Deep Dive: Kristen Bell and Jackie Tohn on the Magic of Song

0:00 why is it so hard to find reliable answers to parenting questions how is it in 2022 parents still search on google for answers from strangers well now there's a better way introducing the good inside membership an expert guided community-powered platform redefining modern parenting in our library you'll find hundreds of bite-sized videos articles scripts and workshops tackling the trickiest parenting topics and it doesn't stop

0:33 here we've created a private community guided by me dr becky and coaches trained in the good inside parenting method here you can ask questions connect with other parents or attend a live event on a topic that matters to you this is the parenting handbook that doesn't exist this is parenting advice at your fingertips where you need it when you need it the most this is good inside membership hi i'm dr becky and this is good inside

1:07 i'm a clinical psychologist and mom of three on a mission to rethink the way we raise our children [Music] i love translating deep thoughts about parenting into practical actionable strategies that you can use in your home right away one of my core beliefs is that we are all doing the best we can with the resources we have available to us in that moment so even as we struggle and even as we are having a hard time on

1:38 the outside we remain good inside [Music] in today's episode i speak with kristen bell and jackie tone kristen and jackie are actors singers and producers with a new children's series on amazon called do re and me the three of us sit down and share our ideas about using music to help defuse challenging moments and build core

2:09 emotion regulation skills kristin asked me some parenting questions about the tricky situations in her home and jackie reflects on how writing songs for this show helped heal parts of her own childhood with all of that in mind let's jump in [Music] hi kristin hi jackie hi i'm really excited to be talking with you all i know when i ask you all the questions i don't want you to ask us any questions i want to ask you all the

2:41 questions well let's bring that on so i'm like look i'm an avid reader of anything about brain science or psychology or parenting and have gone through i mean literally all of them like body keeps the score danish way of parenting nurture shock like blessing of a skin need like everything and i wow i i just want to know first question am i doing it right that is the question everyone is asking themselves all the time so much of what i think about with

3:11 parenting is what goes on inside our bodies you know what what do we see in our kids that trigger something in us and whether we have kids or we're thinking about our relationship with ourselves or with important people in our lives it's all the same principles so not to project well right our kids i often think and i right i have three kids who have big personalities all of them they really show us so much of

3:36 what's unhealed in our own from our own childhoods what right still kind of lives in us so especially in their in their tricky moments right a whole world i always feel like kind of happens for us i'm so excited to talk about how this even all relates to your show because one of the probably most popular videos on my instagram actually has to do with when our kids are in really tricky moments how everyone's like well what do i say

4:03 what do i do and they feel our tone and our kind of connection and even they feel song way before they process words that we have to get their body back to a place of feeling safe so i i always end up making up songs with my own kids and that idea for parents of oh i don't need to get the script right but maybe even song can help me regulate myself is is so powerful a hundred you've been talking about 100

4:30 i mean that was the impetus for the show is knowing how important music is it's the reason why we all know what baby mozart is and why they say oh put it on your belly it music changes your brain it can put you in a different mood it can grow the neuroplasticity of your brain like there are studies that tell us that kids get better at math and that their social skills when they're exposed to music and music education and

4:51 the goal jackie had this idea with our friend michael they brought it over to my living room as a guinea pig tester for my kids like hey they looked at my little girl they were like do you like these images do you respond to these songs and i said what are you doing they were like well we're trying to develop a kids show because music education is being cut in all public schools right now and my kids go to

5:12 public school and i was like i i want them to get as much music education as possible because i wouldn't be here without a music education sincerely would not have become an actor it's how i discovered acting and i have such a profound respect for it and developing this show it's jackie labels it a sneak teach which i love that term it's an original animated series and it's it's entertaining but it's also teaching your kids music theory an

5:35 emotional lesson and a musical genre all in one and like some of my greatest mom moments are when like my kids are begging to use my phone and i need to succumb to that but i've like found a puzzle game where they have to spell and i hand it to them with like a sly smile on my face knowing they're getting educated and the apps that go along with dorae and me will be that because they

5:55 will be able to make music and they will be growing their brains which is really important and i talk to my kids on a daily basis about how mute i talk to them on a daily basis about regulation in general about how our bodies need to regulate and about how music can regulate us and we actually two days ago just built an actual physical toolbox because one thing that because i love like science and brain reading and and

