Episode 416: Growing Flexibility in Capable Kids with David and Sissy

Raising Boys & Girls

Sissy Goff and David Thomas open with a relatable 'How Flexible Are You Really?' quiz to highlight how modern children and adults struggle with unexpected changes. They connect this rigidity to

Key takeaways

• Sissy Goff and David Thomas introduce a five-question quiz showing how easily adults and kids resist schedule changes or lost control of familiar routines.
• Research cited in the episode links intolerance of uncertainty to 36% of anxiety variation and nearly 40% of worry variation in youth.

Main topics

• Cognitive flexibility
• Intolerance of uncertainty

Notable quotes

"Flexibility is what happens after the disappointment."

Conclusion

The episode provides parents with actionable, low-pressure exercises t

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:08) Hey friends, welcome to the Raising Boys and Girls podcast. I'm Sissy Goff. Speaker 2 (0:13) And I'm David Thomas, and we're so glad you've joined us for this conversation. Let's dive in. Speaker 1 (0:25) Okay, David, I have a question for you. Speaker 2 (0:27) Yes. Speaker 1 (0:28) I want to know how many times today already you have had to be flexible. Speaker 2 (0:34) Oh, my goodness. I don't think I've been out of bed five minutes when I got to kick into flexibility. The Internet is out at our house, so it's 1974 at the Thomas household. Speaker 1 (0:46) So, Speaker 2 (0:47) yeah, woke up having to figure out how to navigate unforeseen circumstances. How about you? Speaker 1 (0:55) Probably four times all pertaining to patches because no jumping for this bouncy dog requires a lot of flexibility and a lot of perseverance and other things on my part. But yeah, that skill of being able to change gears and go with plan B, which we're going to talk about, feels really important. Speaker 2 (1:18) So necessary in the everyday for every person. Speaker 1 (1:22) And if you were starting to listen and thinking flexibility, I'm not sure it's that important. We're going to make the case for how vital it is in the life of a child today. Speaker 2 (1:32) And this is not just for kids. This is for grownups, too. Speaker 1 (1:34) Yes. Okay. So what about this? What if we start with a little flexibility quiz? Y'all ready? And we want all of you listening to answer these questions twice. Once for yourself and once for the kids. That you love. We're going to call this, How Flexible Are You Really? Speaker 2 (1:57) It is a great game show we've got going right here. Okay, question number one. You're headed to your favorite restaurant. You've been thinking about what you're going to order all day. You arrive. They're closed. This just happened to me. Lady Bird Taco was closed on Labor Day, which good for them. Man, I had to shift gears and it was tough. Are you A, oh well, let's find somewhere else. B, disappointed but you recover fairly quickly. C, irritated enough that everybody in the car knows it. Or D, dinner is ruined. Speaker 1 (2:34) Oh, okay. Question number two. You have planned out your Saturday. You have a list. Maybe you've even timed the list. And then someone in your family announces that they need something that is going to take two hours that you hadn't planned for. How quickly can you shift gears? Speaker 2 (2:54) Question three. Someone sits in your chair, your chair at the dinner table, your chair in the living room, your seat in the car. How much do you care about that? Way too Speaker 1 (3:04) much. It happened to me in the office yesterday at our staff meeting, and I was so thrown. Okay, question four. Someone tells you no. Maybe your boss, maybe your spouse, maybe the person at the airline counter, maybe the receptionist at your child's counseling office. We're just picking a completely random example. How well do you handle that? Speaker 2 (3:27) And question five, you have a picture in your head of how something is supposed to go. A vacation, Christmas morning, your child's birthday, first day of school, and it doesn't go that way. Can you enjoy what actually happens or are you still trying to get everybody back to the picture you had in your head? Well, Speaker 1 (3:49) that felt personal. Speaker 2 (3:50) It did. Way too personal. Speaker 1 (3:52) Okay. Now. Speaker 1 (3:55) Rewind. That's not what we say anymore. What do you say? Back it up and think about the same questions with the child that you love. Plans change. Someone sits in their seat. They hear no. Something doesn't go the way they pictured it. How quickly can they recover? Because that's what we're really talking about today, you guys. Not whether we prefer predictability. Most of us do, if we're telling the truth. Not whether we're disappointed when plans change. Of course we are. Flexibility is what happens after the disappointment. Can I adjust? Can they recover? Can I find another way? Can they move from this isn't what I wanted, but I can handle what it is? Speaker 2 (4:37) Cognitive flexibility is generally defined as the ability to appropriately adjust our thinking or behavior when circumstances change. And just think about how much of life requires Speaker 1 (4:49) exactly that. How often does your environment change? How often does your day look nothing like you expected it to? How much does your life look exactly like you thought it would? Speaker 2 (5:02) Not much. Speaker 1 (5:02) Not much. Which means flexibility isn't some nice bonus strength. It's a life skill. It's considered part of executive functioning, the collection of skills that help us manage ourselves and accomplish what we're trying to accomplish. Flexibility helps us shift our attention, changes our perspective, helps us problem solve, consider another person's idea, regulate our emotions, deal with uncertainty, and come up with plan B. When Plan A disappears. Speaker 2 (5:32) Anne Lamott, who we love, has this fantastic line. She says, either you learn to live with paradox and ambiguities or you'll be six years old for the rest of your life. Speaker 1 (5:42) Which feels slightly harsh and also accurate because maturity requires. flexibility. Relationships, you all require flexibility. Parenting requires an enormous amount of flexibility. Marriage. So much flexibility. Travel. Airports are basically graduate school for flexibility. But life keeps requiring us to adjust. And what concerns us is that we're seeing kids who are having a harder and harder time doing