Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #822 The Emotional Lives of Teenagers (Part 1)

Transcript

#822 The Emotional Lives of Teenagers (Part 1) · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families Podcast. It's the podcast for the
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: time poor parent who just once answers. Now, I'm really
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: excited about a special edition of the Happy Families Podcast today.
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  Speaker 1: My guest is a high profile New York Times best
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  Speaker 1: selling author. You might have heard of her. She has
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  Speaker 1: a very very popular podcast as well. I'm going to
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  Speaker 1: do the whole intro. Doctor Lisa Demore the author of
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  Speaker 1: three three New York Times best sellers, the first one
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  Speaker 1: all about teenage girls called Untangled, the second one, also
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  Speaker 1: about teenage girls, called under Pressure, and her third brand
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  Speaker 1: new book, it's called The Emotional Lives of Teenagers. I
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  Speaker 1: have my doggyed copy with underlining and highlighting all through
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  Speaker 1: it right here. She hosts the Ask Lisa podcast, which
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  Speaker 1: is I think the only parenting podcast that I listened
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  Speaker 1: to because diminishing returns right. You can only listen to
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: so much parenting and there are very few people who
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: are going to say stuff, but it's really worth grabbing
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  Speaker 1: onto it. But this is the one that I listened
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: to outside of my own works in collaboration with UNISEF,
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  Speaker 1: and is recognized as a thought leader by the American
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  Speaker 1: Psychological Association. Doctor de Morris also a regular contributor to
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  Speaker 1: The New York Times and CBS News. And I'm just
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  Speaker 1: delighted to have Lisa joining me on the Happy Families podcast.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being here.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you for having me. I'm honored to hear that
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  Speaker 2: mine is the podcast you listen to.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah it is, and I'm not going to make a
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  Speaker 1: big deal about it, but it's just a thrill to
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  Speaker 1: have you here. Lisa. A couple of personal things about you.
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  Speaker 1: You're based in the United States, you have kids. Why
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  Speaker 1: don't you tell people a little bit about your family
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  Speaker 1: so that they know that you've you don't just have
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  Speaker 1: the clinical knowledge and have written the books, You've actually
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  Speaker 1: got the on the ground experience, right.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm based in Chica Hates Ohio, so in the
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  Speaker 2: American Midwest, and i have two daughters, one who is
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  Speaker 2: nineteen who just finished her first year of college, and
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  Speaker 2: one who is twelve who's going into seventh grade. So
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  Speaker 2: I'm on either ends of adolescence. And I also parented
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  Speaker 2: teenagers and young kid through the you know, when I
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  Speaker 2: think that that was a very unique experience for all
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  Speaker 2: of us.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, thank you for that. As you know, I
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  Speaker 1: have six daughters. My eldest has just recently announced that
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  Speaker 1: she and her husband are expecting our first grandchild.
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  Speaker 2: So congratulations.
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  Speaker 1: I'm a big deal. It's kind of crazy. I'm officially
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  Speaker 1: old enough to be a grandpa.
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  Speaker 2: I don't there you go.
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  Speaker 1: Well, I was going to say, I don't know quite
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  Speaker 1: how that happened, but I do. But we don't. We
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  Speaker 1: don't need to talk about that today. Yeah, all right,
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  Speaker 1: So today's conversation is a little bit different. So formatically,
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  Speaker 1: on The Happy Family's podcast, we normally only talk for
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  Speaker 1: maybe fifteen or so minutes, but having you here, it's
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  Speaker 1: just too good an opportunity. And I want this conversation
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  Speaker 1: to take as long as it needs to to talk
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  Speaker 1: about the emotional lives of teenagers. And I want to
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  Speaker 1: ask you a question that is a little bit of
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  Speaker 1: a provocation right out of the gate, and that is,
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  Speaker 1: do we make too much of a big deal about emotions? Now?
