Deborah Farmer Kris on Harnessing the Power of Awe in Our Parenting Lives

Debbie:

Hey Deborah, welcome to the podcast.

Deborah Farmer Kris:

Thank you so much for having me.

Debbie:

It is my pleasure to have you. And we were just discussing before I hit record that we’ve never met in person, but I’ve read your children’s books and I’ve kind of, we’ve followed each other professionally. So it’s just really nice to sit down and I’m excited to get into your new book. But before we do that, I have read your formal bio, but I really love hearing guests introduce themselves in their own words as, and as part of that tying in their personal why. So Just give us kind of like the big picture view of who you are in the world.

Deborah Farmer Kris:

I love that question because I feel like every time I ask somebody else I get a window into how they want to narrate their life. So I, the one common thread through my whole life’s adult life is child development. It is my passion and I spent 20 years in the classroom. I taught almost every grade K through 12. I was a school administrator. I got a master’s in counseling psychology and at some point I realized that part of what I liked about my job was working with parents.

Debbie:

Totally.

Deborah Farmer Kris:

And so when my own kids were young, I began to write for PBS Kids for Parents and for MindShift as a kind of education and parenting journalist. And that just led to more work with PBS Kids. And I wrote some picture books. And after literally thousands of articles, I came across some research, as we’ll discuss today on Awe and Wonder, that just gave me goosebumps and kind of tied together what had been motivating me kind of my whole life with children and child development. And so that became my project for the last four years was really just diving into how teachers can help families and kids and parents and just all of us personally.

Debbie:

Okay, so yeah, I’d like to go inside your mind a little bit in terms of what it was about, you know, when you first, you know, as a writer, you get sparked by something. Talk a little bit more about that moment when you maybe were struck by your own awe with what you were learning, but what was it about this topic that got you so excited?

Deborah Farmer Kris:

Part of it was the timing. So it was fall of 2021 that I came across this white paper, which dove into 15 years of research. And a school had reached out to me to ask me to do a parent presentation on resilience. And I don’t know if you remember fall 2021, I think we all do. And I just, I didn’t wanna talk about stress and resilience anymore. I was just, didn’t, it felt like I wasn’t feeling my own spark, I was dragging through. And so I remember saying to myself, almost revolting, saying, I don’t want to talk about stress, I want to talk about hope. But I didn’t know what that looked like in terms of a practical application. And I was actually working on the end pages of my picture book, I see you wonder all the time. I have a book called I see you wonder coming out this summer. That’s a board book. And I was just thinking about it in terms of curiosity, right? And I wasn’t thinking about it really as an emotion or as anything that had been researched. And again, I came across this research and I remember I was actually sitting in this chair. It was October, I got goosebumps, I got chills, and it just was kind of the most re-excited I had felt in about a year and a half about possibilities of where we could go now when everything felt so heavy in terms of parenting and the world.

Debbie:

I love that. I love it when kind of a, I love it when a plan comes together, but I love it when something really comes organically like that. And obviously, this was meant to be because you turned it into a book that we’re going to be talking about today. And sometimes I forget to name the book right up front. So I’m going to do that right now. So your new book is called Raising Awe Seekers: How the Science of Wonder Helps Our Kids Thrive. And I’m familiar with some of the science behind wonder, but I was so excited when I heard about your book because I know that wonder and awe can be transformational for humans. Just kind of doing the research that I’ve done, which is not a deep dive at all, but it’s definitely exciting. And now you’re translating this for parents. So talk to us a little bit about awe as a concept for listeners who are just like, okay, what are we even talking about today in the context of being a human? And then we can dive deeper into the context of parenting.

Deborah Farmer Kris:

Sure, so awe is an emotion. It’s not one of the ones we typically think of in child development. We think about our kids being happy, sad, mad, scared, but it’s something we feel. It’s when we encounter something that is wondrous or outside our frame of reference. And the way Dr. Keltner, who’s done, he’s really the pioneer in this research, he’s at UC Berkeley, he describes three ways that you know you’re feeling it. He says, you know, your eyes might fill with tears involuntarily, you might get goosebumps or just that, wow, right? So somebody shoots a three-pointer from mid-court and the whole, everyone goes, wow. And it’s almost this involuntary sound we make. I would add to that for children, the wide eyes, because I tend to know my kids are sparked with something when their eyes get really big, because it’s almost like they’re trying to take it all in. And one thing we know about the science of emotion is that all emotions have functions. 

