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Join me, Jess VanderWier, a registered psychotherapist, mom of three, and founder of Nurtured First, along with my husband Scott, as we dive deep into the stories of our friends, favourite celebrities, and influential figures.
In each episode, we skip the small talk and dive into vulnerable and honest conversations about topics like cycle breaking, trauma, race, mental health, parenting, sex, religion, postpartum, healing, and loss.
We are glad you are here.
PS: The name Robot Unicorn comes from our daughter. When we asked her what we should name the podcast, she confidently came up with this name because she loves robots, and she loves unicorns, so why not? There was something about the playfulness of the name, the confidence in her voice, and the fact that it represents that you can love two things at once that just felt right.
Welcome to Robot Unicorn, hosted by my parents.
Jess and Scott.
I hope you enjoyed the episode.
How can we teach our children who they can and can't trust outside of just like your trusted people versus untrusted people, that kind of stuff?
Like how do you teach them as they get older as well
How do they develop and how does that conversation change as they grow from like a toddler into a preschooler and then a big kid and then a preteen and then a teenager?
into adult life.
Like how do you have that constant conversation about who you can trust?
Because I feel like the thoughts that we have as adults, they become more complex over time and situations maybe become a little more complex as you age as well
So I just want to have that conversation about like how you can teach your child who they can and can't trust while also teaching them to have like a healthy amount of skepticism.
Before we move on.
I want to talk about why we want to have this conversation with our kids, like not us, but just everybody.
So I think to talk about why, I think we need to talk about the feeling that comes up
when you do trust someone and then it turns out that they're not who you thought they were.
There's so many people that can resonate with that feeling, whether it was a friend that they trusted or a family member or like even a teacher
I just feel like I keep hearing stories of like that's not who I thought that person was.
Yeah, I know.
We've heard that from other people too recently.
And whether that's like, oh, I always looked up to that teacher and now all of a sudden I'm hearing that they
I think we heard about someone who got arrested or got in trouble for like sexual assault or something.
I don't know exactly what it was, but I thought this person was one way and now they're another.
And same with our friend.
And so
I thought we should talk about what that feeling comes up.
So for you, with trusting your close friend and now seeing a different side, like what feelings come up for you?
It's gonna turn into a therapy session for me.
Rage
Anger.
Yeah, anger.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
And not even just that myself, like for the people it affected.
Right.
It's that piece that makes me the most angry.
Mm-hmm.
And do you remember times feeling that kind of anger before in your life?
Oh yeah.
I mean that was through my whole childhood.
It was always there and maybe just masked.
To anger.
Yeah.
Because I think for you, you're a person with a history of people that you should have been able to trust
Right.
Not being trustworthy.
Yeah, this was just like the latest example of that.
Yeah, this is the latest example of that.
And I think that's specifically why this scenario is so hard for you, because
you thought you knew all the warning signs and you thought you'd be able to like identify if someone wasn't trustworthy and then you still got hurt, right?
Yeah, and what's funny is like this person wouldn't necessarily be someone that I would normally be friends with because
There were maybe warning signs, but they were very outgoing and easy to talk to and all that.
So I d yeah, I don't know.
And we'll get into why.
Like I think I have an understanding as to why trust was built there.
Yep
But I wanted to talk about that 'cause I know even for me, like, there's been situations like that in my life too where I thought I'd trust this person, you know, even
let's say the family member of yours that we're estranged from, right?
Like I thought I trust this person.
I thought I understood their intentions.
You did?
Yeah.
Like I I thought this was a good person who just had some struggles
Right.
Right.
But then you find out all these things this person has done, and it's shocking to the system when you find that out
And I think the feeling of betrayal that comes after, of like, whoa, like I put trust in you, I stood up for you, I you know, all these things.
And then
that person just ends up being completely not who you thought.
And that was the first time like with that scenario with your family member
that I ever felt betrayed and like my trust was broken.
Yep.
And I think when you have that in such a deep way, it changes you forever.
And it changed the way that you look at people forever.
And so for someone like you who had that already early on in your childhood, it changes the way that you trust people or view people for the whole rest of your entire life.
And so then whenever that happens again.
I think it just brings up so many old wounds because it's like, wait, I thought we were over this.
Like I thought I could be hypervigilant enough to like know who to trust, or I thought I would know the signs.
And
So I know like all of that came back up for me as well because it's happened a few times to me too, right?
Someone that you trust ends up not being who they are.
So
I just want to talk about those feelings as we get into it because I think that's why for you and I, like, we're so motivated to help our kids learn who to trust.
Um
But at the same time we come at it with a bias of being incredibly hurt in our lifetime.
Yeah.
I don't know that every person has experienced betrayal to the level that we have experienced it.
And so
I do want to be mindful that I think we come into this episode being a little bit raw and being a little bit like we've had all these life experiences that, you know, I think of some friends of mine, they've never
experienced kind of betrayal to this degree, to this frequency, fortunately for them, but unfortunately for us, we do have a bias.
And it just makes it life a little bit tricky, I think, when you've been through such
hard things.
Especially when you do trust someone.
Yeah.
Right.
And then I I have it written in my journal, because you know I have to journal everything out.
Because that's been probably the greatest heartbreaks
in my life is when I put my trust into someone and then think I know them and then end up realizing I I don't know who they are at all.
And that's so hard.
I don't know that I th no you felt that way.
No?
No.
I don't know, for whatever reason, in my mind, you
kind of thought in a similar way to me about let's say the family member.
