Anna Housley Juster [00:00:03]: This is what happens with the amygdala is that it doesn't do a great job of determining a true threat, actual danger, from perceived threat or perceived danger. And so a lot of anxiety starts with this threat response in the brain.

Penny Williams [00:00:22]: Welcome to the Beautifully Complex podcast where I share insights and strategies on parenting neurodivergent kids straight from the trenches. I'm your host, Penny Williams. I'm a parenting coach, author, and mindset mama, honored to guide you on the journey of raising your atypical kid. Let's get started. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Beautifully Complex. I am really excited about my guest today and our topic. We are gonna talk about teaching your kids about their brain and how that can really help them navigate their emotions, navigate other parts of life, frustration, and things like that that I think come up a lot for our complex kids.

Penny Williams [00:01:09]: And we're going to talk about the book as well, How to Train Your Amygdala, which I'm very excited about too. So I have doctor Anna Housley Juster here with me. And will you just start by introducing yourself? Let everybody know who you are and what you do.

Anna Housley Juster [00:01:28]: Sure. Thank you so much for inviting me. I am a child and adolescent mental health clinician in private practice, but for years, I was in a community mental health center. I do a lot of work with schools and meeting kids where they are, where they can get access to mental health counseling in the school context. And, prior to that, I had years in education and specifically informal education. When I worked at, Sesame Street, I was in children's media for a while, but I began my career as a head start teacher, and the through line has always been a commitment to helping children and families in whatever context I was in.

Penny Williams [00:02:03]: Love that. It's so amazing to get to be a helper, especially with kids. Yeah. Where do you wanna start with this conversation? I think maybe just defining what the amygdala is first. Right? Because if we're gonna talk about

Anna Housley Juster [00:02:15]: Sure.

Penny Williams [00:02:15]: How we're training our amygdala, but, also, why is it so important that we focus on this and that we teach our kids how their brain works and how to navigate that?

Anna Housley Juster [00:02:27]: Yeah. I think it's so important because we tend to teach our kids a lot about the body. Mhmm. You know, like, kids that are as young as 3 or 4 years old tend to know what their heart is and kinda what its major job is. They know that their stomach digests food. They know they need to move to exercise their muscles. And for some reason, I think it's because we just didn't have as much science about the brain until much later in the development of understanding, like, human anatomy and science and the function of the brain. We tend to stop teaching kids the details of, like, the collar bones up.

Anna Housley Juster [00:03:00]: And yet, what we know is that there's, like, this, I mean, you can't disconnect the body from the brain. It's all interconnected. And what I started to find in my in my practice is that there's so much curiosity in the early childhood years, but there wasn't a tool. I couldn't find a a book or something that would both be accurate from a neuroscience standpoint, but also be fun and playful.

Anna Housley Juster [00:03:22]: So the genesis of this book was, like, a story that I was already telling with the kids I work with and just then had the opportunity to turn it into a picture book. There's not many things I think that you should teach as early as possible. If anything, I think we need to give kids time. Mhmm. But with the strategies and the understanding of how to calm the threat response in your own brain, I don't think we start too early. I think we could start as early as possible, the same way we teach language just naturally as early as possible, for example.

Penny Williams [00:03:53]: Yeah. Absolutely. I think when we understand our bodies, we have more autonomy. We feel more like we have some control over things.

Anna Housley Juster [00:04:03]: Yeah.

Penny Williams [00:04:04]: Do you wanna share what the amygdala is for those who Sure. Who don't know that are listening?

Anna Housley Juster [00:04:09]: Yeah. And then, you know, to be honest, that was in my 3rd graduate degree program before I knew. I had been a teacher. I was a parent. I had a, PhD in early childhood education, and it wasn't until I, switched into mental health and was taking classes in psychoeducation, cognitive behavioral therapy that I knew that. And so, basically, it's getting more attention now. I think if you just Google amygdala, there's a lot about the amygdala hijack and kind of how to calm the brain. So the amygdala is this small but mighty piece of the brain.