They all serve a purpose in terms of our survival, our evolution. And so one of the questions researchers said was like, well, so why, like, why do we feel this? And just to skim the surface of it, you know, the correlated outcomes of awe and wonder include increased generosity, more feeling of social connection, mental and physical wellness. And one of my favorites for raising kids is that it tends to correlate with academic growth. And I don’t mean success necessarily, I use that term very carefully, but when you’re curious about something, you want to learn. so curiosity and wonder and awe all go together to help drive kind of an authentic internal motivation. And also for parents of teenagers, awe can also help with that mental chatter, you know, that voice in your head that’s telling you that you’re stupid, everyone’s staring at you, you’re not good enough, because awe connects us with that kind of small self, where you recognize that the world is bigger than you are, and that, you know, in the scheme of things, you know, maybe this problem for today isn’t the problem for all time.

Debbie:

Yeah. As you’re mentioning that, I’m thinking about the overview effect, which is something people, I think that’s what it’s called, the overview effect. When astronauts are in space and they kind of see the Earth from a distance and it kind of gives you a sense of awe and how tiny we are. And of course, as we’re recording this, a group of women just went to space and have been talking about that very, very openly and publicly. You mentioned that kind of look on a young child’s face, the wide eyes. I’d love to have a sense of what awe and wonder kind of looks like over the course of a child’s life, because it seems like when our kids are little and uninhibited, it’s kind of right bubbling at the surface. And then as they get older, I imagine their relationship with it changes. What did you find?

Deborah Farmer Kris:

So you know the research that says it feels like time’s moving faster when you’re older and part of that is you’re not having as many novel experiences. And novel experiences kind of slow us down. So if you think of a child, kind of birth to six, so much is new. And so, you know, a four-year-old is asking, depending on which research you look at, between 70 and 100 questions a day. Because they’re just, they want to know, they want to know, they want to know. And at some point, you know, our questions aren’t quite so wonderful. Our questions are more like, are my keys? And like, who’s picking up the kids and what’s for dinner? And so one of the joys of working with young children, and I love to pop into preschools, is that kind of sense of wonder that I think they can actually reconnect us to. As kids get older, and this is, you know, often the wonder becomes as they form their identity, often the wonder is around what they’re gravitating towards. So they suddenly have a strong interest in music or in D&D or in art. And so they’re kind of discovering themselves while they’re discovering that, which is why having this kind of radical curiosity about your kids’ interests is really important. But also because of the pressures that pile on our kids, this kind of wonder is not always as embedded in our school systems as it should be. And, you know, there are a lot of structural reasons for that. But that means that, you know, this amazing idea that might otherwise spark them if it’s just because they’re doing the grade for the test is not anymore. And so it kind of behooves us as parents to be thinking about the sources of awe, which we can get into, and how to help tap our kids into it, not It won’t guarantee that they feel it, right? But to almost like provide the opportunity to, and I do this for myself. It’s like, you know, if I go on that walk and I take my headphones out, I won’t necessarily feel it, but I’m putting myself in a place where I might be able to if I suddenly hear a beautiful bird or see a blooming cherry tree.

Debbie:

You’ve identified seven different sources of awe in your book. And I’ll just name them and then we don’t have to go through all of them, but I’d love it if you want to share some of them with us. There’s nature music, which we were just talking about, art, big questions, which we get a lot of among our neurodivergent kiddos, collective effervescence, the circle of life, and human kindness. So and you have chapters on each of those in the books where you talk about how to access that and what it really looks like. So what would you like to share with us about some of those today?

Deborah Farmer Kris:

So first, how do we know that these are sources of awe? Researchers had people across the world keep odd diaries where they would write down when they felt something and then thousands of responses got coded by poor graduate students. And what they found were certain types of experiences rose to the top. So things like nature, which I feel like seems like one of the most obvious when people think about it. So I won’t actually spend too much time there other than the encouragement of getting your kids outside is really good, getting yourself outside is kind of, I feel like it’s kind of like turning off the computer and turning it back on. Like it’s kind of a reset. Art and music. What I loved about researching this was the tremendous amount of research around kids and how art and music, even in preschools, art reduced the levels of cortisol in their saliva when they did the before and after. How, you know, art and music are used in children’s hospitals.

