Parenting That Heals Spirit, Body and Brain

By 2020, 5.6 million children had been diagnosed with anxiety problems and 2.4 million had been diagnosed with depression. Many children are over-medicated, over-diagnosed and generally misunderstood. Clinical psychologist, Dr. Sandy Gluckman offers a medication-free option to help families heal from learning, behavioral and mood problems through her private coaching program, Parenting That Heals.

Three Key Points

·       Dr. Sandy shares her personal experience growing up “right brain” dominant and the stress it created for her of not feeling “good enough.” While she was earning her first degree in psychology, Dr. Sandy attended a lecture on the integration of left brain and right brain, which started her on her quest to save the next generation from being over-medicated, over-diagnosed and misunderstood.

·       Dr. Sandy explains the three most common root causes for children dealing with trauma. The first cause is these children have very high levels of stress hormones that flood their brains and bodies. The second cause is these children have a belief in a neuro-pathway in their brains about how they show up which results in a “not good enough” belief. The third cause is the parenting approach that is being used does not understand these children and what's going on inside of them. They are trying to fix it from the outside and do not know how to connect with the being of the child in a healthy way.

·       Dr. Sandy explains that the definition of trauma is much wider. Trauma is not the event. Interpersonal neurobiology was discovered by Dr. Daniel Siegel. Everything that's going on inside the parent’s nervous system is happening inside the child’s nervous system. We are energetically vibrating beings. Even teachers need to understand how they vibrate to the children will affect the children’s brains.

Resources Mentioned

·       Dr. Sandy Gluckman:       Website 

The Connected Child: Bring Hope and Healing to Your Adoptive Family  – 
by Karyn B. Purvis (Author), David R. Cross (Author), Wendy Lyons Sunshine  (Author)

Contact:
Traci Dority-Shanklin: LinkedIn Twitter Facebook
traci@sisupartnersllc.com
website: www.nuclear-families.com

Transcript

Traci Dority-Shanklin: 0:20

Today, we have a special episode. There has been a lot of attention paid to mental health in the last couple of years. My guest today is Dr. Sandy Gluckman, who has been paying attention to the growing epidemic of childhood anxiety for several decades. As a psychologist, Dr. Sandy is an early adopter of the science of neuroplasticity. Dr. Sandy is passionate about teaching parents, caregivers, and teachers how to help their children struggling either from a trauma or who have a sensitive empathic nature. Dr. Sandy studied in South Africa and has created countless parenting programs that are changing the lives of thousands of families around the globe. When the mental and physical medical community let me down, I found Dr. Sandy. I was desperate to find someone to evaluate my child's dysregulation from a whole child perspective. I needed help on how to best parent her. And I knew deeply that what I had been doing was not working. I am privileged to have worked with Dr. Sandy and have her on the podcast today. So, thank you, Dr. Sandy, for joining me in this conversation.

Dr. Sandy Gluckman: 1:39

Thank you, Traci, for inviting me. The privilege is mine as well.

Traci Dority-Shanklin: 1:44

So, I know our chat will resonate with the Nuclear Families community. Blended families are born of loss, and therefore they’re no strangers to the children's suffering trauma. A stepparent can do no better thing than have an understanding and compassion for their stepchildren's trauma. Our conversation is going to be a massive learning opportunity for everyone. So, can you share, your background and how you came to this passion for advocating for the next generation?

