Episode 3
Navigating the Emotional Depths: Dawn Friedman's Journey Through Post-Adoption Depression
Navigating post-adoption depression can be a challenging and isolating experience for many mothers. Dawn Friedman, a clinical counselor and mother, shares her personal journey of grappling with this condition after adopting her second child. She discusses the emotional complexities of open adoption, the grief involved for both the birth mother and herself, and the importance of building a support network during difficult times. Dawn emphasizes the recurring themes in parenting and the necessity of finding one's unique path as a parent, regardless of whether the child is adopted or biological. This heartfelt conversation offers valuable insights for all parents, underscoring the need for community and understanding in the ongoing journey of parenthood.
Dawn Friedman, a clinical counselor and mother, opens up about her deeply personal journey through post-adoption depression following the adoption of her second child. She reflects on the emotional complexities of adopting her daughter, Maddie, while also being a mother to her son, who is seven years older. Dawn shares her struggles with bonding and the challenges of navigating an open adoption, where she maintained a relationship with Maddie's birth mother, Jessica. The episode delves into the emotional turmoil that can accompany the adoption process, particularly the grief experienced by both the adoptive parents and the birth mother. Dawn emphasizes the importance of support systems for parents, highlighting how a solid community can help mitigate feelings of isolation and shame that often accompany mental health struggles during parenting. She candidly discusses the messy realities of motherhood, including feelings of guilt and the struggle to connect with a child while grappling with the loss felt by the birth mother. This heartfelt conversation provides valuable insights for all parents, particularly those embarking on their own adoption journeys, emphasizing that parenting is a continuous learning process, marked by love, loss, and the need for understanding.
Takeaways:
- Dawn Friedman shares her personal experience with post-adoption depression after adopting her daughter.
- The adoption process can be emotionally complex, requiring support for both parents and children.
- Open adoption presents its own challenges, including navigating the feelings of loss and grief.
- Motherhood is a continuous journey of learning and adapting to each child's unique needs.
- Building a community of support is vital for parents coping with mental health issues.
- Recognizing touchpoints in parenting helps identify recurring challenges that arise at different developmental stages.
Transcript
Will you please introduce yourself and give a bit of your back story?
Speaker A:You don't.
Dawn Friedman:Sure.
Dawn Friedman:My name is Dawn Friedman and I'm a clinical counselor.
Dawn Friedman:But I'm here to talk about my own experience as a mom who had post adoption depression with my second child.
Dawn Friedman:My first child is a bio kid.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:And they're how far apart?
Dawn Friedman:They're seven years apart.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:So why made you want to adopt the second time around?
Dawn Friedman:Are you.
Dawn Friedman:Oh, no.
Speaker A:Crush you go ahead.
Dawn Friedman:So we had our son and then when about four.
Dawn Friedman:When he was about four, we started trying for a second.
Dawn Friedman:I had a lot of reoccurrent miscarriage.
Dawn Friedman:And finally we decided to turn to adoption.
Dawn Friedman:And his sister came home to our family when he was seven years old and she was three days old.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker A:So you were in close contact with the birth mother then?
Dawn Friedman:Yeah.
Dawn Friedman:So her birth mom's name is Jessica and I, this was a private infant adoption.
Dawn Friedman:So we met.
Dawn Friedman:I think Jessica was around seven months pregnant when we met and connected through an agency.
Dawn Friedman:And then she signed away her rights when Maddie, our daughter, was 72 hours old.
Dawn Friedman:That's the law in Ohio.
Dawn Friedman:And we took her home from the hospital.
Speaker A:Will you explain what was signing away her.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:What exactly does that mean?
Dawn Friedman:So she made an adoption plan and reached out to an agency, and the agency then presented her with profiles of hopeful adoptive parents and she chose us.
Dawn Friedman:And then we connected at that time to talk about that and get to know each other with plans for it to be a fully open adoption.
