Episode 235: Impostor Syndrome in Kids (and Parents!)—And What to Do About It with Dr. Richard Orbé-Austin
/Welcome to another episode of The Balanced Parent Podcast! This week, I sat down with psychologist, executive coach, and author of the book Your Child’s Greatness: A Parent’s Guide to Raising Children Without Impostor Syndrome, Dr. Richard Orbé-Austin, to talk about impostor syndrome—what it is, how it develops, and how parents can help their kids grow up feeling confident and capable.
Here are the topics we covered:
What impostor syndrome really is—and how it can quietly affect both kids and adults
The hidden role family dynamics and early messages play in creating impostor feelings
How to model a growth mindset and gently challenge perfectionism at home
The link between fear of rejection and self-doubt in both parents and children
How outside opinions can shape (and sometimes shake) our parenting confidence
Helping kids stay authentic in a world that’s always watching through social media
Why your guidance still matters—even when your kids act like they’re not listening
Ways to give feedback that builds confidence instead of shame
How to help your child develop inner confidence and self-acceptance
Resources:
If you’d like more tips on helping your child build confidence and a healthy sense of self, visit Dr. Richard Orbé-Austin’s website at dynamictransitionsllp.com and follow @SmartParentingStrategies on Instagram for practical insights and ongoing support for parents.
Remember, parenting isn’t about getting it perfect—it’s about growing alongside your kids and helping them trust their own inner voice.
TRANSCRIPT
Parenting is often lived in the extremes. It's either great joy or chaotic, overwhelmed. In one moment, you're nailing it and the next you're losing your cool. I want to help you find your way to the messy middle, to a place of balance. You see balance is a verb, not a state of being. It is a thing you do. Not a thing you are. It is an action, a process, a series of micro corrections that you make each and every day to keep yourself feeling centered. We are never truly balanced. We are engaged in the process of balancing.
Hello, I'm Dr. Laura Froyen and this is The Balanced Parent Podcast where overwhelmed, stressed out and disconnected parents go to find tools, mindset shifts and practices to help them stop yelling at the people they love and start connecting on a deeper level. All delivered with heaping doses of grace and compassion. Join me in conversations that will help you get clear on your goals and values and start showing up in your parenting, your relationships, your life with openhearted authenticity and balance. Let's go!
Laura: Hello, everybody. This is Doctor Laura Froyen, and on this week's episode of The Balanced Parent Podcast, we are going to be talking about impostor syndrome. And not just what it is, but how it comes to be. What to do when we're experiencing it in our own lives and especially what to do when we see it starting to pop up with our kiddos, and how to support them into moving into a better mindset for themselves. So to help me with this conversation, I have just been a lovely human being and author of a new book, Your Child's Greatness, A Parent's Guide to Raising Children Without Impostor Syndrome. Dr. Richard Orbe Austin. Richard, welcome to the show. I'm so excited to get to know you a little bit better, and, I'd love to have you tell us a little bit more about who you are and what you do, and then we can dig into impostor syndrome.
Richard: So, thank you for having me on, Laura. I'm thrilled to chat about this topic today. So, as far as who I am, again, my name is Doctor Richard Orbe Austin. I, by training, am a psychologist. And for the last, I would say, 15 years, I've really function both as a therapist and as an executive coach, but also as a consultant, really working with companies, academic institutions, different organizations around the topics of leadership, around this issue of impostor syndrome, around all issues of developing healthy workplaces. And now that we're talking about this book, as we expand and talk about Impostor and Jerome, I've been working with a lot of different youth organizations, youth groups, parenting groups to really talk about this issue related to young people.
Laura: I love that so much. I had an opportunity last spring to spend some time with some of the The most wildly successful and amazing youth in our country through a scholarship program that I was helping out with and I mean these kids are headed to Yale, Harvard, they're they're just the most amazing kids, and they all told me that they struggled with imposter syndrome. They, you know, were at a learning and leadership institute, and none of them felt like they deserved to be there. And it was just so painful to just see these, these kids with resumes longer than mine, you know, like and then to hear this lack of confidence, or I don't know what's, okay wait, let's backtrack for a second though. I would love for us to just define impostor syndrome, what it is, how it shows up, and why it's important for us to be talking about it, and not just for ourselves but for our kiddos.
