Cobie Smulders | Staying Positive and Building Resilience in Kids | The Breakdown With Bethany
I’m so happy to be back with a brand new season of The Breakdown with Bethany. This season has been a labor of love and I got to talk to even more celebs, athletes, entrepreneurs, and experts to bring you the best information to help you live your best life. My first guest is actress Cobie Smulders (How I Met Your Mother, The Avengers) and we talk about her teaming up with the Colgate Smile Fund, how she stays positive, and she suggests building resilience in our kids. Stay tuned for more episodes of The Breakdown with Bethany coming soon!
Cobie Smulders | Staying Positive and Building Resilience in Our Kids | The Breakdown with Bethany
Cobie Smulders Talks Staying Positive and Building Resilience in Our Kids
Bethany Braun-Silva: Hi! Welcome to a brand new season of The Breakdown with Bethany. I’m Bethany Braun-Silva, and it’s season two, and I’m gonna be bringing you even more celebrities, experts, and entrepreneurs, all with the hope to inspire you to live your best life. Now, the first episode of season two is a big one. I’m gonna be welcoming actress, Cobie Smulders, who has starred in hit shows like How I Met Your Mother and of course, the Marvel movie franchise. We’re gonna be talking about staying positive and building resilience in our kids, so you’re not gonna wanna miss it and you’re not gonna wanna miss this entire season, so stay tuned. Bethany Braun-Silva: Let’s jump in and tell me about the Colgate Smile Fund and why this was a good partnership, a good fit for you to team up with.
Cobie Smulders: Well, first of all, you know good dental hygiene has always been in my life because my father was a dentist, and so, I don’t have a cavity. First of all, I don’t have a single cavity. So, toothpaste works, guys, and so that’s one thing. But yeah, so it’s always been in my world, I’ve always had awareness of it, I’ve always known its importance. I’ve like used Colgate for like my entire adult life. So when they came to me, I was so happy to first of all just to promote their brand because it’s a brand that I use and again, like going back to just being good about dental hygiene, I love it. But then they were talking to me about the Colgate Smile Fund which is doing amazing things. Right now, they’re getting a grant for City Year which is an organization that provides mentoring to, to schools, uh, around the country. And with a focus on socio-emotional learning. We’ve just come up with some kind of in this insane sort of pandemic life but we’re trying to find out what our new normal is and it’s just, that it’s challenging for everybody. Obviously, everybody is dealing with it in varying degrees but I think it’s just the kids have just really taken a hit. And you know, my own kids were in Zoom school and we were lucky enough to be in a Zoom school program. But it’s, you know, I think it’s time to sort of bolster not only their education in the classroom and getting them back into classrooms but also just helping them deal with what’s happening mentally, what’s happening emotionally. To go from being isolated to them jumping back in and trying to find new friends and keeping and nurturing relationships. It’s sort of a skill that has to be constantly exercised. And, so yeah, I was really excited when they came to me to talk about this program. And I think that any mother who is listening, or reading, or whatever, to see if they can find, to connect with City Year and see if they can get it in their own school.
Bethany Braun-Silva:
Yeah, you know, I’m a mom myself and dealing with, you know, pandemic learning and struggles was one thing and then I think when, it’s hard to say when we got our bearings. It feels like we never got our bearings throughout the pandemic but when we started to be able to come up for air, one of the most alarming things that I discovered or was reading about was sort of the impact of you know mental health in our kids because of the pandemic. And I know, you have a teenager so I’m wondering, what were your concerns there? Were you, how do you address that with your own child? Is that a conversation you guys are having around mental health awareness, maybe cyberbullying, anything like that? If you could just offer a few tips or thoughts on that, it’ll be great.
