age.
And so when you're dealing with children who have like medical issues and it is a scary
thing, we don't want to scare them, but we also need to be honest with them.
Now one of the things is when we are having these conversations with kids, we need to stop
talking.
We need to listen and we need to not overshare because we get so flustered and frustrated.
We sit there and we think internally, oh my gosh, I'm really uncomfortable right now with
this conversation and I'm not really sure what to say.
So I'm just going to word vomit all over them and then we give them way more information
than they need to know.
And so really, you know, starting a conversation of like, well, how are you feeling about this?
What do you know about it?
What are you worried about?
And just let them talk.
And actually it's so funny because my daughter, she's so sassy sometimes that then she like
she has these moments that I'm like, oh, it's working.
It's working.
And so a couple times in the last couple of weeks, she's come to me and wanted to talk
to me about something and she will tell me, she'll go, mom, just let me talk.
Okay, the floor is yours.
Yeah, you got it.
So you know, don't overshare.
We're not trying to scare them with different information, but we really need to tune into
ourselves to see how we're handling the emotions of the conversation because emotions are very
contagious.
And that's why it's easy to get into these kind of battles with our kids, right?
Like their emotions are high.
Our emotions start getting high.
Their emotions get higher.
Our emotions get higher.
And then all of a sudden it's like two brick walls trying to go at each other and it's
going to accomplish nothing.
And so like I said, validating their feelings and worries, listening and not word vomiting
on them are super important so that you can continue to build that strong communication.
Because if you freak out, if you yell, maybe not even because you're angry, but out of
this place of fear, like let's say that your kid did something and in your mind, oh my
gosh, they could have gotten so hurt, you know, they could have broken a bone or something
could have happened.
We project that onto our kids as if we're angry, but most of the time it's because we're so
fearful.
They're going to remember that.
Sure.
And the next time something happens, they're going to say, ooh, I'm not going to go tell
mom about that.
Did you see how she freaked out last time about that?
So again, you can still set boundaries and expectations, but we really need to be an
inviting welcoming place for them to come with our issues.
And if you don't know the answer at the time, that's okay.
Tell them, say, I'm not sure I need some time to think about this and I'm going to come
back to it.
We use the parking lot method a lot here.
So if my kids come to you with a question and I'm not sure how to answer it or if it's
right before bedtime and you know, we feel like they're just trying to get out of bed
every two seconds to ask us something.
They'll say, you know what, we're going to put this in the parking lot until tomorrow
and then we'll come back to it.
So we'll visit it then.
I love that.
And I would add to this because another thing I would think this would apply, you're going
to these doctor visits with your child and they're nervous.
Don't oversell it either.
Don't be this like crazy hype woman that's going to be great.
It's going to be blah, blah, blah.
Yeah, maybe let them have those feelings.
And to me, I would think if you can see that, maybe you're in the car with them or something
the other way.
That would be a good time to express instead of over sharing or hyping them up too much.
How are you feeling and talk to them a little bit before?
Yeah.
And even asking them like specific questions of like, you know, is anything happening in
your body right now?
Is your stomach tight?
Are you kind of fidgety?
Like kind of doing a deeper dive because we also have to educate our kids on their emotional
vocabulary.
They're not born with it.
We weren't born with it.
And so we really need to work on how can we start identifying these different emotions
and things in our children by helping them understand it a little bit more.
And I was driving my daughter to a birthday party the other day and she had asked me if
I was going to stay and I was like, well, no, I'm going to come back home because she wouldn't
have noticed if I was there anyways.
Like she's such a social butterfly.
But I just got this sense that she was kind of worried about something.
So when we were driving there, I said, you know, Addy, are you anxious about going to
this party?
And she goes, well, mom, what does that mean?
And so I said, oh, you know, like how we looked in that book one time and like sometimes
our stomach can get tight, maybe get kind of flushed.
Maybe you want to move a lot.
Your brain is racing.
You have a lot of thoughts coming to you.
And so we just started kind of listing off like some things that could be happening within
our body to start signaling that we're anxious.
And then she was like, oh, yeah, that happens to me sometimes.
I think I do get anxious sometimes.
So again, we just have to work on them with maybe not just doing a blanket statement of
are you angry?
Are you sad?
Are you depressed?
But like trying to dig in a little bit more so they can better identify their emotions
too.
I do love that.
And I will, I will say a personal opinion.
One of the things I've gleaned from several of the podcasts I've listened to is I've always
run with the philosophy I'm raising adults.
That's my goal.
That's the end of the day.
I'm raising adults.
If I do my job right, successful adults in the real world.
And you've had a lot of guests that to me kind of speak to that.
