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Orthodox Christian Parenting, hosted by Faithtree Resources Executive Director (and mom of four!) Michelle Moujaes, is a weekly podcast for parents and grandparents navigating the holy struggle of raising kids in the Orthodox Faith. Each episode offers honesty, encouragement, and practical wisdom from the Church—creating space to exhale, freedom from the pressure to be perfect, and openness to grow as you raise children who are deepening their knowledge and love of Christ.
Anxiety feels like it's everywhere these days, doesn't it? I mean, kids feel it, we feel it, and often we don't know what to do with it. In this episode of Orthodox Christian Parenting, we're diving into the reality of anxiety and family life. How can we help our children when their hearts are racing with worry? What wisdom does the church give us when our own peace is shaky or even feeling kind of shattered?
Michelle Moujaes:And how do we exhale in the easy yoke that Christ invites us to experience? Join us as we talk about practical steps, timeless spiritual practices, and the hope we find in Christ when fear and anxiety can feel overwhelming. Welcome to Orthodox Christian Parenting, where we bring timeless wisdom into the everyday chaos of raising kids. I'm Michelle Mujaias, and today we're talking about something that touches nearly every family I know, anxiety. Maybe you've seen it in your kids, trouble sleeping or constant worry or a racing heart.
Michelle Moujaes:Maybe you felt it yourself. The weight of trying to hold everything together while keeping your children close to Christ. Maybe there's pressure to be all things to all people while fully understanding that no matter how hard you try, you just can't be everything to everyone. Anxiety is real. It's heavy, and it's affecting families everywhere.
Michelle Moujaes:But here's the good news. Our church doesn't leave us without guidance or hope. From the prayers we pray to the wisdom of the fathers, from the rhythm of the church's liturgical life to the simplest act of learning to breathe in Christ's peace. We have resources that can bring calm in the storm. So today, we're gonna dig deep into what anxiety actually is, what it looks like in our homes, and how we can help our children navigate it, and most importantly, how Christ himself meets us in the midst of it all.
Michelle Moujaes:And to walk with us on this journey and this conversation is one of my absolute favorites. I met him over a decade ago when we worked together on Faith Tree's very first offering called the Lionheart Sessions, and I can promise you, he's not only brilliant, but he's hilarious, and he makes learning about the faith super fun. He is the one and the only George Papageorge. George is a licensed marriage and family therapist with more than 35 of experience working with young people and families in his thriving Pleasanton, California practice. He also serves as a professor of family therapy in the graduate program of counseling psychology at Santa Clara University.
Michelle Moujaes:And as if that's not enough, George also directs the family wellness ministry for the Metropolis Of San Francisco and the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese. George and his team there provide education and training in family wellness and in mental health, which really advances the healing mission of the church. Many of our young people know George through his long standing involvement with the Crossroad Institute. But whether you know him or not, I cannot wait for you to hear from George Papa George and for us to learn from him together. I promise you, you're gonna love him as much as I do.
Michelle Moujaes:Hello, George.
George Papageorge:Hello, Michelle.
Michelle Moujaes:I'm so thankful that you're here for another episode with us.
George Papageorge:Absolutely. Always fun to be with you.
Michelle Moujaes:It is fun to have you here. So today we're talking about anxiety, which for so many families, is something kinda hard to navigate and something kind of intense. And I just wanna start this conversation by asking you, anxiety and what can families do to kinda navigate it in this crazy time?
George Papageorge:Right. Well, you're right to say and allude to the fact that it's on the rise and I've been counseling teenagers for enough decades to look at this past decade and see that anxiety is presenting more often than ever before Yeah. In all the years that I've worked with young people. Anxiety is a fear response. So we'd wanna just fundamentally have a feel for what is my child afraid of?
George Papageorge:How do they understand what's going on in their life? And how are they thinking about their life? Because how you think is gonna determine how you feel. Our feelings just don't come out of the blue. Typically, more inflamed feelings come from distorted thoughts.
George Papageorge:So it's not unusual that our young people have some ways of thinking that's working against them. And as a result, they end up with these inflamed feelings.
Michelle Moujaes:Wow. Okay. Wait. So let me take that in. So we're agreeing that it's more prevalent.
George Papageorge:Yes.
Michelle Moujaes:We're agreeing, is it something that we can impact as parents?
George Papageorge:Well, absolutely. It it really is the the the right topic to be raising today, Michelle, and and it is the right target to say, do I understand anxiety and how do I recognize it in my young person? And what are the signs that my Okay. Child is feeling
Michelle Moujaes:So I just wanna say this out loud. It's a real thing.
George Papageorge:Yes. A real thing.
Michelle Moujaes:It's a real thing. Well, sometimes you you get these differing voices that say, maybe it comes with a little bit of shame around the topic of anxiety, but that it's, attention getting or that it's, you know, high drama. We see a lot of parents that that really feel, I guess, some guilt or embarrassment around anxiety. So tell us if it's a real thing.
George Papageorge:Yeah. You're you're alluding you're describing some of the features, I think, in an interesting way because very often in this more recent generation, there probably would be a bit more drama. And but really, that's not some phony thing. It's just a sign of their relationship to their own emotional regulation. And sometimes not a very healthy handle on their emotional regulation.
Michelle Moujaes:Interesting. I wanna say that back to make sure I got it. Is what you just described is that anxiety is real. The drama that our kids face today is probably heightened compared to previous generations.
George Papageorge:Yes.
Michelle Moujaes:And if they're feeling anxiety, one of the things we as parents can do is help them learn to emotionally regulate.
George Papageorge:Yes. All that is true.
Michelle Moujaes:And we'd
George Papageorge:say that their understanding of the world they live in is, so real to them that there's so many sources around them that in a sense give them reason to be anxious. But then, and we'll unpack this a little bit, I think, is how they think about the things. How do they do their thinking?
Michelle Moujaes:Got it.
George Papageorge:That is the one that actually sort of doubles down and raises their anxiety.
Michelle Moujaes:Okay. So let's talk about it. How do you find, at least in your experience in ministry or in your clinical practice, how do young people who are experiencing, anxiety feel about it?
George Papageorge:One of the things I find that they almost get relieved of is when they find out that they are something more than their anxiety. Most anxious children start to believe themselves as just fundamentally defective. And because they have that much anxiety, they just see them as like, it's just they're out of luck and this is something they're stuck with as opposed to an emotion that they can understand. One of the things I tell young people and the church really teaches this, that we are not the sum total of our thoughts and feelings. And when I ask a young person, Hey, if I told you you're not the sum total of your thoughts and feelings, what do you think you are?
George Papageorge:And they kind of ponder it and sometimes I stump them and sometimes they come up with, you know, answers that are kind of getting at it and they go, well, okay, what am I if I'm not the sum total of my thoughts and feelings? And I simply inform them that they're a person.
Michelle Moujaes:Mhmm.
