26 - Take a You-Turn: Parents Helping Their Kids by Healing Themselves First—with guest Leslie Petruk, MA, therapist

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In this episode, Anne and Alison talk to Leslie Petruk, LPCS, NCC, BCC, Charlotte, NC-based therapist and Founder and Director of The Stone Center For Counseling & Leadership. We learn about Leslie's journey to discovering her own ADHD after serving this population professionally for years, her inner healing work for the sake of herself and her kids, and her work to help parents see that they must do the same.

Leslie Petruk

Leslie Petruk, LPCS, NCC, BCC, has more than 25 years of clinical experience working with children, adults and couples.  She is the founder and director of The Stone Center For Counseling & Leadership, a group practice in Charlotte, NC where she served as the Director until this past May.  She currently provides services online, teaches and conducts workshops.  She also serves as an Assistant Trainer with the Internal Family Systems Institute.  Leslie previously served as a program assistant with IFSI (formerly the Center For Self Leadership) supporting those learning the IFS model all across the country.  Leslie has developed a parenting program utilizing IFS and will soon be publishing a book on the application of IFS to parenting.  Leslie previously worked primarily with children as a play therapist and now supervises therapists who utilize play therapy and sand tray applying IFS.  Leslie is also a Board Certified Coach and offers coaching programs related to work/life balance, parenting and those seeking to make specific life changes.  Leslie also provides supervision and consultation groups and conducts workshops and webinars.  You can learn more about Leslie on her counseling center website:  www.thestonecenternc.com.

Show notes:

Intro:

Interview:

Gwen Shamblin Lara

Transcript

Alison Cebulla 0:05
Welcome to latchkey urchins and friends Podcast. I'm Alison Cebulla.

Anne Sherry 0:10
And I'm an Cherie. We are healing trauma with humor, humility, authenticity, imperfection, messiness, and compassion.

Alison Cebulla 0:19
Each week we interview someone on a different childhood trauma and neglect topic. Our hope is to reduce the stigma of talking about mental health and offer some tools to heal.

Anne Sherry 0:28
latchkey kids are children who came home to an empty house after school each day and watch themselves. We are the children who fought viciously with our siblings. We set our toasters on fire making cinnamon toast, and aimlessly roam the neighborhood hoping for something to do

Alison Cebulla 0:45
Urchins adapted to not need anyone. Our spiny prickly parts keep people at a distance.

Anne Sherry 0:51
Sometimes we were the kids, other kids parents warned you about.

Alison Cebulla 0:55
Sometimes we were the kids who held it all together, saved our families and got perfect grades in school.

Anne Sherry 1:00
Sometimes we were the kids who were comforted by drugs and alcohol.

Alison Cebulla 1:04
Sometimes we were the adults who grew up not realizing what we didn't get

Anne Sherry 1:08
whether you're a latchkey, an urchin or a friend, you are wanted here

Alison Cebulla 1:23
Hey, Alison, good to see you.

Anne Sherry 1:26
So to see you, too.

Alison Cebulla 1:28
Welcome to another episode. And so let's see first business. An wrote an amazing, a gorgeous blog. And so

Anne Sherry 1:41
cannot take that in Alison. So it was such a good help to that too. I really do. I do want to express my appreciation of your hand holding and encouragement, because that level of being seen is rough.

Alison Cebulla 1:59
So it's a very vulnerable and gorgeous and raw blog. It's called the unintended trauma of dancing like nobody's watching. So we'll link to that in the show notes. And then also, we have a MailChimp and so you can go to our website, latchkey urgence.com. And on the homepage, you can sign up for a newsletter. So we'll put key things like our videos that we're doing on YouTube or blogs, which we're going to start doing more and more of, because we have, we have a lot of thoughts that don't all get to come out in the in each episode. So we'll start including those supplemental materials in the newsletter. So, you know, sign up for that. And then check out Ann's blog. Which we also posted to our Facebook page. So if you're not if you're not following us on Facebook yet, go ahead and, and try that out. And okay, and then we do have the book club. We'll link to that in the show notes. That's also in the newsletter. Okay, so that's business. So Anne, what are you? What are you reading or watching this week?

Anne Sherry 3:03
Oh, I am scattered. I started reading girlhood at your suggestion by Melissa Phoebus fie bows. That's blowing my mind. I think I almost I think it sent me into a scatter pattern.

Alison Cebulla 3:18
Because it's triggering,

Anne Sherry 3:20
I think, yeah, like, I really resonate with a ton of what she talked about, I had no idea the forces that were at work kind of emerging from a wild in my body, nutty little kid and then started to develop and just the like, how much shame and unwanted attention and shit that just rains down on you. It's like, it's terrifying for a little body to get all that and just she just the way she's talking about it is helping me sort all that out. But it's a lot. So I was like, Okay, let's go slow and do something different. So then I go into pitchfork economics, and another podcast about redlining and how awful our culture is. So yeah, I had it's a lot. So I need something somebody give me something light and fluffy. I need to balance that out. So but mostly girlhood is where I'm at right now

Alison Cebulla 4:31
girlhood was girlhood was good, but yeah, very very, very hard to process. I listen to that one and I went for like a long, long walk at night like around the whole city while it listen to it because I had to wrap my body while listening. Because the trauma inflicted upon little girls bodies just for being developing into a woman is so intense. I remember like in 10th grade in my English class I guess, I guess like my nipples were like, even though I was wearing padded bras, I guess that they sometimes showed through my bra. And so there was a joke of a couple of the boys in class about my nipples. And, you know, I've just I was just showing up trying to learn, you know, and I guess there's hormones, but still?

Anne Sherry 5:19
Well, there's just no, there's no, I don't know, about when you grew up, but certainly in the 70s I think the only sex education class we got was, and she talked about this, like, just the only thing about sex for girls, sex education was how to put a tampon in basically, you know, like, that was the talk. Right? You know, like, I don't know, nobody's talking about pleasure or boundaries, or maybe they are now.

Alison Cebulla 5:50
No, they're really not. And I just started reading a book called Sexual citizens. And it's two researchers at the at Columbia University, talking about college campus and like, how to prevent rate with a social ecological model. And so they're talking like, it's not about telling men not to rape and telling women not to go to frat parties, that's not good enough, you need to look at the cultural environment that is creating these situations. So that's been super fascinating. And I just started it, but I'm super curious to learn more.

Anne Sherry 6:19
Yeah, yeah, there's a lot to be done. You think it's I kind of like, hope it gets better, but then it just seems like it's plateauing or getting worse or not? Yeah,

Alison Cebulla 6:32
I have no idea. I mean, the thing is, like, Economic Empowerment has been huge for women. You know, we talked about that on this show. It's like, you know, women weren't even allowed to have their own bank account or credit card without their husbands signature until the 70s. So, like, women's empowerment is just in its infancy. But the economic thing has been huge. And, um, you know, yeah,

Anne Sherry 7:00
well, just Yeah. Whatever else I was reading, but just talking about, we don't want to create where we just keep forcing ourselves into those power structures, you know, women's empowerment, just to become more like a patriarchal just to fit into the patriarchal box, right. Don't want that. And she did talk about that, how much a women take on that and are screwing up screwing up other women like we're just pouncing on each other as women's bodies develop, then you're like this, you'd have to be over there somewhere. And they're not the safe girls to hang out with. And yeah, so I don't want to just gain more power. You know,

Alison Cebulla 7:44
I just finished a book called The Power paradox by Decker Keltner. And he's the guy who consulted to create that film inside out. Oh, amazing, amazing film. Yeah, as a researcher at Berkeley, and he founded the greater good website that I love that I love. If you're, if you're not subscribing to the greater good newsletter, I mean, it's just like, so so so good, such good content, we'll put that in the show notes. Just research on being a good person and getting better and being good for the greater good. Yeah, but um, the power paradox is like about the fact he researched power and how people get power. And I guess people get power by doing good things for society, you that's how people give you power. But then once you have the power, you're that's why it's called the power paradox. You get high, your brain gets high, and then you get addicted to being high, and then you start doing shit. That's bad for society. And then yes, my favorite chapter was about gossip, because I've always, always hated that advice, not to gossip. Because I just always felt weird because a lot of research shows how good and healthy gossip is for connecting people. And he said, the purpose of gossip is to keep people in power in check when they're abusing their power. That is the purpose of also

Anne Sherry 8:56
Wow, wow. I'm reminded of like, when we traveled this summer, there was like the the early democracy where you could write I mean, like everyone in the society could write a name on it and who they didn't want in power anymore. So it was sort of like a just a like, we're going to take the power away from this person and they would sort of get these factions and gossip gossip someone it was really amazing. Like, Nope, you're out. So I don't know it was really I was like we could use a little bit of that

Alison Cebulla 9:30
we have that. Social media I loving the all the tech talks right now with using Kardashians voice where people just don't want to work anymore. Have you seen those tiktoks I have not. She just said this horrible, horrible thing and people on Tik Tok are just going to town with this audio clip. Because we're all out here working our asses off and we weren't born into you know, famous family like she was. So yeah, okay. I would love I would have loved to have been born into you know, fe, a famous family with lots and lots of lots of money. Yeah, that would make it a lot easier to work and turn a million into a billion by this family I was born into. So I've always had to have like two or three jobs. So yeah, it's just absurd that her comment about nobody wants to work anymore. And so, luckily, and away with anything you forgot, you know, because of gossip people, are you she has power. She's like, I think she has like the most followers out of anyone on Instagram. You know, she has like a lot of power. And people are like, nope, what you're doing is counter productive to society. And so now we're gonna gossip about you.