Cobie Smulders:
Well, yeah, I might be a youthful-looking woman but I’m actually inside an 80-year-old woman so like we don’t do a lot of screens. There’s no social media – certainly, there is for me and my husband – but we don’t allow it for our children. So in terms of cyberbullying which is just like, it’s terrifying. We don’t have that happening because they don’t have access to it yet which I would highly recommend. But it’s a tricky time. I mean, The thing that I constantly do with myself is play the game of, “Hey Cobie, do you remember when you were thirteen? Do you remember like how at times you just kind of felt like an insane person and chemically, you are?” Like there are so many changes happening in your body and in your brain and so I often reflect back to 13-year-old Cobie and I was, I was a monster. So also, it’d be helpful to be like “My kids are great!”. I am not like “they are so well-behaved and they were not doing half the stuff I was doing at their age.” I play that.
In terms of supporting them, I think it’s like, what you were kind of touching upon which is just – It’s not over. It’s kind of over, this pandemic. And so, I think it’s – what the pandemic has certainly brought up for me is the ability to pivot more and the ability to deal with disappointment and I think that I try to it’s not perfect, it’s an unperfected skill but lead by example. And certainly, we have bad days and good days and on the bad days I say “Hey, I’m having a bad day and I’m sorry” and “I shouldn’t have said that” or “I shouldn’t have reacted in this way and “That wasn’t right when I did this.” So I do try to do that but I think it’s also about staying present within what is today like. Okay, today is a great day. Let’s celebrate that. Okay, today was a bad day, let’s be in that. And yeah, I think that’s been helpful for me because anytime I try to plan or look ahead, it gets you – and ideas create in your mind of what that experience is gonna be. And so I found that if you just kind of day to day. Let’s make breakfast together, let’s go for a walk on the beach together, you know, we’re going to this camp. Whatever it is, if are just kind of able to sit and enjoy that it’s a little healthier, I find, and a little easier.
Bethany Braun-Silva:
I apologize to my kids multiple times a day. I feel like sometimes…
Cobie Smulders:
I am sorry, it’s gonna be above the road, I’m learning guys. We’re in this together.
Bethany Braun-Silva:
I know, it’s like, I feel like I’m, my kids are 6 and 10 and I still feel like a new parent. I’m still a new parent. But anyways, I know part of the Colgate campaign is sort of about building resiliency and positivity in our kids but I’m {inaudible}. And for moms this is a conversation where we are constantly talking about in the media and news but, when you’re having a bad day for yourself, like how do you get yourself out of it or do you not? What do you do when you are just not feeling like being a mom today or just dealing with some really heavy stuff?
Cobie Smulders:
Yeah, I mean, listen – I am only grateful for the mom role because I think the mom role forces you on those bad days to be like “somebody’s gonna make breakfast today” so “I gotta get them to school” and so on a personal level it’s sort of forced me to focus, right? And to prioritize. I think, it’s, you know what? I think it’s okay to wallow in it when bad stuff happens. I mean you can’t have the good without the bad, so I’m always sort of this is a bad day and that’s just let’s acknowledge that and it will pass. I think that’s also the sort of the mantra, right? This is not gonna last forever. This is not gonna last forever. And so it’s – I don’t have a problem sitting in bad things. I’m sort of a believer in like the- let’s acknowledge that this is a bad moment and then we can kind of move forward from it and learn from it, too, right? Like you’re just trying to be like, “How do we get out of this?”, “How do we just bounce right back?”. It’s like, Well, we should also just acknowledge this and soak it in and see what that actually feels like.
Bethany Braun-Silva:
Yeah, and you know, some of the things I like to ask moms especially – what do you hope – and it’s hard to pin down one thing – but what are you really hoping your… like we talk about key takeaways and things like that. But what do you hope you really are passing down to your kids right now? If they were asked what is the one thing you’ve learned from your mother. What do you hope that they would say?
Cobie Smulders:
Oh Lord. What do I hope they would say?
