Ep #54: Internal Family Systems Therapy for Kids with Bekkilyn Toone

What are your core emotions and which emotions are your parts? Today I had the most fascinating conversation with Bekkilyn Toone, and we talked about Internal Family Systems and how to help your children start identifying different parts that aren’t necessarily their identity but are parts of them that come out, that need to be heard. So when your child’s throwing a temper tantrum or when your child is sad or having anxiety or is angry, we can look at that part. Is that our core or is that just a part? And then how do we help that part? Do we need to listen to it? Does it need something? This conversation was so helpful. It gives so many practical ideas and even some language you can use as you’re kind of figuring this out both for yourself and for your child. I hope you enjoy it. It’s coming up right after this.

Welcome to the Raising Healthy Kid Brains podcast where moms and teachers come to learn all about kids’ brains, how they work, how they learn, how they grow and simple tips and tricks for raising the most resilient, kind, smart, compassionate kids we can. All while having lots of grace and compassion for ourselves because you know what? We all really need and deserve that too. I am your host, Amy Nielson. Let’s get ready to start the show.

Amy: Welcome, Bekkilyn. It’s so fun to have you on the show today.

Bekkilyn: Hi, Amy. So happy to be here.

Amy: I am so excited about what we’re talking about today because it’s something that has helped me in my life. But before we get into it and all the good things, can you just tell me a little bit about you and how you got into what you do.

Bekkilyn: Well, so like you said, my name is Bekkilyn and I’m a licensed marriage and family therapist. I currently work with children and teenagers and their families, and I try to work on their relationships and I live in Reno, Nevada. I am currently trying to become a certified internal family therapist, but it is kind of a process, so it’s taking a little bit of time, but I’m in love with this work. So the way I actually got into this was a long time ago. I have always wanted to work with kids, always, always and I didn’t know in what field or capacity I wanted to do that.

So I just started going to school, no big deal and my mom came home, who’s a pediatric nurse. She came home one day from work and she says, “Hey, have you ever heard of play therapy?” And I was like, “No, what is that?” And she’s like, “Well, you basically play with kids to find out what’s wrong with them and to help them through some of their trials that they’re going through. And I was super intrigued just right off the bat. And so I started pursuing that as a profession.

And once I got into my program, I just continued to pursue play therapy. So I became a marriage and family therapist in 2014, moved across the country and went to Connecticut where I was able to work in a residential family treatment facility. Where I was able to work with kids who are on the spectrum, so anywhere from an 8 year old to a 21 year old, we would take them all the way till they aged out at 21. And then we moved to Reno. And now I’m a stay at home mom, but I wanted to keep my license active.

So I took some classes and on a whim I chose a class that was an introduction to Internal Family Systems and I was intrigued right from the beginning. And by the end of that class I was totally hooked. And it’s just been amazing. It’s totally changed my life and my view, and I just love it.

Amy: I love it so much. I’m so excited. Yeah, let’s talk about it and get into it. So what is Internal Family Systems? And yeah, just start telling us about it.

Bekkilyn: Oh, my goodness. So Internal Family Systems is an evidence based therapeutic technique. And when I talk to people and I try to explain it to them, I always like to use the movie Inside Out because most people are very familiar with it and it just brings it all to light and it’s really easy to understand. And so basically you have yourself and we call that self-energy, it’s your core of who you are. And a lot of those core feelings that you have come from the eight C’s we call them, so curiosity, calmness, clarity, compassion, courage, creativity, confidence or connectedness.

Amy: Okay, I like it.

Bekkilyn: Eight, so you know that you’re in self-energy if you are feeling any of those eight C’s.

Amy: Okay, so that’s your core, core energy, if it’s one of those things you’re feeling? Interesting, okay.

Bekkilyn: Yeah, exactly. And that’s how you know. So if you’re not feeling one of those things then you’re not in your core, you’re not in yourself. So in Inside Out, you have joy and sadness and anger and those would not be your core. You know how Riley has those core memories, those core connections, that would be the connectedness and the calmness and the curiosity, those things.

Amy: Interesting. Okay, so that’s when we’re in our core self and then what about, are there other feelings then that are outside of that?

Bekkilyn: Basically, every other feeling is outside of that core. And so like I said, if you have sadness or joy or even anxiety, depression, addiction, any of these things or even almost behaviors that you have, those are called parts. And so we call these parts and these parts actually take on different roles within your system. And each of these parts are a member of your family.