Anne Sherry 10:34
Yeah, yeah. I love it. Okay, so are you doing on your 52 books?

Alison Cebulla 10:45
Are you reading 52 books? I think you're ahead. Yeah, I

Anne Sherry 10:49
think you're a little ahead.

Alison Cebulla 10:51
Three or four books ahead of schedule. Okay, yeah,

Anne Sherry 10:55
you can. You can take a break.

Alison Cebulla 10:57
No, I cannot know. Because I'm sure there'll be some point in the future where it's hard to read. You know, it's an investment for my future self.

Anne Sherry 11:05
Got it? You got it. Got it. Okay, so struggle hearty struggle party and

Alison Cebulla 11:10
what's been feeling?

Anne Sherry 11:15
Am I am I going first today? Okay. Um, oh, what's, what doesn't fucking feel hard? I

Alison Cebulla 11:22
know, I have a lot of these books.

Anne Sherry 11:26
World and yeah. So I guess I could share yesterday day, I'm really just struck that like this, the book that we've all read, and are going to do a book club with my notes now. It just keeps like stretching out into a more observant of how my like, how I can fall into holes. So I just yesterday, I didn't get a lot of sleep. Um, Tom had to go out to often do something all day. And so August, and I was like, well, we're just gonna stay inside and relax. It was super cold out at its node. But as the day went on, I just got more trapped feeling more bored feeling. Add type stuff kicked in. I was like, well, I'll just read. I'll just read a book. That's great. And I kept checking my phone. And by four o'clock I was I sort of passively suicidal like I was.

Alison Cebulla 12:32
So funny how

Anne Sherry 12:34
it just happened so quickly.

Alison Cebulla 12:36
You're an Enneagram seven and I'm an NI no one and are things that make us suicidal are could not be more different. Guy. There's nothing I love more than lounging and doing nothing. That has nothing to do with me being a one. I'm just saying. Yeah, it's not a trigger for me. It's not a trigger for me. Yeah. But if I make one tiny mistake, one tiny mistake on anything, forget it. I should just die. So no one has to deal with me. I should just die now. Yeah, but for you. Seven, and we'll do an Enneagram. Because sorry, you don't know what we're talking about. But there's just nine different personality types on the Enneagram we'll link to in the show notes. It's so fun. It's just how are you motivated? It's not actually personality. It's like what motivates you to show what motivates you die?

Anne Sherry 13:19
What motivates you to die? Yeah, for me, it wasn't Bordeaux. Yeah, but there was this there's an aspiration of like, oh my god, I have this entire day stretching out I don't have anything to do and so there's Why can't you just sit there with I don't fucking know. It was terrible. So well, and we've talked about in struggle party. So what skills did I use? I was just super honest with Tom when he got home, like I had texted him like, When are you getting home and he was doing some stressful stuff. So I didn't want to lay that on him. But when he got home, I just let go of how crazy I felt. I don't know what to do. I don't even know how to do I don't even know how to get out of this. But I do some part. And I just went to the why. And lifted weights and listen to some economic pitchfork economics about how awful the uber rich are. And so probably hating, hating hating a group of people helped shifting and shifting my negative feelings. And then I posted the blog finish that up and was able to do that in my office by myself. Yes. So I'm still like, that's it really messes with your nervous system. I'm still today feel like a little wacky from that. I'm not I'm not don't feel totally present. I did go to church this morning. And everybody loves everybody. And that's really fucking hard for me to.

Alison Cebulla 14:45
I'm hearing you. I'm hearing you. Thank you for sharing your struggles.

Anne Sherry 14:49
How about you? What are you struggling with? And how are you? How are you tending to it?

Alison Cebulla 14:54
Yeah, I have so many struggles. So but I want to pick one since you kind of shirred like an Enneagram type seven, which Enneagram is are kind of like to always be Go Go going. And so for you, it was triggering to sit, sit around. And so for me, I don't know if this is Enneagram type one, or like, probably I picking this one because it really felt like, Ooh, this is something I've struggled with my whole life, which is physical messes, especially in the kitchen. There's something about the texture of food. Because it's not, it's not about because I'm okay piling up a pile of clothes in my in my room. That's not the that kind of mess isn't triggered. For me. It's something about food, that I really struggled to make a mess in the kitchen, which I have a food blog and a food Instagram account with like almost 2000 followers, like people watch my recipes and stuff. So like, this is something I do, do you know what I mean? But like I was making pancakes this morning to do an awesome photoshoot with with pancakes. And for my food blog. And I had this moment where I was like pouring the pancake batter into another bowl. But then I had to set down this goofy thing on the counter. And my whole body tensed up. Like I couldn't, I couldn't put the thing on the counter. I'm even getting I'm getting really I'm like, I know I have to do some EMDR or something. I got to be in

Anne Sherry 16:19
Dr lined up later in the month. So I'll turn you on to my type

Alison Cebulla 16:23
of therapy. Yes, yeah. And so um, so then I just took a deep breath. And I was like, It's okay, to make a best this guy invented sponges, you can just wipe that off later, you can wipe it off in five minutes. And if you're gonna be fine. And so I went ahead and just put that thing on the counter. Okay. And so

Anne Sherry 16:43
it sounds like some self talk was your some soothing self soothing talk? Well,

Alison Cebulla 16:48
I guess I agree. So I think I don't I don't know that I self soothe, but at least I think what I did, what I did was I caught it. I caught myself. I brought in self awareness I brought in. Yes, I think next time I would like to maybe dig in there more and sit with the feeling and then self soothe. That's what I didn't do. So awareness is always the first step. And so that's really what I did today.

Anne Sherry 17:12
Yeah, and my body tenses up. You saying sit with the feeling? Because if I would have done that yesterday. I mean, it was like I was on fire. It was crazy. It was wild. Yeah. So anyways, yeah.

Alison Cebulla 17:27
I have to shake that out. That was a real struggle for me this morning. Who? Yeah, I'm shaking my body. Everyone who's listening and shaking your body is a great tool B and you will see dogs do it. But mammals shake off feelings and shake, fight or flight. So

Anne Sherry 17:43
they do. I actually saw that happen. My dog tried to kill a rabbit who froze. And I thought the dog had killed the rabbit. And then I was like, Oh, this poor little rabbit and then it just shook violently, and then just ran off. And I was like, that's us. Peter Levine. I just saw Peter Levine. Shake your. Yes, yes. So anyway, so the rabbit survived. Our

Alison Cebulla 18:09
podcast guest today is Leslie Petrak. And we're super excited to hear about her. Her parenting parenting with when you're a survivor of childhood emotional neglect and trauma and CPS PTSD and what how? What did she say? Oh my god, I sound like my mother. Oh, Angie, I sound like my mother. She also

Anne Sherry 18:32
what I appreciate appreciated about her was talking about having a divergent brain that she didn't know that she had I think it was ADHD and some sensory stuff. Right. So later, and that that how that impacted becoming parenting and being overwhelmed and

Alison Cebulla 18:53
absolutely, so super excited for you all to listen to this great interview with Lesley about parenting. Yeah, so here it is.

Unknown Speaker 19:00
Enjoy Hi, everyone,

Anne Sherry 19:19
we're here with Lesley Petrak. Am I saying your name right, Patrick?

Leslie Petruk 19:24
It's like a cat and truck.

Anne Sherry 19:26
pet. Oh,

Alison Cebulla 19:29
love it. Okay.

Anne Sherry 19:30
So Leslie, we're going to be talking about parenting and venture off into all kinds of subjects. Probably. But let me introduce Lesley Petrak has more than 25 years of clinical experience working with children, adults and couples. She is the founder and director of the stone counseling Stone Center for counseling and leadership practice in Charlotte, North Carolina. She let me move through this a little bit. Oh yeah, you You're an assistant trainer, which you've recently moved up to assistant trainer Correct? With the internal family systems. That's a big deal, everybody. Let's see, Leslie has developed a parenting program utilizing ifs, which is internal family systems, and will soon be publishing a book on the application of ifs to parenting. Well, way to go Leslie. Leslie previously worked with, primarily with children as a play therapist and now supervises therapists who utilize play therapy and sandtray. Applying ifs. Yeah,

Alison Cebulla 20:37
Dan, welcome, Leslie. Thanks for yes,

Leslie Petruk 20:40
thanks. I should correct that I, I this past summer, we closed our counseling center, so I no longer think center. Okay. For all online, I'm seeing everybody online and Yeah, shut down my counseling center that I have for 20 years. Now, how did that feel? Yes, no, yeah, it was a big deal. But it was time. It was, you know, with the pandemic and everything else going on in the world. It just felt like the right time for the transition. So

Anne Sherry 21:11
yeah, well, you definitely filled it with writing a book and moving into greater responsibilities and roles in internal family systems.