Dawn Friedman:Now, every state has their own laws about when a woman is able to sign away her parental rights, and when that happens, she is no longer legally the parent of that child.
Dawn Friedman:In most states, the child is then actually under guardianship of the agency, who then places it with the adoptive parents.
Dawn Friedman:And then depending on the state, in our state, which was Ohio at the time, it would be six months before the adoption was finalized.
Dawn Friedman:And then they created a new birth certificate with my name as her.
Dawn Friedman:I know people don't know about this, with my name as her birth mother and her, and my husband's as her birth father.
Dawn Friedman:And her original birth certificate was sealed.
Dawn Friedman:Now, we actually have a copy of that original birth certificate, but usually someone can't access that until they're 18 years old if the state allows them to do that.
Dawn Friedman:Not every state does.
Speaker A:Wow.
Dawn Friedman:Yeah.
Dawn Friedman:And all of this contributed to my post adoption depression because it's really an ugly process.
Dawn Friedman:It's really a terrible process.
Speaker A:It feels a bit draconian.
Dawn Friedman:Yes.
Dawn Friedman:Yes.
Speaker A:So you start to feel IP or.
Dawn Friedman:Sad or all of it.
Dawn Friedman:Before we hit record, you and I were talking about how important mothers are, and certainly as someone who had given birth, and I remember when they placed my son in my arms of going, oh, it's you.
Dawn Friedman:Like, oh, you're so familiar to me.
Dawn Friedman:This baby I hadn't met yet, like, I just fell in love with him.
Dawn Friedman:And I knew that was something that had happened for Maddie's mom, Jessica.
Dawn Friedman:And knowing then what they lost in each other was really something difficult.
Dawn Friedman:It's still difficult to navigate, but at the time, I just felt devastated, participating in this incredible grief because we were at the hospital and we took a baby from her mother.
Dawn Friedman:And even though there was this whole structure around it and this whole kind of belief system of adoption, when we took Maddie home, that all fell apart.
Dawn Friedman:And all I saw was the grief and the loss and then trying to figure out how to mother Maddie through that, it was just a mess.
Dawn Friedman:And because you have worked so hard to bring this baby home and you're still being observed by the agency, because they're going to.
Dawn Friedman:They would visit once a month for the six months until the judge officially made us her parents, it was something I felt like I had to hide and not tell people.
Dawn Friedman:Yeah, it was very messy.
Speaker A:I've found that's common with every woman I've spoken to among all of the talkers, that we all form it behind everything.
Dawn Friedman:Which is why it's so important you're doing this podcast.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:Because the only way we can make each other feel like we're not something to tell our community.
Speaker A:So do you think because you were a mother already, you had already had that experience?
Speaker A:Do you think that's why we refuse to what you imagine happening at the beginning, radiating her first parent or degree or.
Dawn Friedman:Sure, I think possibly.
Dawn Friedman:But also, I know because since then, I went back to school to become a therapist, and I went through the postpartum support, international training.
Dawn Friedman:And when they talk about the things that are more likely, the things that make us vulnerable to struggling after we become a parent, it's a lot of those, the difficulties and the challenges of becoming a parent.
Dawn Friedman:So if you've gone through infertility or had have loss, you're more likely to get depressed afterwards.
Dawn Friedman:If you have a difficult relationship with your own mother, you're more likely to get depressed afterwards.
Dawn Friedman:There's all these things that now I look back and say, actually, I should have been on somebody's radar from the beginning.
Dawn Friedman:And having twins, having kids in the NICU, these are all things that make you more likely to have depression afterwards, having a difficult birthday.
Dawn Friedman:So many of us were already vulnerable because it's a traumatic experience, often coming to motherhood and then having a baby does not cure that.
Dawn Friedman:It makes babies do not make your life easier.
Dawn Friedman:So then you're exhausted and you're trying to learn how in the world to parent this small person.
Dawn Friedman:And it's a wonder that any of us make it through.
Dawn Friedman:It's so hard.