Dr. Sandy Gluckman: 2:22

I would love to do that because that is really what my work is all about. It started with the fact that my brain likes to work differently. It works differently in the sense that I'm hugely right-brain dominant. And what that actually means is that I interpret information very differently. it means that I am creative, that I am perceptive, sensitive, in tune. I see the bigger picture. I'm able to seek connections and opportunities and possibilities coming out of information or stories or -- that's the way my brain likes to work. And I was born in a country, South Africa, which is very left-brain dominant and did not honor or understand or respect the right brain issue. And this was not only when I say it's the country, it was the culture in the country, but also of course, in the schools. So, the left brain is very different from the right brain because it is structured and ordered and logical and rational, and it's about facts and information and the nuts and the bolts. And as you can see, that's very different from the way my brain liked to work. I just did not know how to go into my left brain. In fact, very often -- I'll give you an example. A simple one is when at school we were taught to write between the lines. You had to start every sentence at the beginning of the line in a certain place. And Traci, honestly, that hurts my brain. I'm not exaggerating. It caused me great stress to do that. Give me a blank piece of paper, and I can make lots of notes, pictures, and I can get that information down perfectly. In fact, I was a very smart child, but my kind of smart was not recognized and teachers didn't understand it. And my parents who were the most loving, supportive parents I could have ever asked for also simply did not understand this whole right-brain issue of mine. So, it made me different. And of course also being right-brained means that, you're more emotional, more perceptive and intuitive, and more sensitive. And so, I also fall under the category of that very sensitive child, which we would might maybe even call the empath. I feel enormously for other people. So at school, as you can imagine, it was tough for me. I really didn't understand why we would have history in one box and geography in another and math in a different one, and science in another one, because I wanted to know what the connections were between all these subjects. But, we were locked into these little boxes and all they wanted us to do is read good and to take the facts in the way that they wanted to receive them. And I couldn't do that. It was really tough for me. I looked around at the other children and I saw they were doing it very well. What was the problem with me? And so, I began to develop a belief about myself, which said that who I am is not enough. I am not good enough. There's something wrong with me. And of course, what that means is that it affected my sense of self-worth and affected my esteem, my self-belief. It affected my ability to relate with other children because I didn't feel good enough. And so often just felt so lonely, so unable to engage. Of course, that idea, the thought, the feeling, the belief that you're not good enough is very painful. And so, I would carry that pain around with me, inside of me, wherever I went on the playground, in the classroom, wherever it may be. It was that feeling of, I don't think I'm good enough. So, I define that as me being a child who had a hurting spirit. And, as you know, Traci, from our work, I do believe that when we have a hurting spirit, it's going to affect the way in which our brain works. It’s going to affect the way in which our bodies work. I do want to just add a little piece here that in my late twenties, I went to a lecture, which was part of my first degree in psychology. And, the lecture was on the integration of left brain and right brain, which happens to be my Ph.D. as well. I was blown away because for the first time in my life in my late twenties, I understood why my brain liked to work differently. And what I also discovered is that not only am I not enough, actually, I am so enough, and I am so gifted in different kinds of ways, which unfortunately schools did not understand, and people did not validate. So, I decided I cannot let this happen to anybody else, any other child. It's a tough way to go through your childhood. And that's what led me to all my studies and to the practice which I have now that is called ‘Parenting That Heals,’ and what I practice is called spirit, body, brain medicine. It's just so interesting that this started way back. And I was beginning already to see hundreds and thousands of children who were being given a label and misunderstood, and they didn't need the label if we understood how the brand was working. And, that's what really got me to my quest as I say on my website is to save the next generation because they are being misunderstood. Over-medicated. Over-diagnosed and I just couldn't let that happen.

Traci Dority-Shanklin: 8:33

That was one of the things I wanted to say is that I love how you have described yourself as an advocate for the next generation because of the over-diagnosis and the over-medication and just the total misunderstanding. So, that is something that I really resonate with and really respect that you're doing. As a parent who has been through more rabbit holes of possible diagnoses, I know you are 100%, right. So, while well-meaning there is this rush to diagnose our children and give them medication. And I don't know, do you think this is shifting in the wake of more mental health awareness?

Dr. Sandy Gluckman: 9:16

I'm going to give you a strange answer. The answer is yes/no.

Traci Dority-Shanklin: 9:21

Okay. I get it.