George Papageorge:They're a person. That there's a person living inside of them. It's the person that showed up to that conversation that we're in right there. It's the person that is having an assortment of thoughts and feelings. The thing in youth culture today is when a young person believes that they are the sum total of their thoughts and feelings, it sets them up to then have to believe something about themselves that their most disturbing thought or feeling is telling them as opposed to sort of untangling thought and feeling saying, wow, I really did have that thought and feeling, but it doesn't totally define me.
George Papageorge:This begins to introduce a kind of dignity, a kind of connectedness to themselves. Wow, I'm the person. Now I have opportunity to kind of get into a healthier relationship with my thoughts and feelings.
Michelle Moujaes:Got it. That reminds me of elder Thaddeus' book, Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives. It's a good one. So I'm hearing we can impact our thoughts and feelings. How do we do that?
George Papageorge:Well, when we start to see that we want to get into a relationship with thoughts and feelings, this helps right off the bat. This helps the problem of denial. Very often, the most troubled thoughts and feelings, some people choose denial and pretend they don't think and feel it, And so they just shove it down. Now the outcome of that sometimes can even be health issues. Chronic stress due to emotions like this, right, can turn into chronic pain, can turn into digestion problems, can enter neck pain, migraines, and so on.
George Papageorge:Very often, our bodies, as they say, our body keeps score. And so another good book. And so when the young person is given a little bit of guidance that they're this person that gets to get more acquainted with their thoughts and feelings and then get guided a bit on what kind of relationship do I have with my anxiety. So when my anxiety shows up, how do I relate to it rather than my anxiety telling me what I have to do?
Michelle Moujaes:So I'm gonna press in here a little. I find that there are kind of two schools of thoughts that kind of prevail in our current culture, which is we're actually gonna jump in there and manage, deal with, address those anxious thoughts and feelings, or we're gonna ignore them. Okay? So we were greeted on that so far. Correct.
Michelle Moujaes:So then the question is, where does anxiety as a God given response to let us know something is kind of not in the right zone that it should be? What does that look like?
George Papageorge:Well, it's great you're bringing it up because in no way do we wanna accidentally make the mistake that anxiety is some bad emotion that we have to eradicate. We're supposed to have anxiety. Anxiety sort of wakes up in the morning. Oh, anxiety gets us to school on time. Anxiety, make sure we prepare for a test or whatever.
George Papageorge:Anxiety is a great gift. Now this is where this is how I would describe it. If we look at sort of our emotional wiring
Michelle Moujaes:Mhmm.
George Papageorge:And we think that our emotions are just like a light switch on, off, on, off. And a lot of young people feel this way and a lot of adults feel this way. Mhmm. That when they have the anxiety, they kind of regard it as, uh-oh, it's on as if it's a 10 out of 10 on. And the only way they're free is they figure out how to shut it off.
George Papageorge:This actually leads to a lot of self medicating. Why marijuana use is on the rise and all kinds of self medicating happens is because they haven't found the switch to turn it off, so they start numbing that feeling.
Michelle Moujaes:Got it.
George Papageorge:So instead of light switch, rewiring would, in therapy, they call scaling, but it would be kind of like a dimmer switch or a dial. And so when we work with young people and as parents, if our child says, wow, I'm really freaked out about something and I'm nervous about it or it makes me anxious or, oh gosh, can I just miss school? And you're detecting that they're feeling anxious. If we have the dial and we establish that a little bit with them and a 10 on the dial would be my cat just got run over. My gosh.
George Papageorge:That is a 10 out of 10. And then what they're describing, would that be a 10? Would that be a nine? Would that be a two? What number would you give that feeling of anxiety?
George Papageorge:Once we introduce the idea of I have anxiety, that's not necessarily the problem. But to what intensity do I understand my anxiety? Young people tend to think if any anxiety is present, I sort of have to panic. When we teach them that they have a certain amount of anxiety and they can start scaling or picking where they are with it, and they might say, well, it's a four, then we wanna say, well, what what can we do right now to get it to a three? That idea of managing anxiety is not getting rid of it, but learning how to guide it and reduce it in the way that we better understand that the the trigger to the anxiety isn't a 10 out of 10 every time.
George Papageorge:That's actually good news for the young person.
Michelle Moujaes:That is good news. So I heard two things. So help me reconcile them. We said that anxiety is a good thing and can be a gift from God to actually allow us to deal with circumstances in our midst. Yep.
Michelle Moujaes:But we also do wanna kinda reduce it. Are there some best practice like, is the goal to have it go away or is it that you really just wanna identify the anxiety, respond to the thing, and then it goes away?
George Papageorge:Well, again, this is why we wanna wanna have that distinction of that they're a person and they're not just the sum total of thoughts and feelings. So the idea is that the innocence come alongside their emotion, that feeling of that anxious feeling. They want to get clarity on I have anxiety, but I could still be okay. Mhmm.
Michelle Moujaes:I
George Papageorge:wanna be with my emotion. So the idea of I could have the emotion, but it's not the game changer. It's not the thing taking me out. It's not the thing that I have to avoid or quit or do all the things believing that that's the only way of getting away from it. So when we look at the relationship with the anxiety, we're really looking at their way of sort of honoring the emotion.
George Papageorge:It's there for a reason.
Michelle Moujaes:Okay.
George Papageorge:Now, how do I relate to that emotion means the emotion isn't the boss of me. I'm the boss of the emotion and I can guide it. Now, and sometimes that, of course, we teach things like properly breathing, taking a moment of silence, doing a prayer, various things we could do to get centered. Okay. Because keep in mind, anxiety has a way of panicking us and we sort of disconnect from ourselves.
George Papageorge:Okay. And that's when we really see our kids really struggling because they feel so disconnected. And so the idea of, guiding and and modeling this idea of stay connected to yourself, the person, as I observe the trigger and what it is that I could do to reduce that anxiety in the moment. Very often, we want to give them a sense of confidence that even when those emotions show up, they really are still okay. The emotion has a way of tricking young people into thinking that their person, who they are, is not okay.
George Papageorge:They actually are okay, you know, more often than not, and they could take the appropriate step to settle themselves down and stay connected to what their next best step is.
Michelle Moujaes:So if we agree that anxiety is more prevalent now, is there a reason? What do you think the reason is?
George Papageorge:Yes. I do think it's more prevalent. I do think that there's interesting dynamic going on where we have a inadvertent mix up. And I used the word person before, and in a way, the whole job of parenting is to be connected to the person of our child.
Michelle Moujaes:Mhmm.
George Papageorge:But the big mix up is between these two P words, person and performance. It's super common. So and some of the absolute most well meaning parents want the best for their kids and inadvertently both with that kinda tendency toward our kids being successful as well as the society at large, it really puts emphasis on performance and success in a way that our kids process that as my the worthiness of who I am as a person is totally determined by my performance.
Michelle Moujaes:Mhmm.
George Papageorge:So when who I am, how I am, how I'm perceived, and how I feel about myself is totally dependent on my performance, Guess what that sets up? Anxiety.