Alison Cebulla 21:21
Yeah. But let me we keep choking really fast. What what is it about ifs, that's a little bit culty. Just be like two factors or something. For fun,

Anne Sherry 21:36
okay, for fun. Here's some things that I sort of have noticed sometimes some of these. It has boomed like in online counseling, and I can hear these things. I even hear myself say it like, it is the best. It's transformative. It's the only way this is I don't know how you can practice without ifs. And when I hear myself saying that, I'm like, that's not the only way. It's really fucking good way.

Alison Cebulla 22:04
So the big excitement kind of

Anne Sherry 22:06
this, it's got a lot of, it's hard to get into trainings, there's probably eight or 9000 people on waitlist to get into training. I heard that was. Is that a rumor? That's crazy. That's cold. Oh my god. But I do think embedded in ifs is it would call its own self out or there'd be plenty of people ready to call it out as okay, this is getting a little bit culty. So I do think it fosters or facilitates honest conversations.

Leslie Petruk 22:39
Yeah. Yeah. And one of the things I've heard Dick himself say is that cults have to have a charismatic leader. Right? And he does not consider himself a charismatic leader.

Alison Cebulla 22:55
though. Not I'm not I just this is just for fun.

Leslie Petruk 23:01
There are people that kind of worship him. I mean, I I think that's the piece that might feel a little culty too, is like, are their dicks towards like groupies that just

Alison Cebulla 23:12
follow? Yeah. Yeah.

Leslie Petruk 23:15
So, you know, I think that could be part of it, too.

Anne Sherry 23:19
Yeah. Okay. Cult watch.

Alison Cebulla 23:22
So Leslie, we want to hear about your childhood. Kid, were you an urchin? Were you a friend? What was the

Leslie Petruk 23:32
environment heard you say that earlier? What is that? I know,

Alison Cebulla 23:35
that street urchin. We ran around with Sharpies and tagged everything with gang symbols. That was my vision of okay. My mother

Anne Sherry 23:42
referred to me as an urgent You look like a little urgent. You know, I can remember that. And I was like, well, you're kind of fucking in charge here. So I think it's a reflection on you. So anyways, but I do I will put out there I was like, at some point, I figured out care wasn't going to be consistent. And I was pretty wild and tomboyish and you probably could not get me into a bath. I would be like I'm melting. So I don't think I was these different types of urchins. Yeah, different types of Urchins

Alison Cebulla 24:16
riding around feral basically. Is it? Yeah, yes,

Leslie Petruk 24:20
I do. I did. Probably darting in junior high. Yeah. Which is when my mother went to work. Okay. And Absolutely. It was pretty traumatic for me. I remember telling people and writing in my diary. I don't have a mother. I don't have a mother. Are you kidding? No, guys, I felt super abandoned, you know, and yeah, we passed the

Alison Cebulla 24:46
test. I want tell us more. Why did you feel like you didn't have a mother?

Leslie Petruk 24:50
Um, because I think because she had been there up until that point and then all of a sudden she joined you know, went into the workforce and

Anne Sherry 25:00
Um, so that would have been late 70s, early 80s, late 70s that your mom sent to work?

Leslie Petruk 25:08
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which is probably when women were just starting to really join the workforce, right? Like,

Anne Sherry 25:17
yeah, yep. Yep. So yeah, yep. Yeah, that's what created the latchkey generation was that women were both parents were having to start working and the parents

Alison Cebulla 25:28
didn't quite realize yet. You can't just leave your second seven year old at home alone. Yeah, yeah. Can't do that. Hey, she's gonna get fucked up.

Leslie Petruk 25:40
I remember coming to the

Anne Sherry 25:41
exhibit box, top right corner.

Alison Cebulla 25:46
was raising her hand?

Leslie Petruk 25:49
Yeah, you're on the bottom in my on my screen. So

Anne Sherry 25:52
really? Yeah.

Leslie Petruk 25:55
Yeah, yeah. I spent a lot of time at home. And I also so I had a younger sister. And I also had to take care of her during the summers. Yeah, personally. And so she would get to go and go to the pool and go play but I had to, I had to be home to take care of her. And there's like, six or seven years between us. So. Oh, dang. Yeah. So I had a lot of resentment about that. And that, you know, in high school, I became a total rebel.

Alison Cebulla 26:31
I did that too. What did that look like for you?

Leslie Petruk 26:35
Um, okay. We have to promise that my parents are gonna hear this, right.

Anne Sherry 26:43
Yeah, yeah. Let's

Alison Cebulla 26:45
just see. How good are they with Google? Yeah. Yeah.

Anne Sherry 26:50
How old are your folks? Are they computer savvy or

Leslie Petruk 26:53
chi? I mean, they're in their 80s. Late 80s. So they're getting Yeah, so I crawled out of my window. snuck out, for sure. Ran away a couple times. Yeah, smoke. It

Anne Sherry 27:11
was really easy to sneak out and stuff there was. I remember it. Yeah, I did. One night with Yeah,

Leslie Petruk 27:23
I was chicken to do that kind of stuff. But I did. I did

Alison Cebulla 27:26
you snuck out. Okay. Where did you grow up? Or what? General? Vicinity whatever. I

Leslie Petruk 27:31
grew up in a town called College Station, Texas, which Texas a&m is? Yep. Yep. Yep. Yeah. And when I, you know, back in the day, that the only thing that was there was the university. So it was really nothing to do. And so we just went out and drank and partied. And, yeah.

Alison Cebulla 27:53
So I always say that to like, because I grew up in a small town, and I'm like, well, there's nothing else to do. I also drink a party. But like when we say other things to do, like, what are we what are other teams doing? Is there something else that really does? Okay?

Anne Sherry 28:10
What's now

Leslie Petruk 28:17
today's her 18th birthday, and they were going to go rollerskating, which, you know, I did a lot of when I was in junior high middle school. But they got there and it was too crowded. So they decided to go to an escape room. So I

Alison Cebulla 28:32
see. Many of you live in a city. You live in a like 100. Charlotte,

Leslie Petruk 28:38
right. I mean, Charlotte, North Carolina. Yeah. Yeah, there's things but they're safe rooms. rollerskating. One week and they went to museums. I was really impressed that she and her friends all went to Uptown and went to some museums uptown and Art Museum.

Alison Cebulla 28:54
Yeah, we don't have those here. We're Yeah. Okay. So okay, so they didn't

Anne Sherry 28:58
see me kids do they do more shit, but like,

Alison Cebulla 29:02
I think they do. What Leslie for you? Was

Anne Sherry 29:04
it like? I don't know. Did Texas have blue laws in the South? There were the blue laws, like nothing was open on Sunday. How'd you get your Buddha saying? Yeah, you would steal it, I guess. Right. Well,

Leslie Petruk 29:19
no, we didn't steal. I will say that. But I wasn't that, that living on the edge. But we did. So I remember my freshman year in high school, we had a friend who was a senior in high school. And I think I think he or maybe he had what was

Anne Sherry 29:36
the drinking age in Texas. My drinking ages. Were all over the place when we white parents

Alison Cebulla 29:41
are from Montana and the drinking age was 18. Yeah, yeah.

Leslie Petruk 29:46
You know, that's a good question was

Anne Sherry 29:48
18 in South Carolina up until probably 85. And they went to Yeah, 80 for beer and 21 for liquor, whatever. And then at all, whatever your 86 it became 21

Alison Cebulla 30:00
If oh, what led you Lesley to the therapy profession.

Leslie Petruk 30:05
So I actually was working at a company in Austin, I had moved to Austin and was working as the travel coordinator and meeting planner for a company, which was like one of my all time favorite jobs, I love doing it. And I started volunteering for an organization called Casa Court Appointed Special Advocates. And when I went through that training, I, there was someone from there were people from the Children's Advocacy Center that came to teach us during our volunteer training. And I decided that's what I want to do. I want to go work for the Children's Advocacy Center and work with abused and neglected kids. And so I went back to graduate school, and my first job out of graduate school is at the Children's Advocacy Center. So yeah. And I did that for a year. And then I got pregnant with my youngest daughter and left and went into private practice. But it was still my primary focus at the time was still working with abuse and neglect. Kids that were

Anne Sherry 31:16
okay. But children where they are dear to your heart. Yes. Like that just wrapped you

Leslie Petruk 31:22
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, after working in the corporate world for a little bit, I was like, I don't feel like I'm contributing to anything in the world. On our path. Yeah. And so that's when I decided, you know, to go, I always had a passion for kids. And yeah, and was trained in graduate school kind of did the double track of both marriage and family and play therapy, because I knew that I'd have to be able to work with families and parents in order to work with kiddos. So I was one of those students who took every class that you could possibly take in graduate school, like I didn't ever want to leave. You finally are like, okay, Leslie, it's time to move on.