I tell the story of a friend whose daughter has Down syndrome and leukemia, and they spend a whole lot of time in the hospital, and they have an art gallery there. And so she and her daughter go frequently and look at the art gallery, and they each have their own kind of connection to this point. And there’s a children’s hospital in England that pipes in the sound of local birds because they have found that that calms children during procedures. so, you know, thinking about where the public art is, making art with kids, what the, for your teenagers, what the playlists are that are gonna bring them, know, joy, sharing that, music with them. 

Big Ideas is just one of my favorites. I have a kid who just, he’s just driven by knowing, right? Like that’s, and a lot of you have kids like that too. He just wants to know all the facts. And there are even some times where once he feels like he knows that he’s sad, because he wants to be able to start all over again on knowing all the facts. But what’s so fun about that as a parent is to see how we access that to access other things. So that when he’s complaining about hating math homework, and yet he’s trying to figure out a theory of time, and it’s beyond what his math brain can do, but he’s so excited about it, you know, trying to link natural wonder with something that they may need to learn how to do. And one of the great pieces of research on this that I loved was they found that when kids were doing something that sparked their wonder, sparked their awe, that improves their memory for that thing. But an hour later, if you gave them a task that was not as exciting to them, their memory for it was still better because it was like their brain was primed to learn. So it got me thinking about how in a classroom, how would I spark the wonder before, or before my kid does homework, how can I get them in the frame of mind, right? To just be a little more open because then the brain is actually wired for that kind of curiosity and learning. So, I think this is where now for amazing neurodivergent kids, being able to take something that is such a passion and help them see how other parts of the world feed into that passion.

Debbie:

Yeah. I mean, that’s so much of what we talk about is how we leverage these deep areas of interest, sometimes obscure interests. There’s been a lot of them in my life, parenting my child. How do we leverage those and take them into different directions and build on the strengths that those really help us access? There’s so many interesting things that you’ve said just in that last response. And I wanted to go a little bit deeper into, you mentioned that experiencing all lowers cortisol. That’s amazing and powerful. Again, especially for kids who have these nervous systems, a lot of these kids are wired for threat. And so they’re really operating at this higher level all the time. And then also this idea of sparking wonder can, before doing any kind of, you know, other learning can help that be more effective. That’s powerful. What else is wonder doing for our kids?

Deborah Farmer Kris:

So wonder is also helping them feel more social connection. And I think for our kids that are struggling to kind of find their group, this is a great avenue too. And so, you one of the psychologists I talked to who works in Louisiana with amazing kids, and she said that so often the parents who come in are trying really traditional social routes for their kids. They, you know, join the soccer team, do this. And what she really encourages is, you know, collective effervescence, which I mentioned in the book is this feeling of when you’re part of a group that’s engaged in something together, that’s good. And yes, that can be a soccer team, but that can be a model train club. That can be a D and D club. That can be, you know, I had this wonderful student I taught once who just felt like she had never found her people. And I kept saying to her, you’re going to go, you know, I know you went, you’re gonna go to college, you will, but I want you to think outside the box. I want you to choose things that you truly love, not that you think where you’re gonna find friends. When she got to college and joined a bird watching club, and she emailed me like two months later saying, I have found the best friends of my life. As an 18 year old bird watching. And it was of all different ages. She was connecting with 50 year olds and 18 year olds. And so thinking about what brings joy and then thinking about how to help them connect with other people who have the same interest can really help. That’s a good social glue, right? We’re doing service together, we’re working on a Pinewood Derby together, whatever that is. And those will change through the years. I mean, that’s an important thing for parents to think about is what they love in fifth grade may be radically different from what they love in eighth grade.

And that can be painful for them and for you as they suddenly feel lost because that group of friends isn’t working anymore. That interest isn’t bringing them that joy anymore. And so start keeping an eye out for what is it that is sparking that wide eye is just, think, you know, that’s the curiosity that is both difficult and super exciting as a parent to say, okay, what’s making my kid tick? Or as Michelle Borba told me, What activities are helping them be the happiest version of themselves?