Yeah, no, that was probably one of the hardest.
And I think the thing is you probably didn't know I felt that way because I was supporting you.
Yeah, right
Right.
But I think in hindsight, when I look at that time when we found out about your family member and like we don't need to go into details, but it was pretty bad what we found out was going on in your home that you lived in.
I do feel
that I was quite shattered by that.
I had stood up for that person.
I had Yeah, like you were even standing up to that person.
Even to you.
To me.
I'd be like, you need to be nicer to this person.
Like you can't treat them this way.
This is wrong
And then I think the h even the harder part of that is, well then I find out this person's not at all who I thought and who I stood up for and who I had gotten into arguments with you about and all that kind of stuff.
So then
your world is shattered and you're like, well wait, this is not what I thought.
Yeah.
And that feels awful.
And then you feel anger because you're like, how dare you do that to me and to all these people and how dare you have the secret life, you know, essentially
And then you feel anger, and then that anger for me lasted a really, really long time.
And then you have people telling you in your life
Well, you know, that was just this time.
Like you should forgive them.
You should move on.
Like you should let them back into your life.
And I think that happens when someone's been betrayed.
like so often that other people think just maybe to make them comfortable so that they don't have to experience your anger and outrage and sadness all the time.
Or they they just think, you know, in our case like it's the right thing to do.
So it's just so confusing.
Like I feel like I've never felt so confused.
Okay, but based on what you were just saying, you didn't even understand necessarily what I was thinking or knew about
this person, right?
Mm-hmm.
And I think this isn't true in general for you.
You have a very high level of trust for
Everyone in your life.
Yes.
Doesn't matter who it is.
So, I mean, we're talking about this after the fact, but I think in general, you pretty much give everyone
No matter who they are, the benefit of the doubt every single time.
I always want to believe the best of someone.
Yeah.
And so I always want to believe someone has the best intentions.
And I always want to see things from their perspective, but then sometimes to a fault.
Yeah
Yeah, I would s that's where that's why I think we're talking about trust and healthy skepticism because I think going through life, just trusting that everyone has the best intentions and is looking out for you.
is, I mean based on my life experience obviously, I believe that's completely false.
But I think in general it is just a good idea for everyone to have just a a healthy amount of skepticism about
The things that they hear, the people that they know, all of that because not that you're you are protecting yourself and your kids, but
That's kind of the reality of the world anyway.
Like you can't know everyone's intentions for everything that they do.
So I just think it's important to not immediately th be cynical and think the worst of people.
And it's also
not a good idea to just blindly believe that everyone has your best intentions in mind.
Yeah, I think that's been the big thing for me that I've learned over the years, especially being burned a few times, is like
Not everyone has my best intentions in mind.
And also you don't have to have that relationship with everybody where you fully trust them.
Yeah.
Right.
Like I think my natural default is like oh I I meet someone and I'm like oh I wanna be your friend, I wanna tell you things.
Um I'm typically an open book
But I would say that hasn't really changed all that much.
I am more mindful, I would say now.
Yeah, you're a little bit more mindful now, but and I think I was on the opposite end of that spectrum where I was
very skeptical of literally like almost to the cynical side of things where I just thought everyone had the worst intentions.
Yeah
He would just immediately assume any like tiny thing someone would do.
Yeah.
Well, clearly they're not trustworthy.
Yeah, right.
I feel like I remember one time we were like on a drive and
I wanted to go hang out with some people and you're like, why do we even hang out with people?
You know, like it'd just be better if it's just the two of us hanging out.
And I feel like it must have been a long time ago.
It was a very long time.
It's like when we first got married
And even then like you were so closed off to even like attempting to form a relationship with other people because you're just like, I trust you, like me, and that's it.
Like, period.
So I feel like
I I think the like a well-known uh psychologist, Adam Grant, I don't know if you know who he is.
Yeah, you've talked to me about him before.
He uh did a post recently on healthy skepticism being important.
But once it moves into cynicism, then you know you have an issue.
And I so I do I liked how he had said that because I do think that's true.
Interesting.
Anyway, I I feel like the backstory is important when we're addressing this just because we do have our biases and some raw wounds um as we go into this episode today.
Does it still feel raw to you though?
Because like for me, I feel like I don't have that same level of emotion over any of this at this point.
I feel like it's still raw to me.
Like I feel like I haven't worked through all my feelings yet.
Okay.
So we often hear that trust is the foundation of relationships from your clinical experience or perspective, working with
Families and children.
Can you unpack that in like the family unit?
What is trust at the most, I guess, fundamental level?
And why is it so critical for
Human development and connection.
Yeah.
I do believe that.
I believe that love alone is not enough in a relationship, in a family relationship.
Like we say, love's all we need.
But I actually think trust is as important if not more.
What do you think the difference is though between like trust and love?
I mean they're just they're emotions, right?
So they're whatever chemical reactions happening in your brain and your body.
So what would the difference be between those?
How would you define trust versus love
for someone.
Yeah, I mean one could argue that true love means that you can trust someone.
Yeah.
Right?
But a love could be more of just like a feeling, right?
Like I I love you.
I truly think you can love someone without trusting them.
Okay.
Like there's people that I love and I will always have like loving feelings towards and I even care for, but that doesn't mean I trust them.
Okay.
I think maybe that's the differentiator.
Is it you can love someone, even if it's a partner or a family member, right?