Anna Housley Juster [00:04:39]: It's actually 2 components that are both small and almond shape, but we tend to talk about it as one piece, the amygdala. And it's it's the usual suspect of the threat response. It doesn't act totally alone, but it backs very quickly. And so the minute someone cuts you off in traffic or, like, looks at you a certain way, especially if you are an anxious person or if you have a history of social isolation or oppression or anxiety or any of the things we talk about when we talk about complex humans.

Penny Williams [00:05:07]: Yeah.

Anna Housley Juster [00:05:08]: Instantly sends a message to the rest of the body and the rest of the brain saying this is danger. And the only three options, 4, but really we talk about flight, flight freeze. So the brain is getting ready to protect the body and the brain. Mhmm. And it we need the amygdala because it keeps us from stepping into traffic, not doing anything that's dangerous. We need it for survival, and it's we're wired for survival at birth. The problem, which the character in the amygdala discovers early in the book, is that it looks like this in the brain, looks like this in the book, but a few pages later, it makes a mistake, and it mistakes a sound and shadow at the door for a dangerous monster. And it turns out to be a kitten delivering a large cheese pizza, which was the least threatening thing I could think of to put in.

Anna Housley Juster [00:05:56]: Into the book. But this is what happens with the amygdala is that it doesn't do a great job of determining a true threat, actual danger from perceived threat or perceived danger. Mhmm. And so a lot of anxiety starts with this threat response in the brain. And yeah. So that's the amygdala. It's a great character because it's deep.

Anna Housley Juster [00:06:19]: It's complicated. It has all these strengths and a lot of confidence, and it's overzealous. And then it's also hypersensitive and can make a mistake. And then especially for for kids that are still really learning and their prefrontal cortex is still very much in development, it can be really hard not to be in threat response almost all the time.

Penny Williams [00:06:39]: Yeah.

Anna Housley Juster [00:06:39]: And that chronic stress is really hard for the brain and the body.

Penny Williams [00:06:44]: I love that you use the word overzealous. As a person with anxiety, like, yes. I I talk about it a lot as just being hypersensitive. Right? It just sees threat everywhere, but, also, it is overzealous. Like, it will make a mountain out of a molehill. Right? Our body just instinctually does this, and, you know, I talk a lot about the brain and the body connection and how when our survival brain, our emotional brain is really triggered, then our cognitive thinking brain isn't so accessible to us. And I think for kids, it helps to explain sometimes behavior that they wish they could control maybe, but they're not because it is instinctual.

Anna Housley Juster [00:07:32]: Yes. Does that make sense? 100%. I think it's so important for any human, any child or adult that has a lot of anxiety or maybe especially if they get irritable with anxiety and they go into that fight response. Mhmm. And then friends are mad at them or the teacher's mad at them and they're in trouble. It's so good to normalize that. Yeah. It's not that there's something wrong with you.

Anna Housley Juster [00:07:53]: You're not a bad person. There's no bad part of you. You're good enough exactly the way you are. Mhmm. But understanding the facts gives agency. And once you have agency, you don't I mean, as you know, and as I know is awesome, also has anxiety. Being out of control is a big push pushes you towards anxious thoughts.

Anna Housley Juster [00:08:13]: And that manifests as the feelings of the physiological feelings of anxiety in the body, like rapid heart rate being hot or suddenly cold or frozen, butterflies in the stomach. So if you can think to yourself, oh, the reason I have butterflies in my stomach is that my amygdala thought that there was something threatening about raising my hand in this circle in in my preschool class. And the reason I have butterflies in my stomach is my amygdala sent messages to to push all the blood out of my stomach and into my large muscles because it actually thinks I'm getting ready to fight against something or run. But I'm not gonna do either of those things because I know that that's what's happening, and so I'm gonna stay here in the safe space, and I'm going which is my preschool classroom, and I'm going to do one of the strategies that I know to do to calm that little friend in my head that's my amygdala that's telling me that I'm in danger. And then the blood will come back to my stomach, and the nauseous feeling will go away. And I'm in control of it because I have the knowledge to know what's happening and the power to do something about it.