Richard: Sure. So when we talk about impostorrome, there's so many misconceptions about it, so I'm so glad that we have the opportunity to talk about what it actually is. So it was coined over 40 some odd years ago in 1978 by these two female psychologists, Clan and Imes, who were working at the time at a university in Georgia, and they were working with highly successful graduate students, professors, primarily women. And what they realized and what they kept seeing is this issue of them saying to Klanton Is, I feel like a fraud. I feel like I don't belong here. I feel like everyone else is smarter than me. And they coined that particular phenomenon, imposter phenomenon. It has since grown to become known as imposter syndrome, even though to some extent it's a misnomer because it's not a mental health disorder. And so what impost syndrome really is, it is a phenomenon in which someone constantly feels afraid of being perceived as or viewed as a fraud.
So, how does that show up? People tend to feel like the only way that they can actually be successful is through luck or through a relationship, someone likes them, that's the only reason they're successful. They tend to overwork to prove that they belong. They tend to be perfectionistic because they believe they have no room to make any mistakes, because if they make a mistake, it demonstrates that they are in fact a fraud. They tend to overestimate the ability of others and underestimate their abilities, and they're constantly in this heightened state of anxiety of people feeling like, all right, you are found out, you don't belong here, you're not as smart as everyone else. So you can imagine the impact it has on someone who's coping with this particular issue.
Laura: Okay. And so where does where does, so I mean, I've experienced that exact feeling, and it's that feeling of being on a, almost like you're on a tightrope, and you have to just hold it together to make sure no one knows. Where does that come from? Because again, like this experience that I had with these like just brilliant teenagers. The, you know, just that lack of, I don't like where does that anxiety come from that being found out, you know, that you know I just like where does that come from because I guarantee. No one is imparting this on their kids intentionally. Like I know my parents did not do that intentionally, and yet here I am, you know, yeah.
Richard: And, and that is where the research takes us when we talk about the origins of it. It's oftentimes based on particular messages and roles young people took up very early on in their lives. And so there are three primary roles that we talk about, the smart one. So if you've been identified very early on as a person in your family that is just naturally gifted, naturally intelligent, even though other members of the family may have been just as successful academically, you are identified as the quote unquote smart one. And so as you progress in your academic career. You take up that role, and when you meet adversity, as we all will, say you get a D or you get a C or even heaven forbid, you get a minus, then you start to think, well, wait a minute, maybe I'm not as smart as people said I was. Maybe I've been a fraud all along. So the smart one is one particular role that people take up that can lead to impost syndrome. The other, in contrast, is the hardworking. So you are identified in this case as not being naturally gifted or intelligent, even though you may again have gotten the same good grades as the one who was perceived as being the smart one, you were told, well, you're just more socially adept.
People will like you, and you just have to work hard and you will be successful. So you internalize this message that you are not intelligent, so the only way that you can demonstrate. That you belong is to work hard, which eventually unfortunately leads to overwork, which can lead to burnout. So the hardworking one is the other role that tends to take up and lead to impost syndrome. And then the final role that we've talked about is that of the survivor. So someone who grew up in an area of neglect. In a household of neglect when no one told them that they were hardworking or smart, they got no feedback about who they were and their abilities, and they internalized that the only way to survive was to continue to push on and to work hard and to overwork, not truly ever feeling that they belonged in any one particular place or were deserving of any of their accomplishments.