So for instance, I like to think of it like you’ve got the devil and the angel on your shoulders. And so two are coming out at the same time, and they’re usually in conflict with one another. So you have this person that’s saying, “Hey, you should do this thing.” And this one that’s saying you should do another thing. And you as yourself, you have to decide which one to follow, which one is the right one for you. And so with IFS therapy, you actually kind of personify one of these parts. And you actually start to talk to them and create them as a character, if you will.

Amy: It gets so interesting. And I love this because I think of what I discovered when I kind of learned about this the first time. There was the one on my shoulder at the moment, was the one coming out in the morning. First thing in the morning I’d wake up and it was like, oh, my gosh, oh my gosh, we’ve got to do all these things today and would just be like, and you didn’t do this and you’ve got to do this. And it was almost yelling at me in the morning. And I was like, “What is going on? I never yell at anyone. Why am I yelling at myself? What is happening?”

And I was just talking to my therapist and she’s like, “Hey, well, let’s talk to this part that’s coming out.” And just like, “Man, it’s trying to protect you. It’s trying to take care of you and make sure you get everything done.” And so we can say thank you for all the things you do for us and also we’ve got it, we’ve got a plan. And just kind of do some coordinating. So what does that look like for if we have different parts, if a kid’s having a part where they’re having a lot of anxiety or having a lot of sadness or something like that. How do we look at that as adults and then how do we communicate around that for our kids?

Bekkilyn: I think recognizing that they are parts is a big part of all of this. And so they’re not just throwing a temper tantrum because they want to. They are throwing a temper tantrum because something inside of them is telling them that that’s the part that needs to be heard in the moment. And so as a parent, you start to recognize the different parts of them. And so if a kid is saying, “I’m so worried about going to grandma’s”, and you don’t know why you’re like, “It’s grandma’s, it’s fun, let’s just go, come on.” And this part is starting to show some resistance.

Well, that part kind of like you said is protecting something inside of that child. So something’s going on. And so giving that voice or that little part can really help diminish the tantrum and it can help you understand what is actually going on inside of them. So you say, “Okay, hi, what’s going on? Are you feeling a little bit anxious or is your anxiety part coming out?”

And they’ll be like, “Yeah.” And maybe they don’t know how to say it in those words precisely, but they’ll say, “Yeah, I really don’t want to go to grandma’s house because I’m missing my friend’s thing and I really wanted to go to this birthday party that was somewhere else.” “Oh, okay, well, how can we problem solve this? How can we help you?” And as you start to talk, you’ll realize that the anxiety part just had something to say. It just had something that needed to be recognized and usually you can find a solution.

Amy: Okay, I love this. So is there any benefit at all? This is a question I’ve had. Is there any benefit at all, we talked about kind of personifying it or listening to it, whatever it is. Is there any benefit to identifying that part, each part? And is there any value in naming it or something? Or how do you help your child become really comfortable with the different parts of themselves and be able to kind of, yeah, recognize that, this is a part that’s just talking right now instead of just being [crosstalk].

Bekkilyn: That’s a really good question. Yeah, absolutely. So I think that actually really is helpful. It is something that I would do in therapy. If I was to have a client come in, one of the first things we would do, depending on the age of the child, a young child I might have them draw a picture of this part. And you would give them a name. For instance, we have named some of my kids as parts. And my son has a Teezy, so it’s a Teezy part and he named it. And so, “Okay, is Teezy coming out?” “Yeah, it’s coming out, I need to talk to Teezy for a minute.” And he’s only five, so he totally gets it.

And so yes, naming it, identifying it, and it only just increases your feelings baseline, how you understand feelings and how you are able to communicate what you are feeling. In fact, sometimes it’s easier to identify what you’re feeling if you give it a name, because it’s hard to be like, “I’m feeling anxious right now.” “There’s a part of me over here that’s a little bit worried.” That seems a little bit easier in kid language.

Amy: Yeah, it’s interesting, I was reading a book a couple years ago that was talking about getting into the control room of our brain. And sometimes we kind of just feel like our brain is doing its thing and we just kind of are all along for the ride. And we forget that we have a control center that kind of runs some of these feelings, whatever. And just being able to get in there and just kind of offer some supervision, maybe, and some direction to the different parts.

And so I loved that idea of trying to help our kids understand all of their different parts. And then somehow, yeah, if they can name them or find some way to give them identity, they can notice them easier and maybe have a little bit better ability to be in the control room and just kind of manage them a little bit, do some crowd control or something if they need to.