Dawn Friedman:And there's not the social supports and there's not the actual supports.
Dawn Friedman:I think my husband stayed home for two weeks, and many women now are listening, going, no kidding.
Dawn Friedman:My door screams, yeah.
Speaker A:Oh, man.
Speaker A:So there was a lot of time you were alone?
Dawn Friedman:Yes.
Dawn Friedman:And Maddie had colic for the first three months.
Dawn Friedman:And so I assumed, oh, it's because she wants her real mother.
Dawn Friedman:And so I couldn't make her happy.
Dawn Friedman:We just walked her and bounced her for three months.
Speaker A:What are some of the other symptoms that you experience?
Dawn Friedman:What I remember mostly is just having this overwhelming guilt that not only had I taken this baby from her mother, but that I wasn't enjoying it.
Dawn Friedman:And I remember, actually, and I've told Maddy is 20 now, and we've talked about this, so it's not like she would hear this and go, oh, my.
Dawn Friedman:What?
Dawn Friedman:But.
Dawn Friedman:So I had a friend who I was lucky that I already did have my mother friends because I was already parenting.
Dawn Friedman:And so I did have women who showed up for me and were there for me.
Dawn Friedman:And one of them said to me, you can say anything you want to her if you say it in a sweet voice.
Dawn Friedman:So I would bounce her and say really sweetly, oh, honey, I think I just ruined my life.
Dawn Friedman:I think everything is so hard now.
Dawn Friedman:And it just made me feel better to be able to express that.
Speaker A:Of course.
Dawn Friedman:Yeah.
Speaker A:Oh, my witness.
Dawn Friedman:Filth.
Speaker A:Funny.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker A:That's very funny.
Dawn Friedman:And it was.
Dawn Friedman:And again, like, I had mother friends who remembered feeling that way.
Speaker A:That's great.
Dawn Friedman:Yeah.
Dawn Friedman:So they just could forgive me before I was even ready to admit how I was feeling.
Dawn Friedman:Yeah.
Dawn Friedman:And that's just so important.
Speaker A:It's so important.
Speaker A:Oh, wow.
Speaker A:You mentioned that you talked to Maddie that she knew.
Speaker A:So when did that happen?
Speaker A:I find it very interesting.
Dawn Friedman:Oh, gosh.
Dawn Friedman:I'm not sure.
Dawn Friedman:I'm not really sure.
Dawn Friedman:We have always been.
Dawn Friedman:Again, we had a fully open adoption, so she knows her whole story.
Dawn Friedman:She knows that I did struggle, and she knows why I struggled.
Dawn Friedman:And I think probably we shared that.
Dawn Friedman:I probably shared that in the context of understanding that adoption for her is a mixed bag.
Dawn Friedman:Cause she loves us.
Dawn Friedman:She loves me very much.
Dawn Friedman:But she has grief about what could have been.
Dawn Friedman:And she does have grief about the relationship that she might have had with Jessica that they don't have of not being Jessica's parented daughter.
Dawn Friedman:And so probably it was in that kind of context of that we're allowed to have ambivalence, like, to feel joy and grief and that it's all part of being a person.
Dawn Friedman:That's such a.
Speaker A:That's such an important lesson to teach and to learn, that you can feel two different or seemingly conflicting ways at the same time.
Dawn Friedman:I tell a lot of moms there's a whole genre of books of women who run away from home and from their family, and that's because we've all wanted to do that.
Dawn Friedman:That's the fantasy, is sometimes you wish you could.
Dawn Friedman:Just like I always tell people, sure, you probably love to run away and be a showgirl in Vegas and have a glamorous life.
Dawn Friedman:And who wouldn't want that?
Dawn Friedman:Sometimes that's okay.
Speaker A:What?
Speaker A:Certainly it seems like men are more able to admit that.
Dawn Friedman:Oh, yeah, I think you're right.
Dawn Friedman:Yeah, I totally think you're right.
Dawn Friedman:Cause we're supposed to be such natural nurturers.