Laura: Okay. All right. And so, oh, you know, I identify with a lot of what you just said, and I appreciate the kind of giving those three discrete categories, and all I was thinking, you know, all I could think about as you were saying them. Is the panic that I think parents might feel and thinking, okay, so what do I say to my kid? What do I say to my kid? who is a hard worker, who or who does have, you know, got an extra serving of natural intelligence, you know, like, what, you know, and so if we can, we know we can maybe pick apart the origins for ourselves where this came in. I feel like there's two directions we could go. We could talk about, okay, so what do we do for ourselves if we're noticing this because it's a, it's a very vulnerable feeling. And then when we start noticing it in our kids or how we prevent it for our kids, I just, there's this. Yeah, I mean with the kiddos, like, what do we say, you know, we know we're not supposed to label them, we know we're not supposed to pigeonhole them, and yet we're humans, you know, yeah.
Richard: It's natural for us to feel like we want to give praise to our young ones, right? So the key is to have them recognize that they don't have to be in one role, that as you said, they can be hardworking and they can be smart. And vice versa. The challenge becomes when they feel like they are in this one rigid role that they are not allowed to stray from and therefore feel very locked in. And so we as parents, again, we're human, we will make mistakes, we're not perfect. We talked about two things. One, trying as much as possible to not compare, right, which is very natural to do, especially if you have, you know, as we do daughters who are, you know, similar in age. And ultimately, it's being able to help them to recognize their particular unique talents, unique gifts, unique abilities, and the effort that they put into all the things that they are pursuing. And so that's the balancing act of really being able to think about how to prevent impostor syndrome from taking hold in our young ones.
Laura: I really like that, and I love that you use that word balance. It's one that's important to me. And I, I even think about the, just finding balance and how we talk about things, right, with our kids, talk to our kids, talk about them to others when they're, you know, listening. And helping them find balance in the way that they think about themselves. I really appreciated your book. There's a lot of emphasis on teaching our kids how to think, how the thoughts work in our mind and how they lead to, to feelings about ourselves and others and our place in the world. I'm kind of curious if you can for the parents who maybe are starting to see a little bit of, I don't know, perfectionism start to emerge in their kiddos, like I hear from, it's always 5 year olds. It's always parents of 5 year olds who come to me and like, oh gosh, if they can't write their E's perfectly, they throw the paper across the room, or if they can't get the Lego to work out exactly how they want it, they throw it across the room. So when parents are starting to see some of that emerging, what can we be doing?
Richard: One of the things I think that right away that you can do is to really talk to your child about what they're feeling at that moment. Like, what does it mean for them not to be able to do that? Is it that they then believe that they'll never be able to do it and that they then will feel like they're not like their other colleagues or or or their peers, right? Ultimately trying to relate to a five year old and then helping them name an emotion can be challenging, right? But I think it is powerful to then be able to say. Does it make you sad? How much does it make you afraid? Like, what are you, you know, worrying, and explain some of it to me because sometimes I think we may feel so engaged around just the action that they're taking, that we don't take that step back to say, oh, I wonder what they're actually experiencing, and how do I help them to name it?
Because sometimes they may not even be able to name it, right? And some of our work as parents is to help them to learn how to name it. And then it really helped them to embrace this notion that it's all right to make mistakes. It's all right not to be perfect. It's all right that, you know, I make mistakes and, and, you know, being able to see that and it's all right, and you learn from it and you grow from it, and it's something that we all as humans experience. So it's quite all right.
Laura: Yeah, yeah, I really, I, I like that a lot. I think. Those kiddos with that perfectionism when it's coming out too, there's, you know. There's almost like. What they think they should be able to do is outstrip their skills at that moment, right? They need a little bit of support and understanding, like, some of these things are just muscle memory and your hand has to make a, like, lots and lots of ease before it will just be effortless, you know? Or, but, so I think it's scary though. I think it's scary for parents who don't like this about themselves, to then see a trait that they don't like about themselves coming out in their kids. And so it makes me wonder too around even just applying the same level of perfection, perfectionism that we apply to. The rest of our lives are the way we parent our kids, and then we see something coming out in our kids and we're like, oh no, there's this thing that I don't like and I must not be doing something perfectly. I guess it just feels like a very vicious cycle. And yeah. And go ahead.
Richard: No, no, go ahead.