And what made me think of that just then is they don't understand the words sometimes.
Are you anxious?
So you have to empower them.
You have to arm them.
That also goes back to let them fall.
You're on the safe little zone at home, but then teach them how to cope, how to move on.
And I would think the same thing goes with you've got all these doctor visits.
If you've got an airway disorder that hasn't been picked up until maybe teenage or the
early 20s, they're going to have to learn to cope with it.
So you've got to work with them to do that.
And I know also as parents, you talk a lot about stress and how we can relieve our own
stress.
What are just a couple of tips you can think of for parents that we're in that zone, our
child just got diagnosed, we're really stressed, we're kind of freaking out.
What are some good tips for parents to help reset?
First of all, feel all the feels like ride the wave of emotion.
Don't try, shut it down.
Don't try to stuff it down because it's uncomfortable.
I mean, I can't imagine all the emotions that come up with a diagnosis like this.
And so allow yourself the grace to ride that emotion, that emotional wave is the first thing.
Breathing techniques are definitely underrated.
There is a study out there and I don't, I can't quote it exactly, but it said that about
like seven deep breaths is equivalent to like an anti-anxiety medication.
So again, our body's amazing and spectacular and we can start doing some of these things
right in the moment and start trying to kind of practice them throughout other times too,
not just when you're in these heightened emotions, but just try start practicing them so that
it comes a little bit more easy to you in those times that you really do need them.
So again, you can do breathing, you can start just really kind of paying attention and observing,
giving yourself grace, riding that emotional wave until you feel like you've kind of ended
it, you know, talking with someone.
There are so many different things that they can do and it's going to be different for
everyone.
You know, like mine might be completely different than what you use to help calm down and it's
just kind of picking and choosing those safe, healthy outlets to be able to bring us back
to our sweet spot, you know, versus again, just trying to suppress it.
So an essential oils, of course, are great too because of how they work with our brain.
Yeah, smell is one of our strongest sense.
And so when we smell a pure essential oil, it works with our factory bulb that sends
signals to the part of our brain that deals with the moods and emotions.
And so finding, you know, lavender or serenity or whatever is your kind of go to, which is
actually really helpful too.
I know that you brought up before like, well, what if a child goes into a hospital room and
you know, all of a sudden they're triggered, it might be because of the smell of the room.
And that is called aromatic anchoring.
And we can actually create new anchors within our brain through essential oils and aromatic
anchoring.
And so one of my favorite sense, it's a blend from doTERRA.
It's called adaptive.
And so when we start smelling that and creating this calmness, the more frequently we do that,
we can actually start creating anchors.
And so we have maybe some negative ones, like if we smell the sterleness of a hospital room,
it might trigger us back into, you know, when we were in there before for a surgery, but
we can also create our own now and we can create a calming one with different essential
oils so that it can help again, bring you back to that sweet spot more effectively.
I love that.
That's a great idea.
And I want to make sure I get this right.
On your website, you've got several downloads that, you know, parents can access.
One of them included steps for helping with emotional chaos in your home.
And I won't do a spoiler alert for all of them.
One of them was try, mess up, and try again.
Yes.
And I really wanted to hone in on that one because as parents of children going through
all of these things and the mom guilt, you feel like, you know, I know I'm not the only
one because your moms talk about it.
You feel like, wow, I really, I just totally messed that one up for, oh, that that was
just anxiety for the doctor visit.
I didn't get it.
Oh, I should have caught it.
So how do we, how do we get rid of this mom guilt that we're all running around with?
You know, I was talking to someone one time and she said, my biggest fear is that I'm
going to mess up my kids.
And I looked at her and I said, you are like, you're going to do something that they're
going to come back and be like, I can't believe you did that.
Like there is no perfect parent.
I say the only perfect parent is the parent who doesn't actually have kids because they
have all the answers, right?
Until you get in the depths of it.
And you're like, you know, those things that you said, I'll never do that.
And now you're, you know, kid is sitting in front of a screen for a half hour because
you need a break.
I mean, there is something that we're probably going to mess up on.
No one is perfect.
And that goes back to the letting them fall, letting them see you fall.
And so with this mom guilt, especially kind of circling back to social media again, too,
is we see the highlight reels of everyone's life.
Oh yeah.
Excellent point.
And we are constantly in this comparison trap of like, well, so and so down the road, they
just went on this really amazing vacation and then they got these family pictures done
and they're all matching and yada, yada, yada.
Like you don't know what's going on behind closed doors.
You don't know the type of relationship that a picture on Instagram shows.
So we need to get out of this comparison trap first of all.
And there is a lot of shitting that happens in mom life as well.