Dawn Friedman:But, like, you and I were talking before, mothering is what's wonderful, what a gift, blah, blah, blah.
Dawn Friedman:It's also super boring.
Dawn Friedman:It's really.
Dawn Friedman:I can remember, and I was a preschool teacher.
Dawn Friedman:I was an early childhood educator.
Dawn Friedman:I love being with little kids.
Dawn Friedman:Like, I loved it.
Dawn Friedman:And I wanted to gouge my eyes out from the boredom of being home with my own kids.
Dawn Friedman:Like, both.
Dawn Friedman:Yeah.
Dawn Friedman:It was so.
Dawn Friedman:Just like taking a walk on the sidewalk and they have to stop and look at every rock, and you're just, like, grinding your teeth with how bored you are.
Dawn Friedman:I just remember, physically that heaviness of it.
Speaker A:Oh, wow.
Speaker A:Like, sense you can send thoroughly sensory weeding.
Speaker A:You remember?
Dawn Friedman:Totally.
Dawn Friedman:Yes.
Dawn Friedman:I remember that about my son, too.
Dawn Friedman:Of, like, I couldn't stop looking at him, but I was so tired of looking at him.
Dawn Friedman:Like, I was so in love with him, and I was nauseous from loving him so much.
Speaker A:Oh, my gosh, that is so poetic.
Speaker A:That's, well, beautifully poetic, but in bizarre way much that it makes me nauseous.
Dawn Friedman:And nobody likes to be nauseous.
Speaker A:Nor, I think it makes complete sense because you're an adult human.
Speaker A:You are an adult human person.
Speaker A:And if you go, no matter.
Speaker A:Not speaking to adult human thing like your reality, same like war.
Speaker A:Adult Willie, a college education or whatever.
Speaker A:But now I dreamt I'm crawling about or beginning making weird Evan wealth.
Speaker A:You have to sing with your job and maybe do it with yellow like you.
Dawn Friedman:Yeah.
Dawn Friedman:And we are not meant to raise children in isolation and we are not meant to have these compartmentalized job.
Dawn Friedman:Like, here I'm a working person and here I'm a mother.
Dawn Friedman:It's supposed to be all squished up.
Dawn Friedman:We're supposed to be in community.
Dawn Friedman:And I think that's part of what's crazy making, too.
Speaker A:Oh, my gosh, that is crazy making.
Speaker A:That's a good new phrase, I think.
Speaker A:And I can only speak from a woman's point of view.
Speaker A:I'm a woman.
Speaker A:I just, I feel like particularly, I think it's your months before you're more anthem.
Speaker A:When do you work?
Speaker A:Everyone has the know your contemporary.
Speaker A:Why?
Speaker A:Why did you teach?
Dawn Friedman:I was excited.
Dawn Friedman:I thought Covid would change things because all of a sudden everybody's on Zoom and there were all those videos, remember, of kids interrupting birth work.
Dawn Friedman:And I loved it because I thought finally we're acknowledging that people have children and that children matter and that children are not always convenient and that they get a and that you have to feed them.
Dawn Friedman:And I was so hoping it would mean a shift culturally and it hasn't.
Dawn Friedman:It's just so disappointing that we are all going back to pretending like parents aren't parents or parents don't have jobs.
Dawn Friedman:And it was such an opportunity for us to grow as a society and we didn't take the opportunity.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's like I had that same because I was actually taking care of my father at the time.
Speaker A:And I've had to have a real lack of flexibility, sort of passion.
Speaker A:And then not really all of a sudden, Covid, everyone had to be accommodating what it is part of any sort of ended.
Dawn Friedman:And actually the school district that my practice was in, they made the teachers go and teach at school online.
Dawn Friedman:So all the, like every place else, the schools went online, the teachers were teaching via Zoom.
Dawn Friedman:And in my district, they decided that it was too distracting that they were parenting their own children while teaching.