Laura: Oh, well, I mean, I'm just I'm just thinking about like, so when that we see those things come up, those parts of ourselves that come up. That we, you know, that we are seeing in our kids and that we don't like in ourselves. Sometimes it can help to work on those things too, right? And so, what is like for the parent who is recognizing a little bit of this, you know, the beginnings of impostor syndrome happening with their kids, what can they be doing when they, they know they carry that with themselves to be good models for their kids.
Richard: Yeah, and that aspect of being a good model is the key piece. The thing I love about your podcast and the thing that inspired me, and my partner to write this book is there's not this level of judgment of you need to do things this way to be a good parent. There's so much out there that makes us feel like, okay, if we do it wrong, we're gonna ruin our kids forever, right? And so we're forced to kind of feel very perfectionistic cause I remember, you know, when my daughters were younger and it was like, okay. You're tracking when they're talking, when they're, you know, saying their letters, when they're gonna walk, right? So, and if they don't meet particular milestones, you then feel like, okay, I'm not doing it, quote unquote, right, and then you beat yourself up, especially if you're a perfectionist.
So when you see that, then it's really about saying, how do I model what we call this growth mindset rather than holding on to perfectionism, because oftentimes what happens is we believe that why we're successful is the perfectionism that we convince ourselves that perfectionism is a thing that allowed us to achieve to the levels that we achieved so we don't want to give up perfectionist and we find every reason not to give it up. I've learned this and being a parent you tell this, right? You know, I realized at a certain point I need to give up perfectionism as a parent because it's not, it's a. You will endeavor. You're never going to be perfect. So how do you actually model what Harold Dweck talked about in his growth mindset, which is you can make a mistake and it's not a bad thing.
You're going to learn from the mistake. It's an opportunity for growth, rather than this fixed mindset of, okay, if we make a mistake, it exposes the fact that we're limited in our ability to grow. It's that we're limited in our ability to really engage differently and that we have a ceiling in our intelligence and in our abilities. And we don't want that for ourselves, we don't want that for our children. We want to really be able to embrace this notion that when we make a mistake, it isn't something that we run from, it is something that we look at, evaluate and say, how do we do it differently? What do I learn from that, rather than, I made a mistake, I'm gonna beat myself up and just suffer in it. We don't want our kids to suffer and we don't want to suffer in it.
Laura: Yeah, yeah. I love that so much. I'm thinking too much about this. This aspect of impostor syndrome that that you touched on, you know, that they will find out and the consequences of people finding out, like, I'm not perfect or I don't, you know, deserve to be here, and that like inherent rejection that that's a part of, right? Can you talk a little bit about that? Because I do feel like one of the big anxieties that gets in the way for parents is this fear of not being loved and accepted, that either they won't be loved and accepted or their kids won't be loved and accepted. If we don't, you know, nip this in the bud or, you know, stop this, you know, behavior. And that, and that is the same thing, that like rejection, right? And so, how does that piece of it play into impostor syndrome and what can we do to help our kids and ourselves? I feel a little bit more settled. And our worth, as opposed to needing that outward reflection.
Richard: Yeah, and, and I often talk about the fact that we all have an audience, that as we walk in the world, there are a variety of audiences that we're mindful of, whether it's our family members, it's our friends, it's our neighbors, it's our colleagues, that we tend to be very cognizant of what will the audience say if we do X? How will they respond? And that keeps us very much trapped in this notion of we need to be perfect, and we need to make sure we're making all the right moves or the audience will really reject us or scorn us or give us negative feedback. And so that tends to feel like it's hard to turn off that notion of saying, okay, I don't really care about. What the audience is, who cares, thinks, right? That ultimately it's being mindful of, okay, is the audience more important than the well-being of yourself and your children, right? Not to say you should not, you should neglect or ignore what those particular audience members are saying or thinking, but really value your point.