Michelle Moujaes:Yeah. For sure. And
George Papageorge:with that kind of my sense of myself and think about this. This is a big deal when we talk about a person's sense of their worthiness, what they're worth.
Michelle Moujaes:Mhmm.
George Papageorge:That's as core as you get. But that being connected to to my performance, that also sets up what we know to just simply be mood disorders. And that is I can only feel as good as my last greatest performance.
Michelle Moujaes:Mhmm.
George Papageorge:And then I'm off back into anxiety because now my worthiness is on the line again on my next performance.
Michelle Moujaes:That's right.
George Papageorge:Whether that be test performance, sports performance, music performance, church performance, or even social performance.
Michelle Moujaes:Yeah.
George Papageorge:Yeah. So you have anxiety in all those areas. There's an interesting book written a while ago about maybe fifteen years ago by a woman in our area, Northern California, Madeline Levine. She wrote a book called The Price of Privilege. I was reading her book, and I'm like, oh my god.
George Papageorge:This woman found my files. I mean, I couldn't believe how I was reading what she's writing. Yeah. So she was talking about the price of privilege. And in her population, she dealt with children with from material advantage who described themselves as having high parental performance pressure.
George Papageorge:And what she found was these children are the boys are 25% higher in self medicating, and the girls are 25% higher in anxiety and depression. In other words, what she found is with the performance pressure and the material advantage, what that accidentally set up is that you know, maybe we talked about that worthiness, that young people were seeing their worthiness as determined by externals.
Michelle Moujaes:Mhmm.
George Papageorge:Sort of what I have on and how people perceive my performance. And I was simply saying what she found is external plus external never adds up to internal. So what she found is it was a generation of unhappy kids.
Michelle Moujaes:Yeah. I I mean, I actually see, with young people that I've worked with in ministry or with my own kids or with the people in our circles around us, there has never been a more aggressive demand for what we call in our family winner winner chicken dinner Mhmm. Which is everybody's starting a nonprofit in the junior Olympics, straight a student. Like, you don't can't get a four o and be the rock star anymore. You have to have a 4.3.
Michelle Moujaes:You know? It's like everything is so extreme, and it feels like we as parents have to put the kibosh on that and put the brakes on and say, we don't wanna play that game anymore. And and it's super competitive for us as parents too. Right? It's like competitive parenting.
Michelle Moujaes:So how do we even get out of that so that we can focus on the internal?
George Papageorge:Well, you raise a great point that within the parent community, that's its own pressure cooker.
Michelle Moujaes:Wild.
George Papageorge:Right? Talk about Kitty Lace and Lord Have Mercy on us as parents within the parent community.
Michelle Moujaes:I'm gonna be honest with you. I told my husband, we are never playing that game. When our kids are applying for college, we're not doing any of that stuff. And then we got there, and all of a sudden, we're like, okay. I guess our kid has to be on another sport team.
Michelle Moujaes:Right. Because it's kind of you get sucked into the vacuum.
George Papageorge:When sixth graders start talking about their resume for Oh college
Michelle Moujaes:my goodness.
George Papageorge:I remember speaking to a group of eighth grade girls and it was like their graduation time and there was this Nashlie Cherry Lee kind of meeting with all the moms and all the daughters. Lovely Oh, setting. It couldn't be more beautiful. And I'm supposed to talk about stress. And so I opened up the group and broke them up in little groups with a prompt question saying, you're gonna be in high school in the fall.
George Papageorge:What is your greatest stress that you think you're gonna face? And literally, were delightful girls. I was convinced they were gonna talk about all the social pressures and fitting in and boys and all that. Not a mention of any of it.
Michelle Moujaes:What was it?
George Papageorge:It was absolutely I mean, across the board, there was like forty, fifty girls. Across the board was what my grades are gonna be. And if I don't get straight a's my freshman year, then I'm never gonna go to college.
Michelle Moujaes:I'm never gonna go to college. Right. How is that possible? But it's across
George Papageorge:country. Exactly. So we see what anxiety does and there's two words that create the slippery slope for anxiety. And that is what if.
Michelle Moujaes:What if?
George Papageorge:What if I don't go to college? What if my kid doesn't go to college? What if I don't get all straight As? What if that kid doesn't like me? All the things when we what if it we jumped from the present moment into the future.
George Papageorge:Every time we or our children think about the future and sometimes we obsess over the future, then we're pretty much guaranteeing that we're gonna stay in anxiety until we teach ourselves as well as our kids how to be in the present moment and engage in all the beautiful things that can happen in the present that invests in whatever's gonna happen in the future. But the trend is definitely so forward looking because we're so sort of obsessed with this thing we call success They were causing our kids to leave their person, their inner person. Their inner life gets skipped over, leapfrog right over the inner life in order to get that thing just right and just perfect and perform in the way that they believe and that many parents believe is gonna ensure all the things I'm worried about. And again, external plus external never equals internal.
Michelle Moujaes:But I actually feel like that's true of us as parents as well. Like, we have the what if. Yes. Right? What if my kid doesn't stay close to the church?
Michelle Moujaes:What if my kid doesn't marry in the church? What if my kid doesn't get into the college? What's like
George Papageorge:the You're bring You're absolutely right. And so it really does raise a a big point in family therapy too. But as you're saying that, you're reminding us that as parents, we basically bring on our own anxiety.
Michelle Moujaes:Okay. So you What's the alternative then?
George Papageorge:Well, I've got an opening on Tuesday. No, I'm only kidding.
Michelle Moujaes:So you don't need like six
George Papageorge:So we really have to think about this.
Michelle Moujaes:Yeah.
George Papageorge:We really want to, in a way, get connected to our own spiritual path and make sure that our emotional path follows our spiritual path.
Michelle Moujaes:K.
George Papageorge:This idea that what do I do every morning to make sure I'm connected to the present moment, ready for the day? Can I reflect such on a daily basis within my rule of prayer if I'm gonna be fear driven that day? In what ways can I connect with myself and in turn connect with the Lord and in turn connect with my children in the present moment? That we don't go into autopilot of, like, hair on fire and then rattle everything to our kids that we wanna make sure they do without realizing that our anxiety created their anxiety.
Michelle Moujaes:Mhmm. There's a book I'm reading called How to Live a Holy Life by Metropolitan Gregory. I think Metropolitan Gregory. Yeah. It's from, like, the eighteen hundreds.
Michelle Moujaes:Bold title too. Right? How to live a whole that's a great title. But one of the things he talks about is that thinking through as you start your day. Like, for him, the morning is a really important time.
Michelle Moujaes:And he said when you're starting your day, you really wanna think through the areas where you may fall prey to sin Yep. So that you can try to dig your hills in in the opposite direction and bring, you know, your decisions before God before they even come in your face. If you're gonna meet someone that you're at odds with or someone that you don't like or if there's some hard situation at work, whatever it is. I think for anxiety, it might be the same thing, which is thinking through and bringing them to the foot of the cross knowing that perfect love casts out fear, and starting from the mindset of there are things that are coming Yep. For us and our kids that
George Papageorge:are gonna
Michelle Moujaes:be rough.