And you can have love towards them, but that doesn't mean that you trust them.
Yeah.
And if you don't have that trust, it's really hard to be in a relationship with them.
So you can actually love someone that you're estranged from, that you're not in a relationship with.
You can still have love for them.
And I think that's a misconception people think
you know, if you break up or if you are estranged from a grandparent, that means that you don't love them.
I don't think that's true.
I think sometimes it's just not enough.
the love isn't enough to keep that relationship going.
Yeah, there are other things that come into play then.
Like for our situation, we're estranged from one of my family members to protect us and the children.
Yeah.
Especially.
Exactly.
That doesn't mean that the love is gone.
Yeah.
Right?
Like I still think about this person and my heart breaks that this is the situation.
But
It has to be because there's no trust.
Right.
And so that's why when you're talking about trust being the foundation, I think it is the foundation, right?
And to me, what trusting someone means is like
I trust that the majority of the time this person will show up for me, they will have my best interests in mind, they will care about the way that their actions impact me.
And they will have me in mind when they're making decisions about their life.
Yeah.
And I think there's like a level of honesty that they have to have.
Yeah, like there's
When I ask this person a question, you know, when you have a trusted foundation, I trust that their answer will be true.
Yeah.
And that's why when you find out someone isn't who you thought they were and that there's been lies involved, it just shatters you
Because it brings into question everybody, right?
Wait, I trusted this person.
I thought they were telling me the truth and they weren't.
Well, how am I supposed to trust anybody now?
Because this person looked me in the eyes and told me something and that wasn't true
Yeah, I think trust is that connection or feeling that you have, that someone is reliable, honest, that they have your best interests at heart.
That to me is what I feel
true trust in someone is.
For kids, let's say, it's this idea of like, I hold you in my mind all the time, right?
And and so even for our kids, it's like whatever decisions we make, whether it's for work or
for their education or for anything, for boundaries we set, we're always holding them in mind and being like, this will be in the best interest of you and I care about you and it's not like selfish.
Yeah.
And then it becomes mutual in a relationship.
So when does that start?
Do we have that inherently in us?
Or is that something that we have to learn?
To trust.
To trust versus distrust.
At a very early age you learn it, right?
So
Think about a baby.
Like they have no choice but to trust.
They have no choice.
And so if that baby who has no choice but to trust has a caregiver who shows up for them.
and feeds them, comforts them, soothes them, sings them songs, you know, they learn, okay, I can trust this person.
And so from a very early age they learn to trust.
And this is when we start to talk about like nonverbal, pre-verbal trauma, right?
So the baby that is born and then left by themselves to cry and doesn't have their need to be fed med and all of these things, they learn from a very early age distrust.
Like I can't trust this person whose whole job is to take care of me.
Yeah.
And over time, toddler years, preschool years, but especially those first five years of life, we really learn
whether we're gonna be the kind of person who trusts that my needs will be taken care of and someone's gonna care for me or not.
Mm-hmm.
And that's why those first five years of life
you just hear how critical they are, it's because that is what a child is learning and it will shape the whole rest of their lives.
Right.
So I guess a question I have then about myself, what is after that five year age?
Does that matter less then?
Like why are those first five years so critical?
And is that why, let's say, up until relatively recently in life
I have been so mistrusting of most people and skeptical of pretty much everything.
Yeah, the first five years are so critical because that is when
your like earliest, I guess, trust instinct is created.
Right?
It's it's possible if a child hasn't had that, let's say even a child who's adopted or something, right?
In the first five years of their life they didn't have a parent who could
care for them in the way they needed now they're adopted.
It is possible to learn how to trust and and how to rely on someone, but it's so much harder.
So like the barrier to get there is tougher
The older your child is.
Whereas like these early years, this is when they're really learning that dance.
I need something, I'm cared for.
I need something, I'm cared for.
And it's not like it has to be perfect every single time, right?
But they know for the most part, if I need something, my needs will be taken care of.
Yeah.
Therefore, I can trust that I'm cared for.
And then all those other things can happen.
They can play, they can do all the things that they need.
But the older they get
without having that, it does get trickier.
Right.
Not that it's impossible.
Because I think even for you it was possible to learn how to trust, but I think
how you learned how to trust is you had someone, me, who continued to show up for you, like over and over.
And you realized over time that it was possible to actually trust someone.
Mm-hmm
And uh but that took a lot of time and that was tricky in the early years of our relationship because I think there would be some pushing me away, some anxious attachment, like all that kind of stuff, right?
But now I don't have that because now after years and years of being together, it's like you trust me.
Yep.
But yeah, so I I don't know if that answers your question.
But those early years are important.
Yeah, I guess what I'm trying to get at is like how did those first interactions with caregivers shape our trust and even perhaps our baseline level of skepticism?
Like let's say now into our 30s.
How did that, let's say, affect someone like me, right?
Who obviously had pre-verbal trauma, and I've heard many stories of things that happened to me.
by supposedly trusted people when I was yeah baby and toddler, preschooler, all that stuff.
Mm-hmm.
I think what it teaches you is, well if I can't trust the person I'm tr supposed to depend on, then I kinda ha my alarm system, right?
So this internal alarm system in your body needs to be up all the time
Because I don't know when I'm going to be treated poorly, right?
Right.
And so I have to just be on the defensive all the time
So then you don't have a chance to really rest because you never know when something bad's gonna happen to you.
This is the case for kids who are abused, right?
Like you were.