Dawn Friedman:So they made them go to the school, go to the classroom and teach them the classroom without their children.
Dawn Friedman:Never mind that there was no childcare.
Speaker A:So what it.
Dawn Friedman:I have no idea what people did, but I just think, I don't know how they did it, but it just devastated me that they would do that.
Dawn Friedman:And apparently it was because some parents in the district complained that their kids are being distracted.
Dawn Friedman:And I know we were all under tremendous stress.
Dawn Friedman:But it seems, gee, as a parent, you would get why that.
Dawn Friedman:I don't know.
Dawn Friedman:And I don't think our kids are harmed by knowing that children exist in the world.
Dawn Friedman:Many of them are going to be parents someday, too.
Dawn Friedman:Yeah.
Dawn Friedman:Yeah.
Dawn Friedman:That was really.
Dawn Friedman:That was discouraging.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Earlier, we were talking about, before we start to record in, we were talking about the moonwalk brand and there is a pride status and that hand.
Speaker A:And we needed all over the moment when you.
Speaker A:You said it.
Dawn Friedman:No, I'm.
Dawn Friedman:It's somebody.
Dawn Friedman:It's T.
Dawn Friedman:Barry Braselton's touch points theory.
Speaker A:There you go.
Dawn Friedman:So he said it better.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:So you just paraphrase him badly.
Speaker A:You said that.
Speaker A:A limited crisis.
Dawn Friedman:Yeah.
Dawn Friedman:So his theory is that there are these predictable moments that he calls touch points, when parents are in some way making a decision as a parent that they step into their parenthood.
Dawn Friedman:So I think it happens.
Dawn Friedman:I think it happens at the beginning when we're preparing for parenthood and we're decorating the nursery and thinking about the baby that will come home.
Dawn Friedman:But there's these specific times when we're making decisions about sleep or feeding or the toddlerhood, when they start separating and we have to decide how to handle it, that those are all times that we are creating our parenthood like we have.
Dawn Friedman:We make a decision.
Dawn Friedman:We do a thing.
Dawn Friedman:We differentiate ourselves from other parents because we are parenting this child, us, them.
Dawn Friedman:We shape each other.
Dawn Friedman:And that when we rely too much on experts to tell us what to do, we get in the way of that organic growth as parents.
Dawn Friedman:And it's one reason why I struggle when people are saying, this is how you parenthood.
Dawn Friedman:Because there are a million and one ways to be a great parent.
Dawn Friedman:And I think parents are best served when somebody helps them discover their way for that child.
Dawn Friedman:And you've got twins, which means you've got to discover two ways every time.
Dawn Friedman:They're different.
Dawn Friedman:They're tiny people.
Dawn Friedman:There's different people.
Dawn Friedman:Right?
Speaker A:So different.
Speaker A:They are so different.
Speaker A:So different.
Dawn Friedman:Yeah.
Dawn Friedman:So whenever I see parenting a device, it's like, talk like this and you'll get these results.
Dawn Friedman:I'm like, you might get those results, but I know from my two kids, I thought I had parenting mailed.
Dawn Friedman:And then Maddie came along and needed completely different parenting than her brother did.
Dawn Friedman:I had to relearn everything.
Speaker A:So was there.
Speaker A:Were there touch points that happened early on while you were still in post adoption depression?
Dawn Friedman:Yeah, there were a couple.
Dawn Friedman:And the one thing I really remember.
Dawn Friedman:So she had colic.
Dawn Friedman:And we had to bounce her and walk her.
Dawn Friedman:We had to walk her constantly.
Dawn Friedman:And I don't actually even know if it was colic.
Dawn Friedman:All I know is she stopped crying once she got mobile.
Dawn Friedman:And she was.
Dawn Friedman:She took her first steps at eight months, and this kid was on fire.
Dawn Friedman:So I think when she was three months old, she could push up on her knees and her hands, like, almost like she could commando crawl already.
Dawn Friedman:She's crazy.