Your unique skills, gifts, abilities, what you're doing to enhance your life, what you're doing to enhance the lives of your children, knowing that everyone has a unique journey, that as we become parents, you know that everyone wants to weigh in as to what should be the right quote unquote, way to do something, and not everyone. Is our child, right? And not everyone has had our child, right? That ultimately we know our children better than anyone else, and yes, people can give feedback because they've had different experiences before us, but it does not necessarily mean that they are the end all and be all relative to how you should approach things with your child. Easier said than done, I know.
Laura: I mean, you're totally speaking too. Why is it so much easier for me to be my calm centered self when I'm doing this in the privacy of my own home versus, you know, at my, my parents' house, for example, because the audience is different. I think that's a really fascinating way to think about things too, about, you know, when, when we're going to go into an environment, right? Where we know the audience. Triggers, triggers this within us. What can we do to prepare ourselves to be in that audience and stay true to who we are, you know?
Richard: Yeah, and, and it starts with really understanding that what you want and what the audience may want will differ, and it's all right that we tend to feel so much pressure to give in to what the audience wants rather than what we believe and know we should have or our child should have, and being able to stand in that despite the conflict there, because it will feel very uncomfortable, it will feel unpleasant. To have to engage where you know the audience will say, why did you make that decision or mm mm, that's not gonna help your child when you know. That is the best way forward for the decision you've made for your child. And being able to honor that is really critical to helping you to feel like you're doing the best you can for yourself and for your children, and not necessarily meeting the demands of the audience.
Laura: Oh, I really like this, this conversation about the audience. I think I, I feel like this could be really, really helpful too in talking about this with our older kids, right? Because you especially have girls who are moving into the teen years, your kids are in the teen years, mine are moving in there. And they are, especially my older one, who is becoming very aware of the variety of audiences. Do you use that language with the kids, the teens that you work with or the young folks that you work with?
Richard: Yeah, because one of the things that they have that we did in our own particular childhood is that the audience is constantly watching, right? Because of social media in a way that is just unending, right? And unnerving. Like we would have a situation where we could go home and turn some of that off if we were in school. And even if there was a different audience at home with, you know, some of our friends in the neighborhood, we still had some level of a reprieve. They do not have a reprieve. They literally have an audience 24/7, and that is why it's so important to really have that discussion with them, to recognize that a lot of the actions that they may be taking are based on what they believe the audience wants of them in that 24/7 cycle that they're living in.
Laura: Wow, that's really heavy. I can't imagine going through the teen years with the weight of that. So how do you help these kids get that break?
Richard: It's really helping them to talk about what it is that they want for themselves, versus again, this question of what the audience may want from them, that they want to feel engaged, they wanna have a sense of community, they wanna be able to feel like they fit in, and at the same time, they wanna be able to honor their own unique identity. And so being able to recognize again that what the audience may want for you may not be the best thing for you, and that there are still ways for you to find your community, still ways for you to engage, but also take a step back and preserve your peace in essence.
Laura: Yeah, okay. Oh, I'm thinking about a really specific example around kind of comparison with one of my kiddos. I'm not going to use like names and ages just to protect them a little bit, but we just had, we're coming out of the week of parent teacher conferences and one of my kids was really nervous going in around what we were going to think about her, in regards to her work, what her teacher was going to say. She was really worried about those things. And, I'm, I'm happy to tell, talk about how we handled that, but I feel really curious about what should parents do in those moments where their kids are saying, you know, I want, you know, I want you to be proud of me. I'm worried, you don't think highly of me. And we want to reassure them and at the same time, we don't, I don't know about you, but I don't want my kids always looking externally for validation. I want them looking internally, right? So how should we handle that?
Richard: Yeah, and it leads me to actually a story that I have with my girls as well. They're both competitive fencers, and so, so we're on the road a lot and traveling with their fencing tournaments. We just came back actually from Cleveland, at a national tournament, but one of them would say to us, I'm very scared that I'm going to lose all my matches and you're not gonna be happy. And so, then we say to her, well, what do you think will happen if you lose all your matches? Do you think we won't love you anymore? And she'll say, no, like, do you think we will reject you? No. Like, you could lose 1000 matches, and we will always love you and we will always embrace you. So it's really being able to reassure them that their performance is not connected to your approval of them.