Alison Cebulla 32:05
University classes are the best.

Leslie Petruk 32:07
Are I just? Yeah, yeah. And I was a kid who had a learning disability that was never detected. So I went through school, what

Alison Cebulla 32:14
was your learning disability? If you don't mind telling us more?

Leslie Petruk 32:18
Yeah. So I have had, well, I guess I would say is still have ADD, but also had working memory issues. So like, math, was just torture to me. And I couldn't, I can't hold facts in my brain. So not arising, memorizing dates and names, was just pure torture to me, because I couldn't, I couldn't remember. And that's a working memory, you know, deficit. I

Alison Cebulla 32:48
also, like, it feels like hearing that, that probably would be so hard. Because I, I feel like the climate of elementary or high school is like, if you don't do this, then you're bad or something. And then if you're like, well, and then and then I bet that you're saying it wasn't acknowledged as a disability. So it That sounds so hard to go through?

Leslie Petruk 33:08
Well, it's interesting, because I don't think you really have to do a lot of memorization until, until high school, right? Maybe there was probably some in middle school, but I was, I could work hard enough to kind of get by, you know, and so school was always really easy for me until I got to high school and even then, without putting a lot of effort in I made pretty much all A's and B's, I probably see scattered in there. But when I got to college, oh my gosh, with all the reading that you have to do, and all that, like, my sister and I were both in college together one year, and we took a class a political science class together. And it was just memorization of names and dates and fat, you know, facts that and we would study together and she would go in and aced the test and I would make a see every single time. Because I just Yeah, I did you

Anne Sherry 34:10
how did you get diagnosed for that? Or when did you hear intention?

Leslie Petruk 34:14
Yeah, until probably 15 years ago. So you know, not until my 40s and it was only because a psychiatrist friend of mine said you know, your add, right?

Anne Sherry 34:26
I said the same thing to Tom. He was like what I'm like, do you that I thought you must do

Alison Cebulla 34:32
as well whether it's your spouse and your Yeah.

Leslie Petruk 34:37
And when she first told me that I was like, No, I'm not. And then I mean, I worked I you know, I work with people every day that are add and and I can spot them in a second you know, so and she's like, that's a lie because you're add and I was like, after I sat with it for about 24 hours. It was just like all these dominoes started falling like it all All started making sense to me. And I was like, I cannot believe I didn't figure this out myself sooner. And then I started realizing that I, you know, had a learning disability because I always, I always thought I was stupid.

Anne Sherry 35:14
That's it like that. That's sort of how did it impact self worth? Yeah, yeah, I

Leslie Petruk 35:20
thought I was stupid. I had to work twice as hard as everybody else, especially in college, in order to make and I think there was a little bit of that in high school. Because really, if I had had the support that you can get nowadays, I probably would have been in honors classes. Because the other thing about add is that you know, people with ADD statistically have a learning disability, but they also statistically have higher IQs than the average person. Sure.

Anne Sherry 35:51
That I might add to I want to be add. But take that for Tom and yeah, I was just projecting it. Yeah, yeah.

Alison Cebulla 36:01
Devastating.

Leslie Petruk 36:03
Yeah, I went through a big grieving period when I realized that, that that was just kind of wonder how different things would have been

Alison Cebulla 36:11
either. Have you read the Gabor Ma Tei, the trauma guy, you know, read his book, I add you did? Or I haven't read that one.

Leslie Petruk 36:18
Now. Hey, that one is really good. Gabor Bantay. It's interesting, because I, I've heard him, I've heard little blips of him talking about ADHD. And I think there are parts of what he says that I agree with, I need to get that book that you're taught or it's called scattered. That's yeah, I need to get that one. I think there are parts of it that I agree with, and parts of it that I don't because I think tends to take, when when I've heard him talk about it there. He tends to come from the and maybe, and maybe I interpreted what he said incorrectly, Allison, so you can tell me if sure when it was different. But he tends to make it more about society and and that it's like our environment, and that it's not so much about a neurodevelopmental difference. So true. That was

Alison Cebulla 37:13
my take away, I guess my take away from it was I don't think that he's saying that this is the case for all add. And that's why I wanted to hear your take on it. I think he was just saying because he works with some particularly traumatized populations in Vancouver. I think that what he was saying is that he's noticing in his patients that have trauma, how add can be trauma response to not being paid attention to.

Leslie Petruk 37:44
Yeah, yeah. I believe that. I think there's some truth in that. Yeah.

Anne Sherry 37:51
What's her? I can't remember the name, generic. Divergent mind, which is she is identifying lots of it's particularly for women that have probably sensory disorder, undiagnosed ADHD, undiagnosed autism, and it shows there. So women tend to be very good at masking and just making it in the world. They're just looking around saying, Oh, well, this is how I belong. And that's what I do. But in adulthood, it is just anxiety and depression. So there's, there's this bursting forth, I'm noticing in my own practice, I have three or four women that we have identified. Holy shit, no amount of ifs or healing work is gonna work, you have a sensory issue, like, get to these lovely places in our sessions, and then you go out into the world and the world is assaulting you. Yeah. And then they're like, why am I failing? And then I'm like, why am I failing?

Leslie Petruk 38:51
So So I actually have sensory issues to okay and here's the interesting thing is I took medication once I once I got diagnosed, I did start taking medication and it was so helpful. It was so like, I finally could, you know, organize things and didn't feel so overwhelmed all the time. And then I did a lot of ifs work once I was introduced to ifs and was and I was able to work with my parts to the point where I got off medication. Nice.

Alison Cebulla 39:22
What can you tell us more about that? Because I especially for people who are listening who don't, aren't familiar with parts work and ifs and I'm super curious to learn what that you know what that looked like

Leslie Petruk 39:33
for you? Well, so it's interesting because this kind of brings it full circle to what you were saying that Gabor Matej said because what I ended up finding were a lot of neglected and lonely parts, okay, got a lot that were that had exiled away parts of me that couldn't play like I had to relearn almost how to play as an adult and Yep, yep, yep. So yeah, through all of that work, it was just interesting because I got to the point where one day I was just like, I think that maybe I can try life without my medication and see, you know, I'm just I just want to try it and see, after I had done probably at least five years worth of ifs, you know, my own work. And, yeah, and it's, I'm certainly it's not that I don't get overwhelmed. And I still get over, overstimulated, stimulated, but it's not to the point where and I'm still disorganized. You know, I'm, you know, forever working on being organized. But yeah, but I don't, there's not the shame around it, that there used to be right. And so that's, I think that's what's allowed me to be able to just kind of embrace it. I actually, I don't know if you know who's sorry, sold it is, but she she's kind of the first one who wrote the book, a book about ADHD and women. And I actually was just an English.

Alison Cebulla 41:02
Yeah. Okay. You were just in a group with her. Did you use

Leslie Petruk 41:06
this in a group with her? So? So I, she did a group for professional therapists who have ADD? And it was really, it was really? What's the word that I want, like, validating, you know, to, to be in a group of other women who were in the helping profession, you know, who struggled? So, you know, like, cabinets are the bane of my existence? Right. Like, I mean, I know they are for everybody. But when you have

Anne Sherry 41:37
a no, it's up, it's up a notch for sure. Yeah. Many notches. Yeah. medicine requires a lot of organization to get your sessions in and then carve out that time to, you know, whatever. Yeah,

Leslie Petruk 41:49
exactly. Yeah. And then there's also a book called Understanding girls with ADHD, which is a really, really like, it was the first book that I read that my psychiatrist friend told me to read when she told me that I had it. And it's actually a little. Again, what's the word I want? A little frightening because when you read the beginning of it, it starts talking about the first I had to put it down after I read the first chapter, because she talks about the high correlation of suicidality and suicide rates among women. And undiagnosed add. And the high correlation between depression and anxiety and undiagnosed add. And I mean, I eventually picked it up and read the rest of it, but it, it was like reading my life in a book. And that's most of the women that come into my practice that I ended up referring them to that book, say the same thing. It was like, wow, oh, my gosh, that was me. And oh, my gosh, that, you know, this book was specifically for me so

Anne Sherry 42:57
often the question is, what's wrong with you?

Leslie Petruk 42:59
Exactly. That's exactly right. What's your problem?

Anne Sherry 43:03
Yeah, yeah.