George Papageorge:That's right. And really that is totally correct and really does need to be a daily practice. In the book Unseen Warfare
Michelle Moujaes:Mhmm. The
George Papageorge:first page of chapter 16. I love that book for a lot of reasons, but the chapter's like four pages long. That's the other reason
Michelle Moujaes:I love it. Great reason.
George Papageorge:And, in chapter 16, it says how to fight spiritual war, how to fight the battle in the morning. I was like, that was so curious to me. And it says basically what bishop Gregory said. It says start your day doing your first work, which I love that. Do your first work.
George Papageorge:It says before you even start anything, you could be half awake. Start the Jesus prayer.
Michelle Moujaes:Mhmm. Mhmm. Lord Jesus Christ. I actually think that's a really important
George Papageorge:takeaway. And then he says, then take up position as if in an arena. And he says, look to your left, and the enemy is there with along with the passionate urge with which you struggle. And then he says, then turn to your right and see our commander in chief, the lord Jesus Christ and his mother and the holy angels. He says, basically, stand firm, be of good cheer, and the lord will, you know, be sure you win the battle.
Michelle Moujaes:That's so Now imagine
George Papageorge:the imagery of that every day. And sometimes that thing that we're that struggle on the left might even be the worry we have for our child.
Michelle Moujaes:Mhmm.
George Papageorge:And then we look then to the right and see that the Lord is settling our heart before we start that day and before we get into motion and do the fear driven autopilot thing that we so easily fall into.
Michelle Moujaes:How can we as parents know, what's just normal worry or natural and healthy anxiety that is the gift and when it's too much and when we probably need to intervene. What does that look like?
George Papageorge:Well, let's say it this way. We never know for sure every moment and every time, but what would have in common is that we know how to be connected to our kids either way.
Michelle Moujaes:Okay.
George Papageorge:Right? And so this idea of being with our kids, which is not hovering over it and not fixing, and also not judging what what's going on emotionally for them. So there's an interesting term in, collaborative family therapy that they call withness.
Michelle Moujaes:Withness. I like that too.
George Papageorge:I know, it's kind of catchy, withness. And they developed in therapy because even in the world of therapy, it became so expert driven. Sometimes the therapist was just a little too expert ish over the client and they decided that, okay, that actually didn't lead to good results. And the therapist had to learn how to be with the client, which is they developed this word withness. Well, I think that shows the trends in parenting.
George Papageorge:Sometimes we get rolling and we get a little too expert ish to our kids and have a few too many lectures or control moves, and then we disconnect. And so the idea of witness is meant to be our response to what's going on emotionally and what's going on in the inner life of our kids so that when we're with them, it actually gives them a sense of security. Mhmm. It doesn't mean we had any magic wand to make the emotion go away. And in fact, sometimes it's good that we didn't find a way to make the emotion go away.
George Papageorge:We're just with them as they have their emotion. Guess what? When we're with them, when they have their emotion, they can learn how to be with themselves and have their emotion. It's actually a stabilizing experience.
Michelle Moujaes:Yeah. Yeah. I love that. And that's really what Christ does. Right?
George Papageorge:He's with So that's the beauty of it. Right? He comes along side. He's the one who sticks closer than a brother. He's the one in our deep heart, in the depth of where we struggle the most.
George Papageorge:He's in those deep places. Absolutely. It's beautifully modeled all through the gospels. The way he shows all his interactions with people is he meets us truly where we are. Not even where we might be tricking everybody in our social life where we are, where we really are in the quiet of our heart, he knows where we are.
Michelle Moujaes:I've heard you say, George, and I I love it. And I know we've touched on this in a little bit of ways, but the focus on all things external really neglects the focus on all things internal. And then we get the output of performance, anxiety, what have you. Tell me a little bit about how we can most combat that in this world. Right?
Michelle Moujaes:In the world that we're living
George Papageorge:in. No. Totally. Well, I want us to understand that this experience that our kids have is happening sort of on all fronts. The question of where's the calm in their life?
George Papageorge:It typically isn't found in their social world. Statistically, it might be questionable what's happening in their home world.
Michelle Moujaes:I would agree with you.
George Papageorge:Right? Yeah. And with all the pressures we all face.
Michelle Moujaes:That's right.
George Papageorge:Right? And so the idea there would be, I'd want us to establish an understanding that in the mind of the young person. I I was talking to gosh. It was probably 250 young adults at the YAWL conference in Chicago a few years ago. And I was talking to them about when do you remember life being like a playground?
George Papageorge:And I had them just sort of imagine back to elementary school. Remember the playground and life just felt that way. It's like just that feeling of playing all day and you didn't really perceive stress a
Michelle Moujaes:lot. Mhmm.
George Papageorge:Like you just be yourself. I've asked that question to groups of young adults over the years. And I would say, what grade were you when that changed? And it went from a playground to a battleground. For years, I and I as I expected, I heard kind of the predictable answer as being right around middle school, being where it goes from playground to battleground.
Michelle Moujaes:Why? Is that because they're getting closer to college, because they have tech? What is that?
George Papageorge:Right. So what what that is is that their sense of themselves is starting all over. If you get sort of born into a family, you get a sense of security in your family, then we're doing our job where they feel connected at home. Now their focus shifts from the security of family looking out to the peer group. Now they look at the peer group as like, okay.
George Papageorge:Now I have to figure out where I fit in this world. Mhmm. And that can create a lot of tension. And with adolescents having kind of a built in developmental reaction where many adolescents are self conscious about themselves, so then you have a lot of bullying going on trying to vie for I'm better than you by putting you down. You have that world going on.
Michelle Moujaes:Mhmm.
George Papageorge:So predictably, it happens in middle school. But what I came to find out since that time in Chicago and since I've asked it at all these additional speaking engagements since then is I'm starting to hear third and fourth grade as being when they just felt like life wasn't innocent anymore. Yeah. And so the tensions are really showing up a lot earlier in the lives of young people. And so we wanna appreciate the fact that not only are their environments getting more stressed out and and and full of pressure and this idea of social anxiety starting at a earlier age, But also that within their own thought of themselves, they have kind of an internal critic that's starting to show up.
Michelle Moujaes:So is that always, or is that just now that we're seeing that age go down?
George Papageorge:It's happening more recently that it's going down. But what we would say that's been there all the time is an inner world of young people where they're uncertain about how to think of themselves. And so and many people have heard of cognitive behavioral therapy. That is the focus on how is a young person thinking. And very often they have distorted thinking that causes them to think very negative thoughts of themselves.
