Raising Emotionally Intelligent Children and Building Resilient Relationships
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Show Notes
Mansee shares effective interventions like grounding techniques and the TIP skill to manage distress. She also emphasizes the role of parents in fostering emotional intelligence in their children and the benefits of sharing affirmations.
Tune in to glean actionable tips and techniques for both therapists and parents to help children navigate their emotions.
02:41 Challenges and Rewards of Working with Children and Teenagers
05:40 Identifying Emotional Distress in Children and Teenagers
07:20 Common Mental Health Themes Across Cultures
09:46 Effective Techniques for Managing Anxiety and Distress
19:30 The Importance of Multilingual Therapy
23:35 Building Strong Parent-Child Relationships
30:18 Free Resources and How to Connect
Mansee Gupte is a multilingual Counselling Psychologist and an accredited Psychotherapist with the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP), based in Stavanger, Norway, with 17 years of experience.
She specializes in working with teenagers and families using evidence-based therapies like CBT and DBT. With a strong understanding of South Asian, British, and Norwegian cultures, Mansee supports clients across six languages, helping them navigate mental health challenges such as anxiety and emotional regulation. She offers online therapy for clients, providing culturally sensitive care to foster growth and emotional well-being.
Connect with Mansee Gupte
• Email: contact@manseegupte.com
• Website: manseegupte.com
• Instagram: @conscious.connections.guide : https://www.instagram.com/conscious.connections.guide
• Linkedin : Mansee Gupte : https://www.linkedin.com/in/mansee-gupte-489a3811a/
• Facebook: @conscious.connections.guide : https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100068288947399
Download FREE 5-Minute Anxiety-Relief Toolkit: https://www.manseegupte.com/anxiety-relief-freebie
Connect with Paige Bond
Instagram: @stubbornlovepaige
Facebook: @paigebondcoaching
TikTok: @paigebondcoaching
Website: https://paigebond.com
Paige Bond specializes in helping individuals, couples, and intentionally non-monogamous partnerships feel grounded, confident, and connected in their love life. She is also the founder of Sweet Love Counseling providing therapy in CO, FL, SC, and VT. Paige loves educating people about relationships through being the host of the Stubborn Love podcast, hosting workshops, and speaking at conferences.
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Disclaimer: This podcast and communication through our email are not meant to serve as professional advice or therapy. If you are in need of mental health support, you are encouraged to connect with a licensed mental health professional to receive the support needed.
Mental Health Resources: National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255SAMHSA’s National Helpline: 1-800-662-HELP (4357)Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741 for free, 24/7 crisis counseling.
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Transcript
(generated by AI - please excuse errors)
[00:00:00] Paige Bond, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist: Welcome to the Stubborn Love Podcast. I'm your host, Paige Bond. I'm a Gottman and attachment trained, solution focused marriage and family therapist. I specialize in helping folks design and build their dream relationships through structured therapy and resources. And also use modalities that go beyond traditional talk therapy, like accelerated resolution therapy and psychedelic assisted psychotherapy.
School didn't teach us how to be good at love, so I created the Stubborn Love podcast to help you navigate it. Every episode has actionable tips that will help you create a happier, healthier, and more fulfilling life with the people you love. Join me on this journey of love and learning for the stuff they didn't teach you in relationship school.
I hope you enjoyed this episode, now let's get ready to rock and roll. All right, hello and welcome to another episode of Stubborn Love. I am so excited for today's episode because I don't think I've had someone as world traveled as this person. So today we have Mansee Gupte and she is just like going everywhere in the world.
She's a multilingual counseling psychologist, psychotherapist, DBT practitioner, and Honestly, so much more, so I'm going to let her kind of talk about all of her journey because there's just so much here. So Mansee, thank you so much for being here today. Can you introduce yourself to listeners who don't know who you are?
[00:01:35] Mansee Gupte, Counseling Psychologist: Thank you for having me here. So I have basically trained and qualified. In India as a counseling psychologist, I worked there in mental health setups, especially with children and teenagers for almost a decade, almost like nine years. And then I moved to UK and lived there and worked there for almost eight years.
And recently this year, I've kind of moved to Norway. So I've kind of been an expat immigrant, like literally twice in my life. Till now, and it's been an interesting journey because yes, I'm trained as a counseling psychologist, but coming to UK, I got accredited with BACP, which is British association of counseling, psychology, psychotherapy, or some accredited psychotherapist from there.