Alison Cebulla 43:04
But let me just ask, what now do you look back on and now you realize that was because I know, you said you had trouble remembering facts. But was there anything else where you go? That was my ADD? And if I would have known, you know, yeah,

Leslie Petruk 43:20
I, you know, I did I daydream? You know, I like, a lot of information coming at me at once would overwhelming. A lot of words, you know, coming at me got it I'm trying to process would and still does at times, you know, if I'm trying to process something, and someone's still talking to me, it's like, my system is just, you know, yeah. Is

Alison Cebulla 43:47
it kind of what you're saying is like, maybe like compared to some what you're noticing about someone else, I'm trying to kind of understand, like, how do you know that it's that you're you, like, you notice that you get overwhelmed more like maybe compared to your husband or something? Or? Yeah, someone's wondering if they have it or something, you know, how do you know how do you know,

Leslie Petruk 44:07
I did, I got overwhelmed easily and I couldn't take in information at a certain point. Okay, so I'm a super visual learner. And if all that is being given as auditory, like someone talking, that's really hard for me, like, I gotta gotta gotta see it. I need to be able to see it. And in fact, when I first was learning ifs, I drew a diagram and went around to people and said, Is this what it looks like? Is this right? Because I needed to have a visual conceptualization of it in order to really begin to get it. And so yeah, but it took me a long time to realize that that was that that was what I needed in order to

Anne Sherry 44:58
create so many beliefs about yourself. Oh, I'm pretty convinced my I look back on my my older brother who I talked about a fair amount or he gets mentioned at least once or twice, twice? Yes. But they, there's like, eight of those kids are dead. You know, he was born in 65. And I think the cohort that he gravitated to, and they were always, but they tend I don't know, where it's maybe women go to anxiety and depression that I don't have a bad outcome. But the boys and I'm gendering here a bit. But like, at least at that time, it was it was law breaking staff getting into trouble, really early risk taking, and they were just sort of like, we don't know what to do with them. And like, I probably could, I'm not going to but I think I've counted and there's about eight of them that aren't on this earth anymore. And I am convinced that they probably had at add,

Leslie Petruk 46:02
yeah, it was a lot of risk taking behaviors.

Anne Sherry 46:05
Last year, like many, many, many kids, so

Leslie Petruk 46:07
in the correlation, I think there I want to say the last time I read the research, and it's been a while was that there for undiagnosed ADHD in both men and women, there was an 85% chance of substance abuse. Wow,

Anne Sherry 46:24
that makes I don't know why I just said, Wow, that like I'm like, Yeah, of course, makes perfect sense. Yeah.

Leslie Petruk 46:29
But that's one of the things I tried to tell parents who have such a hard time accepting, like, parents don't want to hear that their kid is their child has ADHD. And a lot of times, you know, I've worked with families for over 25 years. And I can't tell you, you know, how many instances it took months or years to finally get parents on board. And if I had $1 for every time I had a parent come back to me and say, well, cuz sometimes they'll get mad at me. Right? The therapist is the one who's saying, I really think you need to go get your your kid assessed. And if I had $1 for every parent who came back to me and said, You were right, they were add, you know, because they might not find out right? Right then but eventually it starts to get harder and harder as they get older. And then they end up getting getting identified.

Anne Sherry 47:25
So tell me this Lesley, there are there was this sort of overmedication of kids and or maybe we were are trying to keep kit and we there was sort of whatever out there like saying, Oh, it's just to keep the kids under control? Yeah, like, we just want nice compliant kids. Yeah. So then there's this big movement away, and parents who tend towards the maybe hippie issue scale or whatever, like, I'm going to try herbs for my kids. You know, like, I think I can do this with herbs. And so this thing of finding the right balance, because I also know, parents who are like, I got my kid on Adderall, and that is a different fucking kid. That's right, a different kid. And they aren't saying a five year old now isn't saying I want to kill myself. I mean, five year olds will say that because they're so bad. You know, there's medications, but it's real. Well,

Leslie Petruk 48:23
what I found when I did the research is that there is no evidence that we are over medicating kids, that that was really a media HYPEE kind of thing, right, that we're hurting our kids into zombies. And I hear this all the time. I hear it all the time. Yeah. And there's really no evidence of that. And in fact, for for girls, we are under diagnosing them. Now, I think what Alison was talking about earlier with trauma, I think, oftentimes, trauma gets misdiagnosed as add. Yep. Yeah, I think there's more misdiagnosis than there is, you know, in that sense, and that those kids don't mean when you have a trauma history giving you you know, Adderall or Concerta is probably not going to, it's probably going to jack your system up, you know. And, but if there was an underlying, you know, add it might be helpful. So, I'm totally supportive of trying to use natural, you know, I don't have a problem with that. And there's actually a place here in Charlotte, and they use something called What's it called MIT Medical food, I think is what it's called. And it's a lot of it's a lot of omega hmm, you know, three, six and nine and then I think it's good other stuff in it too.

Alison Cebulla 50:01
What about just taking the sugar out? I want to hear I see my friend's parents. I'm like, Man, that amount of sugar would kill me and you're giving it to your five year old and sugars and everything.

Anne Sherry 50:16
Yeah. cereals. It's really hard to have a no sugar diet if you're

Alison Cebulla 50:22
not trying to downplay it down. No official diagnosis of ADD, but I'm just curious, your

Leslie Petruk 50:29
correlation. So what I will tell you that I have seen and I'm sure there is evidence to back this up, but so the guy who originally I can't remember his name anymore, but the the doctor who originally brought up the concern of like red dye, yellow dye, okay. He was laughed out of town by other medical profession. Professionals. I think it was back in the 60s or 70s. Right when he first

Anne Sherry 50:58
kool aid was coming on the market. Yeah. Absolutely. He came on parents bubble. So everything I said I was an asshole. My parents were probably great. It was the Kool Aid.

Leslie Petruk 51:17
Now you're gonna get in more ways than one. Yeah, so. So I will tell you that every family I've worked with who, you know, including my own, because I have two daughters that have ABB is so genetically, you know, absolutely. Yeah. hereditary. Taking those things out of your diet, including gluten, you know, which is so hard when you're a kid, but gluten and red dyes and sugar absolutely makes a difference. Does it cure the add? I don't think so does it make it a little, you know, more tolerable? And add like everything else exists on a continuum, right. And so for the moderate for kids that are really mild, making those diet changes, I think can be enough. But for kids that are more moderate to severe, it helps it makes a difference, but it doesn't, it's not enough to get them, you know, out of that place, like you were talking about. And yeah, you know, I mean, I've had kids, parents bring kids in who their kids were hitting their heads against the wall and out of frustration, and, yeah, so self harming, you know, at the age of four, and five, and six, because they're so frustrated, and everybody's telling them to stop and to control themselves. And they can't, they just can't

Unknown Speaker 52:44
know that you all need to say everything's okay, now.

Alison Cebulla 52:53
Okay, a quick science corner, I found a great study in a journal called Academic pediatrics. And this was published in the November and December of 2021 issue. So this is super recent. And the piece is called examining the relationship between adverse childhood experiences and ADHD diagnosis and severity. And I'll link to this in the shownotes. So you can see who the researchers are, and some of the more the details. And so yeah, this study was done with a nationally representative data set to examine the association between aces, child and household characteristics, and ADHD. So the sample consisted of children three years of age or older. And N equals 42,068. And so when you when you're reading a study, you see n equals, that's how many subjects they studied. So that's how that's how much data they were looking at. They're looking at 42,000 Kids three years of age or older, which is so cool. And they got this sample set from the 2017 2018 National Survey of Children's Health. So I'd be super curious to learn more about that where that data is collected, maybe at hospitals. But that's a really big data set. So what they found is that children exposed to four or more ACEs had higher odds of ADHD, so aces adverse childhood experiences, and those are just different stressful events that happen in childhood. So children that had four or more had higher odds of ADHD, and moderate to severe ADHD than children exposed to fewer than four aces. Other child characteristics positively associated with ADHD included age and public insurance. And children of the children reported with ADHD, public insurance was also associated with caregiver reported moderate to severe ADHD. So there's an income income Association as well. Because if you're on public insurance, that means you have a lower income or you have a parent with like maybe an unstable job. So, and this is just a summary. So you'd have to do a deep dive to see what that what how they're defining that. But the conclusion was that children with ADHD have a higher prevalence of aces, making this study important for understanding the relationship between aces and ADHD at the population level. So this is great. They're just saying more more research is done. But they did find an association just like what you're talking about with gabber Mateos book. That aces or stress or trauma and childhood is associated with higher rates of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

Unknown Speaker 56:03
Well, I've always started straight with people.