Debbie:

Yeah, such a great question. So I have a couple of things that have popped up in my mind as you’ve been talking of times that I feel like I’ve experienced this awe and wonder that fit in here. So with the collective effervescence, one is something called Pub Choir that I actually just texted a group of my friends in Seattle. I’m like, you guys have to do this. Just trust me. And that is, I don’t know if you’re familiar with it, but it is a collective one night, three hour event where you’re with a group of hundreds of strangers and you’re led through learning a three part harmony for a song and then you perform it at the end together. I was just watching music videos from various pub choirs and I got chills just watching it. So I think that’s an example. And then I remember this night years ago where my kiddo and I were living in Brooklyn where there’s terrible light pollution, but it was a very dark night. And I had heard that the moon and Jupiter and Saturn were close together. And I was like, we have these binoculars that are supposed to be, you know, astronomical. I always get mixed up, astrological, astronomical binoculars. And we saw like three moons of Jupiter through through the binoculars and we lost our minds. It was like midnight, we’re jumping up and down, like freaking out. And I’m like, how does one even go to bed knowing that this exists, that this is up in the sky? So those are some examples that came to mind. So I can tell by your reaction that those are definitely ticking the awe and wonder. Are there some other ways that this might look that might not be as big or as obvious, but still kind of have that same effect?

Deborah Farmer Kris:

100%. You know, so the two we haven’t discussed yet, I think, fall into that. And one is, that research has found that, you know, encounters with life and death, the life cycle. And so I watch kids when they see a puppy, when they see a kitten. I have a dog who always looks like a puppy because he’s small. And I was walking by a high school a few days ago and it was dismissal. And there was a girl sitting on a bench, probably 17. And she waved me over and she said, can I say hi to your dog? And I said, sure. And she spent about two minutes stroking him and I could actually see her calm. And then she said, thank you, I really needed that. And that was that moment where I thought this dog is this conduit of this kind of wonder, right? I don’t know what happened to her at school that day, but a fluffy creature gazing at her certainly made a difference. 

And on the flip side of that, we talked about how two of the loneliest generations are young adults and the elderly. And so thinking about how to connect kids to their grandparents, kids to older neighbors, because those can be really special relationships, right? Sometimes an older daughter or grandparent can provide a perspective and kind of this just love that doesn’t have any nagging involved with it, that doesn’t have those layers, if you do have those relationships in your life, if you’re lucky enough. But I think the most hopeful piece of research that I found in all of my study was that the most common source of all, like in terms of people ticking it off the most, was not nature, not music, not vast Grand Canyons, it was the kindness of other people. It was kindness, courage, just basically human goodness that were really inspired when we see other people being good and being kind. And what I love about that is I feel like that is such an easy parenting tool when our kids are flooded with so much scary news, legit scary news, right? Things that they’re stressed about, things they should be stressed about. And at the same time, there are people in our neighborhoods and communities every day doing amazing things.

So I was talking to Jamil Zaki and he’s a professor at Stanford who wrote a great book called Hope for Cynics. So he’s a hope researcher and he talks about social savoring. When you encounter a moment like that where you see, you know, the puppy and the girl or you see somebody, you know, being kind to a stranger, he said, you take a moment to savor it, right? Like taking a picture in your brain. And then he said, take one more step and share it with your kids. And so one of the things I try to do now is I try at least a few times a week to make sure I’m sharing a piece of good news, right? It’s not super formal. It’s not mom’s good news minute. It’s just, I may be driving home and be like, my gosh, I got the nicest text today from your uncle Jared and da, da, da. Or I share something I heard on the news or I’ll text my oldest. She’s not on Instagram, but if I find a really good reel, I can text it to her, right? So I’m curating it. And she will, she’ll respond like, and it’s just me being able to kind of feed the reminder that there is lot of goodness in this difficult world. And I think that is so much of what awe is. It’s a very low bar emotion, right? We feel it without, it just comes, right? We don’t have to like to think about who we’re grateful for and put in the work. And it’s not something that has all these great benefits, but it can happen on bad days and it doesn’t necessarily fix the whole day, but it’s just these like little reminders, right? That we’re having a bad day and we go on that walk and we see the cherry trees blooming and for 15 seconds, there’s just a little bit of that goosebumps in peace that doesn’t solve things, but maybe just reminds us that things are a little bit bigger than us.