And then I did my DBT training as well. And I'm a DBT practitioner and coming to Norway. I've just started my own private practice and I'm offering services to UK based clients, as well as Norway based clients.
[00:02:29] Paige Bond, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist: Yeah, you are just worldwide offering all of your services everywhere, and I'm so interested to hear what differences you might have seen in the different cultures that you've been practicing.
But before we even go down that road, let's talk about, like, what got you interested in this field in particular.
[00:02:48] Mansee Gupte, Counseling Psychologist: So, I think I was always curious to kind of know about people, but from a very nurturing and caring perspective. So, if somebody would be upset or sad, I would want to, like, help them. I wanted to kind of provide them help and support.
And eventually, when I came to a stage of, like, selecting my career, my mom guided me, because there was, like, a family friend who was already a psychologist. I met her and I kind of understood her role and her job perspective, how she was dealing with things. And that just interested me. And I was like, this is what I want to do.
I want to be a psychologist. So that's where it started. And it's a bit strange or probably positive as well, but I was literally just like 16 years old when I decided my career. I was like, this is what I want to do at the age of 16. And I think I'm lucky one because that's what I decided. Still stuck to that.
[00:03:37] Paige Bond, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist: Isn't it so nice to be able to like know at such a young age? Cause I know like teenagers or early young adults, it's kind of like that's their first crisis is what do I do with my life? So that must've felt so relieving for you to know and have that direction. You talk about specializing in children and teenagers.
I am not the person to work with children and teenagers. I have to work with someone 18 and older. And so I'm always intrigued what draws people to working with the youngers, the littles. So what was that drew you to that younger population?
[00:04:11] Mansee Gupte, Counseling Psychologist: I think working with children and teenagers, especially with children, is really challenging because you can't just have like a structure in your head and walk to a session and do those things, you know, four things I want to cover in a session.
That really doesn't work. And especially if you've got anybody who has autism or ADHD, you have to really tailor the session. Based on their needs. So there have been cases where I've been working with somebody who has ADHD and instead of 15 minutes for a session, we have just cut it down to like 25 or 30 minutes based on their needs.
So you have to kind of make changes in that. But what draws me to that is just their energy. And the creativity that you can get into the session. So even though you're using the same concepts of CBT with children, you just have to be creative. I enjoy working with that creativity, the drawing that's part of the therapy, or even the storytelling that's part of the therapy.
And I think it's just so rewarding because you can see that it works with children or it doesn't work. So they're just going to be upfront and tell you if a certain technique has worked or not. Whereas adults sometimes would tend to sugarcoat it or probably not practice it. Yeah, I think I like that honesty and like that creativity and the fun thing when working with women and teenagers.
[00:05:19] Paige Bond, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist: They definitely have no filter and they're not afraid to like tell you when they're like, this is dumb. This isn't working. Yeah, I totally get that. I can see where you come from with the appreciation of the honesty and I'm sure it kind of. energizes you also because it has to keep you on your toes because you don't know what you walk into at any point in time.
So thinking about how you work with children mainly to work on like their emotional distress, like how first like would a parent know or even their peers and friends know that the child or teenager, whatever age they are, are in emotional distress? How can we tell from the outside?
[00:06:00] Mansee Gupte, Counseling Psychologist: I think you can spot sometimes anxiety or even that anger.
You can see the behavior changes or the changes in routine in children or teenagers. So you can see like a lot of time parents come and say that, Oh, my child was so bubbly and happy and they enjoyed doing everything and now they can barely get out of bed or you know, they just want to get drawn into the gadgets or they just want to be at home.
They don't want to come out. They are canceling plans with their friends. They don't want to go out. They don't want to do any fun activity. So I think that's where they start noticing those things. Another thing is the child or the teenager would get really angry or aggressive. Not exactly violent, but in some scenarios that could happen, but that's another indicator to look out for anger and also not able to manage their emotions and not able to express their emotions, not able to deal with their emotions.
So I think those are the thing which adults or parents usually pick on.
[00:06:51] Paige Bond, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist: Yeah, so really drastic behavior changes, and they can be really noticeable. Well, actually, I'm curious, do you see things from all the different places that you've been a counselor or psychologist or psychotherapist in? Do you see a theme of what comes up and what the children are working through?
Or are there different things going on in their lives that there's not really a common thread that each of them are going through?