Even though it can feel sometimes challenging, because, again, we're human, so we may be disappointed if they didn't get a particular grade, or we may be disappointed if they didn't perform as well in a tournament or or in their, you know, concert. And ultimately though, it's coming back to the fact of saying, yes, your performance may not have been what you wanted. Let's talk about how to, you know, improve that, but that does not connect to how much I care for you and love you, and connect to you in that particular way. So that's the piece that is so important to reinforce with your children.
Laura: I love that, I love that so much. I think I really like the idea of teaching our kids how to think through these things, because they're making meaning all the time. They're all these experiences, they're crafting stories in their minds, right? And about what it means about me, about how people think about me, what it means for my life and for my future. And I'm kind of curious about teaching kids about these stories that they're telling themselves. How do you talk about that? With, I don't know, with teenagers that maybe aren't as open to our influence or roll their eyes. I don't know, do you get eye rolls when you try to talk about mindset stuff with your kids, cause I do.
Richard: Of course, yes, of course. And, and it's fine because developmentally they're not there. The other story that I always remember saying to my mom, and I don't know how this came about, but it took a while. I turned 22. And I said to her, thank you for all the things and all the advice you told me when I was in my teenage years. I was not ready to fully embrace them or take them in, but I appreciated you telling me them, because if you didn't, I would not have had the opportunity, even though it didn't seem like I was listening, and and I didn't sometimes actually listen, I did appreciate it and I heard it and so, having the tolerance to engage with your children when they definitely seem that they don't want to engage with you, is one of the most challenging things for parents to do.
Laura: Oh my gosh. Doctor Orbe Austin, that is such a relief. It really it's such a relief because I mean my, my kids will even tell me like, oh mom, I just zoned out, you know, I hear, but like you said, at least. I love that perspective. Thank you, because at least they had someone in their lives telling them that this was important. You know, they weren't ready to learn about it then. But when they are ready, they'll be like, oh, that's what my mom was talking about. And she believed in me the whole, this whole time.
Richard: Yeah, and as you said, they're making meaning all the time, and they may not seem like they're actually listening, but they do hear it, and in their own particular time they will take it in. Like, our kids are always, I know, I know, I know, when we give them feedback. I know, I know. I'm trying, I'm trying. And we're like, okay, and, you know, and so we engage with it, because part of the challenge in this world that I think about is just the pace of everything, right? We're constantly moving, so it's so difficult. To really sit down even with our children and have these types of conversations. They're on the go, we're on the go, we're we're here, we're there, you know, we barely have time to probably chat, eat, and kind of go to bed and start it all over again. But it is so critical that we find that time, even if it's very brief, even if it's, you know, on a walk or on the way to school or some place that you have at bedtime where they have just a brief conversation with them about some of these particular issues.
Laura: You said something there that maybe reminded me of a question I really wanted to ask you. So I'm so glad that you did. You said the word feedback, and I feel really curious about how to go about giving kids feedback in a way that doesn't land like criticism on them, right? Especially when you've got one of these kids who is sensitive to your perception of them, and, you know, is leaning towards perfectionism. How can, like, how can we give feedback, yeah, that doesn't land like criticism.
Richard: I think we frame it in the fact that part of what we're doing is based on the love and care that we have for them. Now I remember this, you know, even with my oldest from the beginning, since she was like 5, and she would say, You know, I don't like feedback, right? And it's like, you know, we'd be like, oh, we're giving you feedback. It's like, I don't like feedback, and to this day, she will say, I don't like feedback because she still connects feedback to this notion that she's doing something wrong, and doing something wrong is bad and so as much as we talk about this growth. Mindset, it's constantly reinforcing that the feedback is not meant to denigrate you or to say that you're bad. It's actually to help you really take in things that you may not be seeing or noticing. And so ultimately, it comes from this place of great care and affection for you. And so when we're thinking about it, part of it, when we talk about feedback is also the timing of something.