Debbie:

Yeah, yeah, and that all matters. I appreciate that so much. And that did jump out at me that you wrote about how noticing the goodness of other people and kindness and courage is, according to the data, the most common source that kind of blew my mind when I read that. So I love the example that you just shared about texting your kids things that struck you and kind of sharing the awe. I do that. I don’t get many replies, but I do try to do that with my 20-year-old. But you share in the book a couple of concepts that parents can do to cultivate more awe in their family’s lives. So would you talk through those with us?

Deborah Farmer Kris:

So when I think about my basic parenting philosophy, one of the things I realized is that so much of all kinds fit into them. So, you know, I think about slowing down childhood and that, you know, it moves so fast anyway. don’t necessarily mean slowing down, but just taking a look at the rhythm of their day, their week, their month. And if we are feeling and they are feeling overwhelmed by all the stuff it doesn’t leave a lot of room for the wonder. And so, you know, one of the things that Dr. Keltner had said to me was, you how do you find, you slow things down, you wander without a purpose, you know, maybe you go on a walk in a neighborhood you’ve never been to before, because again, novelty is one of those things, because we’re on higher alert in novel situations. So if you’re going to go and see, you know, and again, if you know, your kid may need a lot of previewing first, right, say like, we’re going to go to see this new place, but it puts you on kind of this, what am I going to see? Which increases that. So, you know, I’m not a huge fan of over-programming kids unless they’re really driving it themselves. And I think that’s a question we have to ask ourselves: who’s driving? Who’s really pushing this? And it can be okay to have downtime. 

And so speaking of that, you know, there’s a great acronym out of Challenge Success, which is a group out of Stanford. And they talk about how resilient children need three things, PDF, and that’s playtime, downtime, family time. And what I love is that wonder fits into all of those, right? So play, right? Those are moments of just kind of joy and amazement, the downtime as it said, and family time, because again, relationships, collective or professions, kindness, all of those things can happen in family life. And then I also talk about practicing radical curiosity, which I’ve already mentioned today. I really adopted that phrase from Robert Waldinger and he’s the person who’s in charge of what they call the happiness study at Harvard where they track people for 50 years and then their children just kind of see what a fulfilling life looks like. And he really said that this is so good for families and relationships in general is that if you can look at somebody who you’ve seen in your life for 20 years and notice something you haven’t noticed before, that’s what keeps, know, like I I think he used the example, I’ve never noticed like how the sweat trickles into their eyebrows, or I haven’t noticed. You know, and with babies, we’re doing this constantly. We’re paying attention to everything, every sound. And I think at some point we think, well, we know our kid. We know our spouse. We know our best friend. We know our sister. And this radical curiosity of really looking and saying what sparks them, what hurts them, what comforts them knowing that that can change, that that’s connective. 

And then, you know, again, all of parenting is modeling. And so, you know, they watch us much more than they listen to us. And so I feel like one of the best outcomes of me in studying all this is that I really tried harder to become an awe-seeker myself, right? Not to necessarily pull my kid on the walk, but to go and let them see that I’m doing it. I’ve picked up more hobbies in the last three years and I don’t think it’s an accident. I think it’s because, you know, I picked up embroidery and I am excited about it. And I, it’s art I can do. It’s like a doable art form. You know, I’m getting my oldest, who is an artist, she’s helping me make designs and patterns now. And, you know, I picked up boxing, which I never thought I would do. A friend dragged me there and, you know, my kids may never go with me, but they see mom doing something new and they see that I’m excited about it. And I don’t know why I like boxing. I am not a violent person, but there’s something about having the gloves on the back that makes me feel strong. And so I’m curious about it and I can talk to them about it. And I think sometimes we get so caught up in doing for our kids that we forget that when we nurture our own wonder, like that’s what they’re going to remember. And, just briefly, like, you know, my dad, if you tick off like what good parents are supposed to do, he could fill very few of those. It didn’t come naturally to him. He was easily emotionally overwhelmed. But boy, did he experience wonder. And whatever I was interested in, he would be the one taking me out to see Jupiter. He’d be the one taking me on the hike. And when I think back now, now that I know much more about him and kind of how he was wired and how he ticks, like that is such a lasting gift was that I remember watching my dad just having childlike curiosity about the most random subjects. And that truly, like I said, he has passed away now, but is still sustaining me and influencing the way that I parent. So I feel like love and wonder can cover a multitude of our very natural human weaknesses, which we all have.