[00:07:20] Mansee Gupte, Counseling Psychologist: I think the common thread right now, overall, I think worldwide is the social media and its influence and the peer bullying that would sort of happen or the isolation that would come along with that as well.
Because it's so important for them to immediately like a post or comment on it. And if you don't do that, if you're not active in social media, you're kind of isolated. from your friend circle. So that's a general theme. I see. But along with that, what rises or what comes up as mental health concerns would be anxiety that would come up with that and also ability to not able to manage that distress.
And that would kind of lead to low mood as well. Some people kind of get traumatized as well about it because it's just too much for them to deal with. And that could result in certain Risky behaviors like self harming as well. And I've worked a lot with that, even in India, as well as UK. I've seen that a very common theme as well, that they're not able to understand their emotions.
They're not able to deal and manage with their emotions. And they just don't know what to do. And they think, okay, if I hurt myself, I will punish myself. And that's a way of dealing with that. So it's just unhealthy coping. strategies that they tend to use.
[00:08:25] Paige Bond, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist: Yeah. Do you notice anything in particular that's the barrier between getting these coping skills and knowing how to deal with their emotions or even identify them?
Is it parent education? Is it parent and child connection? Is it the healthcare system, school system? Like, what do you notice as the big barrier from emotionally intelligent
[00:08:49] Mansee Gupte, Counseling Psychologist: kids? I think parent communication is very crucial, very important, because if your child is not able to communicate their difficulties or their problems, it's very difficult for parents to understand what's really happening with the child's life, and if they don't understand, how can they help?
And I think the similar thing is happening in a school environment as well. That a lot of times or sometimes teachers are not able to pick up what's happening or what emotional stress or trauma a person is going through. And that's how they are not able to reach out and help a person. Now, if an adult is not teaching the skills or is not modeling a certain behavior or they're not helping out a child or a teenager, they will have no clue about what to do with that.
They will have no clue about how to deal with anxiety. The fact is they would not even know that this what I'm experiencing like a panic attack. is anxiety. This weird feeling in my stomach, this heartbeat fuss, you know, beating fuss, that all is part of anxiety. They would not even know about that. And then how can they kind of deal with those things?
[00:09:46] Paige Bond, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist: Right. So I think this is a good place to start to learn how to deal with those things. So thinking about your work with this population, where do you start to help them through this process?
[00:09:58] Mansee Gupte, Counseling Psychologist: So I definitely tried to have a proper thorough assessment in terms of understanding what exactly has gone through a person's life.
So what exactly is going on with them? Are there any difficulties? Are there any trauma? Who are their support system? Because I think it's very important to have a very strong social and a support system that if a person of a child or, you know, teenager is experiencing any difficulty, they should be in a place to at least reach out to five people, you know, that they could go and have that conversation.
So it's kind of identifying those things are very important. And then I would kind of work. So for example, what is the difficulties they're experiencing? So if they're experiencing something like anxiety, we would try something like a grounding technique or breathing exercises or affirmations in that case as well, because that will kind of these tools and strategies will help them to.
understand and manage their emotions much better.
[00:10:48] Paige Bond, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist: I really love that you start out just getting them people who are in their corner. Cause I, I feel like loneliness is just such an epidemic that we're facing right now. And it's like speaking back to what you were talking about with social media. I feel like that just like makes it even worse and more lonely.
You mentioned grounding skills for listeners who are like, what the heck is a grounding skill? Can you explain what that is and what are some examples that you would do to help? You know, them ground themselves.
[00:11:16] Mansee Gupte, Counseling Psychologist: So one of my favorite go to grounding technique is something called like a self soothe box.
So that is something which anybody can make. So it's, it's basically how, you know, manage to soothe and calm down yourself. So it's basically taking a box or taking like a couple of items that will help you calm your, your body down and calm your. mental energy down as well. So we will focus more on the sensations.
So which are the visual things that you look at that will feel better for you and calm you down. So you have to pick up something visual. So it could be anything like pictures, like books or anything. Then it would be things that you like to smell, you know, so anything could be candles. perfume, anything, those sort of things.
Then the another thing is what do you like to listen to? So you could have your playlist, you could have your nature songs, those things. Then it was another thing is sensation related is taste. What are the things you like to taste? So it could be like, I don't know, hot chocolate. It could be coffee. It could just be water.
Sometimes cold water that would calm you down as well. And another thing is I think movement as well, because I think if you're just pacing up and down or just walking, Just moving your hands, that kind of relaxes and calms you down as well, or just going for a walk or just kind of walking inside the house as well, kind of calms you down.