6:22 parenting reading and i talk to them a lot about their tools like when they're upset what can you use what do you want to pull out of your toolbox right now you got 100 things in your toolbox you got to take a deep breath you got to ask an adult you gotta take a walk around the yard you gotta um take a get a glass of water you gotta cuddle a dog you gotta look up at the clouds and find a

6:40 shape you've got hundreds of tools and my six-year-old said wouldn't it be great if we had a real toolbox so obviously i immediately ordered real tool boxes and they're mini and i used as a buy-in i used a bunch of stickers and i had them decorate this the toolbox and then i wrote them all out on note cards like a hundred of them and i was like any of these that you want to put in your toolbox you put in there in case

7:03 you need to locate them and one of them was put on a song you love and sing out loud beautiful yeah so powerful i'm curious if you're open to it i'd love to hear about kind of like a real life difficult moment in terms of using those tools or how song comes up with your kids yeah i mean i have one child that is fairly introverted she you know what's weird is i noticed i was an introvert at

7:29 like 37 and i have been pretending to be an extrovert but all the tests of like do you feel filled up after you go to a party or do you feel drained i was like oh my god i am the most outgoing introvert that i know but i really need retreat time i need it and with my closest group of friends i actually have like code where if we're sitting at a table of six or eight like our pod and

7:57 i'm three hours into the night and they still want to hang and i'm cached i will go in the other room and do a puzzle and be in my own head and they know i'm cool like we have like they know that about yeah my um oldest daughter is fairly introverted and needs um a lot of alone time but doesn't know how to ask for it because she like me is wants to please as well and one thing

8:21 we've done that i think is helping though i would love any other tips is we got her a little like ipod touch and loaded her favorite music on it so she has the ability to close out everything as one of her tools if she needs to and she doesn't do it like at the dinner table it's not a um it's not a chance to ignore it's when she's feeling in a heightened state she can choose the song she wants

8:46 to regulate to and go upstairs and she'll just be sitting you know on her bed and listening for 20 minutes yeah it's so tricky i feel like when you know when you're describing that i think about i have two sons and one daughter my daughter's my middle and she both wants time alone and also i think wants me to be there at the same time there's like such conflict like i want you but get out of my room but if you go

9:12 out of my room i'm also going to scream i can't believe you left me and one of the things this actually ironically led to me putting out this my instagram because it all came from i was developing this button for sleep but like picture a staples easy button but why do kids have trouble falling asleep while sleep is separation so how do you internalize apparent soothing function when for a lot of kids they don't sleep with the

9:37 parent in the room is really the the really the trouble with kids sleeping independently and so for this daughter who both is fiercely independent but also i know wants me there i i recorded myself singing um you are my sunshine which is not like melodic when i sing it but it's my voice singing it and it's like this on demand mom right so and also to be frank it's an on-demand nice mom because when she called me back at like two in the

10:06 morning i wasn't i was not my best singing voice then despite my best attempts so we started using that when she went to sleep and so part of the routine i'd walk out and she'd press this down and it was me singing you are my sunshine and then i'd say something i'd say her like bedtime mantra right so it'd be like um mommy is here or maybe mommy is near beth is safe your bed is cozy and kind

10:33 of again in this kind of just melodic almost hypnotic tune and one of the deals when she was having trouble sleeping is i would ask her to press it on my walk out of her room and press it at least once more before she called me back and then maybe twice more so through kind of this connection and i and honestly through this melody too she was able to really take that in i love that because we're d what we so i

10:58 have a she's a velcro child the same one we're talking about she's very much a velcro child and will trail me around the house no matter what she she could be playing with her friends in the in the funnest game possible if i walk up the stairs that the second my foot hits the stairs she'll yell my name where are you going and i'm like i'm just going upstairs to fold some clothes and she follows me like there's a velcro aspect

11:17 that i want to make sure is staying healthy because i will i never want to push it away but i also want her to grow and as she falls asleep um i mean there's look five of the seven nights a week i'm sleeping with them but there are some nights where we go no this is mommy and daddy's time we're gonna watch a show and we we wanna we want our time together because we love each other