Bethany Braun-Silva:
You know, it’s interesting, too, because we don’t always give ourselves like a lot of the credit so {inaudible} turning it on you to sort of say {inaudible}
Cobie Smulders:
I’m 100% Canadian so like I can’t even take compliments about anything. So it’s hard for me to be like – I’m great at this. I think it’s like – I’ve had experiences – that I had to deal with, very intense, like when I was 25 years old. Sort of, are we continuing on with life? Or is it this kind of moment? And I think because of that I have really tried to soak it all in. Again, going back to being present within moments. And also just like having fun. You know, I think that, this day and age, there’s a lot of pressure on all of us, right? There’s a lot of pressure on all of us, but I think especially on kids, to succeed, to carve their own path and I certainly felt that when I was younger but you have to enjoy this life because we only get one. So I’m hoping that’s gonna {inaudible} take that away but I hope that they can kind of take something positivity in like moving forward through life with a smile. And be a good – that’s it! I just thought it, but I just got it– Be a good human. Like be a decent, kind, empathetic human. That goes above all else. Like just be nice, don’t be a jerk. Do not be jerk. You know, it’s a no-jerk policy. That’s number one. Also like have a great time, right?
Bethany Braun-Silva:
Yeah.
Cobie Smulders:
Be a good, decent human and help others.
Bethany Braun-Silva:
Love it. I’m gonna put it on a pillow or something. We’ll get that in for you later.
Cobie Smulders:
Let’s embroider, let’s start a new hobby.
Bethany Braun-Silva:
Yeah! Alright, wrapping up here but really quick. I know a lot of your How I Met Your Mother cast mates are also parents. I have envisioned you guys like on this crazy group chat, sharing like parenting tips and all. Do you get any kind of like parenting advice or tips?
Cobie Smulders:
Yeah. Honestly, I came into the parenting game in I think, Neil hadn’t had his twins yet but was in that space coz I was younger than everybody and I sort of had my first child young. But Ali had had her daughter maybe a month or two before me so it was really helpful to sort of feel like “okay, so that’s coming” and it was really cool to both be on the show and sort of supporting each other through our pregnancies. And then still to this day, I mean Neil is unfortunately in New York so on another coast but Ali is here and we attend volleyball games together and all sorts of things so we’re very supportive to each other in that.
Bethany Braun-Silva:
I love to hear that. I love to hear that. Final question, my son is a huge, huge Marvel fan.
Cobie Smulders:
Who isn’t, Bethany? Who isn’t?
Bethany Braun-Silva:
I tell you, I mean like Guardians of the Galaxy – all of them. And so he’s really excited about me talking to you. But I have to also ask, any upcoming projects in the Marvel universe? Anything like that?
Cobie Smulders:
Yeah, I’m gonna be in a series called Secret Invasion. That will be out on Disney Plus. I don’t know when but Comic-Con is this coming weekend so he’s gonna get like a hefty dose of information. So they’ll probably be announcing when things are airing but I’ll be in that and I think it comes out later this year (inaudible). But it’s a Samuel Jackson show and it’s really cool.
Bethany Braun-Silva:
Awesome. I can’t wait! If you have any information, you can share it now, about Colgate.
Cobie Smulders:
(inaudible)I just wanna make sure that people take advantage of City Year’s organization for their kids and if they don’t have this program in their school, they should look into it.
Bethany Braun-Silva:
Great. Awesome, I’ll share all that information when we share this video.
Cobie Smulders:
Awesome, so thank you for that.
Bethany Braun-Silva:
So Cobie, thank you so much. This is such a thrill.
Cobie Smulders:
Happy to talk with you. Enjoy the rest of your day.
Bethany Braun-Silva:
Alright. Really appreciate it, thank you!
Cobie Smulders:
Take care. Bye!
Listen to this Episode as a Podcast:
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She was previously the Senior Editor of Big Apple Parent Magazine and has written for OK! Magazine, Hollywood Life, Mom.com, and CafeMom. She is a graduate of New York University, but her proudest accomplishment is being a mom to Elias and Jake who make life (and work) endlessly fun!
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