Penny Williams [00:09:16]: Yeah. Let's talk about how do we teach our kids this information. Obviously, your book is a great start with that. What else do we need to be having conversations with them about, and what do those conversations look like?

Anna Housley Juster [00:09:31]: Can we start with what I don't recommend just really quickly? I like to I do like to be very strength based. So I think, I mean, obviously, every parent has strengths, every teacher has strengths, and we're all already good enough doing what we're doing. This is all just, like, trying to have extra tools in the toolbox. Right? Yeah. But what I did myself as a younger when I had young my kids are now an age that doesn't make sense to me. They're 18 15 year old. I have 2 daughters. But I still work with kids, like, 3 to 12, say.

Anna Housley Juster [00:10:01]: Anyway, so my I used to do things like, just tell me what is going on. Like, say it. Use your words. And as a teacher, in my pre service teaching experience, we were always taught, use your words. Because that way, you're not using your hands. You know, you're not physically fighting if you're using your words, and that's good except to get to words, you have to calm the amygdala. Because if you're in threat response mode, as you know, the first thing that happens is it shuts down access to language. So I help teachers and parents understand, you know, if you were being chased by a lion, you would not stop to tell someone how you feel about it or why.

Anna Housley Juster [00:10:37]: You would just run or you would just fight back. So what I don't recommend doing is like a moth to the flame. Just tell me everything that's happening. I need to be right here with you and tell me, talk to me, talk to me, talk to me, talk to me. What I do suggest is giving a little bit of space, but being present the way you'd wanna be if your child was actually, like, really, actually scared of a actual they are scared. But if they were scared of an actual threat, you would wanna stay present and be right with them. But you don't wanna align with the fear in this case because it's it might not be an actual real fear. Like, a spider in the kitchen for a child that has a phobia of spiders is gonna they're gonna see it like a line, but you don't as the parent.

Anna Housley Juster [00:11:19]: And so this the trick is to use strategies like coregulation breathing, but breathing from a distance, not asking the child to say or do anything and not rejecting the feeling. The other thing there's a tendency to do is to be like, what is the big deal? You're just going to school. Yeah. I'm gonna drop you off like I do every other day, and you're gonna go into school, and it's not a big deal. But then the child's brain thinks you don't even see the lion. That's even scarier because you don't see the threat that I see, and you are my primary person that I am attached to in the world. So if the adult doesn't see it, then I'm really in danger. So I recommend trying to stay balanced in the recognition of the feeling and the confidence in the child that they can cope and also offering strategies, some of which are modeled in the book.

Penny Williams [00:12:05]: Mhmm. Yeah. I really appreciate you calling attention to the fact that sometimes other people see things in a way that's different than we do. And so our kid might see that spider as an actual lion coming after them. That is so so important to meet kids where they are and show up in the ways that they need us to. Right?

Anna Housley Juster [00:12:28]: Yes.

Penny Williams [00:12:28]: To be able to acknowledge and validate their experience.

Anna Housley Juster [00:12:32]: 100%. And it's hard because if you need to get somewhere where you're going and you have to get to work or, you know, you have people coming over and your child is in a panic about something that you don't see, it's really hard. But, I am trained in the space intervention, which is from the Yale Child Mhmm. Child Study Center with Ellie Leibowitz, and it's a fantastic model for helping parents see that balance. And I do the a lot of this work with the kids I work with is and the parents that I do coaching with. If you argue with anxiety, you're making anxiety bigger and giving it a lot of attention and oxygen. And because anxiety is happiest when it's getting a lot of attention and focus. And even though I don't believe there's any bad part in a child, I also don't think that you need to give more oxygen to the anxiety.

Anna Housley Juster [00:13:21]: So if you start screaming, like, what is the problem? It's just a spider. Just move on. I have people coming over, and this is really making me stressed out. Because then what's happening in you as a parent is your own threat responses triggered, and now your amygdala is feeling threatened by your child. And at some point, what's really sad in all conflict is that each of us are seeing the other one as the lion. Mhmm. And so now the parent sees the child as the lion and threatening because it's threatening to feel out of control and not know what's happening next because you had this other thing in your head, and now the child is doing something else, and that's very threatening.