Debbie:

So many great things that you just shared. And I love the word curiosity. It’s one of my favorite words. Also, as you’re talking, I’m like, you know, we’ve recently moved back to the Netherlands and I feel like I did it in part to slow down time. I feel like I have novel experiences all the time because everything still feels so new. And that brings me so much joy. And as you’re talking to modeling is so powerful and it’s not, doesn’t have to be like, I’m doing this, look at me doing this now, so I’m just doing the things. Our kids are always paying attention to that stuff. So as a way to kind of wrap up, I’m just thinking of what we can leave the listeners with to inspire them, you know, just knowing, I just want to put out there, I know that my listeners are fried, right? Depleted, burned out, end of the school year, like there’s a lot going on, so we’re not talking about adding more to your plate. This isn’t like a big to-do list, but what could we invite listeners to do to maybe intentionally bring a little more awe into their life, maybe even today, maybe today as they’re listening to this episode?

Deborah Farmer Kris:

So I think if you’re feeling, Friday, we have all been there, forget about this for your kids, do it for you. Go on a walk where your goal is to just notice something in your neighborhood you haven’t noticed before. Put on a song that you know is gonna give you the feels. Like reach out to, send a text to a friend that you love you haven’t talked to recently. Just be on the lookout for one little thing that is just gonna give you that. Because, again, one of the things we know is that when we feel this, there are biological changes in our body when we feel these things. It does not fix, it supports. And so, I would say that you deserve wonder and you deserve to be in touch with what brings you wonder. That does not have to have anything to do with your family. And I think figuring out how to reconnect with small things that bring you wow moments, that’s gonna just, it’s gonna help you and when it helps you, it helps your kids.

Debbie:

Yeah, I love that. I’m going to share a story now that you’ve just inspired me to share because when I was parenting a very young, intense, explosive little human, there was so much time spent in my car. This is when I lived in Seattle with this kid in the back and schlepping from to OT and to school and to all the things. And I always played music and there’s a song by Badly Drawn Boy. I’m going to leave it in the show notes. I’ll leave a link to a video. You guys, please go listen to the song. It’s an instrumental. There’s no lyrics to it. It’s called I Love N.Y.E.. It’s got violins. It’s got all the things and that song would come on. I didn’t care. Like if we got home right when it started, I’m like we’re sitting in the driveway and we’re going to listen to the song and I would turn it up and it would bring me to tears. It’s just, like even talking about it now, I can feel that feeling. And so I just wanted to share that because I shared that with my child and who would get quiet and listen and I was able to still experience that awe and wonder and it felt healing to me to tune in and to allow myself to really feel things that I might not that I might have just been pushing aside and shoving aside in the midst of all that hard stuff. So I just share that in case you are listening and you’re really in the trenches, there’s ways to weave this in no matter what is happening in your world.

Deborah Farmer Kris:

Absolutely, I love that.

Debbie:

Where would you like listeners to connect and learn more about your work if they want to kind of check in with you?

Deborah Farmer Kris:

So Parenthood 365 is kind of my handle for everything. So my website is parenthood365.com, my sub stack, my Instagram, my Facebook, etcetera. So if you type that in or my name, you’ll be able to find me everywhere.

Debbie:

Awesome. And I just want to mention the name of the book again. It’s Raising Awe Seekers: How the Science of Wonder Helps Our Kids Thrive. I will have links in the show notes as well as, I got to say, I love a guest who drops all kinds of references and researchers and studies. I will have all that in the show notes. I really nerd out on that. So thank you for that. And thank you also for everything you shared today. Congratulations on the book. It’s really wonderful.

Deborah Farmer Kris:

Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me.