Dr. Sandy Gluckman: 9:23

It depends on the healthcare practitioner that you see. So, if you're seeing traditional health care, and I'm not knocking traditional medicine, we need it for certain things. It doesn't do well for trauma, but, if you're with a traditional practitioner, that particular practitioner is going to ask a lot of “what” questions: what are the symptoms that we are seeing? Okay, so we've got all these symptoms. What diagnosis does this fit? And then, what medication will alleviate these symptoms? But, there is never bad traditional medicine because it's the medical model, the traditional medical model doesn't ask the question: why is this happening to this child in this way at this moment in time? And so, if you go to a functional medicine practice, and my work is based partly on functional medicine and neuroscience, we ask the “why” question. We don't treat the symptoms. We look for the underlying root causes and we treat those underlying root causes. And we find that once we are able to do that, the symptoms start to unravel. They start to reverse and they go away and there's definitely no need for a diagnosis. And that's why I refer to my work as spirit, brain, and body medicine. And, as you said, I don't like diagnostic labels. I'm known for my distaste for those. If they were practical, if they were useful, practically useful in any kind of way outside, gimme one. They're not useful. We know what the symptoms are. We know what we're looking at. Why do we have to package it with a label that then hangs around the child's neck forever and becomes the thing that everybody perceives the child as and so they eventually become those labels? So, I'm really unhappy about that.

Traci Dority-Shanklin: 11:14

Yeah. As a mom, I was frustrated that the medical community never really looked at my child holistically like that. The pediatrician was only evaluating the tummy issue. Cognitive behavior therapist was assessing only a behavioral problem. That is why your work resonated so much with me and was resonating and inspiring for me. It felt like for the first time someone could see my child totally, so I really was grateful to find you. And you know this about me and my listeners obviously do as well that I am a mother twice through adoption, and my oldest daughter came home days before her second birthday. Someone had just turned everything in her world upside down. And she was in this deep state of trauma; what you talk about in the fight, flight, or freeze modality. And admittedly, I wasn't prepared. We had been through so much to complete her adoption, and I was so relieved that she was home. And I had this magical thinking what this was going to be somehow, we were all going to be living the perfectly ever after story. So, how complicated the transition was really a shock for my system. And probably brought out a lot of my stuff. I was just feeling so overwhelmed and looking for answers everywhere. And a lot of well-meaning people and things that I read implied that my daughter was strong-willed or had oppositional defiance disorder or sensory processing disorder. Seriously, the list goes on of the possible diagnoses that were suggested to me. And as you can imagine with every suggestion out of desperation, I would dig for information about that diagnosis, but I just kept thinking that while there would be little things that indicated that this disorder was possibly part of my child. That it wasn't the child I was experiencing because again, I was experiencing the whole child. And everything changed for me when I found one book because this was we going back to 2012 when I was searching for an answer and it was called, The Connected Child by Karen B. Purvis Ph.D. and David R. Cross Ph.D. And this book was the introduction for me to the wiring of the brain. Like the how and the when synapses form and how critical those early moments of life are to the brain's development. This book really changed the way I parented both of my children, but in that moment, it was a real lifeline. You talked about being in college and finally having that “A-ha” moment, and that your approach is to find and heal the underlying root cause of children's behaviors, moods, and learning behaviors. So, can you share with us what the most common root causes are for children dealing with trauma?

Dr. Sandy Gluckman: 14:23

I'd love to do that. And I'll also want to say, Traci, that it's interesting because you say children deal with common root causes, which I'll share with you now. What we also need to do is understand that the definition of trauma has extended enormously. So, we’re really also talking about children -- I'm talking about children who have learning behavior and mood challenges. I don't call them disorders. They're not a disorder; it's just a challenge.

Traci Dority-Shanklin: 14:48

Good correction. Yes.

