 to another episode of In The Studio. And my guest today is Dr. Anne Danly. Welcome. Thank you. Anne is a developmental scientist. She has a master's degree in psychology from the University of London, England. A PhD in psycholinguistics from the University of Southern California. She also did postdoctoral studies in psycholinguistics in the Netherlands at the Max Blank Institute. Anne was on the faculty of the University of Southern California for 15 years with a triple appointment in psychology, linguistics and health sciences. Her research has been supported by DNSF, the Spencer Foundation, the March of Dimes and others. She was also a consultant on children programming in Los Angeles. Anne is also a published author of two books on language and cognitive development both for Cambridge University Press. She's currently an adjunct faculty at UC Davis in the psychology department. She's a long time meditator and meditation teacher, a mother of two children. Both of them both are now at university and she lives in South Davis. Welcome again. Thank you so much for having me. Her website, I must say this straight away, Insights for Parents is an invaluable go-to digital repository of the most current information on parenting, on meditation, on gratefulness and mindfulness, I believe. The site is regularly updated with new articles and Anne's blog is a collection of small gems and it is beautifully organized and very easy to read. Again, thank you so much for being here with us in the studio. Thank you, Lynn. Well, I'm really looking forward to finding out a little more about all the things you do. Well, my first question is, is there any insights in particular that you think you'd like to share with us? One perhaps that you think is important to share with us? What an interesting question. An insight. You know, I think in a way there is. We parents spend a lot of time noticing how our children are different from us. Yes. We're very aware that they don't think in the same ways we do necessarily. They don't always understand the way they interact with others isn't always as sophisticated and it's not the same as how we do and their ability to regulate their emotions isn't as mature. So we're really aware of these differences and we as parents and as developmental scientists are interested in looking at how children change but underneath that there's actually a core of commonality that I think is profound. That is interesting. Yes. And we all as human beings have the same basic needs. We want to be loved. We want our gifts to be seen and appreciated. We want to be respected. We want to be happy. And I think if I could offer one insight alone it's to just help parents remember that they and their child are the same in some really basic fundamental ways. Well this is really key and you know it is very difficult to be a parent. It is. And that brings me to perhaps my next question. And what comes to mind is is parenting and family life different in this new millennium as compared to what it was maybe 10 20 30 years ago. Can you tell us about that? Actually there it is different and the obvious difference it's the technology. So when you think about the way that we are so connected technologically it's impacted the way we structure our lives. So we human beings have long had engagement with others social engagement and we communicate we're storytellers we narrate what happened during our day and when we did that face to face we enjoyed a kind of synchrony in fact we even had chemical synchrony we had oxytocin synchrony which actually meant that we were having these wonderful neuropeptides cascading through us that calmed us down. Yes and today's life doesn't offer very many opportunities for that you don't get that synchrony when you're texting. So how do you compensate? So how do you compensate? I think that what one has to do is to recognize that we can't always be online and we have to actually consciously take time for real interpersonal interaction to get outside to shut down to give our eyes a chance to rest to give our minds a chance to rest and to really connect on a really personal basis. And to have less structure? Less structure that's very interesting communication and talking to the children and asking the children to recount what they've been doing is that important? It is in fact one thing that if I could ask parents to just kind of be mindful to do one thing it's to have dialogues with their children yes there's been a lot of research recently that shows that children who have conversations with their parents which means turn taking back and forth have enormous benefits it actually even impacts the brain it builds thicker neuro connections in the parts of the brain for thinking and language but it also enables them to understand reading material and other things so conversations are actually super important and this is perhaps one of the most difficult goals to attain these days because of the lack of time because the the media the television the the ipads and so on are have a function of babysitting sometimes and and that is very difficult so it is very important that you stress this for for us um what give me an example for example for give me an example of how you can encourage or inspire communication and when during the day for example anytime anytime you know uh when you're reading to your child um especially if you're reading a real true story book as opposed to an e-device story yes um asking the child no matter what they what age they are you know do you remember when we went to a park like this little kid did or what do you think would happen next so just using that talking I know it's the old-fashioned thing but talking at the dinner table maybe at least some of the time having together with devices often chatting chatting in the car chatting before bed yes you know downtime when the room is dark is a great time to interact yes and get those blue lights off well that's yes and and it's a very simple common sense thing to do but it's it really is very important to remind us hmm one of the things I'm wondering about and that this is um is there what are parents interested in knowing these days oh well if I were to sort of reply what what's the thing I'm asked most about yes yes that's exactly what I like self-regulation every parent wants their child to become responsible and to regulate their behavior and it doesn't matter if the parent is looking at a preschool child who um they're hoping will take a little responsibility for some things and perhaps not be too aggressive in preschool or whatever or whether you're talking about a teenager where you're hoping that the teenager will begin to evaluate the risks of possible activities and weigh them well yes so I think that's probably what parents care most about it it's it's quite interesting because um it seems a little unfair to the children yes and to the teenagers as well because you have to learn self-regulation and sometimes it's up to the parents to be role models would you agree with me absolutely yes absolutely um parents need to be role models they need to scaffold their child's development and they also need to realize that the brain that mad the part of the brain that manages all that executive function isn't mature until now get this about age 30 we used to say 18 then 24 I'm not either all right um would you say can you give us some suggestion we are rapidly running out of time 15 minutes go very fast unfortunately but could you give us some suggestion to those parents who want to feel good about themselves and want to feel confident that they're doing the right thing for your for their children you know above all you probably know more than you realize that's what I'd like to tell parents oh good but um the two things that I think parents can do to support themselves know a little bit about child development so you know what's typical at different phases very very good very well said but also take care of yourself no one deserves your love your friendliness your self-compassion more than a parent yes so you can't take care of someone else until you can take care of yourself your role modeling love your role modeling kindness self compassion if you show that to yourself you're teaching your child that's what we want our children to feel and you deserve it and if you have that you'll feel more comfortable as a parent how very reassuring do you work with parents on a on an individual basis in your practice actually I do um in addition to the website I give talks and workshops but I also do meet privately it's not counseling it's not therapy it's um it's sort of uh who you're going to call when you have a question about what's going on and how to support development so um in a way I do sort of private parent education and I do parent coaching where I can work for a few weeks um accomplishing some goals and helping parents help their children and why do you do this I love children I love parents and I feel honored to have gained so much knowledge and experience but I really really really want to share it well that sounds wonderful and I can only say that your expertise and your many years of studying and writing are very very valuable to the community and to all of us thank you so much Dr An Dan Lee for taking the time to be with me for a little while and I'm afraid our time is up so uh thank you again and for all of you watching us thank you so much and join us again next time