Bekkilyn: Absolutely. So you bring up a good point because I think sometimes we start to identify ourselves as all of these parts. But if you’re in the control center, if yourself is right in the core of who you are and you’re feeling those eight things, it’s easy to get confused with some of the sadness or anger or fear. All of those things, you think that those start to become who you are. But if you give them a name, then you can actually externalize them a bit and be like, “That’s actually not who you are. It’s just a part of you and it doesn’t define you.”

So if you have a temper tantrum, if you make a mistake, if you do all of these things, then it doesn’t really matter, because that’s not actually who you are. We’re trying to figure out, let’s find out more about anxiety. Let’s find out more about your sadness. Why are you feeling so much sadness? And what does sadness have to say rather than, oh, my gosh, you’re so sad, you need to get over it. Does that make sense?

Amy: Yeah. I love it. So is there a benefit to focusing kind of on one at a time, for a period of time like, hey, we’re just really going to focus on sadness or is it a thing where you’re just kind of talking about the different parts throughout the day and being like, “Look, what part I just noticed. this part’s showing up”, or whatever. What does that look like when you’re working through things?

Bekkilyn: Absolutely. So it’s tricky because once you get into a therapeutic setting, you’ll find out that not all parts want to let other parts talk. And so if you’re going to have a temper tantrum child or something’s happening with them, there are oftentimes several parts coming up at once. You don’t just feel angry. You don’t just feel anxious, you feel angry and anxious and sad and a little bit of confusion all at the same time. And so yes, it does help to separate them a little bit if you can.

And the more you practice, the better you get at it but isolating one and giving them a voice, like I said, they really just want to be heard. And so a lot of times in a therapeutic world we would say, “Okay, so who’s coming up for you right now, who’s here?” And go into themselves and a lot of times they’ll actually imagine or picture somebody somewhere, something is coming up.

And so I had a client once that thought of a tornado, a tornado and they called it overwhelm. And so this tornado is going around and around and around and it has all these things inside of them. “I said, “Okay, where is this tornado?” “And so it’s coming up right outside of my body, but it’s connected to me.” Okay, so as this is coming up, you might invite another part to come in to help this overwhelm, or you might ask a part that if you have two at the same time, you might ask a part to step back. Say, “Hey, you know what? I want to give you an opportunity, sadness, but I really think I need to talk to anxiety right now.”

And you’re the only one that knows. So that’s why it’s so important to be in yourself. So I really want to give anxiety this time. So I’m going to come back to you. Do you mind stepping back for a little bit? And usually they’ll say yes, unless there’s something to protect there. And if that’s the case, then maybe we’d ask anxiety to step back and start talking to sadness. So you just kind of have to see which one is wanting the microphone first. And so after you start talking to them, then you can ask anxiety to step back and then you can figure out what’s going on with sadness.

Amy: It’s so interesting. It’s so fascinating. And it feels, I think the first time I heard it, it felt a little bit weird to me. But then when I started actually testing it and trying it, it just works because it’s like a conversation going on inside of you. And there are the different parts that are just kind of trying to do their job. And so giving them time to talk or whatever and giving them all space and appreciating them for what they do for you, but then also having boundaries for them.

And I don’t know. I just feel like it was just such a neat thing. But I’m wondering, we have, a lot of our listeners have young children. What would this look like for really, really young children? Because it’s going to be harder to maybe have all of that conversation with a really small child. How would you, using kind of Internal Family System’s kind of methodology or thought process, how would you help really small children? And is it maybe just being understanding of their different emotions coming out and so we’re more regulated and helping them co-regulate or what would that look like?

Bekkilyn: Right. And so I think with little kids, you just have to speak their language, of course, you need to know their level, where they are at and their vocabulary. If they only know sadness and happiness, then let’s go with that and let’s just bring those parts out and get them very familiar. And then maybe introduce, there might be a little part in here that looks like anger. Do you know what anger is? And do a little bit of psychoeducation with the child.

I decided to try this on my toddler the other day, so he’s two, almost three. And I thought he’s just having this meltdown in the middle of, right before bedtime. And I was like, “You know what? I’m going to give this a go.” So I said, “ey, is happiness here?” “No.” “Okay, is angry kid here?” And he goes, “Yeah, angry kid’s right here.” And he pointed to his stomach. I was like, “Okay, wow, that’s amazing. So angry kid, do you want to tell me something?” He’s like, “I’m so angry. I’m just so angry.”