11:39 and when i leave the bedroom it's always the exact same conversation it's like mama are you leaving yes baby will you check on me yes baby will you lock your door absolutely not baby will you leave the door open yes baby how many minutes till you're back about 10 every single night and i'm wondering if my fatigue with that conversation i should just throw out the window because maybe that conversation is the soothe it's it's interesting i think

12:10 i think often the way i think about anxiety for kids and adults is kind of like an equation which is uncertainty plus our underestimation of our ability to cope and most of us try to solve anxiety me included from the uncertainty side we try to get information information we read a million twitter threads we ask a million questions and i actually think information is super helpful especially to kids we want to tell them what's going on we want to be really honest

12:36 with them but then i always find there's this point where and you know it as a parent you know it is a non-parent too you're like i think you know the information like you're you're looking right like that like i'm guessing you don't ever lock her in her room i'm guessing you don't ever peace out exactly right so um i wonder if at that moment i think two things first of all i would so love to

12:58 know if she would find soothing in this button because if you are able to leave her with mommy when she can't actually have mommy right there's a way to extend your presence or even infuse your presence into her room that's what we want to do for our kids right we want to give them our presence and our soothing function until they have enough of it that it becomes their own voice that's what these early years are about and if a kid

13:22 can access a soothing part of a parent through a voice in some ways while you're not there is kind of it's really win-win for everyone because you could like be on the couch watching a movie and enjoying yourself while your daughter's actually doing some major regulation work the interesting thing is i do try to remind her of her capabilities all the time and it is not a struggle to do that this girl at six years old wanted to keep this

13:47 other foster dog we had and i said the thing that everybody says which is if you can take care of this dog we can keep it and by god for the last four years she three years she has gotten up every morning and she feeds them she makes sure they pee she feeds them at night i mean she does it like she she is one of the most responsible children i have ever come across like if

14:11 i had to ask her to like if we were in a bind and i had to be like drive my car up the street i actually think she might be able to do it sincerely but but when it comes to like i'll say i want to go next door for a cup of sugar or something she will and she's eight and uh she's almost nine i think that's a fully capable free-range parenting type to be like you

14:33 can be alone for 20 minutes a hundred percent you know and she's got wi-fi on her ipod so she can text me like everything's covered and it she will not allow it to happen and she says i know i'm capable of it but i don't like it and i wonder how i encourage a little more separation so that she can see her vast capabilities yeah well i i don't i've known you for you know i don't know 16 minutes so i take all

14:59 this with a grain of salt but my guess is with doing what you do you have to keep your kids pretty close that like you're you know there's like you have to be aware of them like there's different levels of security different families need to take so in any family i've worked with or that's the case their kids are a hundred percent understandably a little more anxious about separation because the world doesn't actually feel as safe as it

15:24 might to another kid there's more concerns involved so i do think it's this this tricky dynamic of how do i help my kids say no i i know you could walk right there like that's okay but in some ways they've internalized a message again understandably that makes them think that the safest place in the world is right next to my parent i don't know if you already use song but to me song is such a great way

15:48 to get into that space right and and made up songs right so it makes me think about like how far away she could be when you're practicing like i don't want you to go you cannot go to the neighbor's house without me but i wonder if you could go to like that blade of grass right and there's like a little song you can sing i don't know i can imagine singing you guys are the song people not me so

16:10 but it'd be something like i can move a little further and take a deep breath i can move a little further and take a deep breath i don't know something like that that's right that's like the basis of you know daniel tiger is also such a wonderful show which was the reinvention of mr rogers and the great show that my and i so my littlest one is just a a fireball tasmanian devil opposite in every possible way has none of the same issues

16:38 and so we have completely different parenting techniques we cannot use the same techniques for them at all so my husband and i are constantly going like okay well but which one is that because yelling because we walk it into the room in a very different way um but she took a lot of the daniel tiger phrases because that was sort of her when she was in preschool and um and would sing them when she was um

17:00 oh yeah she used to sing the one that goes stop stop stop it's okay to feel angry but it's not not not okay to hurt someone and that is literally exactly like and because i'll bring jackie into the conversation here since we're talking about what you can do with these songs is like the idea of daniel tiger was so prominent in at least my mind when jackie was developing this because each of the songs that are in doree and me