George Papageorge:So when we use this imagery of the playground, the battleground, not only are we talking about that happening in a social level where it gets to be more hectic and people are judging me and how do I fit in. But if you could picture the mind of a young person, it goes from playground to battleground. Mhmm. And it goes from thinking simple thoughts of life feels safe and everything's kind of, you know, life isn't stressful to their thinking starting to get more stressful in how much they have an internal critic. And so when I talk to young people, I actually give them that imagery of picture your mind as as a playground.
George Papageorge:You're minding your own business, just trying to do the best you can. You're doing your thing. You're you. Mhmm. You're aware of the fact that, you know, you have struggle here and there, but you're minding your own business, doing your thing.
George Papageorge:And all of a sudden, imagine that playground is like a bully showing up. Sometimes on a playground, there's a bully.
Michelle Moujaes:Mhmm.
George Papageorge:And that bully is saying things to you that is just so negative. It might pick one thing that you know is kind of negative about you, and they just hammer you with it, or they could just make something up and make you feel bad. Whatever it is, that bully makes you feel small and powerless. When I share this imagery with them, that's when I'm describing what to expect about how our thinking works.
Michelle Moujaes:Okay.
George Papageorge:That very often we have this automatic negative thought. We don't know where it came from. We were just minding our own business. But these negative thoughts show up in the lives and minds of young people, it makes them very self conscious and makes them very unsure. And so very often, that is an internal reality going on in the lives of young people.
George Papageorge:Now back to witness. This is why we wanna be with our children as these, to us, sometimes what could feel like very irrational feelings and thoughts come up. We wanna be with them so that we're just hearing what it's like for them and not dismiss it or hurry it along or say, oh, but you know that's not true. Okay. Let's let's get your homework done now.
George Papageorge:But you're just taking your time to hear what it's like for them in their thought life.
Michelle Moujaes:Outside of the witness, what I wanna do now for every thought that every young person has had that's not the right thought, I wanna, like, control the thoughts. Right. Like, my first thing would be throw away every phone because that makes it worse or keep them away from the mean girls. But that doesn't seem like I mean, we can't control everything forever.
George Papageorge:Right.
Michelle Moujaes:So as parents, what can we do to help kinda mitigate
George Papageorge:Right.
Michelle Moujaes:That kind of drama?
George Papageorge:Right. So we wanna look at in what ways can we help the situation Mhmm. Externally. Sometimes there'll be some limit setting.
Michelle Moujaes:Okay. Limit setting. I like it. Practical. Good.
George Papageorge:But also what's the internal version of what's going on? Because we can't just get in and control that. So this is where if we could picture that same playground, we had the kid and then that bully showed up. What I explained to young people, that's their mental bully.
Michelle Moujaes:Mhmm.
George Papageorge:And I have them write about it. Have them talk about it. Sometimes we even role play what that mental bully is saying. So we we can kinda externalize a little bit for them that this is this unwanted thought that's showing up, this unwanted belief. Now I like to begin to put a little emphasis on they're just the kid on the playground.
George Papageorge:Just because they think it, just because the bully says it doesn't make it true.
Michelle Moujaes:That's right.
George Papageorge:Okay? And I love when young people can start to realize, wow, even my darkest thoughts don't have to be true. Right. And I could start then having kind of a game plan on what to do with that unwanted thought. Now I go on with the analogy and say, now sometimes there's a third person on the playground.
George Papageorge:Okay. So we have a little kid, we got the bully. Who could that third person be? And they think about it. And often they'll come up with something like yard duty lady, or they'll say the witness, the onlooker.
George Papageorge:I go, yeah, you're onto it. Yeah. Sometimes there's a third person that's seeing all this happen. And I said, sometimes that that little kid is fortunate where the onlooker at first observes it and then moves closer and becomes the advocate. So from there, I try to explain to young people that already you've been the little kid, already you've played out the role of the mental bully, now you can learn to be that third character.
Michelle Moujaes:They're the third person as well.
George Papageorge:How can I become my own advocate? They're all the people. How can I identify they're they're all all the people? Now they're learning to be the healthier person on the playground. Not the one that feels weakened and not the one that's being toxic, but the one that's the advocate that knows the truth and brings health and reassurance.
George Papageorge:Now, when I say that, then I do describe to them if there's a safe person in your life or if I'm talking to parents saying, well, imagine yourself as that advocate that comes alongside
Michelle Moujaes:Mhmm.
George Papageorge:Is there to help but not take over, but have that voice, have that way to reach that little kid that feels beaten down to encourage them to build them up. And then fortunately, and this has been beautiful, is when given opportunity, if a child is in the faith, I also describe that that advocate is the Lord. And talk about witness. The Lord is with us even when that negative voice shows up.
Michelle Moujaes:Mhmm. And
George Papageorge:he's there to pick us up and tell us the truth about ourselves.
Michelle Moujaes:Mhmm.
George Papageorge:So I find that giving them a sense of understanding sort of all the voices, if you will, having a sense of, I'm not the sum total of my thoughts and feelings. Wow. I can decide and learn how I respond to some of those most negative messages. It really does reduce the anxiety and the stress that goes with it.
Michelle Moujaes:When you just said that, it made me think that we really do need to be mindful and serious about teaching our kids to engage regularly with holy scripture as well and with their prayer life because to draw close to the Lord, you have to know him.
George Papageorge:Yes.
Michelle Moujaes:And so getting to know him so you can hear that voice and hear what he said about you.
George Papageorge:That's right.
Michelle Moujaes:Right?
George Papageorge:And here's the greatest combo. Absolute to that point. And, you know, that would be such an encouragement to think that families are sort of energized within themselves as parents about what the scriptures say. So this organic, it's it's feels natural for the parent to share that with the child. But what's what I find powerful is we move with that idea is then the parent in a way embodies the scriptures, embodies the way of Christ.
George Papageorge:That sometimes our response to our stressed out kid is stress.
Michelle Moujaes:Mhmm. Sometimes our response to anxious kid
George Papageorge:is anxiety. And so we want to make sure that advocate
Michelle Moujaes:Keep ourselves.
George Papageorge:Visits our playground.
Michelle Moujaes:That's right.
George Papageorge:Okay. Like that. A battleground and the voices start in our head that get us afraid and cause us to wanna feel beaten down and powerless. That we let the advocate, the holy spirit come alongside our process. Then from there, from a more gentle place, we come alongside our child with some of that encouragement.
Michelle Moujaes:Well, and gentleness for ourselves. When you speak, it feels like an exhale. But when I think about keeping my own things that make me anxious or things that stress me out or worries I have for my children, it feels more like I try to power through and muscle through it all. How do you kind of bridge those two things where it can be more of an exhale? And then it is faith over fear, and it's not performance based, but it's really I mean, certainly having a rigorous prayer rule would be helpful.
Michelle Moujaes:Not necessarily a rigorous prayer rule, but a consistent prayer rule.
George Papageorge:Well, right. And and also like a first responder, you know, when it really counts, we know how to access that in our in our own life. It really is the lived experience of having the Lord calm our hearts. This means we have to know ourselves. We need to be emotionally aware.