So when you're kind of combining all these things, that's how you calm yourself down and you self soothe. So that kind of really works wonders and that will ground you, that is basically telling your brain. Stop thinking about the negative stuff. Let me focus on the things around me. Let me hold this candle or let me kind of, you know, let me take this fluffy blanket and just sit and watch TV for some time, you know, that's how it will just calm you and keep you grounded.
[00:12:57] Paige Bond, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist: Yeah. Beautiful. I love using grounding skills, five senses and everything in the box is like something that I love teaching too. You're right. It does work wonders. So once we're grounded, then we can have a little bit more brain space to explore what's actually happening underneath the surface. How do you go about that process with the little ones of trying to help them figure out the emotions and where they're coming from?
What does that look like?
[00:13:23] Mansee Gupte, Counseling Psychologist: So kind of after that, I'd also like to move and try to help them explore their thoughts. So kind of exploring about what was going on in your mind when you felt anxious or what was a trigger that kind of made you feel anxious. So what were the thoughts going on in your mind?
So kind of exploring more on those is what I tend to do. And we tend to do that through storytelling. So for example, if somebody is talking about or feeling anxious about something, I would ask them to draw how the anxiety looks like. And then color the anxiety as well, how it looks like, and then put that as a third person and say that it's not actually you, but this anxiety, this particular character is making you feel that way.
So how do you talk back to that character? How do you challenge that? So if the anxiety is telling you, don't do this, you are going to fall or this is going to happen to you. How do you challenge that? How do you gather evidence for that? You know, so I think talking to them in that story fun way kind of really seems effective.
[00:14:19] Paige Bond, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist: Yeah, I really like that idea. And it's like you're really taking all of the emotions that they're dealing with and I'm sure they're scared that, Oh my God, is this me? Is it going to be forever? They're thinking that it's just part of them now. I like how you take it out and you personify the anxiety, the depression, whatever they're dealing with. I think that's such a unique technique.
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Are there any other particular interventions or techniques that you use with children and teens who are dealing with these big emotions?
[00:15:34] Mansee Gupte, Counseling Psychologist: Another thing I, another one I use which really works well is to manage distress, and that's called something like a TIP skill. So TIP skill is basically T I P P, which stands for T is temperature, I is intense exercise. P is paced breathing and P is paired muscle relaxation. So that's how you kind of do things to manage your distress.
So what's the process of that? Temperature is the first thing. So you kind of change your body temperature so you can kind of have cold water or, you know, take like a cold shower or something. That's how you change your body temperature. After that, you move on to cardio. That is you do some intense exercise.
You get that heart beating really fast. Once your body is fully charged up, then what you tend to do is paired muscle relaxation, which is basically like a breathing exercise. And then you kind of do that and it's very important because what is happening because your body is all pumped up with all that cardio and everything, then you kind of calm it down by square breathing, box breathing, or just breathing in general and focusing on that.
And then, you know, you kind of intensify that thing and calm yourself further by relaxing each body part. So you start with. Curling your toes and then you relax, you shrug your shoulders tight, make it tense and then you relax. So you do that with each and every body part and eventually what happens is the distress that you're experiencing kind of really goes away.
So this is another technique that a lot of people have found useful. It sounds
[00:17:03] Paige Bond, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist: like the big thread with this particular technique throughout all of them is your body is like going in all of these different directions and I can imagine it would be really hard to focus on the emotion or thoughts while you're switching up all of these things within your body of temperature and then getting it, the heart rate up and then trying to relax it.
Like you're just so focused on that aspect.
[00:17:27] Mansee Gupte, Counseling Psychologist: I want to add what I like about this technique and what a lot of people find it useful is it does not focus on your thoughts. It does not focus on your negative thoughts or the distressing thoughts. It's basically focusing on creating those intense emotions in your body and then kind of relaxing.
It has nothing to do with thoughts. You don't have to sit and challenge or observe your thoughts. So I think that is how it works. And when you are distressed, you've got millions of thoughts going on. How do you really monitor that? So this kind of focusing on your body tends to be really effective.
[00:17:57] Paige Bond, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist: Yeah.
Would you be open to giving me and listeners an example of what box breathing would look like? Like could you walk us through one of those exercises right now?