Anne Sherry 56:09
So parenting, so I don't know, if you want to say, I know you're speaking of it, but speak more directly to maybe how you're using internal family systems or your book or

Leslie Petruk 56:19
Yeah. So, you know, I think what I've realized, both for myself as I learned ifs, and, you know, just as I kind of went through the different trainings, and have parented my own kids, is that it's really about us working with our own parts, so that we can help our kids have healthy connection to theirs. And so that's really what I'm focused on is helping parents. So when they come in, and they're so frustrated, and they're focused on all the behaviors of their children that they want to change. I'm asking the question of so what happens for you, when your daughter comes in and throws her backpack backpack on the floor, and you know, marches up to a room, what happens inside for you. And so really helping them kind of understand and explore their own triggers, and work with those and make connections to their own, you know, to the own wounded, the wounded parts underneath those triggers for them. And as you begin to do that, as a parent and do your own work, then it really shifts what happens externally, you know, is preached

Anne Sherry 57:33
lately. So how do parents take that like, and I mean, they are they? I don't know, like, No, it's not be or I mean, because there's so much shame around, I must be a bad parent. If I have a, quote unquote, bad kid, I've done something wrong. I think society often will say, you've done, you know, because you go places and your kid can't behave or whatever. And then you're embarrassed socially. And yeah,

Leslie Petruk 57:59
yeah. Well, I really start by validating, and kind of connecting with parents by saying, you know, parenting is the hardest thing you will ever do. And because the minute you think you figured figured it out, right, then they hit another new developmental, for sure, yeah. And then you've got to figure it out all over again. And that they didn't come with manuals, and so that I really want to help them be the parent that they want to be. So you know, I really, I really talked to parents about not judging and not shaming, and that they probably are doing what they learned in their own family. And we that we can talk through the things that are working and aren't working. And usually by time they get to me, they've got a lot of things that aren't working, right, that they've tried and yeah, what

Alison Cebulla 58:56
brings people in to see you. This is my new favorite question for therapists, whatever, they come in with you. I mean, what's the thing that makes them go? I gotta, I just gotta get help. Yeah, well, for

Leslie Petruk 59:07
parents, what I'll tell you is it's usually they're getting in trouble in school.

Alison Cebulla 59:12
Okay, okay. Okay. Gotcha. Yeah.

Leslie Petruk 59:15
And, or, or they're at home having such a hard time, right, managing or dealing with them, that they're at their wit's end. So, you know, they're usually at a really high level of frustration and and, like, I don't know what to do anymore kind of place. I've been, you know, my hope is to try to get parents to get in sooner so that they can that's part of my goal with my insight parenting program, because if you understand the developmental stages that your children are going through, then it doesn't feel so personal. They, yeah. And so when, like, for example, when my daughter My eldest who's now 20, I don't know how old she's 23 Oh my gosh, that's crazy. But my 23 year old, I remember when she first started moving into the, you know, to the stage of rolling her eyes at me, and I'm so you know, I'm stupid. And she hated everything. It was really hard for me not to take it personally, actually. And once I, once I kind of like, went back to my developmental ages and stages books, and remember that this is what they're supposed to do to start individuating. Right. Separating from us, it would be a problem if she wasn't doing this. But it feels so horrible. Sometimes. I mean, my youngest is still kind of going through it a little bit. And there, there are days that as a parent, you just feel really beaten up. And so totally helping parents to kind of realize this is a normal part of development. And it doesn't mean that they're going to be, you know, because parents go to this place of making Seagull stories, right. Yes, yeah. Horrible, you know, axe murderer or whatever. They I can't

Anne Sherry 1:01:09
tell you how many times I hear that either a grandmother or a parent that's like, so worried. Just because they've got a psychopath gets

Alison Cebulla 1:01:17
mad at some parents in teenage years. That's and then they they go there with

Anne Sherry 1:01:21
so many things. I mean, then you've got a parent just just kind of in fear. I'm gonna get this wrong, you know? Yeah. So it comes from a good place. You don't want to put a psycho say a psychopath into the world. Right. Yeah. So yeah, but it? Yeah, it's, it's, it's out done. And I think it scares kids to they're like, I must be a scary person. If my parent is having such a scary response to that negative. What's so pleased? Yeah.

Leslie Petruk 1:01:52
That's, I was gonna say,

Alison Cebulla 1:01:54
Yeah, I want to let you I came

Leslie Petruk 1:01:57
across this reading the other day. That is so powerful. It's, it's called the letter that I that I, a teenager would write their parent or should have written their

Anne Sherry 1:02:10
parents. Oh, I think I've seen have you seen

Leslie Petruk 1:02:12
all about? I need this fight. And I need you to be able to handle this fight.

Alison Cebulla 1:02:18
I think I've seen that too. Oh, yeah, it is.

Leslie Petruk 1:02:21
So spot on. Like, I read it the other day to for training I was doing to the participants, and everybody was just including myself, you know, we're all just like a weeping. Yeah,

Alison Cebulla 1:02:37
so no one ever handled any fires? Well, for me growing up, not one. It didn't happen. There was no handling whatever the opposite of bullying was. That's what I got. That's right. Yeah, that's right. Figured yelling, throwing things, shaming, blaming. That's really Yeah, yeah.

Leslie Petruk 1:02:56
And that is one of my big highlights and working with parents, as I say to them, we do a really good job of teaching kids what they should not do. And, and, you know, trying to tell them, they can't be angry, they can't be sad. They can't you know, any of these negative things. We don't tell them how they can appropriately handle those feelings. We don't tell them how they can appropriately express their anger, or sadness. And so

Anne Sherry 1:03:29
you're gonna put therapists out of business Shut up.

Leslie Petruk 1:03:32
I don't think so I think

Alison Cebulla 1:03:34
Wait, so this brings me too the question that I had, just because I I have a master's in public health. So I'm a systems thinker. And I'm always thinking how, how can we implement programs for population level health? And so you said, you know, kids don't come with manuals, and it made me think about how, after my brother and I moved out of the house, my mom became a foster parent for teenage girls. And she had to take parenting classes to be a foster parent. And upon completing these parenting classes, she called me and said, you know, and I'm like, in my early 20s, I think I was living in Nashville. And she goes, so I, I just learned how to be a parent.

Leslie Petruk 1:04:13
She's like, good, and Ray. Yeah.

Alison Cebulla 1:04:15
And she was like, and I am so sorry. Huge. Yeah. Yeah, my parents are really good at saying that they're sorry. And me and they mean, and it's great. Um,

Anne Sherry 1:04:28
her pack close to our age, Leslie. So

Alison Cebulla 1:04:31
they're 60 and 62.

Leslie Petruk 1:04:35
To 62. I'm actually closer than I want to be. Yeah, I'm,

Anne Sherry 1:04:42
I'm right behind you,

Alison Cebulla 1:04:44
Leslie. Lots and lots of therapy. Lots of therapy. Okay, but what I'm getting at is based on what you said, like there's no manual and based on what my mom said is of like, I had to be a foster parent to learn how to be a parent. It's like, why isn't there a manual like Why or why where's the collective knowledge? Right almost because I keep talking about this book that I'm reading about Native American people in the United States, the the nightwatchman. It was like the big book of 2021. About It makes me think of alternative ways to raise a family, like with these tribal communities and like a more tribal mindset, and things that we've lost in our Western society is like, where? Where's the parenting knowledge? Do you want? I mean,

Leslie Petruk 1:05:34
yeah, I mean, yeah, I think I, you know, Bruce Perry talks a lot about, about parenting and kind of how it was done back in the day versus you know, like, he's a big fan of co sleeping He believes that that CO regulation needs to happen and, and, and I hear you, I think, I mean, it's part of the reason why I'm reading writing my book. It's really for the for the athlete to read it. Now. Yeah, you want to hear the title? Yes. I'm very proud of my title. It's OMG. I sound just like my mother.

Alison Cebulla 1:06:10
Yeah.

Leslie Petruk 1:06:14
How to parent with confidence. So

Alison Cebulla 1:06:16
yeah, yeah, that's great. I'm getting goosebumps. I can't wait to read. Uh, yeah.

Anne Sherry 1:06:23
Tom might be right behind you. Or on teens or whatever. But his his title he's is chill the fuck out parenting.

Leslie Petruk 1:06:31
I love that.

Anne Sherry 1:06:32
I love my title. But yeah, so yes, for sure.

Leslie Petruk 1:06:38
Yeah, for sure. For sure. Yeah.

Alison Cebulla 1:06:41
But I mean, not everyone gets access to that book, though. Is is kind of what I'm saying is like, what cuz, cuz like, when you when you said there's no manual on parenting, I was like, There's literally 1000 manuals, but they're not in people's hands, dude. I mean, like, people aren't reading these books, or I don't know are

Anne Sherry 1:07:02
gonna get it. We I mean, a book will get it. But it's we've got to come together again, as a community, Unity community, this thing of being isolated in our little houses with barely any family. We're moving around the world all over the place. You're not relying on anybody. You're in these fucking silos? I mean, it is killing us. All right. We don't know how to care for our communities. We don't. We don't know how to be like, I don't know what I'm doing. I got you let me you know, like, so. Yeah,

Leslie Petruk 1:07:32
I have kind of a funny, another funny story. It's not funny, but it's my neighbor. Make

Anne Sherry 1:07:37
it funny.