George Papageorge:We need to be emotionally honest when we are stressed out. Some of the most well meaning horrible parenting happens when we're triggered. And so to know when am I acting out of fear driven by this thing I better fix and I'm panicking and I think I better do it now and then I come down on my child and then they just feel the stress. They may not even go away with the words. We may have said all the right words but filled with panic.
George Papageorge:They just go away with more anxiety. And so that idea of, as you said, the exhale, we then would say, do I have a path of my own exhale? Do I have the path to meet with my own sense of, Lord have mercy? So I get to that. Literally, it could be, okay, sweetie, I'm coming upstairs, and then we go take a right turn into our own room and get our knees.
George Papageorge:Right? And just take that second to collect ourself. We could even, you know, hold the breath in. Lord, you know, Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me and and breathe a little as we do the Jesus prayer, so that we walk in and we are aware of what we're we're walking to a person and what does that person need from me. Part of what they need from me is my calm heart.
George Papageorge:Right. And even Jesus says, come to me all you are weary and burdened and I'll give you rest. I'm gentle and humble in heart. Honestly, our biggest investment in parenting is just that I is really our focus on, Lord, help me be gentle and humble in heart.
Michelle Moujaes:Mhmm.
George Papageorge:And so during very stressful times, that is the last thing we look for because we feel so disconnected from it. And so the idea is what is part of my own routine to get back connected in my own heart and connect with the Lord in my own heart as I then come alongside my child.
Michelle Moujaes:I love that. I love that. I've heard you use, an analogy of cupcakes. Do know which one I'm talking about? Yeah.
Michelle Moujaes:Yeah. I want you to tell our audience about this.
George Papageorge:You know, it was so funny because I was in a boat on Hood Canal in Washington when that book I alluded to earlier, The Price of Privilege, had just the excerpt had come out in the San Francisco Chronicle in the Sunday paper. And I just brought the Sunday paper, went on vacation, and our friends live up in the saddle area. I bring out the paper, we're in the boat. It's the first day we're there. I start reading this little excerpt from that book and our friends say, Oh yeah, George, what's the latest with young people and all this?
George Papageorge:And I said, Well, and I just came out with, said, Well, kids are like cupcakes. And they laughed. Oh, George, oh my gosh, what are you talking about? Kids are like cupcakes. I said, the feeling I get is we all have our special cupcakes, namely our kids.
George Papageorge:And, without realizing it, we want the best for them. And so we just kinda put them in the oven and just make sure they cook just fine. And when we get a little triggered, a little stressed, like, are they gonna turn out well? The tendency is we turn up the heat. And what ends up happening And then if that's not enough, we put a lot of sprinkles on them.
George Papageorge:Whatever it is that we think is gonna just make it work, make them presentable. And but as the heat goes up, what we end up with is, what I would describe as overcooked but half baked. Oh. They just feel overcooked with the pressure, but they're half baked. This idea of they become high performing but low coping.
George Papageorge:They learn how to jump through the hoops. They learn how to comply in various ways. You see the joy draining away. And on the inside, it's gooey on the inside, and they don't know how to manage. Therefore, the resilience goes low.
George Papageorge:And that would be something that I've seen decreasing over the last number of years.
Michelle Moujaes:Resilience. Is
George Papageorge:this idea of resilience.
Michelle Moujaes:Yeah. I would too. I would So then if you were gonna say this is what a win looks like, this is where it's done really, really well, give me an idea of what that looks like.
George Papageorge:Mhmm. So definitely a win would be that we continue to see all facets of our child's life.
Michelle Moujaes:Okay.
George Papageorge:Because we wanna problem solve so bad, sometimes we keep returning to the parts that need to be fixed. So I do want us to have the ability to celebrate what's working in our child's life, including just their sense of humor, what we notice about them as a person. We like to affirm their performance and that's totally fine. But do we affirm just who they are, how we feel about them? We just think they're such so funny.
George Papageorge:They have a witty personality. They they just are thoughtful. The win is our child feels seen for who they are, not just what they do. And so I like to see families have just different beautiful rituals, whether it be game night, prayer time, bedtime. I love the idea that if a family prays together, that it doesn't feel so forced.
George Papageorge:There's something beautiful about how they might hear mom and dad talking about their own need for prayer and their own vulnerability. I think that's a win when our children get to see that our inner life is very connected to our faith. And our sense of what we need in life isn't just let's package this family in a presentable way and you kids better cooperate, but more of a sense of we all have a shared inner life. We feel like we have access to one another. That's the heart to heart, the face to face heart to heart.
Michelle Moujaes:I like that. I like that. For, those parents who have older children, teenagers or beyond where maybe we haven't rocked it and maybe we haven't figured out how to breathe into the exhale. Mhmm.
George Papageorge:I would say that thoughtfulness ends up being a gift to our older kids.
Michelle Moujaes:K. Tell me more about that.
George Papageorge:When we remember that there's some little something that they mentioned and we remembered that they're a little bit stressed about it, we might even text them that day saying, hey. Just thinking about you today. I know that's coming up. I'm I love you and your thoughts.
Michelle Moujaes:Awareness. Yeah. Yeah. Awareness.
George Papageorge:That sense that, again, that that connection to them, if it involves their vulnerability, we wanna be connected to their vulnerability never in a judgmental way. Yeah. We wanna be connected to their vulnerability in a way in which we say we're here for you. We care about you. And the power of that is my love for you, not that I'm doing it for you or fixing it for you Or or rushing you out of the struggle you have.
Michelle Moujaes:Yeah. That's really interesting. How do you reconcile that with resilience? If you have a kid who doesn't seem to have a high tolerance for pain or isn't resilient, how can you be there and be encouraging? You know, because we so often want to help them.
Michelle Moujaes:I think you said failure to launch. So if we wanna help kids and it gets to the next phase and to be how do you reconcile those two things, anxiety and resilience?
George Papageorge:Well, I mean, definitely they're they're connected to one another. The higher the anxiety, sometimes the lower the resilience. And we're trying to have them see that anxiety is part of the picture. Like, as I mentioned, how do they respond to how they understand that particular anxiety. But what I would say about resilience is in a way, as they say, it's caught not taught.
George Papageorge:It's as we are resilient and emotionally available, but not freaking out with them, but we're with them, not freaking out with them. They see that we're not panicking. We wanna be tuning in, you know, very empathetically to what they're going through. But when they see that we have low tension kind of what they call in therapy, low anxious presence.
Michelle Moujaes:Low anxious presence. Yeah. Yeah.
George Papageorge:Okay. When our anxiety is low, that actually models resilience. They actually pick up on the fact that maybe this is survivable.
Michelle Moujaes:So it would be key for parents to keep their anxiety low.
George Papageorge:Absolutely. And this is where we we've spoken before about, you know, the, just different communication skills. And this is where the empathetic responses of, gosh, I sure hear you know, I'm hearing that you feel x because of y, and that we're not going on with a lecture after that. We're tuning into what they feel and that we understand where it's coming from. That can be its own exhale.