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  Speaker 1: I say that as somebody who teaches parents how to
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  Speaker 1: emotion coach, and I'm all about recognizing our children's emotional world,
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  Speaker 1: the science behind the just the incredible value of it.
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  Speaker 1: And I've watched it happen to my own family when
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  Speaker 1: I make a big deal about my kid's emotions. It's
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  Speaker 1: it's valuable. But the more I'm watching trends in parenting
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  Speaker 1: at the moment, the more I'm becoming concerned that we're
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  Speaker 1: elevating the importance of emotions too much in our efforts
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  Speaker 1: to support our children and our teens. Has the pendulum
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  Speaker 1: swung too far? Lisa?
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  Speaker 2: Perhaps I will tell you what your question reminds me of.
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  Speaker 2: It reminds me of a conversation I had literally almost
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  Speaker 2: twenty years ago, when I was enormously pregnant with the
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  Speaker 2: kid who just finished her first year of college, my
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  Speaker 2: oldest daughter, and so I was about to become a
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  Speaker 2: parent for the first time. And I was with a
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  Speaker 2: senior clinical colleague and we were wrapping up a meeting
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  Speaker 2: and it was the last time I was going to
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  Speaker 2: see her before I went on maternity leave. And I
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  Speaker 2: was almost out the door, and she was like, Lisa,
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  Speaker 2: do you want me to tell you how psychologists mess
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  Speaker 2: up their kids? And I said yes, And she said
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  Speaker 2: they talk about feelings too much, about them too much
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  Speaker 2: that when the kid is having an upset feeling, the
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  Speaker 2: psychologists parent might be saying, oh, you're having a mad feeling,
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  Speaker 2: let's explore that mad feeling. And what she said is
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  Speaker 2: there comes a point where you say, you've been upset
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  Speaker 2: for a while, what's going to help you feel better?
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  Speaker 2: And I think that that line of hers, which is
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  Speaker 2: sort of a throwaway line, really encapsulates what we want
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  Speaker 2: to do is to both validate and acknowledge and take
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  Speaker 2: seriously kids emotions. But if talking about feelings isn't giving relief,
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  Speaker 2: if they're not getting better by just getting some expression
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  Speaker 2: to quickly change gears, And this is really something you know,
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  Speaker 2: I lay on the book to move towards like, well,
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  Speaker 2: then how do we tame that emotion? You know, what's
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  Speaker 2: going to help you feel better? Being one of the
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  Speaker 2: ways that we can start to ask that question. So
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  Speaker 2: I think the way my colleague just guided me, it
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  Speaker 2: was such great advice and I so appreciated it. You know,
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  Speaker 2: on the way out of this meeting has obviously stayed
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  Speaker 2: with me for a very long time.
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  Speaker 1: When you hear that what do you think is going
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  Speaker 1: on for an adolescent? What do you think is going
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  Speaker 1: on in their mind?
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  Speaker 2: Well, I mean I think it happened right that we
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  Speaker 2: say that we want our kids to talk with us
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  Speaker 2: about their feelings, and then when we do, we don't
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  Speaker 2: always know what to do with, you know, with that moment.
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  Speaker 2: And I will tell you my go to response, both
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  Speaker 2: as a parent and also the one I recommend is
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  Speaker 2: just start with empathy. Just it's a very small step.
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  Speaker 2: But I think probably the words I say more than
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  Speaker 2: anything after about nine pm in our house is like,
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  Speaker 2: oh man, that stinks, you know, when they tell me
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  Speaker 2: what's wrong, and my goal is to see us like
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  Speaker 2: is that going to get it right? Is that as
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  Speaker 2: much as you need it? Which is that you told
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  Speaker 2: me about the upset feeling And I said, I hear
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  Speaker 2: that that stinks, or I'm so sorry that happened to you.