So you never know when something bad's gonna happen to you.
Your alt your alarm system is always off.
You end up being the bad kid at school or the kid who doesn't listen at school because you can't be in a rested state.
It's impossible for you
So at a early, early age, your alarm system's always activated.
You become the bad kid at school because you can't be rested in the way that I could be, having a safe childhood, right?
I can show up to school well rested, you know, in a good
State ready to learn, you can have that.
So then you end up getting in trouble even more at school.
And the biggest, saddest part is that kids don't see that their parent is the problem.
They believe they are the problem
Right.
And so then they start to believe I'm bad.
What's wrong?
I'm the problem.
And some kids end up going really deep internal, like super anxious and like depressed and quiet.
And then other kids
Well if I'm bad then I'll just keep acting that way, I guess.
You know, and they kinda lean into that.
So that is the what I took through.
That's the route that you took, right?
Yeah.
Nobody loves me anyway.
I'm bad.
So I guess I'll just do what everyone expects of me.
Right.
So is it safe this is a similar conversation to what we had in our previous episode, but going back to child development or developmental psychology.
It matters that you have that trusted caregiver.
That's that person that will always be there for you no matter what.
They're not perfect, but
But they will be there for you no matter what.
They show you that they are a trustworthy person, that you can believe in what like what they tell you, that they will
be there to help you if you scrape your knee, they'll sing you songs or do whatever like play with you, all that stuff.
They're gonna be there through all times.
Yeah, nothing matters more.
Like that's the most important thing that a child needs
And so for for kids like you who didn't get that, of course, your worldview starts to be shaped at a very early age.
Well and you did have that from some people.
It's not like you didn't have that from everyone, but for No, my like I would say especially my grandparents were very I was very close with them.
To be honest, there were years where I lived with my grandparents most of the time.
Like me and my siblings would mostly live on their properties.
And so you had someone who cared for you?
Yeah.
But then
Yeah, well that's a whole separate.
We won't get into that today.
But obviously that didn't help your trust.
No, that certainly did not help my trust at at a certain point, but yeah.
That's a completely separate topic.
But you had people who showed up for you.
So that was a protective factor for you.
Yeah, and I had say two of my uncles are quite young.
So I was pretty much a sibling in that family, like in m in my grandparents' family, so then I would spend a lot of time there and basically be the youngest of all the siblings that were there, all my aunts and uncles that were still living there
I was kind of the their youngest sibling.
And I think research would back that up too, that if kids have at least one person that they can rely on consistently.
That's a huge protective factor for them if they grew up in trauma.
And that person does not have to be their parent, right?
So you had that person and I think that is part of how you were able to get out of it.
Yeah.
My mind wasn't wired so much to be
black and white forever.
Yeah.
I think then because you had that person and then when you started dating me young and then I could be that person for you too, I think it just gave you enough protection to eventually be able to learn how to trust people again.
Yep.
So that I mean that's hopeful too, is that there is there is hope for kids who grow up in abusive homes
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So I looked into some research that I actually found incredibly fascinating.
And there was one study that was done that showed three and four year olds, they were already becoming selective of who to trust.
And these experiments were essentially like an adult will come into a room or there'd be two adults coming into a room
And they would have a bunch of toys and objects around.
And then they would, one person would call them the incorrect names, and the other person would call them the correct names.
And then afterwards they sort of like surveyed and they say that with air quotes surveyed the children who they liked more, trusted more.
And it was by and large
The people who actually said the right term for like they show them a cow and they say sheep, those are the t adults that they trust less and the ones that said
sheep for the sheep were the ones that they trusted more in the end.
Right.
So it it was just quite interesting to read that is that research uh study 'cause it already at three and four years old, they're becoming selective of who to trust and preferring adults who are accurate and honest.
So at that age, what subtle or maybe not so subtle cues do you think that these kids are picking up on?
And how does this
I guess innate ability evolve as they enter school and their social circles widen.
They have friends of different types and Yeah, I actually I had a thought.
like on that topic as you were reading the study, which was very interesting.
I had actually a couple of thoughts.
First, I think to your earlier question is are kids born with the ability to trust, does it develop over time
I think one way that we actually like make kids lose the wisdom of like their own internal voice as to who they should trust is when we force them to be, let's say, extroverted if they're introverted, or we tell them
You know, you can't be shy or shy being shy is wrong.
Because I think a lot of times kids are like they have a natural shyness to them.
They want to cling to mom and dad's leg.
They want to stay close to you.
And then
We tell them like, no, you go play, go play, go hang out with these strangers at the park, go talk to this person, right?
And I think there is like a wisdom to kids being shy and taking a long time to warm up, but for a lot of kids, we don't allow them
To do that.
Yeah, right.
And so I think sometimes we can actually almost try and force our kids to trust when they're not ready.
And so we just want to be mindful of that.
And then the other thing that really came to interesting.
I actually I haven't thought
that way before, but that makes sense.
Yeah, I always say to clients like shy is wise.
Like shy kids are wise.
They're some of the like the most introspective, understanding, and like in tune kids.
Yeah.
And we force them sometimes to like just do it.
And it's because we think that'll be better for them.
But sometimes we make them push past their own alarm system, I think.
And
sometimes I think that can backfire.
And then I was thinking the other thing that we do to kids is we teach them to obey.