George Papageorge:When people feel understood in what they're going through and that the sense of what they're feeling is heard.
Michelle Moujaes:Mhmm.
George Papageorge:I mean, think about being with a best friend and they go, oh my gosh, I totally get I'm hearing that you feel that because of that. Oh, they heard me. Yes. Yes. That's a zone exhale.
George Papageorge:That's Really good listening really promotes exhaling in our children.
Michelle Moujaes:That's right. And I feel like we really could all grow in our listening skills. Just taking a second to take it in. You know, so quick to wanna
George Papageorge:The research does show that children are the number one population that's not listened to.
Michelle Moujaes:Yeah. That makes sense.
George Papageorge:Right? And right. And and it doesn't mean that we're we you know, we're gonna end up with some kind of entitled situation that we have to hear every single thing every single second. And it doesn't mean we have to agree with every single thing every single second. There's two a words we mix up.
George Papageorge:And I and I teach this in any marriage talk I ever give, but the two a words will be acknowledge and agree. We don't have the pressure to agree with everything they're saying. We have the opportunity to acknowledge everything they're
Michelle Moujaes:Oh, that's a good way to say it. I wanna say that again. Yep. We don't have to agree with everything they say, but we do have an opportunity to acknowledge what they say. I like that.
Michelle Moujaes:That's great.
George Papageorge:Right. And again, we get so hung up on the data that we forget the heartbeat. We wanna tune into what they're feeling about the thing they're talking about and leave it right there for that moment. Then you breathe, which then lets them breathe and they feel acknowledged. The child that feels acknowledged does end up feeling connected.
Michelle Moujaes:I love that. I think one of the things that I hear when you say that though is it may take a little longer that way. We're so efficient now. We just wanna go in, solve the problem, move on next Well,
George Papageorge:the way I honestly, the way I think about that is we've got kids who've learned to merge in the fast lane because they're believing they're supposed to get somewhere fast. I call it I call it the race to nowhere. But they they believe they're supposed to be in the fast lane getting there. And very often our parenting is like racing down the fast lane with them.
Michelle Moujaes:What I am hearing you say, and I believe it to be true, not that I do it. I wish I did it, but margin. Mhmm. We've gotta also leave some time for margin because we are in the fast lane going nowhere, maxing out at every turn. And, of course, we're gonna be anxious.
Michelle Moujaes:But if we actually want to be present with our kids, we want to hear what they're thinking, feeling, struggling with, we've gotta leave time for those conversations. Exactly.
George Papageorge:If we use the the traffic metaphor, highway metaphor, it would be in what ways do we need to take a look on how to merge out of that lane? Yeah. And like what time of day do we merge out? What time of the week do we merge out? When is it that we don't ask about results or test scores?
George Papageorge:When is it kind of the the person's zone where performance isn't being touched on?
Michelle Moujaes:Yeah. I I wanna share an example of one of my children. He, came and had all these activities that he wanted to do. And so we actually I was looking and I thought, there's no way you can do all this stuff, son. So we walked and we went through and we put time stamps to everything that he wanted to do.
Michelle Moujaes:I wanna be in debate club. I wanna be in the basketball team. I wanna do volleyball. I wanna be in, you know, the youth group. All the things And we totaled it, and he had a hundred and eighty seven hours a week worth of things he wanted to do.
Michelle Moujaes:It's a lot of things. Yes. Because we don't have that many hours in a week. I said, we don't have that many hours. So we actually had to sit and walk through this opportunity of what are your priorities.
Michelle Moujaes:And some of that means you have to have dinner with the family, not in the car.
George Papageorge:Yeah.
Michelle Moujaes:Some of that and I think that's something that all parents would be well served to really think about margin, margin, margin. Yeah. We need margin.
George Papageorge:No. Absolutely. And I think that's a really, great reminder that there's an exercise for all of us in ways we find the practical side to to to create the margin. And Mhmm. You know, children spell love, it's a four letter word, t I m e.
Michelle Moujaes:That's right.
George Papageorge:And p l a y. You know, sometimes even one on one time with kids is almost like nonexistent.
Michelle Moujaes:Yeah. That's so true. Right? That's so true.
George Papageorge:And so again, that's margin. Yeah. Right? When does my child, they're all different in their personalities, but what is it that we experience one on one where I could get a sense that their person is showing up and their person gets delighted with that kind of time. So it would be good for us to give that some thought.
Michelle Moujaes:All right. So anybody who knows me knows I have very strong anti tech feelings. It's an ever growing presence in our family lives across all families. So do you think there are any best practices as far as tech is concerned or at least what you've seen in your clinical practice that parents can help their children who struggle with anxiety? Because we know that it is a contributing factor for sure.
Michelle Moujaes:Certainly social media. But even just the distractedness of tech, like how can we be intentional if anxiety, is something that we really want to help our children navigate? How can we be intentional with tech?
George Papageorge:Well, as we mentioned before about understanding how children are wired emotionally, we talked about the light switch versus the dimmer switch. And I think that intentions around technology could be the same way. Some families will take the hard line and just shut it off completely or believe because I can't shut it off, I can't do anything about it, and then their kids run rampant with technology. And I would say let's go back to the dimmer switch again and establish the times in which they spend time on social media or technology, times that absolutely get dialed down to zero, other times that have a limited use of some kind of technology, but not all use of every kind of technology. So I think it's great to establish that with children all along the way.
George Papageorge:If it hasn't been established, then you start introducing it, You'll get some resistance listening from teenagers. But the idea that it's not all gone away is a redeeming feature of it.
Michelle Moujaes:Right.
George Papageorge:Because we do want them to learn how to be responsible with their life and so on. I'd also, with the practices of fasting in our No.
Michelle Moujaes:It's so good. Yes.
George Papageorge:I have found it is hilarious how my kids on their own in a way OD'd on social media at different times in their teenage life. And then they fasted and said, oh, dad, I got out. I just and one of my kids was, like, hooked on the street, keeping some kind of snap Snapchat streak going forever. And he finally you know, it got to him and he I think he went two or three weeks, shut it all down. He said, I can't even believe how that felt, which created great, like supportive response from me on like, dude, that is so awesome that you discovered And that.
George Papageorge:So I think some fasting periods that you could work with your child on, like, when is it and, you know, whether that be a certain time of year, a certain week out of the month or
Michelle Moujaes:That's where I love the church. The wisdom of the church in teaching all of the fruit of the spirit and self control and patience. I think that the natural cycles and rhythms of, you know, the liturgical calendar and and the different spiritual tools are really beautiful. We could connect those and tap Yeah.
George Papageorge:That's And we think about the the rhythm of the church in a way, this is what's so sacramental, the holy mysteries, is that we have these external rituals, if you will, that are rhythms that speak to the internal rhythms of our life. So anything that we're doing in family, if that's external, like certain bedtime and certain things that we're guiding that have external manifestation, It really represents bringing order to the inner life.