[00:18:07] Mansee Gupte, Counseling Psychologist: Yes. Yes. So box breathing is basically like, I'm just trying to look for a box, but I don't have a box. But another thing I tend to do, which is on the go that anybody can use is you just hold your phone and as you are moving your finger.
You kind of do the same thing. So this is a rectangle shape, but you do the same thing with the box. So as you trace it, as you go up, you breathe in and then you hold your breath. You breathe out and you hold your breath again. So you're breathing it, holding your breath, breathe out and hold again. So that's how you continue doing that.
And I think the best part is we always have a phone with us, especially teenagers. They are like inseparable from their phone. So if I tell them, Oh, you have to do a technique in this particular way, it becomes difficult for them. But I tell them, you just have to hold your phone and do that. So all you do is whenever they're breathing, they can try the box breathing like that, and they're kind of fidgeting with their phone is what other people would think, but in reality, they actually do one of the breathing techniques, which calms them down.
And the best part of this is you can do it literally everywhere while you're sat while you're on the go. So people will not even know what you're doing, but you know, you're trying to do the breathing exercise.
[00:19:16] Paige Bond, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist: Yeah, that is so freaking cool and so unique. So creative. Like I love it. The kids must love you.
I'm also curious, you come from so many different areas that you've worked in. I'm curious how being a multilingual therapist Maybe impacts or or doesn't impact your work
[00:19:38] Mansee Gupte, Counseling Psychologist: having knowledge of so many languages almost five languages I think it's very important that when you are in a therapy space you have to feel Nurtured and safe you have to feel comfortable.
I think that is priority for any therapy. And coming from a multilingual background, English is not my first language. It's my third language, in fact. So if you see the Western world, and especially where I was in the UK, the therapy was mostly only offered in English. So I think it's very important that In the multicultural, the multilingual platform, I can offer that space to somebody who can come and talk to me in different languages.
And the beauty of being multilingual, anybody, you know, can identify with that is in one sentences, you can like literally use two or three languages. And I think when you are in therapy. You don't have to be guarded. You know, you just have to let go and you just have to talk about your feelings and emotions.
And there isn't always exact translated word in English of the feelings and emotions that you go through. So all the phases or the mindset or the values, you know, that is so different from coming from South Asian background. So I think in that space, being a multilingual, going for a therapy and being able to use two, three languages, like in the therapy or just expressing.
Your anger, your frustration, your fear in couple of languages and couple of words, just not English. I think that freedom is I think very important because I think that's how the therapy could be very effective as well, rather than always translating and converting it only in a certain language.
[00:21:09] Paige Bond, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist: Yeah, that's so interesting because I know that like some words that are in English are like either have different meanings or just they don't fit right into like the other languages.
It just means something else or has a different emphasis or even a different origin. So that's so interesting and I love how it can be just like you can find how to actually express yourself. Do you notice any challenges that does come up with being multilingual? Yeah. I
[00:21:37] Mansee Gupte, Counseling Psychologist: do notice a challenge, but I do understand how different it is from both the perspectives of being from an Eastern country, basically South Asian background, and then coming in the Western world and working in Norway and UK as well.
I've noticed that it's quite different in terms of mental health aspect, because in India, while I was there, the stigma attached to mental health and the awareness is like really difficult and different from UK. So there's a very strong stigma attached to mental health in India and also the awareness is like really poor comparatively.
It's growing, it's changing now in urban setups and cities now, but it's not completely still there in the whole of India. But whereas in UK, I noticed that even working with children and stuff, they had understanding of therapy. They had understanding of mental health difficulties and there is a stigma, but in a very different way.
So I thought that was so different.
[00:22:31] Paige Bond, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist: Yeah. One thing that just popped into my mind because now you're in Norway, I know that in general, the Nordic countries tend to be on the happiest countries in the world, like Denmark. I think Norway might be one of them and some of the other ones. I'm curious if like that shows up at all in your work or maybe not so much because people are coming to you when they have pain.
So maybe not so much.
[00:22:55] Mansee Gupte, Counseling Psychologist: I think they are happy countries in other aspects, but when it comes to mental health, I think they do struggle as well. I've always felt that even though I've been in different parts of the world now, I always feel depression is depression. So a person who is depressed in India is going to look very similar to somebody who's got depression in UK or Norway, because that's just how the nature of depression is.
So yes, they do struggle here as well. And now we are in autumn and moving to winter with like really. cold days and shorter days and darker days. I think people will start feeling more of mental health difficulties as well.