And, you know, well, so and so is your teacher, you know, you need to obey authority or you need to respect your elders or you and so I think we can put
phrases like that into our kids' head of like, well so-and-so's in this position, so you have to respect them or you have to obey them and obedience is important and they're your elder, so whate you know
And I also think that forces a child to go against their own intuition and be like, well, I have to respect them or I have to obey them.
Even if their own body is telling them something's not right here.
Right.
I can see there being a lot of nuance in that though, right?
Like if a teacher is or whoever, a caregiver of some kind, is not a super reliable person, but they're
doing something to keep your child safe and your child's like, well, I don't trust you.
It's so hard, right?
Right.
Yeah.
That's a challenging one.
I mean
Let's say for me, as a kid, I trusted no none of the teachers.
Yeah.
And I would be the one to stand up for other kids in class for and I we've talked about that at length in other episodes, but yeah, I did not obey them
Which n didn't necessarily help me.
But then I think some kids, yeah, maybe obey them too much and don't like question what they're being taught and all that kind of stuff.
Yeah, I think there's a lot of
people who are like, well, they're my boss, so I should just be okay with this, or they're my pastor, so if they tell me to do this, then I have to, you know.
So I think that's where the healthy skepticism comes in is that we want to teach kids, yeah, of course you want to be respectful to people and
Here's some things that we can be skeptical about.
And just because someone says it and they're like a grown-up, that doesn't necessarily mean you have to do it.
There's a lot of nuance in this discussion for sure.
But yeah, I just wanted to say that because I do feel like those are two ways I do see kids lose their wisdom early on and we don't have to do those things.
Right.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Yeah, and this study, and I think there's a few other studies that I read as well, they're just saying it demonstrates an early capacity for this selective trust.
And it kind of continued on to say that this develops further as kids get older.
So it starts in infancy and it just continues to develop.
over time.
And this is one experiment of many that showed that they're already picking up on some of these
Yeah, these cues like oh this person they're not necessarily lying, but they're not saying the right thing here, so I don't know if I trust them quite as much as I trust this other person who's saying the right thing here.
Yeah.
It's cute
It's very cute.
And I think it's so cool that our relationship, like when we build that trusted relationship with our kids, some people would be like
Well, how are they gonna learn the world is hard?
And how are they gonna learn how to trust people if you're just always so good to them, right?
But that's the thing.
Like and I remember that with my parents.
It's like they were good parents, they showed up for me consistently
I knew I could rely on them to get my needs met.
So then when something happened, you know, like a toxic friend in school or the thing with your parent, I knew that was wrong right away.
Yep.
And I didn't need to be given more hard lessons to learn the world was hard.
But when the world was hard, I knew it wasn't right.
Yeah, like on our last episode where we talked about creating that resilience without trauma.
Mm-hmm.
We talked about that trusted caregiver, even if it's just
a single person that a child can trust.
It's sort of the gauge for which they view everything else in the world.
On top of being able to know like I can go back to this person always and I know that they will help me through it.
It's also their gauge for understanding how to deal with the world.
So if they have a very trusting relationship, then they'll know that's what I'm looking for.
from others in exactly yeah versus if you have someone let's say in my situation that you couldn't trust it takes a lot more time and effort and hard work to get to that point where you feel like you can trust people again.
Yeah
Or at all.
I I just always think that's so beautiful because I just remember when like the thing with your parent happened and my first thought was like I want to tell my parents what happened.
Right.
And then there was like, well no, you have to keep this a secret
And then I remember the first thing when I heard I had to keep it a secret was like, No, we don't do that in my family.
We don't keep secrets like this and I'm gonna tell them because that's what I do with my parents.
Yep.
And that to me, like in hindsight, is just so beautiful that I had that knowledge.
and such a stark difference from you, who believed that that was okay and normal to like keep a secret within the family.
Well, I mean we were just we were told on repeat not to say anything for as long as I could remember, right?
So I wasn't allowed to say anything for for my entire childhood.
And you didn't know any different, right?
Yeah, I didn't know how would I have known any different because that's what I was told from but someone was a toddler and talking.
Yeah
So I just think it's such a beautiful gift for our kids to give them that trusted relationship and parents don't have to worry about making their kids hard because the world will always have hard things.
I mean
I feel as though in general life presents opportunities of struggle like right away for kids.
Again, they'll run and bump their knee or scrape their knee on the pavement or something like that.
Or as they go into the school years, their friend is gonna be mean to them or some a group of kids is not being nice to them or something like that or whatever
And then as they get older, there's like more dramatic things that happen in friend groups because they're, I mean, they're becoming, I don't know the right word for it, but like
almost more human.
They're dealing with more complex things in their brain and chemical changes in their body and all that kind of stuff, right?
So I feel like
Life kind of presents them with those things, so it doesn't make sense to me to force them into or like teach them the world is hard and how to deal with it through like punishing them or whatever.
Yeah, and I mean that's not even what we're really talking about right now.
It goes back to our last episode.
Like you don't want to teach resilience by traumatizing them unnecessarily.
It's actually not necessary and it in the end can make things quite a bit worse.
And it's the same with skepticism.
You don't want to teach skepticism by making them skeptical of you.
Right.
Right?
Yeah, yeah.
So that actually is the next point I wanted to bring up.
So there's a psychologist that warns against blind trust, so like obedience and whatever all that that you were already saying and emphasizes this term healthy skepticism.
But this does kind of sound like a tightrope walk.