17:27 have a different emotional lesson to them like the one that i think i referenced before about uh you gotta listen to your body when it's trying to talk to you but it's a hook that you actually might wanna sing that will so rather than making up the songs by watching the show if you're overhearing it with your kid i mean jackie you can speak to it because you wrote all 52. you know there's there's a song on the show it's like this is how

17:52 you wait wait wait give your wings a shake shake and it's like a little disco song about waiting and so when your kids need to wait it's no longer like oh i'm freaking out it's like all right well then sing wait wait wait this is also there's another great song that jackie wrote which like the emotional lesson was about like when something bad happens like when something that you don't want to have happen happens like rain on my

18:18 parade because it starts raining in the show and she's about to have a picnic and jackie wrote this great song um good that goes rain rain rain you can stay the sun will come out another day and it's just like this sort of acceptance mode of that yeah so i just flipping flipping like how much rain stinks on its head rain's the best and we're always like as kids like rain rain go away and this is more just like no

18:43 this is we actually we kind of love this um there's songs about insecurity um my character ray has a little moment where she tries out for this um she wants to be part of the flamingo goes dance troupe but they're big tall gorgeous flamingos and she's a hummingbird and so she's just like forget it i'm too small and nobody can see me and i don't even know why anybody would want to see me up there with those big beautiful

19:07 flamingos i mean i'm so miniature and no one even knows i'm even there so just forget it and her friends try and make her big and put a big bow on her hair they try and put her on stilts and then i'll have chills and then ultimately she just has to be herself and fly next to the flamingos and then everybody can see her and it's a song about acceptance and look at me little me too small for anyone to see

19:31 that i'm up here on this stage and that one's to like the the vibe of that one's actually like kind of queen so it's like all big harmonies and stuff but that's not the point but it's there's a lesson in in every single song and we had our workout cut out for us because every episode as kb said is a musical genre a musical lesson um and an emotional lesson and when the three of those things married which was

19:59 um often i think is when our show's really at its best i'm curious if you guys have is there a song that speaks to you most personally or that you could have really used as a kid funny you're asking that because i get chills every time i talk about look at me little me because rey is me i mean once they realize once i started voicing it they you know that that's why she became a hummingbird because you know i

20:23 have attention problems even into adulthood and i'm just a hummingbird i'm going i'm always doing i talk a ton i'm stacking a ton and a lot of the things that i am rey is and i think um it might be an overstatement but i don't think it is to say that i really worked through some childhood stuff in the making of this show because i was watching this little bird that is me it's hard it's confusing because

20:52 there's a character named me but i was watching little rey who is me jackie go through things and have her friends support her and overcome these things and overcome feeling insignificant and feeling not seen and it was really it was really powerful as a grown-up um i think i may i think i probably got those lessons as a kid and i think so many of them are going to be so hopefully so valuable to the kids watching because like you know

21:23 we said earlier with the sneak teaching i don't even think the goal is that they're not even going to notice what what we're instilling in them well what's funny is we both were on this road of like how do we reduce these big lessons these big sort of psychological lessons into tiny little songs and jackie and i both felt the same thing we were like huh i need to be reminded of that today like that a lot of these need

21:48 reiteration there's one song that's uh that goes like together we're not alone and that hook always stayed with me because that's the truth if you're if you're feeling lonely if you're together you're not alone and just like it's it's so simple but kind of profound yeah you know one of the things that i always notice is the things that we feel like our kids need most always end up touching us as parents too so it makes me wonder

22:20 you know if the parents will end up also just singing the jingles away from like singing the songs away from their kids right first i mean that was one of the major goals musically so hopefully energetically and emotionally that'll happen as well but you know musically one of the major goals was to make a show that the parents could sing along to as well and not want to put the tablet in the microwave yeah exactly dr becky i have one more

22:47 question for you one more parenting during our session um so are you going to venmo her uh i think i believe so yes it's more prominent with one kid but it does happen with both so because i am an outgoing person and because my job requires me to be so and not you know um not not say hi to someone on the street if they say hi i have to be a responsible polite well-mannered human being