And we need to stop shitting on ourselves.
Because from the moment you find out you're pregnant, everyone loves to give you advice
from everywhere.
So all of a sudden you are overloaded with, oh, I need to do this.
I don't do that.
I need to get this thing out.
Oh, I know, but I, but I don't need that.
And we just need to decide as a family, how do we want to operate and stand confident in
that?
Like, yes, we can always learn new things.
We can always add new things to our toolbox, but stand in that confidence and know that
if you are trying to do better for your kids, you are already such a great mom and you should
not be comparing yourself to anyone else.
Because again, it's what you decide for your family, your values, your mission that you
have for them.
And so try mess up and try again.
We're not going to get this stuff perfect.
I still lead with emotion sometime with my kids.
I told you when we were camping, I was like super frustrated and I probably yelled a little
bit.
I'm going to do everything 100% of the time perfect because we're not a Stafford wife.
Like we're not a robot.
Like we're going to mess up.
And so just kind of keeping that in mind that you're doing such a great job and give yourself
again a little bit of that grace and don't be afraid to go back to your kids and let
them know that you're sorry or you did something wrong.
I do that all the time with my kids.
Hey guys, mom's really sorry that she yelled and next time I'm going to try a breathing
exercise before I get to that point, you know, like have a game plan, go back and apologize,
show them empathy, show them that it's okay to say sorry.
And again, just try to get out of that comparison trap because otherwise you are going to be
suffering from mom guilt all the time.
Absolutely.
And I love that you advocate apologizing and explaining to your children because again,
it's a life skill.
This is what we're teaching them.
We all make mistakes, it happens.
Exactly.
I love that.
So one of the things I like to do at the end of every podcast is I hand the floor back
over to our guests because whatever the topic is, you know, y'all are the experts.
So I would like to leave you with, you know, last words for our listeners.
Well I so appreciate you having me on and sharing some of this information.
I'm just so passionate about helping parents because of this mom guilt and especially the
mental load of moms.
Like that is something that I don't think that gets talked about enough, especially if
you have a child who has medical issues.
You're not only the taxi driver, the schedule maker, the bill payer, the, you know, food
a preparer, the, you know, whatever it is, like you have all of these things on your,
on your mind and the mental load can be so exhausting and can burn you out.
And a lot of that has to also do with boundaries.
And so that's, I feel like that kind of gets talked about a lot with moms is, well, you
just need to have boundaries.
You just need to have boundaries.
But I think the conversation doesn't go far enough because there are three different types
of boundaries that you can have.
You can be underbounded, which is where a lot of us moms fall, me included, because we think,
well, I need to do everything for everyone to be that supermom.
It's actually one of the, like my husband, it tries to be really sweet and call me supermom
and it drives me nuts.
I hate it because I'm like, you are putting this expectation standard on me that I feel
like I can never let anything drop.
Exactly.
So we have this underbounded, which again is where a lot of moms fall, then we have our
overbounded.
And I think that's where the issue is with a lot of people who start placing boundaries
in your life to keep some of your own sanity and to just feel less of that mom guilt.
And so underbounded, you're saying yes to everything overbounded.
You are shutting everything out.
You're like, it's my way or the highway.
I'm the only one who matters.
And so I see this happen a lot where people swing from one end to the extreme of the other.
And where we really want to be is this healthy, flexible, where everything is fluid.
We know that we can put boundaries in place and they may change over time.
Maybe that's with relationships.
Maybe that's with your time.
If you're driving to doctor's appointments all the time, medical procedures, things like
that, like it's okay to tell people, no, right now, this is a season of our life and we have
to be protective over our time.
So we can't come to the eight barbecues that we were invited to over the summer.
You know, and just that might change, you know, in a couple of years, but right now
that's where you're at.
So I do encourage boundaries.
I just want people to be careful about placing them so that they don't go from one extreme
to the other and do just as much harm as they were feeling in the first place.
So I guess that would be my extra little tip.
I think that's awesome.
That is awesome.
And again, thank you so much for coming on and I will put the links in the show as I
cannot recommend your website and the parents will get enough to parents.
So thank you so much.
Thank you so much for having me.
I really appreciate it.
Absolutely.
Thanks again to today's guest, Angie Weber for sharing her story and her insights and
each of you for listening to today's episode.
If you'd like to be a guest or have an idea for an upcoming episode, shoot us a note via
the contacts page on our website or send us an email directly at info at children's
airwayfirst.org.
And finally thanks to all the parents and medical professionals out there that are
working to help make the lives of kids around the globe just a little bit better.
Take care, stay safe and happy breathing everyone.