[00:23:31] Paige Bond, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist: Yeah,
[00:23:32] Mansee Gupte, Counseling Psychologist: for sure.
[00:23:32] Paige Bond, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist: Those seasonal changes, they get us. Yeah. We haven't talked too, too much about parents.
I'm wondering, because most of this podcast are people who were maybe already parents or going into parenthood. What could you say about a parent who's struggling with their relationship with their child or teen? How can they improve that relationship? I think
[00:23:53] Mansee Gupte, Counseling Psychologist: it's communication, you know? Try to figure out what is it that broke your relationship or kind of It's not good.
What is it? What can you do to repair it? You know, and I think it's very important to not get caught up in the materialistic things that, oh, let me buy this game or this gadget and then he's going to love me or the child is going to get connected with me. That really doesn't work. Yes, they're going to be happy, but that's not going to build the bond and connection.
So kind of ignoring the material things, but what is it that you can do to build that bond so they can kind of go out in terms of spending more time outdoors in nature, going for a walk? Or any other things that they can do. They can probably sit together and watch a movie. If that's what they enjoy, they can play games as well.
A lot of time teenagers enjoy being playing board games. They could have like a Friday night board game night or Friday night game night. Also, they could have like a family time where kind of. Thursdays or whatever, whichever day they're just sitting together and having a meal together because that's another problem that teenagers want to be in their room and have their meal separately.
And parents are having meal at a different time. So having even one meal together is like a task. So kind of scheduling that, I think that is very important. Discuss as a family, when is it that you want to schedule? Is it weekday? Is it weekend? And always kind of come up with something that will. help you get more connection with your child in terms of talking to them, like check with them what is going on with their friend circle, what is going on with their emotions as well, you know, so kind of having that conversation will be helpful.
The other thing is kind of joining some classes together. So if that is something, I don't know, if a child is interested in arts or craft or something, so maybe parent can join those kinds of classes together or they can do those activities together at home as well on a weekend, you know, like creating, I don't know, origami or something, something like that, you know?
So I think those kinds of activities, doing things together is ultimately what is going to create that bond and just also expressing to them that you behaved in this way. I felt sad about it or, you know, using those, I feel statements and kind of expressing your feelings and emotions to your child, because they need to know that if they are disrespecting their parents and if they are kind of having that constant argument, the parent is feeling hurt and sad.
So kind of expressing that, talking about that. Rather than just keeping it to yourself or getting angry and frustrated about that whole argument.
[00:26:15] Paige Bond, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist: I think that's huge because a lot of times parents will either hide the fact of being upset or feeling disrespected out of maybe fear that the relationship will become even more disconnected, I'm guessing, or they didn't even lash out, do what the child is doing and be angry, which we all know that that doesn't help.
You don't fight fire with fire. Like we got to like, put out the flames in some way. So it seems like the main theme of these though is like getting to know your child, taking an interest in them, really finding a way to have quality time with them.
[00:26:46] Mansee Gupte, Counseling Psychologist: Yeah.
[00:26:47] Paige Bond, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist: I
[00:26:47] Mansee Gupte, Counseling Psychologist: think what is important in that sense is parents need to have reflection in terms of where they are coming from.
So they must have gone through some sort of abuse or trauma themselves, or they must be struggling with anxiety or some kind of mental health difficulties. So if they are struggling a lot with their mental health difficulties, that's going to be another barrier of, you know, having that connection and bond with the child.
So in that case, I think it's important for them to seek help and support and go through a therapy so that they can be strong pillars to then further support their children as well.
[00:27:20] Paige Bond, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist: Yeah,
[00:27:21] Mansee Gupte, Counseling Psychologist: beautiful.
[00:27:21] Paige Bond, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist: Is there anything else that listeners need to know about how to really help their child who is in distress, doesn't know their emotions, or just to help the parent themselves?
Any other last words before we kind of wind down here?
[00:27:35] Mansee Gupte, Counseling Psychologist: Another thing they can do is something called affirmations. Mm hmm. So that is something they can do where they kind of sit down and write certain affirmations together. And they kind of would use those affirmations to say or, you know, practice those as well.
So it could be anything like, we are having a lovely time together, or we are going to spend more time with each other. You know, it could be simple, certain sentences like that. And I think that could kind of help them because it's again a together activity. that you're sitting together and creating those affirmations.