23:14 there are some times in which my kids are with me and they're engaged let's say someone says like oh what grade are you in and i'm talking to another adult and i'm with my child am i and and and this is something i take very seriously what's my story and what's your story because i don't really have the right to comment on your story your story is yours but i do have the right to have my

23:34 story and when i'll say like oh this is you know delta she's in first grade and she will become so angry and want to cover my mouth because i told that detail and i'm wondering how you would handle that because i'm caught between really wanting to respect her if someone says don't say a detail about me then i want to respect that but at the same time as a six-year-old i don't know if you get to edit the way that adults are talking

24:00 to that extent so and and i'm guessing in that moment she doesn't want to answer the question herself that's why is that part of it yeah and she she doesn't want to answer it and she does not want me to answer it either um so i don't know if there's one way forward i actually think you're going to get the most bang for your buck and the kind of play you can do around that outside of the moment like i feel like

24:22 there's always these moments like whatever we do in the moment we say it we don't it's probably less relevant than i would i actually think that would be like a really helpful thing to role play if you don't already not to get her to talk but actually just to see well like what could i do and ask her what do you think i should do i mean i do get a lot of i get a lot of help from them and

24:42 like what do you think i should do here and whenever i've had like mom fails or you know uh things i've been working on and i mean like my gut is telling me what it is psychologically is that sh that i'm in an interaction with an adult that she doesn't know and so rather than um you know to to be involved in that conversation she wants to go into shutdown mode because it's too much for her she doesn't know this person and she

25:06 probably doesn't want to talk she doesn't want me to stop to talk to them so rather than go into shutdown mode what she wants to do is be an observer and by by them asking the details which is just another friendly adult who doesn't know a kid being like oh what's your name how old are you they're incorporating her and she has decided that that moment in her brain is that she is an observer and they're

25:28 forcefully pulling her in so it feels more combative to her i also think as alessa i can imagine you saying in public um delta takes her time like she'll she'll share that when she's ready or like kind of going back to that song like you know delta knows her body she'll you know she'll she'll share the information that's actually that feels the most right to me is maybe i'll even run that buyer and say is this a

25:51 solution like hey when you have my mouth what if i said delta takes her time she'll answer if and when she's ready and then leave it up to you because like to be honest i really don't care if the other person knows her age or grade i'm just trying to be a well-mannered individual and and i don't i'm over the point of like my kids are embarrassing um i don't project like their their activities and emotional states are theirs mine are

26:14 mine i want to be supportive so that's actually a great one i'll i'll say what if i did this do you think that or any other solutions would help you exactly i'll definitely venmo you after this [Music] thank you kristen and jackie for spending some time with me for talking about the dynamics in your home and for sharing details and giving us all a preview of some amazing new songs in your new show we covered so many things

26:44 let me tie it all together with three takeaways one music is a powerful way to connect with our kids when we sing especially in tough moments we help the body regulate and also we have something to do so we can stay grounded and not be swept away in our own emotional experience try singing with your child today in some tough moment or make up a song together that connects you 2. our kids are unique and might cope

27:17 differently than us they may have different needs than we do they may be outgoing and love talking to people or our kids might be hesitant and need more time to warm up learning to support our kids in all the ways they're different from us is so challenging for me too but also so rewarding three you are not alone there's not one parent out there who isn't struggling with something so the next time you're in a tough

27:47 moment take a deep breath imagine this community of parents surrounding you saying to you i know i've been there too we're going to get through this thanks for listening to good inside let's stay connected at goodinside.com you can sign up for workshops and subscribe to good insider my weekly email with scripts and strategies delivered right to your inbox and for

28:19 more ideas and tips check out my instagram dr becky at goodinside goodinside is produced by beth rowe and brad gage and executive produced by eric kabelski and me dr becky if you enjoyed this episode please take a moment to rate and review and if you really like the episode please share it with someone you know many of you tell me that sharing an episode has allowed you to start conversations about tricky topics with spouses or extended family members

28:51 and to bond and connect with fellow cycle breakers i actually do read each and every review so please know that your feedback is meaningful to me let's end by placing our hands on our hearts and reminding ourselves even as i struggle and even as i have a hard time on the outside i remain good inside

29:37 you