That if you are in a very heated moment and you want to give them a particular piece of feedback, you may want to take a step back until you feel emotionally ready, and they feel a little bit more emotionally ready to do it, but it can't be so far removed from, you know, whatever the feedback is or the situation. That you want to, that elicited your desire to give them that feedback, because then they may feel like, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't remember that. Right? So again, back to this bouncing act of, right, in that particular moment, it may be difficult to tell them, like, I, I've learned this especially around their fencing, that if they've lost the about, now might not be the time to say, Hey, what would you do differently? It might be on the ride home, it might be the next day when we're having breakfast, right? But it's recent enough for us to have a conversation about it, but it's not so intense based on where we are emotionally that it's not going to be productive.
Laura: I really like that, and I, I like them, cause you, I feel like you gave a little bit of wiggle room in there around. Making your intention, as long as you are making your intentions clear, there's, it's not always our job to make sure it's being perceived in the way that we're intending it. That, like, as long as we are doing our very, you know, our level best to put the feedback out there with the intention of love and care, and we're saying we're doing this with love and care. That there is a certain level where they have to do the work of learning to receive it with loving care too, and that if it's landing like criticism on there, there's a certain level of that that's for them to figure out how do I receive feedback in a way that doesn't jeopardize my sense of self-confidence, right?
Richard: Right. Yeah, and even as adults, when we talk about feedback, right, when someone is telling you something that you do not necessarily want to hear, because it's saying clearly that you could improve on something, but mostly it feels difficult. And even when we used to talk about giving feedback in the sandwich format of like positive then the actual, you know, constructive criticism and then another positive, it's still found that the research still finds that it's not actually people who don't walk away from that thinking about the positive. They still walk away with the constructive criticism that they got, right? And so I think just from a societal standpoint, really helping people to understand and to see that constructive feedback is not just this notion of wanting you to feel bad. Like how we do. Take that in such a way that says, yes, it doesn't, it does feel emotionally difficult, but it is helpful to me to hear this because it will help me to improve as a person. It will help me to improve in whatever particular task that I'm pursuing or, or vocation I'm pursuing. And that's the piece that, you know, I constantly want to emphasize.
Laura: Yeah, gosh, I think that is learning that about feedback, I think it is a big part of growing up. At least it was for me in my later, like my later twenties, like, you know, you're still developing a lot in your, in your twenties. That was a huge developmental piece for me. But I never had, so I experienced a lot of my dad's well-intentioned feedback as criticism growing up, but he never gave me the framework of this is well-intentioned, you know, and he also never asked. me if I wanted the feedback from him or if I wanted feedback from a different source, right? So there is that other piece too where we don't have to be the person who's giving feedback to our kids on, on every topic, right? You know? Like one of my kids really likes she knows I'm a feelings doctor. You know, that's what we call, call it. And, but she does not want me to wear that hat with her. She wants me firmly wearing the mom hat, and she has her own feelings doctor for when she needs a feelings doctor. You know what I mean? So I think it's good too, to, to ask our kids around, you know, on some of those things, who they want to be the source of feedback on, you know, I mean, obviously, their behavior at home, we have to be the source, but, you know, Math or club involvement, you know, who, who is, do they want feedback from? It's a good question.
Richard: Yeah, I think it's a great point because it is sometimes who is providing the feedback that allows them to feel a sense of safety, given the fact that, again, just going back to their Fencing, they will hear the feedback from their coach around the fencing more than I, because I'm not an expert in fencing. So I might see certain things and wonder and like to approach it from a place of curiosity, but it's still much more helpful for them to hear something from their coach. And so to your point, it's being able to ask them, well, if you want feedback about this, who might be the best person that will deliver it, and they will respond. To their coach, they will respond to, you know, when they used to take violin instructions from their violin teacher, much more than I would because again, I'm not a violinist.