It could be simple in terms of relaxing as well. It could be, I am calm and composed. I am a wonderful person, you know, so they could have those sort of affirmations as well that could help them.
[00:28:19] Paige Bond, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist: I really love, because I'm not so big into affirmations, because sometimes if someone's like self worth is really low, it's like, are you really going to believe it?
But I love how you start out with Mainly describing the facts, like we are having a lovely time there or like something that is a little bit more tangible than like, Oh, my self worth is a hundred percent. Yeah. I'm a wonderful
[00:28:42] Mansee Gupte, Counseling Psychologist: person or I am always calm. I think that's not really realistic. Isn't it? Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. So it has to be something like a factual related affirmations. And I think that is something that they both could relate to. A parent could relate to a child could relate to that as well. And it is just kind of validating that, yes, we're having a lovely time is that validation, isn't it? That we are having a lovely time or I just enjoy your company or I feel safe and secure just talking to you about my feelings and emotions.
It could be literally like that. It doesn't have to be something extraordinary and different that you don't relate to or believe.
[00:29:17] Paige Bond, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist: And another thing into that, I love the permanency that can happen when either we write something down together or we like actually name it, verbalize it out loud. Because that can let it sink into the brain more than if we just keep it to ourselves, don't express it to anyone.
So I think that's such a unique activity and exercise to recommend.
[00:29:37] Mansee Gupte, Counseling Psychologist: And that's an activity we do with children as well, where I suggest a parent and a child to actually take like a poster paper or something, like even an A4 sheet and kind of create fancy border because that's another part of creativity.
And just write down these two or three sentences. A formation doesn't have to be a list of like 20 things. You know, it just kind of can be two or three things and they write it or they draw it and they make it fancy and colorful and they can then put that up on the wall somewhere in their room. So, you know, that's another reminder that, oh, we did this thing together.
We created this A4 sheet together as an affirmation sheet and it's that pleasant memory that stays with them then.
[00:30:14] Paige Bond, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist: Yes, that will definitely stick with them for a while. I love that. Well, I heard that you have a freebie for our listeners. So can you tell us a little bit about what you are going to offer everyone that they can click on the link when listening to this episode?
[00:30:30] Mansee Gupte, Counseling Psychologist: Yes. So it is called 5 Minute Anxiety Relief Toolkit. So that's what it's called. And it's literally a very simple read. It is something that a teenager can read. It is something a parent can read as well. Very easy, simple read. And it just basically talks about understanding anxiety. And then it talks about some breathing exercises, some relaxation exercises.
I have given a list of affirmations in that, which are in relation with anxiety as well. So that is included. And just a couple of things about how you can manage your anxiety. And how you can first of all understand that this is anxiety and this is what is happening to me. So these are just like quick five minute things that you can do.
on the go. You don't have to spare or you don't have to schedule a time to do it. You can just do whenever you want to.
[00:31:17] Paige Bond, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist: I love it. It sounds like so many of the things you recommend are something that like people can take with them and do anywhere, which I think is so unique and so much better when we get faced with like, Oh, you can only do this activity or, you know, relief exercise when you have all of these barriers, basically.
So I love that you can offer that. So cool. So, if people are really loving listening to this episode, they want to learn more about you or they want to work with you, where can they find you?
[00:31:47] Mansee Gupte, Counseling Psychologist: I've got my social media page and I've got my website as well. So they can contact me on that and they can email me as well.
I'm pretty quick with my emails. I do reply in like 24 hours usually, so yeah, if there's anything people want to discuss with me, they can definitely reach out to me and I'll respond to that.
[00:32:05] Paige Bond, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist: Super, super. I'll make sure to have all those links in the notes since you've already provided them. And I want to say thank you so much for talking today.
And expertise that is definitely needed, but it is not my area. So I'm so glad I have experts like you to come and help spread the good message and word on how to help our younger population. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. All right, listeners, catch you on the next episode.
And that's a wrap for today's episode of Stubborn Love. I hope you gathered some wisdom to bring into your love life and improve your relationships. If you enjoyed today's chat, don't forget to subscribe and leave a review. That'll help this episode reach even more listeners. If you have any questions or stories you would like me to cover in the future episodes, drop me a message.
I love hearing from you. If you need extra support in your relationships, check out how we might be able to work together by popping on my website at paigebond.com. Until next time, don't let being stubborn keep you from secure love. Catch you in the next episode.
