What are the numbers on the financial impact? So they

say that 35% of Canadian Sanders generations reported experiencing financial hardship because of their caregiving responsibilities.

So these are significant numbers.

And if you imagine, if you're potentially paying for your children's activities, education or childcare, while also trying to figure out how to modify perhaps a parent's home because proper ethical, compassionate care for aging adults is very difficult to find and very expensive.

So you may be looking at how do I modify our home or their home to help them stay at home? What is the cost of medications that may not be covered, transportation for them? and private care.

So that's a big financial squeeze for a large percentage of Canadians.

How do you take care of yourself?

Yes, I think there's an important spotlight that we need to be shining on individuals who are navigating this.

I mean, how do you sort of choose your family's values? And is it, you know, you suggesting things? Is it collaborative?

As kids get older, they can certainly be more and more involved.

But even young kids can be involved in this process.

And it helps if it's not just a one-off conversation that It can be seasonal, it can be yearly, whatever makes sense for you and your family.

But again, fall is a good time to have everyone sit around and say, we're going to chat about the things that are important to us as a family and that doing this together will help us make decisions together and it'll help us in the moment when things are stressful or when we're struggling.

And so you start saying things like, what's important to us as a family? And of course, kids will need to be guided in this process because they may be all over the place, but we can help them figure out what makes our family feel good to be a part of, what keeps us all healthy and happy.

And I often talk to families about the Venn diagram of needs, meaning we all have different needs in a family, and where we're trying to exist is within that overlap.

It has to be pretty simple.

Um, and I guess that it's the relationship that's important, uh, not so much the title of grandparent.

Well, that's exactly it.

Grandparents are in a unique position because of their proximity to the child and to the close connection that many grandparents have with their children, but it's really about the relationship itself.

So it doesn't necessarily have to be a grandparent, but also just having that role and that closeness, that close relationship can bring that, uh, positive mental health that we're looking for.

We can see lower levels of depression and anxiety in children and adolescents.

So it can be from a grandparent with a close relationship or any trusted adult.

They can just listen.

Yes, exactly, and that's one of the things to keep in mind, that of course grandparents, as I said, are in a special position because of their place in the family.

What should we do instead?

Yes, we get caught up in these power struggles.

And I always tell families that you don't have to accept every invitation to a power struggle to get out of your way.

And it's really important because part of adolescence is finding your own identity.

And part of that is autonomy.

And so often teens will even push back against, you know, you liking the same song as them.

And something so simple that feels like it treads on their territory feels threatening to them.

So are we walking on eggshells? Are we looking at the time? How are we figuring out when the right time to chat is?

So how do we marry those two things?

Yeah, that's a great question.

Because ultimately, part of the problem with perfectionism is that it causes us to avoid things that we may feel at risk of making a mistake or not looking good.

And we only want to do things when we know that we can do well.

And

so in some ways, taking pressure off things like purple participation ribbons makes things more accessible for people.

But it's, again, it's not as simple as that.

Are we mistaken to say we have to get them ready for it, but then not have them crumble under the pressure?

Explain that.

Yes.

So we want them to understand that there may be attention that feels respectful, maybe a compliment that feels respectful from someone you know and trust.

That's a nice outfit.

That may feel good.

Some attention may feel good, but other attention may feel uncomfortable and or intrusive, or even unsafe.

So we need to help them differentiate between the types of attention they're receiving and also teach them to trust that internal alarm system that we have that says something feels off.

So in these situations, yeah.

I'm guessing that's not always very easy.

That's exactly right.

And often in elementary school, as is important, parents have done a lot of that facilitation and teachers.

So there's a lot of direct guidance of write this in your agenda, then parents saying what's in your agenda.

So really handholding and walking them through all of those, what we call executive functioning skills, those planning skills, organization, prioritizing, time management, all of that.

And those are the predictors of success in high school.

What do we do to prepare them to talk about sort of not choosing right friendships, but the importance of friendships and social interaction? How do we prepare them for that? Yeah.

Yes.