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  Speaker 2: And then I take a beat because sometimes they're like, yep,
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  Speaker 2: I thought so too, and then they're ready to move on,
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  Speaker 2: or they may deepen it and want to talk more
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  Speaker 2: about it. But I think offering empathy is a first response,
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  Speaker 2: and offering it with the confidence that that may be
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  Speaker 2: all that is required in the moment does a huge
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  Speaker 2: amount of work of both staying present but also being
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  Speaker 2: a steady presence. Right, we're not getting agitated ourselves, We're
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  Speaker 2: not canceling plans, we're not picking up the phone. We're
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  Speaker 2: just saying empathy maybe what you're looking for here, So
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  Speaker 2: I've got plenty of that.
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  Speaker 1: I have two comments on this. Number One, I'm amazed
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  Speaker 1: that you're even talking after nine pm, because for me,
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  Speaker 1: I've got nothing at all. But secondly, what I love
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  Speaker 1: about that, oh man, that stinks that that line is
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  Speaker 1: you're not trying to fix the problem, but you're also
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  Speaker 1: not going too deep into the emotional world of your teenager.
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  Speaker 1: It's just this surface level. Maybe it's no, it's an
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  Speaker 1: empathic response, but the invitation is then at their feet
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  Speaker 1: to decide what they're going to do.
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  Speaker 2: With Do you want to go deeper? Is that enough?
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  Speaker 1: Great?
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  Speaker 2: And it's a very It's also how much energy I
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  Speaker 2: have at.
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  Speaker 1: APR Okay, I can do that. I arrest my case.
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  Speaker 1: I rest my case. So, Lisa, I see too common
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  Speaker 1: but well intentioned mistakes that parents make when it comes
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  Speaker 1: to their their teens and their emotions. The first mistake
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  Speaker 1: we've already talked about we sometimes make too big of
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  Speaker 1: a deal about emotions. In fact, just on that, We've
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  Speaker 1: had a TV show in the last month or so
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  Speaker 1: here in Australia called Parental Guidance I'm the co host
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  Speaker 1: and expert on the show, and we've had some gentle
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  Speaker 1: parents who are on the show. This time, we get
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  Speaker 1: a whole bunch of parenting styles, whole bunch of parents
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  Speaker 1: in the room. We get all the parents to do
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  Speaker 1: these challenges with their families. We watch the challenges back,
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  Speaker 1: and each parenting style comments on what they're seeing, what
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  Speaker 1: they like, what they don't like about the other parenting styles.
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  Speaker 1: It's fascinating conversations that come out of it. And one
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  Speaker 1: of the biggest criticisms of the gentle parent was you
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  Speaker 1: make too big of a deal about your kid's emotional state,
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  Speaker 1: Like sometimes you've just got to get onto it. And
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  Speaker 1: so this conversation I think, I mean, we've already covered
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  Speaker 1: that off, but I wanted to highlight just how prescient
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  Speaker 1: that issue is right now. But the second one that
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  Speaker 1: I see a lot of parents try to just step
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  Speaker 1: into is that a lot of parents try to shield
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  Speaker 1: their children from emotional pain because I don't want their
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  Speaker 1: kids to be traumatized. Now, there are two questions that
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  Speaker 1: come out of this observation. The first is, I would
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  Speaker 1: love it if you could talk about the idea of
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  Speaker 1: trauma and children and teens experiencing trauma, because my sense
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  Speaker 1: is the definition of trauma has expanded over the last
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  Speaker 1: decade or so. But also if we could talk a
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  Speaker 1: bit about why shielding kids from emotions might be counterproductive.
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  Speaker 2: Just to start with the first part about over focus
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  Speaker 2: on emotion under a focus on emotion, like where does
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  Speaker 2: it really belong? One of the metaphors they share in
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  Speaker 2: the book I learned from a dear colleague of mine
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  Speaker 2: here in town, another psychologist tour named is Terry, and
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  Speaker 2: I cite her in the back of the book, and
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  Speaker 2: she has this great metaphor, And I think this gets
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  Speaker 2: to sort of the gentle parenting question, which is she says,
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  Speaker 2: emotions there should be one member of our personal board
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  Speaker 2: of directors that we all have, like an internal board
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  Speaker 2: of directors. And there's many people at that table, and
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  Speaker 2: it's like or many you know, figures at that table.