Anna Housley Juster [00:13:57]: Threat response comes up. And if you're both going to fight mode, both of you are fighting, and nobody's listening anymore or accessing the reasoning, the the prefrontal cortex, thinking about logic, and using vocabulary with the way we want to.

Penny Williams [00:14:12]: Yeah.

Anna Housley Juster [00:14:12]: That's how we say things we don't wanna say.

Penny Williams [00:14:15]: Yeah.

Anna Housley Juster [00:14:15]: Because we went into threat response mode.

Penny Williams [00:14:18]: And it's easy to get triggered in that way. You know? It's important, I think, when we have these conversations to let parents know, like, if that is making you upset, that's natural.

Anna Housley Juster [00:14:30]: Yes.

Penny Williams [00:14:30]: It is natural for you to get riled up and to feel out of sorts and all these things. But as the adult in the room, we've had more practice, and we need to be sort of that calm anchor, that steady presence Yeah. So that they can regulate. This episode is sponsored by ABLE Now, tax advantaged savings accounts for eligible individuals with disabilities. If you're a parent, you know how important it is to plan for your child's future. But if your child has a disability, saving money can feel complicated, especially when you're trying to protect their eligibility for certain benefits like Medicaid. That's where ABLE Now comes in. ABLE Now accounts offer a tax advantaged way to save for your child's future needs without jeopardizing eligibility for those critical disability services and supports.

Penny Williams [00:15:27]: Funds in your account can be used for a wide range of expenses, everything from education to health care, housing, transportation, and even basic living expenses. ABLEnow accounts are available to qualified individuals in all 50 states. Are you eligible? Visit ablenow.com, ablenow.com, to learn how you can start saving today and join the thousands of families using Able Now to secure a brighter future for their loved ones. You know, one thing that I told myself a lot as a parent, my kids are young adults now, but, you know, what you focus on grows.

Anna Housley Juster [00:16:16]: Yeah. That's a great way to think about it.

Penny Williams [00:16:18]: So if your kid's super anxious and you're focused on it, you're calling it out, you're calling attention to it, it's making that anxiety grow. And so yeah. And I and I think too, like, when we have this conversation about regulation in this context, we can either co regulate, which is offering that comp study presence. Right? Or we can co escalate, which is kind of what you just described. And, you know, we're always gonna have better outcomes if we come in and or that presence kids can attune to and co regulate with. Right?

Anna Housley Juster [00:16:49]: I really like that. I'm gonna use that. I really like the co escalate as the, sort of other side of the spectrum away from coregulation.

Penny Williams [00:17:00]: Yeah.

Anna Housley Juster [00:17:00]: Yeah. And what you just said is so important because just like I said that it's good for children to have empowerment and agency because they know what's happening in their body. When you can pause and tune in to what's happening in your body and then understand with the connection back to the amygdala in the brain, parents can do that too. And it gives you an understanding that there's nothing wrong with you either. Mhmm. And so if there's empathy empathy for the self, you know, compassion for the self and gratitude for the system that keeps us safe and and, alert to danger in the world and also to recognize when it's getting in our way. But not because it's a bad part of this, just because it's it's it's actually a good part that's overzealous.

Anna Housley Juster [00:17:40]: And I really wanted in the story in the in the story, which I hope that comes across is that this is about teamwork. Mhmm. Like, it's about aligning the child with their amygdala and their threat response, not pushing away a worry monster or trying to, like, get rid of part of you because I think that just reinforces a little bit of fear or Yeah. This idea that there's something bad in me that I have to get rid of. I think that's kind of scary or it can be, especially in the anxious brain. So my hope is that this is about alliance and empathy and teamwork, both teamwork between an adult and a child, and then also the teamwork of uniting brain and body in a present moment, which is basically mindfulness.