And he didn’t have a lot of words to say. I said, “Okay, well, is there a sadness here too?” And he goes, “Yeah sadness is right next to angry, they’re together.” I said, “Okay, well, do we know where happiness is?” He’s like, “He’s lost.” And I said, “Okay, well, do you think we need to go find happiness?” And he goes, “Yeah, you have to go through the pipes.” And we were Super Mario brothers for Halloween, so I think that’s kind of where that came from. So he actually pointed to his stomach and he was like, “There’s anger and there’s sadness. Let’s go find happiness.”

And he went through his tummy into the left side of his body and he was able to find this happiness. I’m like, “Oh my goodness, what does happiness have to say?” And then he kind of got distracted and he went on his own way. But I thought it was very interesting. This is the first time I’ve ever used parts language with him and he was able to identify all three of those emotions. It was really cool to watch.

Amy: That is amazing. And I love that he used the actions too to point in his body where they were. That just feels amazing. That’s so good.

Bekkilyn: Yeah, it was really fun to watch him and then, of course, we asked anger to sit down for a minute. And a lot of times I was actually going to add, you can ask those parts if they need something, if they need a blanket or if they need to go to a park or if they need to do something. So I use that with my five year old. “Does Teezy need to go to the park for a little while inside of you?” And so then he’ll go ahead and get on the swing or down the slide or something and Teezy Tyler takes a break.

Amy: Interesting. I love that. So you’re not saying, “This part of you is bad or this part is being naughty or anything like that. It’s like, this part must need something. And so it’s trying to be heard right now. I love that idea and that language to kind of help them start to pay attention to, yeah, thir different parts and what their needs are. That’s so good, love it.

Bekkilyn: Yes, okay. You also mentioned something I wanted to touch on. You’ve said it twice, I think, about being grateful for your parts. No matter what role they may take on within your system, being grateful for them is a huge, huge part, because they’re really trying to either protect you for something or they’re carrying a very heavy load. And so either way, they’re really working hard for you. And so if you can find the gratitude and that appreciation for them and let them know, it usually lets them release a little bit of a burden. It’s really, really important to do that.

Amy: It almost to me it sometimes feels like pressure, there’s pressure in that. And if you can kind of just find little ways to release some of the pressure and then you can kind of maybe go and address kind of more what’s going on. But yeah, I think gratitude is one that kind of releases it immediately, releases some of the pressure. And there’s still the burden. It didn’t make it all go away, but it just, that part of you feeling acknowledged like, oh my gosh, I have to do so much.

And just saying, “Thank you for that. You are amazing. And then let’s figure out how we can help. I’ve got these other parts that are all willing to step in and help with this.” Or I don’t know, work out a plan or things like that. I think going to sleep at night is a time sometimes when I think kids struggle with anxiety for some of my kids. And so that’s a time when I’m thinking, how do we help them kind of talk to that part and say, “How can we support you so that you are able to kind of relax and get some sleep?”

Are there other times that you kind of, specific ones, maybe give examples of that would be helpful to parents, just some language or some things that might be helpful for specific parts that come out relatively often in smaller children? Maybe separation, if someone’s having a hard time going to school or being separated, or if someone’s having a really hard time with having to eat something specific or anything like that.

Bekkilyn: Absolutely. So it’s important to not put a lot of pressure on the child, especially in the eating situation let’s say. You can absolutely have a part. You can make it as imaginative as you can possibly think of. You can just come up with different scenarios that maybe the child might become interested in. So let’s take the part where the separation goes. So a kid is very anxious about separating from their parent.

You wouldn’t do it in the moment necessarily, but you would, when things are calm, when you’re not actually leaving them. So do a little bit of work beforehand. And you create a scenario for them. So for instance you would, maybe you can, if they’re comfortable with drawing or if the parent wants to draw, you can draw a little person. And the person could be either a superhero or a knight or something and this is brave so and so. This is your brave part. What does this brave part do when mommy leaves? What does this brave part think of? What does this brave part need?

And you can talk about all of these different parts beforehand so that when you’re leaving and you say, “Remember your brave part, remember that this is what you need.” And you can actually give them some tools right in the moment where you can say, “Okay, they need a sword. What does the sword look like?” And you can come up with whatever it is that your child is interested in.

It could be my child is actually very interested in swords. And so maybe you need to just hold on to your sword, you have this protection or maybe you need to have a timer, it’s like I will be back by this time. And that’s what your protection is, that’s what your tool is to help brave so and so get through this.