Michelle Moujaes:I love that.
George Papageorge:And so, that's where we wanna have, if you will, if you think about what culture is your family and some people may say Greek, some people may say Palestinian, some people whatever. American, whatever it is. But I'm not talking about those ethnic cultures.
Michelle Moujaes:Mhmm.
George Papageorge:I'm talking about emotional culture. What's the emotional culture of your family? Yeah. Is it an argumentative culture? Is it a playful culture?
George Papageorge:Is it an accepting culture? Is it a pressured culture? Think about those things. What are the what's the emotional culture of our family? And then of course, because we're orthodox, we do some good self reflecting.
George Papageorge:Yep. Our own upbringing was our emotional classroom. Yep. Sometimes we came from an emotional culture that maybe produced some stress in us. As we're really looking from an intergenerational perspective, looking at what am I doing to bring peace and love and balance to the emotional culture that I'm setting every day.
Michelle Moujaes:I love that. I actually, I've heard you use that word in a variety of ways today, but I think the word playful is something we should also all keep top of mind. The idea of laughing and having humor and being playful. Sometimes we forget that.
George Papageorge:I'm telling you when when people that are in leadership are playful, they become people that others wanna follow. Yeah. And that means our kids wanna be influenced by us when they see what do they see when we're playful? They see something about joy. Saint John Christom writes a great sermon back a few years
Michelle Moujaes:Yeah.
George Papageorge:Where he looks around looking at the church saying, what are you guys doing? I see no joy. Yeah. Don't you know the resurrection happened? Yeah.
George Papageorge:Yeah. To say, the true mark of a Christian is joy. And so I want us to kind of keep that in mind as Orthodox Christians that we bring joy and playfulness and a kind of perspective that lets us exhale on our own to say, wow, kids, this is not a pressure cooker around here. This place of safety, this place of laughter. So when something serious is happening, then everybody's paying attention because it fits somewhere in the scheme of the landscape of life of the family.
Michelle Moujaes:Yeah, and when you talk about performance culture, I mean, it makes it very easy to forget that the gospel's really good news. We get sucked up into the
George Papageorge:Absolutely.
Michelle Moujaes:Performance and become, what do they say, human doings Yeah. Instead of human
George Papageorge:Yeah. You know, honestly though, totally to that point, Michelle, and I really appreciate you kinda underscoring it that way. It's sacred to be a family. It's sacred to raise kids. And so we want to make sure we're plugged in to the sacredness of our own connection with the Lord as we do this work.
George Papageorge:And that He reminds us that He's the one we could trust and that perfect love casts out all fear. And so we're tempted to stay in fear that we would have those daily opportunities and the time we set aside to make sure our inner life is connected to the inner life of the Lord.
Michelle Moujaes:I love that. I love that. I love spending time with you. What else? You get one more minute.
Michelle Moujaes:What do you wanna tell them before we leave?
George Papageorge:One more minute. Would say when you look into the eyes of your child, I want you to see a whole universe in there.
Michelle Moujaes:Yeah. I don't want you
George Papageorge:to see your agenda. I don't want you to see your fears. I want you to see a whole universe possibility. This the beauty of what they could believe in when you believe in them. Yeah.
George Papageorge:That that kind of like that they sense from that eye contact that you are perfectly at peace with who they are. Yes. And that you believe in the Lord enough to be there in the tough times and the good times. That there's a kind of confidence that comes in that kind of connection of like, I have joy when I see you. Wouldn't it be great that our kids sense our joy in seeing just who they are every day?
George Papageorge:And it's not just why can you feel like your sister or whatever else we tend to say. So there's something beautiful about tuning into who they are as a person.
Michelle Moujaes:I love that. All right, we got one question that we're gonna leave you with here today. We got a question from Ann Arbor, Michigan, and this is what it reads. What words of encouragement would you give to parents who feel anxious themselves?
George Papageorge:Yeah. Absolutely. Well, let me just say there's probably good reason you feel anxious, some of which predates you being a parent.
Michelle Moujaes:Oh. Meaning like your own history and things? Absolutely.
George Papageorge:And don't wanna make this free therapy, but here we go.
Michelle Moujaes:Okay. Let's do it.
George Papageorge:Right? In the research of intergenerational family therapy, we find that whatever was in the generations prior, we, in a sense, inherit because it was modeled for us in some way. Now, if we also know that there's been some kind of serious issues or trauma, then there's all kinds of reasons that that reverberate into the generation we grew up in. So we carry that kind of anxiety. It kind of puts us into survival mode versus living mode.
George Papageorge:Many of us, because we've been in survival mode so often and for so long, we just assume that's how life's supposed to work. There's a difference between survival mode and living mode. So taking a look at what things did I survive, what role did I have to take on, what was it that kinda stalled out the development of who I could just be as a person because I had to take on so much? So then we parlay that kind of role of carrying some loads that aren't even ours to carry often. And then we become a parent and we see that as the load we have to carry, but in that same anxious way.
George Papageorge:So I would say that what we do about our own anxiety that predates parenting, now keep in mind, and I say this in a lot of talks I give, that the unhealed parts of us show up with symptoms.
Michelle Moujaes:Mhmm.
George Papageorge:Sometimes we get shut down with our emotions. Sometimes we get controlling. Sometimes we get anxious. Okay. Those are common to us.
George Papageorge:Those are parts of us though that are kind of showing up as symptoms that something isn't quite healed. When kids come along, we're so delighted, but sometimes those unhealed parts do carry out into our efforts as parents. And so we we really do wanna respect our own sense of where am I as a person?
Michelle Moujaes:Right.
George Papageorge:What am I needing as a person? What are my, different times of day when I could tune in not only to the Lord, but to myself to really find out how I'm doing that day? In what way can I bring nurture to my soul
Michelle Moujaes:Got it?
George Papageorge:Both emotionally and spiritually?
Michelle Moujaes:So good. George, thank you for being with us. Such a pleasure every time.
George Papageorge:Thank you so much.
Michelle Moujaes:We're so thankful. And thanks to you for listening to this week's episode of Orthodox Christian Parenting. You know, every week, we're here to help you raise children who know Christ and who love him and who, God willing, spend their whole lives trying to be more like him. And listen. If this episode blessed you, would you consider doing us a favor?
Michelle Moujaes:Consider leaving a review or sharing it with a friend, and here's why. Because when you do that, it helps more families just like yours find the show. And one last thing, if you wanna go deeper, you can download this week's free discussion guide in the show notes, or you can find it at faithtree.org/parenting. This guide is just a free gift to you and your family and is a wonderful opportunity for you to think more deeply about all that we talked about today. And you can go through the guide and the questions in it with your spouse or your friends or a godparent or your community at church.
Michelle Moujaes:You definitely will want to check it out. And God willing, we will see you again next time.