Dawn Friedman:And so there was a time we were walking, or I'm just pacing the yard, our backyard, just walking around with her in the sling.
Dawn Friedman:She liked to be outside.
Dawn Friedman:She liked to look at trees, and she was looking up at the trees, and she stopped crying for a minute.
Dawn Friedman:And she made, like, a gurble noise, and I made a gurble noise back at her.
Dawn Friedman:And it was the first time she looked at me with this surprise, oh, you're here.
Dawn Friedman:Like, she saw me.
Dawn Friedman:I'm not sure how old she was.
Dawn Friedman:It's in my journal.
Dawn Friedman:And I realized, oh, we're gonna.
Dawn Friedman:We're gonna be able to.
Dawn Friedman:We're gonna be able to do this.
Dawn Friedman:Like, we connected.
Dawn Friedman:And I can remember that time with her.
Dawn Friedman:So that was one time where we were just.
Dawn Friedman:We connected.
Dawn Friedman:And then the other thing was her mom, Jessica, wanted me to pierce her ears.
Dawn Friedman:And I said, I'm not going to pierce her ears for her.
Dawn Friedman:I'm going to let her choose for herself.
Dawn Friedman:And it was the first time that I chose something for Maddie.
Dawn Friedman:It was the first time I asserted my motherhood.
Dawn Friedman:And for me, it was one of those touch point times.
Dawn Friedman:And Jessica was incredibly gracious.
Dawn Friedman:We have a fine relationship because that must not have been easy for her either.
Dawn Friedman:But it was the first time we negotiated that what it was gonna look like for me to parent.
Dawn Friedman:And the thing I always say is that Jessica is her noun, mother.
Dawn Friedman:Like, she's just her mother.
Dawn Friedman:It's a fact.
Dawn Friedman:She gave birth to her.
Dawn Friedman:She's her mother, and I'm her verb mother.
Dawn Friedman:So I had to become her mother by mothering her.
Dawn Friedman:And that was really the first time I remember, like, stepping into that role in a really firm way.
Speaker A:Wow, that's beautiful.
Speaker A:That's.
Speaker A:That just.
Speaker A:That makes so much sense.
Dawn Friedman:Well, I think we all have to do that even when we give birth and we still have to verb mother.
Speaker A:Yeah, it was just.
Speaker A:I was just thinking.
Speaker A:Yeah, I absolutely can think of the first time for.
Speaker A:I had that feeling for mother.
Speaker A:And I know.
Speaker A:Totally.
Speaker A:I mean, totally rude me, but I.
Dawn Friedman:Know it's powerful, right?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Especially because there was such a hand off, emotional if I go too far here since the vague time and then there was handwritten like such an enormous ceremony in hand on which you probably.
Speaker A:And it stops me, the narrator, we're gender adopting them maybe in her controllable.
Dawn Friedman:Sure, yeah.
Speaker A:This heart because it's yellow bad.
Speaker A:Like I should.
Speaker A:I don't know.
Speaker A:I know that would work.
Speaker A:And a gold mix.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I don't know how I.
Speaker A:Yeah, I.
Dawn Friedman:Don'T think that's unusual.
Dawn Friedman:I think we're just not allowed to talk about it.
Speaker A:Yeah, we're not.
Dawn Friedman:Cause we're supposed to just, I don't know, like it's just all supposed to be easy.
Dawn Friedman:And then when it's not easy for whatever reason that somehow our fault when again I think that we become parents.
Dawn Friedman:Over and over again we become parents.
Dawn Friedman:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I think in my short time I have felt that it's almost like it's a day.
Speaker A:It's a day.
Speaker A:It's a.
Speaker A:I wake up every day and say to myself, okay, like here I'm the mother.
Dawn Friedman:Yes, here I lodge.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Like it's not just, I don't just roll out of bed and just like naturally flow through it.
Dawn Friedman:And I think that is also another important thing.