Amy: I love that. I love so many parts about that. Yay. Because what we’re doing is we’re identifying, we talked, I think initially kind of more about the parts that are some of our hard parts or maybe not so fun parts. But I love this. We’re talking about parts that help us kind of with some of the other parts. So I love identifying your brave part and then saying. “Okay, identifying it, what does it look like?” Identifying it beforehand so they recognize that is a part of them.

And then saying, “How do we help this part be ready to be able to take care of you?” I just love that. You’re preemptively giving them what they need, predicting what it might need and getting prepared ahead of time. That’s amazing, I love that idea.

Bekkilyn: Yeah, it’s really fun. And you can get really creative with all of it. I had a client once that she had so much separation anxiety that she couldn’t be in a different room from her parent. And so we had to create a scenario where the parent was going to be gone but the child was going to feel safe because she was still in the house. And so instead of following around like a little shadow.

We were like, “Okay, well, here’s what you can do. Here are your tools. And you can go into the garage and see if the car’s there. And here are the steps that you can take as you start to feel that little bit of a fear part coming in.”

And so it gives them solutions and problem solving skills the more you practice. And I do this actually with bedtime as well. So if a child is afraid of monsters at bedtime, then you start to imagine the brave parts. You start to imagine what it’s like and how those brave parts are going to conquer the nightmares. So I’m going to turn it into something silly, “I have my magic wand with me. Got it. That magic wand turns everything silly.” Or if I take them in handcuffs, whatever it is that your child comes up with, you run with it and you can create these scenarios that actually start connecting the wires within your brain.

Amy: I love it so much. I’m just thinking through how I can use this with a couple of my kids.

We’ve been recently kind of changing rooms around. And so I have a kid that has never had her own room that’s now going to have her own space. And so there’s nervousness around having to be alone at night. And so these are things we’ve been talking about and around what this looks like. So I’m getting ideas, this is going to be so good. I’m going to go practice. Before we go, we’re almost out of time but do you just have anything else that maybe I should have asked you that I didn’t ask or any last message you want to just share with our listeners before we have to get off today?

Bekkilyn: Something that I definitely want to make clear is that parents also come with a million parts. And when we have the parts that are very impulsive and angry and you yell at your kid or you do this. Those are just parts of you as well. And being able to recognize those parts is also very helpful. And you can even say them in front of your children like, “Oh my goodness, I have a part coming out right now that is so overwhelmed or so frustrated with this scenario.” It doesn’t mean that I’m mad at the child. It doesn’t mean that I’m mad at the situation, but I have this part and maybe I need to go talk to this part.

If you can maybe demonstrate that a little bit and be that really good example for them then they start to feel a little bit more comfortable with it as well.

Amy: Yeah. I love that, because first of all, we need it for ourselves to just help us remember that this is not necessarily who we are or our identity, but that it’s a part. And that maybe that part needs something because whoa, adults need things too. Who knew, are we allowed to do that? But yeah, and then also modeling it for our kids so that it’s more natural for them to go talk to their parts because they see us doing it. So I love that and I love the language around it. Oh my goodness, I have a part coming out right now and then I need to maybe go talk to it for a minute. That’s so fabulous. The language around that, I love it.

Bekkilyn: Yeah. And so if you can come to them with those eight C’s as a parent, then the child is going to be more open to talking to you. If you come to them with a part that’s really activated, if you come to them with anger or frustration, then they are going to start having their parts put up some walls. But if you can go to your child with one of those eight C’s then they’re going to be open and they’re going to be more willing.

Amy: So good. I’m so excited for everyone to get to go and just kind of play with this and practice a little bit. And maybe the task for today could be to try to identify at least one part that comes out later today and just kind of practice it and then start doing that maybe more regularly. And figuring out how to find our different parts and how to talk to them and be compassionate with them and also manage them a little bit so that they all get along well together.

So thank you so much for coming on today. This has been such an amazing conversation and I’ve been so happy to learn some more from you and I can’t wait to go practice it with myself and my own children.

Bekkilyn: Amy, thank you so much for this opportunity, it’s been wonderful.

Amy: Yeah. Amazing. Thank you.

Bekkilyn: So much fun. Thanks.

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Thank you for hanging out with me today for this fun chat on Raising Healthy Kid Brains. If you want to see more of what we’re doing to support kiddos and their amazing brains, come visit us on our website planningplaytime.com. See you next week.