Penny Williams [00:18:22]: Yeah. Mindfulness practice can be so super helpful for every human being. Right? But especially when you have anxiety or other things that do tend to get sort of triggered in your body, and then it's up to you to interpret it and sort of control it. Right? And if you're if you're not able to control your thoughts some, then that anxiety is just gonna build and build. And that's something I learned over the years, you know, that I got better with many, many years of practice, but just being able to say, okay. I get it. My my body feels anxious. Is there something to be anxious about?

Anna Housley Juster [00:19:02]: Right.

Penny Williams [00:19:02]: And, also, you know, I know that if I lean into this, it's gonna feel worse.

Anna Housley Juster [00:19:08]: Yeah.

Penny Williams [00:19:08]: But if I can take a breath and figure out what's happening, it won't escalate like that. That's something I've been able to do for myself, but it's really it takes a long time. It takes a lot of work and understanding that connection, which, like you, I didn't know about this stuff until, you know, my kids were probably almost teenagers, at least, before I'd heard of the amygdala. Yeah. Like, everybody needs to know about how their body and brain works, because it it really is so powerful and empowering, right, if we feel like we have more control over it. I I was gonna share one quick example with my own kid. When I learned about this stuff, I was able to, be able to tell him, like, when we get upset like this, when our body is sort of out of control, we can't access our thinking brain. Like, we can't solve this problem, and I really wanna help you solve this problem.

Penny Williams [00:20:07]: But we can't do it like this, so we need to do some of these strategies, or we need to take a break or whatever it might have been at that moment. But it was such a relief for him because he did feel like he was different. He was, you know, broken at times because he didn't want to act that way. He was always the kid who was very, very apologetic and remorseful

Penny Williams [00:20:29]: Which said, hey. He really was not gonna control that. That was not him. Mhmm. But that felt really empowering to him to be able to understand, like, this is the reason why I can't do anything about this right now, and this is what I can do to help myself. And I think the book and the story that you've crafted there is gonna help kids do that. What other strategies? What other things do parents need to know to be able to help their kids learn to train their amygdalas?

Anna Housley Juster [00:20:59]: So the way the book is set up is that once the amygdala realize it's been overzealous and it mistakes the kitten delivering a large cheese pizza for a dangerous monster at the door, you can see in the background art, which was done by Cynthia Cliff. She does fantastic job of capturing emotion in the book and, like, really creating this lovable kind of furry amygdala character. Is the amygdala looks direct to the reader as it is in all of the pages of the book and says, wait a minute. This is this is the deal. Like, sometimes I can get a little oversensitive, and I need your help. And it asks the reader to practice the strategies to train it throughout the rest of the story. And the 3 categories are controlled breathing. It models controlled breathing for the reader, which is exactly what you just said, taking the deep breath.

Anna Housley Juster [00:21:44]: And, it specifically models elevator breath, I call it, where you're just starting down in the abdomen, breathing all the way up to the top of the lungs and then all the way out, which is as as you know, very calming. Because if we were being chased by a lion, we would not stop to take long, deep breaths.

Anna Housley Juster [00:22:02]: And so the message back, the neurofeedback is we can't possibly this can't be a real lion or the body wouldn't be behaving this way. Mhmm. And so the body sends a message back to the brain saying this is not an true emergency, and that's calming for the amygdala, and then that's therefore calming for the body, and it cycles that way. So controlled breathing and then progressive muscle relaxation, which is really just a fancy word for saying, like, tightening your muscles and releasing them with intent on purpose versus the tightening that happens automatically when the amygdala sends adrenaline, connects with glands to send adrenaline through the body. And then visual imagery, which is just basically changing your thoughts to change how you feel. So if you know that you're in an anxious situation that's threatening in some way to the amygdala, but you choose to picture being at home in your bed, being with a grandmother who you love, being with your parents, being on the soccer field, being on the beach. If you picture vividly a place that's different from the place you are, you're using your thoughts to change the rest of what's happening in that threat response in the brain. So those are the 3 main categories that are modeled by the amygdala in the story.

Anna Housley Juster [00:23:15]: And in my experience, kids will do it. Mhmm. They'll they're because now they care about the amygdala character and they know that they're somehow involved as a team, they'll practice the strategies in the context of the story. And that's ideal because you don't wanna practice it for the first time when a child is already in threat response mode.