Like how do you know when to be overly skeptical of
Person or situation you're dealing with versus like writing it off as that's just something that kids do or an adult does or whatever
So how do we as parents nurture that ability to discern trustworthiness without fostering that cynicism or a chronic anxiety?
Because I feel like some parents it might be historically more of my default.
Probably before we had kids to say you trust no one.
Because in my term that I've said to you as we've been like building this business and everything too is
Nobody gives a shit about you.
And that's a terrible thing to say.
But it's like you think everyone will treat you in the same way that you treat them?
And like I've said that's not how people are.
They won't do that.
They have their own self-interests.
Which I feel like both been proven right and wrong on that
Yeah, there's a line, right?
Right.
So I think my default again is to kind of go into that and would even teach our kids potentially too much that way.
And I feel like we've had lots of conversations about this over the years.
Yeah, because we're so opposite.
Yeah, we are in so many ways, we are legitimately opposite people.
Yeah, I always want to see the best and I always want to believe that someone wants to do the best and then
You're more like don't trust anyone.
But I actually have come to a middle ground lately.
Well I feel like I have too and so of you.
And what I think is and actually I teach this, so it's funny that took me so long to build this for myself
I feel like there's layers of trust and layers of relationship that you have with people.
And I think for a long time, every relationship I had was just kind of that deeper level.
And then that opens you up to a lot of hurt when people don't maybe reciprocate that
But something I've learned is like not every friendship has to be your deepest friendship.
There's layers, right?
So you know I teach kids strangers on the street, you know, you wave and you say hi, and that's the amount that you trust them
Right?
Like they might be trustworthy people.
They might be great people.
We don't know them.
So we don't just trust them.
And you have your neighbors for your neighbors, you might say, hey, how's it going?
Wave.
Talk about the weather, like surface level topics.
Maybe have a barbecue or something like that with them at some point.
But they're not the people that you're going to bear your heart and soul to.
And then you have
Peers, so people in your class, and again, you're nice to them.
Maybe you tell them some personal things.
There's like a little bit more trust there, but you're still not like disclosing your deepest thoughts and feelings and all of these things to these people
And then you have your friends and friends also even go in layers, right?
Like you have some friends that you'll share some intimate details about your life with
but it's not that you're sharing every single thing with them and with your friends you can learn if you can trust them if they continue to show a pattern
of being worthy of trust.
And trust is not something that's just formed in a day.
Trust is formed over tons of tiny interactions that show you
If someone's worthy of it.
Yeah.
And shows uh you that they're reliable, that they're honest, and that they have your best interests at heart.
If we go back to that original definition.
Yeah, exactly.
Yep.
And you can only learn how to trust someone over time.
And I actually used to teach to kids to like be wary of people that you trust way too fast.
Like super, super fast.
Because often there can be that feeling of like, oh, they see me, they totally get me, you know, and we know this as therapists is like a love bombing kind of situation where it's like it just feels so good and it feels like this is my best friend and it feels like
this person will just always be there for me, but it happens like so so so fast.
And often that's like you're just caught up in a whirlwind.
But we we don't have that time and that consistency that proves that we should trust that person.
Right
So I'm just like always mindful of when things happen so fast.
And then we have our closest bubble.
And those are our closest friends and family.
Those are the people that I describe to adult clients as you have a party, you invite all your family and friends over, and those are the last few people.
who are there that help you clean up, you know, and they stay and you chat after everyone goes and you discuss the party with them and they're the last to leave.
Yeah.
Those are your trusted people.
And but again, those relationships, they shouldn't be formed in like a month.
Like it takes years.
It might take years to build a solid, solid trust with someone like that.
And even then still you take a risk.
Like relationships are a risk.
Like you loving me every day and like being my husband every day, that's a risk because I could do something to hurt you.
Not that I plan to.
I accept the risk.
But there is a risk to
fully being vulnerable and trusting someone.
And I do think that we want to give ourselves time.
And I think about our daughter, like she had a friend at school.
It was her really close friend, you know, the first couple months of school
And then as time go goes on, this friend's kind of mean to her.
She notices a pattern of this being friend being mean to other friends.
And so we just said to her, you know, well maybe she just stays a friend or a peer in your class and take this information and then know that maybe this isn't your
your best friend who you trust all your secrets with.
You know, you just you keep the relationship casual at school and you stand up for yourself when you need to, but take this information and then learn from it and then learn what role this person's gonna play in your life
What I think is cool about that situation with our oldest daughter is that she w came to us right away.
Like she even
talks to me about it immediately, right?
If she has a day where one or a couple of the kids at at school did something that wasn't quite what she
thought was right.
She'll bring it up and even ask like, should she be doing that?
Or this person be doing that?
I'd be like, well what do you think?
And then she'll explain her thoughts.
And I just find that kind of neat because I
Never once in my entire life I think had that conversation with anyone, other than maybe with you.
Right?
But before being friends with you.
You never came home and said, so-and-so treated me this way today or so
And I remember that was my life.
Like I would always come home and tell my parents, you know, this and this about this person.
Like we would always talk it through.
And there's always that honest communication between
what was happening at school or wherever and home.
And I just feel like that is one of the best protective factors for our kids because they will have people who break their trust.
But then also how good does it feel to come back home to a trusted relationship after that.
So you can correct me if I'm wrong here.
If I'm understanding correctly, so that closest friend bubble or closest connection bubble that we have as adults, if we were to translate that into that
for our children, the people that are in that bubble are are those trusted caregivers.
So it's like the parents or grandparents or like the people that are largely the ones taking care of that child.