Alison Cebulla 1:07:38
Yeah. Can we break somehow?

Leslie Petruk 1:07:45
Back in the day, my neighbor here in Charlotte, she's no longer my neighbor. But she had a son. That was the same age as my oldest daughter. And they were little, you know, and and when he was go, let's see, we moved here. And Jordan was two and a half, maybe three. Yeah, I think she was two and a half when we moved here. So So I think they were around for three and a half or four. And she was talking to me one day, and she said, You know, I don't know what has gotten into my son all of a sudden. Because he thinks it's okay for him to say no to me. And I was

Anne Sherry 1:08:23
I was like, no face. Yeah.

Leslie Petruk 1:08:25
Yeah. And she said, and so I have a friend who came up with this brilliant idea. And she's she uses she's putting sassy sauce on their tongues. When they say when they say no. Yeah, yeah. And I can just feel myself and I was like, Look, it would be a problem. If he wasn't saying now right now. Developmentally, that's what he's supposed to be doing and putting sassy sauce on his tongue is abusive. Don't do that. Like

Anne Sherry 1:08:59
hey, les les for speaking. Yeah, yeah.

Alison Cebulla 1:09:01
I mean, how did they receive that? Um,

Anne Sherry 1:09:07
well, obviously they moved away. So

Leslie Petruk 1:09:10
eventually, they did. Yeah, I mean, I don't know if she took it in or not, but you know, breaks my heart she Yeah. And she was part of a really you know, Christian group of moms and they that thinking in in those circles? Yes. Right. is

Alison Cebulla 1:09:32
kind of about like obeying your parents and stuff that kind of

Anne Sherry 1:09:36
Yeah. Who's the coat lady? Church it's an it wasn't I think it's still in Texas but her hair was up to here it's not Tammy Faye Baker, but she died we were gonna crash and I died in a plane crash. It's a Texas preacher. I gotta look this. No, it's in Brentwood, Tennessee. Sorry, not Texas. Okay. But they you Corporal punishment, liberally and there was even a kid that was killed when? Anyways, long story short, corporal punishment is huge in many, many places that you can't speak and you got to get in line and this is how you keep your children. No,

Leslie Petruk 1:10:21
hold on. You're right. She did just die recently.

Anne Sherry 1:10:25
Yeah, I mean in range plane crash

Alison Cebulla 1:10:28
is bigger over time. Yeah. Look, there. Wasn't she a white hair?

Leslie Petruk 1:10:34
Yes. She was like an eating disorder person. Yeah,

Anne Sherry 1:10:36
that's right. It was all about Yeah. Pete, you couldn't be you couldn't be fat in her church. Like it was all eating and you had to pray. You had to pray. And it was like, Oh, this was so

Alison Cebulla 1:10:48
insane. He had some plastic surgery to

Anne Sherry 1:10:51
Yeah, he was an entire sheet died in the plane crash. Seven people died in the plane crash and it's mysterious. Anyways. Sorry. But yeah, I remember. Image the Yeah.

Leslie Petruk 1:11:05
So. Yeah. So corporal punishment, I spend, you know, spend a lot of time talking to parents about, you know, not spanking?

Alison Cebulla 1:11:18
Could you tell us more? Because I just firmly believe this. Why do parents spank? What's going on? What do you tell

Leslie Petruk 1:11:26
them? Well, I think they're doing it out of their own anger and frustration, right? And it's not about what's ultimately long term in the best interest of their child. And it might stop the behavior. Because, you know, the line I always hear is, Well, it works. And it works in the moment. But then you have bigger problems down the road. And it teaches kids that if you're bigger than somebody, you can hit them. And you know, it teaches all the wrong messages. And so I really talk to parents, especially parents that are you know, and I live in Charlotte, where we have the most churches per capita than anywhere else in the country. So really,

Alison Cebulla 1:12:07
actually, oh, we really do fine, fine. Okay. Yeah, yeah.

Leslie Petruk 1:12:13
Um, that come in. They don't

Anne Sherry 1:12:15
pay taxes. They don't pay city taxes, which drives me crazy. Go ahead.

Leslie Petruk 1:12:20
Yeah. Nord is Blue Cross Blue Shield, but Well, that's a whole nother story.

Anne Sherry 1:12:28
Sorry, I just did squirrel on you.

Leslie Petruk 1:12:31
Yeah. No worries. No worries. The scary thing is I can go with you, you know,

Anne Sherry 1:12:37
all day long. Yeah.

Alison Cebulla 1:12:40
What is the gifts of ifs cult term? Okay.

Anne Sherry 1:12:43
Oh, no, no. Okay. Like squirrel.

Alison Cebulla 1:12:47
Oh, I see. Okay, I just all of a sudden, you guys are speaking on language. And I like

Anne Sherry 1:12:52
you're not in the call.

Alison Cebulla 1:12:53
I guess I'm not in the call. Okay.

Leslie Petruk 1:12:55
So, you know, when I tell them is that the the word discipline comes from the word disciple, which is about teaching and leading and guiding. And so

Anne Sherry 1:13:07
I realize pulling that Christian should in

Unknown Speaker 1:13:11
no

Anne Sherry 1:13:13
way. Go? Are you gonna get out?

Leslie Petruk 1:13:16
Yeah. And so that I want to help them learn, yeah, how to guide their children and how to help motivate them so that they're making the decision from an internal place of you know, I know, this is the right thing to do versus an external fear. If I do this, I'm gonna get spanked or hit in some way or shaped. Yeah. Nice.

Anne Sherry 1:13:39
Yeah. Nice.

Alison Cebulla 1:13:40
Yeah. For our listeners, and thank you for that, um, who are parents? And they're, they haven't tried therapy yet. Just wondering like, what should they be looking for? are like, what should they? Yeah, how do they find them? Best? Help? What have

Anne Sherry 1:14:02
you if you find if there's really hard to find a therapist?

Alison Cebulla 1:14:09
I mean, there are parenting classes. Yeah. What do you recommend? What should What should a parent do?

Leslie Petruk 1:14:15
Yeah, I mean, I, I have mixed feelings about some of the parenting classes because some of them are all about learning how to manage your child right versus aids. Right? This is learning how to manage yourself. Yeah, exactly. Right. Parents need to learn how to gain their kids cooperation, they need to learn how they how important their connection if the only time you interact with your kid is to tell them to clean up their room or to yell at them about something you know, you don't have a trusting relationship or connection with your your kiddo. And so, I'm talking to parents about what's your connection like and what you know, what, what do you do? together that's fun. How do you spend time together? And, you know, it's amazing how many parents are like, Oh, hi, that I just don't have time for that, like, I've I work full time and I, but you have to make time for connecting with your kid, you know, even if it's at the dinner table every night that, you know, but finding ways to have and build the connection. And so I you know, if I were to give advice on how do you find a good therapist who can really help you, I think it is a systems thinking therapist who thinks in systems terms because it's not a CBT therapist is not going to help, you know, changing, changing your thoughts. And to try to change behavior is not going to like I love

Alison Cebulla 1:15:47
how much shade CBT gets. I also throw CBT shade all the time. What is the deal with CBT? Anyway, continue? Yeah, well,

Leslie Petruk 1:15:56
it's temporary. I mean, if it was just if it was as easy as changing our thoughts to change our behaviors, like the world would be healed. You know,

Anne Sherry 1:16:06
I would I would work out more often. That's right.

Leslie Petruk 1:16:12
Yeah, yes. Play room with me, you

Anne Sherry 1:16:15
Oh. God damn, NordicTrack bottom all Tibo Jesus Christ, I know, I'm dating myself. This other piece to that I find is like, just let your kids talk. Like if they want to, like move, you know, kids will be like, I'm gonna be a juggler in a circus. Don't be like, that doesn't pay any money. How are you going to support yourself? Do not fucking go there. Just say How interesting. You know, tell me more about your interest in juggling. Like, if you have a relationship with them, they will come to you. And I know Alison, you and I have said you know, we do also the ad. How you grew up you could do and be anything you want. It's not that message. It's just be fucking interested in what your says yeah, the more that sounds.

Leslie Petruk 1:17:02
Passion. It's about it's about knowing your passion. Right and following your passion. That's what I want to

Alison Cebulla 1:17:09
I was gonna ask you, Leslie, because of what? I can't remember what we first were talking about. But like for me. Oh, I lost it.

Anne Sherry 1:17:21
Well, last You had said that follow your passion was a little triggering. It could be as a parenting thing. Because it's like, no, I need to, I need I do need real information about being in the world. Or

Alison Cebulla 1:17:35
that's a whole I feel like that's a whole can of worms.