Dr. Sandy Gluckman: 14:51

So, we're talking about all of those things. And for me, what's interesting is that all of those things, those ADHD levels, the ODD levels, the OCD diagnosis, sorry, labels, all of those labels have three underlying root causes that are identical. And over the years of my work I've discovered that if we find those root causes and fix them, we're actually able to remove the diagnosis and actually heal the trauma. So, these three root causes are that these children have very high levels of stress hormones that are flooding their brain and their body. And I'm talking about really high to the point where they are referred to as toxic levels of stress hormones. And of course, yeah, we referring to very high levels of cortisol as being secreted far too often. It's chronic stress or there are chronically high levels of cortisol. And very high levels of cortisol because the brain becomes inflamed. And an inflamed brain cannot learn in the way that a healthy brain does; cannot focus and pay attention; cannot behave in positive ways. Doesn't enjoy learning. Certainly, an inflamed brain is not going to be helpful in reducing in healing trauma. So, that's the first thing we have to understand is that these children are walking around with extremely toxic levels of stress hormones affecting the body and the brain.  And then the second thing is that the children all have a belief in a neuro-pathway in their brain that how I show up; who I am is not enough, it's just not good enough; I'm not enough. And you know, I could be using the traditional language of they have low self-esteem. I don't like that. That's just an academic statement. And why do I talk about the “not enough” belief? Because for years and years when children would come into my consulting room from four years through to 24 years, they would eventually all tell me, “Dr. Sandy, I just don't feel like I'm enough.” And that was for me, their way of explaining what was going on inside of them, so I don't use academic low self-esteem. I talk about these children feel like they are not enough, and that is very painful. Then, of course, walking around with a feeling of not enough causes more stress, more cortisol in the brain, more brain inflammation, and more problems with the trauma. And then finally, the other thing is the third underlying root cause that I found over the years in every part of the world. I've worked with children everywhere. Well, not everywhere, but in many parts of the world. I have found that the third underlying root cause is always there. And this is a tough one to talk about, but that is that the parenting approach that is being used does not understand these children; does not understand what's going on inside of them; are trying to fix it from the outside in, and do not know how to connect with the being of the child in a healthy way.

Traci Dority-Shanklin: 18:15

Yeah, your website mentions the brain research, the remarkable brain research, and the way we parent and heal our children so that they can learn easily. Feel good about themselves. Behave positively. Can you tell us about that research? I think that you've touched on it now and I think it's a good point to pivot.

Dr. Sandy Gluckman: 18:39

Wonderful research, much of which Dr. Daniel Siegel is responsible for, brilliant stuff. So, one part of the research is the discovery -- his discovery of what he calls interpersonal neurobiology. And to put it very simply, if you think about interpersonal neurobiology, really what it's saying is that's, what's happening inside of the parent is happening inside of the child, and what's happening in the parent's brain is how it's happening in the child's brain. What's happening in the parent's nervous system is happening in the child's nervous system. And it's that passing over of my own trauma, my thoughts, my fears, everything that's going on inside of me is then picked up by the children and it actually wires the children's brains to be a mirror image of what's going on in the parent. So, that's what I call my practice, Parenting That Heals. That's why the very first thing I would ever do with a parent is ‘Heal the Parent’ before I would even give them any kind of parenting tools because, with all the best love in the world and the best intentions in the world, parents are often aggravating the stress levels in their children in the way in which they are incorrectly dealing with them. So, that's the one that's huge and it has, and it continues to change parenting. It also needs to change teaching and education because what's going on inside of the teacher is going on inside of those children. And then the teacher wants to wonder why the kids are not focused and can’t pay attention, or why there seems to be some disruption in the classroom. This one's called defiant; that one's called depressed and withdrawn, but actually what's happening is they are picking up something from the children, from the teacher, which is causing them stress. And then they manifest that stress in different kinds of ways and they get labels. So, that's a huge one. Basically, I guess I want to just underline that one by saying we are energetically vibrating beings. Teachers need to know the minute they walk into the classroom they are energetically vibrating to the children and those vibrations will affect the children's brains.

Traci Dority-Shanklin: 21:09

Yeah, I think this is a good point to dig into this a little bit more, so before we go deeper into ways to help our children through trauma, I want to talk about the parents' personal trauma and how this may have been affecting our parenting, our teaching to your point. So, can you give us an understanding of how important doing our own trauma healing is?

Dr. Sandy Gluckman: 21:35

Traci, I can't even state this strongly enough. It is absolutely critical. You know, I guess I'm going to talk a little about the definition of trauma here so that we're all on the same page. And that is that essentially in the past, when we said that person's been traumatized or that person has been through trauma or that kid’s had trauma, we really were referring to some horrible events or a horrible event like a tornado, like rape, like incest, like being beaten up. Those kinds of terrible things. But, now due to the amazing research we have, we've discovered that the definition of trauma is much wider, which means that, and it's actually been shown to fall under a heading, which is called early developmental trauma. So, that means that in our very early stages of development, we did not receive the primary connection that we needed that would affect the way in which our brain functions. And we also didn't receive perhaps that sense of being seen for who we are. So, the early developmental trauma, there's no perfect family in the world, and there are better ones without a doubt.