Yeah.
So they probably don't have anyone else in that, or is there other people, like maybe a teacher potentially?
It depends on how old your child is, right?
Over time.
I'm just thinking if we're translating it to like let's say when they're a toddler preschooler time.
It's the people that they should trust most, should be in that bubble.
Right.
So it should be like parents, ideally.
Maybe you have a grandparent or two in there.
Maybe there's like a really close family friend who spends a lot of time with you
But it should be small, like five or less people should be in that bubble of like these are the people I trust the most.
And it's should it mostly just be those caregivers and no one else?
Like it shouldn't be a friend at school or something like that at that age.
No, and the the early ages, no.
The child shouldn't be relying on their friend.
And then like that's why I say as they get older, friends do become more important.
And then we have some friends maybe in that bubble too.
But again, I that should be a small bubble of people
And the caregivers look at what point does do this is maybe a sad thought for you, but at what point
Do we potentially get booted out of that bubble and friends and other connections fill that bubble for them?
Or will we pot
I mean ideally not.
That's the goal.
That's the goal.
I mean I still call my parents when I'm having a hard time.
Yeah, yeah.
Right.
They're like my first call
So the the goal is we stay in that bubble.
And maybe it it expands to have, you know, a partner someday if they choose and
some really close friends, maybe their siblings end up in there.
But those are like maybe five to ten, but even ten is on the high end.
Like you don't
Not everyone has to be the deepest.
Like you can have really good friends, but they're not necessarily in that bubble.
Right.
Like these are your like
Heart and soul, I can share everything with you.
And you have proven to me over so many years that I trust you.
And that bubble should be small.
Okay.
Um I don't I think we kind of glamorize having tons of people, but in reality it's like these are the people that you call when you're really, really struggling.
And that
That's who's in that bubble.
Okay.
I think that makes sense.
I was just I was curious about if parents are supposed to stay in that bubble forever or like what if our kids are the same age as we are now, but we're not in that bubble
Is that a problem?
I guess for us, that's our ideal situation.
Like our goal is to be there for them and make sure that we are trusted enough even when they're adults and they move away or
Yeah, exactly.
Or on the other side of the world or something doing whatever.
It's not all about proximity, right?
It's about who are you going to call on your best and worst moments.
Like you get the raise or the promotion that you've always wanted or your dream job, who are you calling?
Yeah, who you gonna call?
Ghostbusters.
Yeah
And I mean I would love for that to always be yes.
But m yeah, maybe someday that changes and that could be okay too.
But I think
when we set the stage for trust in these early years and we continue to do that into adulthood, I do think it's possible to continue to remain those people for your kids.
And again, what I find interesting in all of this is like our relationship with our kids.
Mm-hmm.
is that how they gauge relationships with everyone else afterwards.
I just find that quite interesting
it makes being a parent feel even more important in my mind.
Like it's all it's a more important thing.
It's more than we uh
We'll typically think when a child like our toddler yesterday or preschooler is having a tantrum because I mean she was tired, tired obviously, from a long weekend
But when you're in those moments, it doesn't feel like It's the most important job in the world.
Yeah.
Or the yeah, definitely certainly not the most fun job in the world all at all times.
There are definitely times where it is, but Yeah, like when I picked her up carrying her
flailing into the house as you suppose bang your head on a rock.
But it is important and the way you handle that and be their safe space in those hard moments will be the way that they handle themselves.
And
They expect others to handle them too.
Okay, so the report that I wrote highlighted there's this shift for some reason.
I don't understand why, but maybe you can shed light on it.
From that old stranger danger concept to teaching about tricky people instead.
Who could be anyone potentially.
So it almost sounds like stranger danger to me.
I literally teach that, so that makes sense.
Tricky people versus Stranger Danger?
Yeah.
Okay.
Oh maybe I should take your course or whatever it is on it.
Mm-hmm.
It's in our body safety toolkit.
So why is this distinction so vital for child safety?
And how can parents effectively teach children to recognize can those concerning behaviors when they're little, like asking for secrets or violating boundaries or whatever, even in familiar adults without making them fearful of
Every single adult on the face of the planet.
Yeah, and that's actually why we made that shift because it used to just be stranger danger, stranger danger
And then you have children who are terrified of every stranger, right?
Eighties, nineties.
You have kids who are terrified of every stranger that they see 'cause they're just like, they're gonna try and get me to come to their van and eat candy.
Yeah.
And what we know about abuse
Like this is more like for abuse scenarios and like unsafe adults and unsafe children is that majority of abuse happens from people the child already knows.
So it's
less likely to happen from some stranger on the street.
Still could.
Oh, I see.
So that is the reason.
That's the reason for the shift.
It's because if we only ever teach stranger danger
Then we miss actually equipping them for the the more likely people who would do the abusing, which is someone who's already in your life.
Yeah, in their life, grooming them forever.
And so that's why we teach about tricky
actually what I would teach is more strange behavior versus stranger danger.
Yeah.
So strange behavior, things like, you know, asking you to keep a secret about something, showing you pictures of people that make you feel uncomfortable.
trying to touch you, giving you too many hugs, like all of these things could be strange behavior.
Not necessarily even meaning something is totally wrong, but if someone has this strange behavior, tell us and let's talk about it together
So you're essentially trying to teach your young child that if these kinds of things happen and you don't feel comfortable, no matter what, like just tell us and we'll talk it out.
And see if what we think about it.