Dawn Friedman:And again, I think Braselton does this when he talks about these touch points is we have to relearn it all the time because at every developmental stage you have to learn new things.
Dawn Friedman:And I think when we look back we start seeing our kids have a theme.
Dawn Friedman:Like I look back, they're both adults now and I can look back and say, oh, there was always a theme to every struggle we had.
Dawn Friedman:Like it was always the same theme with them.
Speaker A:Wow.
Dawn Friedman:But I couldn't see that at the time.
Dawn Friedman:So I would just hit a crisis where I'd go, I don't know what I'm doing.
Dawn Friedman:I'm a terrible parent.
Dawn Friedman:I don't know how to parent this kid.
Dawn Friedman:And it was only after, I think they were like nine or ten where I would go, oh, wait, no, this is the same crisis.
Dawn Friedman:It's just in a new developmental space.
Dawn Friedman:Like we were talking about your son and that he's bright and so there's going to be a particular kind of, he's probably going to be a loophole kid.
Dawn Friedman:You're probably going to be like, oh, here he is finding a new way to do a thing that I couldn't predict that might be his theme with you.
Dawn Friedman:I don't know.
Dawn Friedman:You'll know when you can.
Dawn Friedman:You'll go oh, that was him.
Dawn Friedman:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker A:Wow.
Dawn Friedman:When I'm working with parents and they're talking about, oh, this is the problem I'm having.
Dawn Friedman:I always ask them, what were they like when they were like, two ish, one and a half to two and a half?
Dawn Friedman:Because that's a time where there's usually some separation, and then four is another time.
Dawn Friedman:And I'll say, so what was your struggle with them at either of those times?
Dawn Friedman:Because probably there's going to be echoes of that here in this struggle.
Dawn Friedman:Like, it's predictable that it might be hard at those ages, and once you know that, then you don't beat yourself up because it just makes sense.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Dawn Friedman:Yeah.
Speaker A:So tell us about your.
Speaker A:So tell us what you do now.
Dawn Friedman:So, besides my clinical practice, I have a program called child anxiety support, where I coach parents of anxious kids.
Dawn Friedman:And a lot of it is this stuff.
Dawn Friedman:So people come to me because they either have anxious kids or they're anxious about their kids and think it's their child's anxiety, but sometimes it's their anxiety.
Dawn Friedman:And the research says it doesn't really matter whose anxiety it is, just needs to be taken care of.
Dawn Friedman:And it is a lot of this because there's some predictable times where you'll see anxiety come up for kids and parents.
Dawn Friedman: ound age five, four and five,: Dawn Friedman:Like, there are these predictable times when I expect to get calls from parents and.
Dawn Friedman:Yeah.
Dawn Friedman:And I see them as touch points.
Dawn Friedman:I see them as those kinds of.
Dawn Friedman:How can we help you guys come back together again?
Dawn Friedman:How can we help you grow through this particular challenge?
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker A:My love to use your favorite up in the many years.
Speaker A:Wrong.
Dawn Friedman:Nah, you're going to do great.
Dawn Friedman:You're going to do great.
Speaker A:Thank you.
Speaker A:But everywhere in the eighties, sure.
Dawn Friedman:But let's start with the assumption that you're.
Dawn Friedman:Because this is the truth.
Dawn Friedman:A lot of the parents I work with are doing great.
Dawn Friedman:They just need help to do more.
Dawn Friedman:Great.
Dawn Friedman:Yeah.
Speaker A:And that's okay.
Dawn Friedman:Yep.
Speaker A:It's not a bad place to be.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:It's been so much fun talking with you.
Dawn Friedman:I've had a great time.
Dawn Friedman:Thank you for having me.
Speaker A:Thank you.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Thank you.
Speaker A:We can do this again.
Dawn Friedman:Yeah, any old time.
Speaker A:Great.
Speaker A:All right, Darren, speak again.
Dawn Friedman:Okay.
Dawn Friedman:Bye bye.
Dawn Friedman:Okay.