Anne Sherry 1:17:41
It's nuanced. But

Alison Cebulla 1:17:43
again, this comes back to The Parenting manual is like, are kids supposed to be getting this in school? Are they supposed to be getting it at home? No one taught me how to do finances or how to label my emotions, or how to pick the right major should be coming every community but it's not it didn't come from anywhere. It literally came from none of the places no and no way shape or form was any and you you don't know what you don't know. Sorry. I'm gonna go manage my finances if you don't know that you don't know that. Right?

Anne Sherry 1:18:15
I'm gonna go look conspiracy, like actually being good and kind and connecting and giving people real skills is kind of a threat to the elite way This country was founded on multi level marketing. Like why would you want to empower people with Personal Finance information, you're not going to make any money in your doTERRA bullshit, you know, like, with you,

Alison Cebulla 1:18:39
Marcy, I have been so as a as like a side hustle. Speaking of side hustles I clean and renovate apartments for my mom's property management business. And it's great because I get to think about all sorts of things when I'm like scrubbing, you know, working it all out. And I'm like, god dammit, these MLMs these multi level marketing things, convincing people that this is how you're going to get ahead in life or this is if you're a single or a mom at home a stay at home mom, this is how you're going to find your empowerment as a mom and as a person. And it's all a scam. And just how prevalent it is in the United States. drives me bonkers

Anne Sherry 1:19:21
completely. Yeah, like there's no regulation on that. Yeah,

Leslie Petruk 1:19:25
well, and it's also happening you know, with the guru world like we were talking about,

Anne Sherry 1:19:29
Thank you, Leslie. Yeah, thank you. Totally, what's her name? And I'm afraid to I hear all these like, now on a little bit cold tea and uncut spirituality and all these wonderful podcasts. They have a long disclaimer like, I'm not saying anything. I'm not calling anybody a cult leader. I'm not saying anything at all, except you're a fucking cult leader. But you have to like this. claimers, we must say, and they don't even want to mention certain names like on one podcast, they won't call they won't really a name of Yeah, They're like afraid that one of the the holistic grant therapists or whatever psychologist Allison, fuck it, I'm out. She's gonna sue us like, yeah, so what's the name was scared her they got big legal teams that come after you if you start like a shit so we're small but as soon as your book gets published lessly we're gonna soar

Alison Cebulla 1:20:25
once you're famous, boom, yeah, okay, yeah.

Leslie Petruk 1:20:29
Me and you'll get rich and that's

Alison Cebulla 1:20:33
if you had a magic wand Leslie Yeah, this kind of twist kind of pulls it all in because like what we're saying is like the stuff that's being disseminated or like, we wait, can we make parenting knowledge? Like an MLM somehow? Come on. There's so permission out there and distributing it to the masses. How do we do this? I mean, that's my,

Leslie Petruk 1:20:56
but if you think about that, yeah.

Alison Cebulla 1:20:59
Yeah. How would you? How would you make sure that parents all have what they need to parent well, and being

Anne Sherry 1:21:05
culturally sensitive as well? I think there is one there. You know,

Alison Cebulla 1:21:10
this is Leslie's magical world.

Anne Sherry 1:21:11
Okay. All right. All right. Yeah.

Leslie Petruk 1:21:15
In my magical world, how would I make sure all parents? That's such a good question. Hmm, I don't know that I have the answer. I mean, it's kind of like gotta get over on board or something.

Anne Sherry 1:21:35
She elevates all of them though. She fuckheads scary. Like she brought me period, man. I know. But she also I'm not gonna mention names because I'm afraid of those fuckers. But like lots of Guru types that have turned out to be fucking nightmares. Dr. Oz.

Leslie Petruk 1:21:54
Dr. Phil,

Anne Sherry 1:21:55
Dr. Phil, what about the nanny that show? Right people love I think I don't think this sells. I think that's the problem that it's it's slow. Yeah, and you and you have to go inside and admit that, like, oh, I may not have been parented and I need to, like, work on that shit. And so I don't think

Alison Cebulla 1:22:17
Pain is pain. Yes. Yeah. So

Anne Sherry 1:22:22
scription what's the answer? What do I do?

Alison Cebulla 1:22:26
Lastly, you're saying, You got to work on yourself. You got to work on your own shit, man. None of us want to do that. I want to do that. I

Anne Sherry 1:22:34
want to do it. Oh, I hope my therapist cancels every time. I wait for the text. I'm like, please be sick or something you're gonna

Leslie Petruk 1:22:46
take if you don't want to if you want to.

Anne Sherry 1:22:50
She's like, I'm running a little late. I'm like, it's fine. We don't need to meet. Why don't you go take care yourself? Yeah, yeah. No one No one likes to do this stuff. It's always better on the other side. It truly is. Yeah, it is. Destination here.

Leslie Petruk 1:23:05
Yeah, I love I love the quote of and I'm gonna botch it. But there was a quote that says the the motivation to change has to be greater than the pain of staying the same.

Anne Sherry 1:23:18
Yeah. Yeah. Here's another good quote. That's kind of in their pain pushes until vision pulls. So like it's okay, like pain. Been there, at some point vision will start pulling you and it isn't so bad, but just don't get comfortable with that. It's not linear. Yeah, come around to some more pain. That's right. Pain, pain, pain, and then some whole vision pose. So it's really circular. Yeah. not linear.

Leslie Petruk 1:23:50
Yeah, for sure.

Alison Cebulla 1:23:52
Well, let's see. I cannot wait to read your book. In the meantime, if folks are interested in learning more about your work, how can they find you and we will put the put this in the show notes.

Leslie Petruk 1:24:03
Yeah, so I'm actually in the middle of updating my website. But right now the address will forward when it's updated. It's the Stone Center and seed as in North carolina.com. Yeah, yeah,

Alison Cebulla 1:24:20
we'll put that in there.

Leslie Petruk 1:24:21
More new information up and coming on my book and parenting classes and all different things that I Yeah,

Anne Sherry 1:24:30
yeah, that's the that's the one thing like this. Being able to the individual work we have to the classes and the things you can watch and even Alison, she felt what's the the toddler thing you follow on Instagram that I was initially mad about their Santa Claus? Little feelings Big Little feelings is a good I love that. Yeah,

Alison Cebulla 1:24:52
I have followers.

Anne Sherry 1:24:55
I know. So so that's a good but it's hard to discern who's the good one from who's Like trying to sell you like a download from the universe about parenting and then buy this fucking ring. Yeah, so

Alison Cebulla 1:25:06
butthole are butthole ology, though. Yeah. Yeah. Which is that the so our whole thing which we've talked about in certain episodes,

Anne Sherry 1:25:16
hey, you need to have a butthole. That's how we

Alison Cebulla 1:25:20
like you. We're messy. All of us should everyday it's not. It's not fun, right? Yeah. There's a paper involved. And if you're trying to pretend diarrhea, and if you're trying to pretend like your life is perfect, that's a guru that you want to stay away. And so that's why like big, little feelings, the Parent Teachers, is they definitely let you into the mess. They are not trying to be perfect. Yes. Saying? Yes. And that's how you're like, This is the good shit.

Leslie Petruk 1:25:49
That's right. Whenever I teach parenting classes, I'm always sharing all of my parenting fails, you know? Nice. I've got lots and lots to share. There are plenty. Yeah, there are. Yeah, because they're set. You know, I remember when I was when my daughter was three or four. And she was going to preschool and all the moms would stand on the playground. Afterward, after school and just gossip about all the other moms and oh, she's doing this, you know, she thinks she's, you know, it's just like, and they had this, you know, I'm so perfect persona, that I just, it was just gross. Like I get Yeah. So that's one of the messages that I

Anne Sherry 1:26:33
hear all alcoholics now I can promise. Yeah, that's right. Yep. I think one of

Leslie Petruk 1:26:37
the messages that I also try to really convey is that we motherhood is a sisterhood. And that we should be lifting each other up and connecting, rather than judging and looking down our nose at other moms, right? Because we don't

Anne Sherry 1:27:01
really want it how can I help? How can I support you? I've got a little extra capacity now or, you know, like, and then ask for help, too, which is disgusting. But it would be a good well

Leslie Petruk 1:27:13
and helpful for us to be able to learn how to ask for help is Yeah, because you know, and I could get into how that all fits into our white supremacy culture of thinking that was supposed to handle at all and we can't ask for help. Right. So yeah, so yeah, that's an important message. We need to lift each other up and thank you.

Anne Sherry 1:27:39
I am with my Mother Teresa quote that I've been doing, Teresa, Teresa. We've forgotten that we belong to each other. That's right.

Leslie Petruk 1:27:51
Amen, sister

Anne Sherry 1:27:57
appreciate you.

Unknown Speaker 1:28:02
Oh, it's gonna be okay. I've never felt this good before. I've never felt this good.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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