Yeah.
And if you say it just like that in a super calm neutral way, it's so much less scary for a child.
Right
It just it makes me kind of think that like we teach road safety, we teach all this different kind of safety, just kinda like people safety, you know?
It doesn't mean everyone's bad
I actually do believe that most people aren't trying to ruin your life and make your life an awful thing.
People are just ruled by their own intentions most of the time.
Right.
And I think in general humans are self-interested, right?
Yeah, we're just self-interested.
And so I but I don't think for the most part people are out to get you.
But we do need to teach our kids these things so that we can have conversations
And then decide if further action needs to be taken or not.
Right.
Okay.
That makes sense to me.
I was confused by that because I didn't realize there was.
that term switched.
I thought both were used, like stranger danger and tricky people.
But okay.
Yeah and that makes more sense now.
Because I knew that most abuse occurs from someone who actually knows the child versus some random stranger
I mean the ironic thing for you is you probably had stranger danger like through and through your brain, meanwhile you're being abused at home.
Yeah.
And you're not identifying that behavior.
That's what I mean.
Oh, I I have vivid memories of
It was the the second house we lived in as a kid and we were I was playing outside with my sister and there was someone coming down the street that was just like doing
I don't know, I think they might have been putting door hangers on or door to door door salesperson or maybe like a Jehovah's Witness or something.
They're probably completely innocent.
But I was like saying to my sister, come on, let's go inside.
There's a stranger.
Let's go.
We have to go.
They're gonna like they're gonna get us.
I remember
I don't think I was that old.
I was probably five or six at the time.
And being so freaked out, running inside the house, locking the door, hiding, all of that.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And that's like the case.
It's like most strangers are not there to like abduct you, right?
They're probably there to drop something off at your house or something.
And so you want to identify strange behavior.
Like I think about how many does people
elderly people like go for walks in front of our house.
Like I wouldn't ar want our children to be terrified of every single person walking a dog in front of our house, right?
But if someone rolls up in a white van and wants to sell them candy, then yeah, they should probably be uh mindful of that.
Right.
Yeah.
As children move into like the middle childhood, so
or big kid, six to twelve age and adolescence.
How do the red flags that these tricky people like how does that evolve for kids as they're getting older
And are there new or what new signs of untrustworthiness should parents be discussing regarding friendships, maybe online interactions, because they're potentially online more?
Or even in like an authority figure of some kind?
How does that evolve?
I mean I feel like that's a whole other episode, the online stuff.
Yeah, like the online thing that that's fine.
We can do a whole separate I mean there I feel like it's pretty simple.
I would probably have more of a case of cynicism towards the online world because there's no way you can verify anyone is who they say they are online.
Yeah.
They even use names that are
Like you're playing a game or something like that.
They have a completely different username than their actual name.
That's just how that works online.
Yeah, exactly.
I think for online we just be very
teach a lot of skepticism and even cynicism towards the online stuff.
Yeah.
Um but in in person I think it's similar.
Like we're trying to teach kids what the red flags are.
Some of those things I listed before
As they get the middle school years, you're probably gonna have more in-depth conversations with them.
You might be talking to them about sex and pornography and stuff like that.
The people might be showing them or
pressuring them to do.
So I think it goes back to like our body safety episodes where it's like an it is an evolving conversation that just like it starts when they're little, but you start to give them more details as they get older and they might be exposed to more things when they're at school.
But it's always, always helping them tune in with that internal feeling.
Right.
Right?
What is your body telling you about this situation?
and helping them learn to develop a sense of trust for the feelings inside their own body.
That's what I want for our kids.
I want them to recognize I don't feel right about this and then take action versus like always asking other people if something's right or wrong.
Yeah.
Well and children you we can see it in our oldest child too.
She's developing she's able to understand far more complex situations in life now compared to what she did before.
So
In the the research it was even talking about, they start understanding patterns of lying or breaking promises or unfairness or peer pressure.
exclusion from things, the basic online risks.
Like they're starting to understand those things a lot better.
And you can see that even in our five year old or four, oh she just turned five year old.
She's not trusting someone who accidentally scratched her once.
Yes.
And now it doesn't want to play with that kid because they accidentally scratched her once versus our eight-year-old.
She would understand that
that was probably an accident.
And I can still trust this person, but if they scratch me again or three times
Then this is starting to become a pattern and I understand that maybe this person is not accidentally doing it anymore.
It's becoming a I think we're trying to teach that to her too, right?
Yeah.
The difference between one off they said something hurtful, like maybe
they had a bad day, they didn't sleep last last night, you know, that could be true.
Sometimes friends say mean things but they're still your friends.
Yep.
But if they say it three times, okay, now we're dealing with the pattern.
And now is this someone that you really want to
spend most of your time with that school.
So I do like helping them identify patterns and giving them some grace on the first go if it's just like Yeah, sometimes.
Like we don't always not always
Yeah.
If it's truly a body safety issue or something like that, we're not gonna say you need to you need to see a pattern of three times or anything like that.
That's like a definite one and done.
Yep.
But sometimes girls will say something and then the other girl gets sad, but maybe they didn't even mean that it was something mean, right?
So Yeah, right.
That kind of thing.
Okay, so that was part one of a two-part series on trust and healthy skepticism as children and adults
Hope you enjoyed this episode.
Next week we're going to continue with older ages and into adulthood, how you can continue to be trusting and trustworthy and also have that healthy scatter soap.
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