Traci Dority-Shanklin: 23:01

I like to say with Nuclear Families that we're all looking to accept our imperfectly, perfect families.

Dr. Sandy Gluckman: 23:10

Yeah, that would be good. So, the thing is, I'm saying that everyone of us who becomes a mommy and daddy, we're still carrying either a terrible traumatic event or, and/or maybe some early developmental trauma where our parents, for reasons, did not know how to connect.

Traci Dority-Shanklin: 23:31

As I was preparing for our conversation, I thought a lot about our work together. And I am the whole reason for this podcast is I am a child of divorce and this event was really very traumatic for me. And as I've done work, I've realized that we were already a blended family and there was an apparent, there was like obvious trauma of my family, the family that I had grown up with literally being pulled apart. However, that post-split relationship between my parents because of their pain, and their inner child stuff, really created a lot of shame and pain for me. And due to, again, them not owning their own inner trauma, they didn't protect me from their battle. And in fact, often use me as a pawn in their battle. Because I've done some work around this, though not nearly enough, I know that some of the messaging I was receiving were my feelings were less important or I wasn't enough. And as a mother, and especially as a stepmother, I had to be enormously conscious of bringing this trauma response into my parenting, and it has been so hard. So, can you tell us what healing the trauma means and what are some steps to going about doing it?

Dr. Sandy Gluckman: 25:07

Yeah. So, what does healing the trauma mean? First of all, we need to understand that when we talk about trauma, we're talking about something that is stuck in the nervous system. That trauma is not the event. It's not the divorce; it's not the rape. It's not the lack of attention from parents. It's not the event. It's what the event did to our bodies and our brains and our spirits. That gets locked into our nervous system. So, I do need to dive a little further here and say that the nervous system has two branches. It has the parasympathetic branch, which is the healthy, thriving branch. That's where we are centered and grounded and healthy and alive and well and confident. And then it has the second branch, which is the sympathetic branch, and that is the branch of survival. And so when we went through trauma, we would flee to the sympathetic autonomic nervous system, which is the survival nervous system. And the way in which the survival nervous system works is that it protects us, or it thinks it's protecting us in one of three ways, which is with fight or flight or freeze. That's a survival mechanism. So, if you think of the children who are supposedly defiant, oppositional defiance disorder, such a nonsense label, they are in that sympathetic nervous system, stuck in the survival mode, using the fight as a way of surviving, but they hurting. They've got this terribly hurting spirit, but that's the way in which they survive. Then you've got those children who survive by flight, which means they flee inwards, and they get sad and withdrawn and maybe even depressed. And, of course, we label those as having a depressive disorder or social anxiety or all kinds of things. But really, again, it is just the nervous system, which is stuck in survival. And the same goes for children who are in freeze mode, where they're unable to risk or try new things or engage well with life.

Traci Dority-Shanklin: 27:34

Unfortunately, we are running out of time and we are pausing our conversation with Dr. Sandy Gluckman, but you don't want to miss the second half of our conversation. Dr. Sandy will dive deeper into how critical it is for parents to take the vital step of healing their own wounds. I believe Dr. Sandy's Parenting That Heals program is essential to anyone with stepchildren or a co-parenting family. Dr. Sandy's Parenting That Heals program has helped countless families heal their hurting children's trauma, and it can help yours, too. Divorce is trauma. Don't forget that. Please check out our show notes or visit Dr. Sandy Gluckman's website at www.drsandygluckman.com, and be sure to tune in to the second part of our conversation on the next episode of the Nuclear Families Evangelist. You won't want to miss it. I'd like to also thank all of our listeners for tuning in to the Nuclear families Evangelist, where we enlist experts in humor to help unlock our hidden superpower of being blended. Like you, I live and breathe my nuclear families every day. I am a wife, a mother through marriage, a mother again through adoption, and a daughter, half-sister, and stepsister from my very own eccentric family with multiple marriages, multiple divorces, and multiple blended families. See you on the next episode of the Nuclear Families Evangelist, where we debunk the mythologies of biology with a lot of love, forgiveness, and humor. One conversation at a time.