Penny Williams [00:23:33]: Definitely not.

Anna Housley Juster [00:23:34]: Like you said earlier, it's lifelong practice that I'm still practicing even though I talk about this all day long. So you want it to be like when you brush your teeth, basically. It's like you're you might read the book as the start and read it multiple times to keep practicing when the child's calm, but then you also might just suggest like, hey. I just had this really I was stuck in traffic on my way home from work. I feel like I really need a deep breath. Can you do it with me?

Anna Housley Juster [00:23:59]: Like, just building it into the the everyday moments.

Penny Williams [00:24:02]: Yep.

Anna Housley Juster [00:24:03]: Can really help Yeah. And go a long way in helping once the brain does go into threat response mode, then it's easier to calm it down if you already have the skills.

Penny Williams [00:24:11]: Yeah. And I always find trying to get kids to do new things and try something we want them to try is always best when things are good. Yes. Never when things are hard. Always when things are good. They're much more receptive at that point, and I think they're able to also focus on how that changes how they feel when Yes. They're not feeling threatened or overwhelmed or anything like that. And I just learned something new from you, which was that when we take a breath, our threat response is saying, okay.

Penny Williams [00:24:43]: Well, it can't be a real threat because we've actually been able to take a breath.

Anna Housley Juster [00:24:47]: Right.

Penny Williams [00:24:47]: I never made that connection myself, which is amazing. Yeah. The body and the brain are so amazing. Like, the things that happen, the way it protects us when it really needs to, and survival mode keeping us focused and keeping kind of those emotions at bay. You know, I was just telling you before we started, I live in Asheville, and we had the hurricane, and my town was damaged, and and listeners already know that. But I've been really reflecting on how, like, those first several days when it was like, okay. Where are we gonna get food? Where are we gonna get water? How we gonna communicate with people? Mhmm. There was no emotion.

Penny Williams [00:25:26]: It was just like, there's no freaking out.

Penny Williams [00:25:30]: There was no like, crying or any of that. And I'll tell you, when that adrenaline wore off, like, all of it flooded in. Right? Yeah. The thinking about even other situations like that that I've been in Mhmm. Because I've been able to really reflect on this more because I think it was bigger. Right? It was a bigger experience. Mhmm. It's really shown me how much our amygdala and our survival brain, like, that process really keeps us focused on survival

Anna Housley Juster [00:25:57]: Yes.

Penny Williams [00:25:57]: And the other stuff can come later. But that idea of being in a team, I think that concept is so approachable and really does give that sense of control Mhmm. That is so powerful for kids, for any of us. Like, I'm super, you know, excited about this concept even more than I was before we started talking because Yeah. Just, like, the understanding. Again, it's so empowering for everybody, for the adults listening, the parents, the teachers. You know, understanding this about yourself helps you to show up better for those kids too.

Anna Housley Juster [00:26:35]: I agree.

Penny Williams [00:26:35]: Thank you so much for Yeah. For being here and sharing this and doing the work that you're doing. Will you tell everybody where they can find you online, where they can find the book, Train Your Amygdala?

Anna Housley Juster [00:26:46]: Yes. So How to Train Your Amygdala is available everywhere books are sold, Amazon and, Barnes and Noble, but I love to support independent, booksellers too, so please ask at your local bookstore. It's in many places. And my website is annahousleyjuster.com, and you can connect with me there. Email me and reach out if you would like to, and, be happy to hear from anybody.

Penny Williams [00:27:10]: Yeah. We'll link all of that up in the show notes. Great. At parentingadhdandautism.com/291 for episode 291. And I just so appreciate you again and the work that you're doing and for giving us a little bit of your time and your wisdom today. It's been a pleasure.

Anna Housley Juster [00:27:29]: Thank you so much for inviting me. It's fun to be here.

Penny Williams [00:27:32]: I will see everybody next time. Take good care. Thanks for joining me on the Beautifully Complex podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and share, and don't forget to check out my online courses and parent coaching at parentingadhdandautism.com and at thebehaviorrevolution.com.