Laura: Right. Yeah. And there's not all that layer, you know, there's not these layers of relationships, you know, that muddy the waters, you know, yeah. Okay. And so one last kind of topic that I want to touch on. So I don't know about you, but for my kids, I want them really to be much more concerned about their own self and internal evaluation, their own, I want their sense of self-worth to be very, very steady, and I don't want them looking to outside sources. I want them looking in. I'm trying my darndest to make that happen. But do you have any tips for me and for the other parents like me who know that this world is set up for external validation. That's the way the world is set up, you know, we get the grades on the report card, you know, like we get awards, we get, you know, all of those things. In a world that is working against us, how can we make sure our kids are growing that internal validation, skill, muscle?
Richard: Yeah, and I think also a very critical question, and one of the things I talk about is asking them what their narrative is, right, which seems like a very strange question to ask a child, but this notion, we all again walk with a particular narrative, story we tell ourselves about our. And a good deal of it, fair or unfair, does initially come from external sources, right? When you're a baby or when you're a toddler, your parents, your caregivers are giving you feedback about who you are and so you take on some of that initially. So when we're talking through and helping them to understand their narrative, it's helping to see. What comes from them and how much of it is just externally driven.
When they talk about themselves and they say, well, when I think about myself, you know, Miss Nancy told me I'm good at math, or, you know, this person said this, or my friend Sam and then you take a step back and say, well, what do you think about that? How do you take that in? Like, what do you believe about yourself and who you are today? And having that question and that conversation about their narrative forces them and you in a way to kind of learn who they believe themselves to be in the world today. It's constantly evolving, it's constantly changing, but if we find that so much of it is again driven by just external feedback. Then we want to be able to help them balance that out, and, and approach it from this place of curiosity and questioning so that it doesn't feel like, well, no, they're wrong about that, so you should be this, but helping them to feel like they can. Explore and be expansive relative to who they can be.
Laura: I really like that invitation for curiosity and almost the building of the habit. Okay, so when I get external feedback, I'm then gonna check in with myself on how does that feel? And, you know, and does it make sense? Is it, you know, like checking. Not the source of the feedback, you know, is that I really love that just as I almost like building the habit of, okay, we're taking it in, and now we check it, right? Like I really like that as and, and you're doing it, you know, alongside your kids, and eventually it becomes that habit that they internalize. Thank you. I really, really like that a lot. It makes me think about a conversation I probably need to have with my kiddo who was worried about conferences. I think I'm just going to circle back to it. Now that they're older, we can do that, you know, when they're 3, you know, it's kind of do have to, yeah, but now that they're older, I think I can circle back on that and you can just check in, you know, with how she made sense of that in the days following it. Yeah, I really like that a lot. Thank you.
Richard: My pleasure.
Laura: Okay, well, so Doctor Orbe Austin, why don't you tell us a little bit about where they, my listeners can find you, where they can find your book and and learn more from you, because this was such a great conversation.
Richard: So it's, the book is available at all booksellers, so Amazon, Barnes and Noble, independent booksellers, again, it's an opportunity to really have parents support their children in thinking about ways to prevent, impost syndrome, really thinking about and talking through issues related to perfectionism, how to deal with performance anxiety, how to form healthy relationships. So we really want this to feel like a go to resource for parents, and you can find in companion with the book, we've developed a handle on, on Instagram called at Smart Parenting Strategies, where we provide also tips, feedback, engage with the audience related to issues in the book and just parenting issues as a whole.
Laura: I love that, and you know, I will say so your book was very excessively written, it was very easy to. It was a very easy read. And I actually think that for folks who maybe are struggling a little bit with this impostor syndrome or perfectionism themselves, I love it when you get like, you get to kill two birds with one stone and learn skills that are important for your kids and for yourself along the way. And that's definitely something that happens in your book, which I still appreciate cause we don't have time. To read books for ourselves and then a separate one for our kids. It's really nice when we can get it all done at once.
Richard: I appreciate that. Thank you.
Laura: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks so much for being with us today.
Richard: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
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All right. That's it for me today. I hope that you keep taking really good care of your kids and your family and each other and most importantly of yourself. And just to remember, balance is a verb and you're already doing it. You've got this!