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  Speaker 2: So it's like our obligations, our interests, our logistical concerns,
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  Speaker 2: financial concerns, you know, there's all of these things that
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  Speaker 2: help with the making and emotions are on the board
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  Speaker 2: that they do have value in helping us know how
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  Speaker 2: things are going or how we feel, you know, whether
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  Speaker 2: something's working or not working. But the kicker, the way
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  Speaker 2: that Terry says it is emotions chair are on the board.
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  Speaker 2: They do not chair the board, and they almost never
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  Speaker 2: have the deciding vote. And I think that that way
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  Speaker 2: of thinking about it, that emotions are enormously valuable in
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  Speaker 2: balance with other considerations, but they don't call the shots.
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  Speaker 2: You know, very rarely do they call the shots. I
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  Speaker 2: think is a helpful way to approach it. Then there
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: is the issue of trauma, and I would say, justin
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: like to put it quite directly, I do think parents
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  Speaker 2: worry that very very intense emotions will harm their child.
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  Speaker 2: And I can tell you, as the mother of adolescence,
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  Speaker 2: I see where parents get that concern. When a teenager
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  Speaker 2: is having a very very power emotion, it is harrowing
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  Speaker 2: to watch, It is harrowing to be, you know, present for.
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  Speaker 2: And I really have a deep empathy for parents sense
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  Speaker 2: that like, this may be damaging my child for them
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  Speaker 2: to be as upset as they are, Like, I really
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  Speaker 2: get that. Now. The very good news is that is
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  Speaker 2: rarely the case that humans we are built to withstand
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  Speaker 2: a great deal of emotion. Teenagers, by their nature, have
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  Speaker 2: very intense emotions and typically developing teenagers will have a
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  Speaker 2: deeply intense upset emotion followed not too long after by
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  Speaker 2: a perfectly happy emotion. Right, there's sort of a rapid sequence.
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  Speaker 2: So then it gets to the question of can emotions
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  Speaker 2: harm our kids? And the answer to that is yes,
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  Speaker 2: if they are traumatic, which then gets to your question
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  Speaker 2: of what makes something traumatic? And certainly you're right. In
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  Speaker 2: the US, the general discourse around trauma has really broadened
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  Speaker 2: the use of the term. You know, the way we
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: think about it clinically, technically a psychologist has never changed,
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  Speaker 2: but the culture uses the term in a very, very
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  Speaker 2: broad way. So if we go to the definition that
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  Speaker 2: we rely on as clinicians, a trauma is an experience
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  Speaker 2: that out matches a person's ability to cope with the experience.
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  Speaker 2: And the metaphor I use in my book is it's
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  Speaker 2: the difference between like a surge of water that tests
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: a dam and a surge of water that breaks a dam. Right,
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  Speaker 2: if coping is the dam and you know water are
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  Speaker 2: the emotions. We do not want people overwhelmed. Now here's
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: the really like precise and important and maybe nitpicky a
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: critical issue and you know this, but just to explain
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  Speaker 2: to your listeners. We don't actually refer to events as traumatic.
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  Speaker 2: We refer to impact as traumatic because the same event
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  Speaker 2: could traumatize one person but on another. And we know
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  Speaker 2: this right from years of studying soldiers. You know that
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  Speaker 2: they were all in the same battalion, they all went
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  Speaker 2: through the same horrors. Some come back and they're totally
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  Speaker 2: traumatized and others are just deeply upset, right, And so
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  Speaker 2: it's really an interaction between the event, to whom the
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  Speaker 2: event occurs, the various factors involved with the person who
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  Speaker 2: experiences the bad event. Now that said important asterisk. There's
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  Speaker 2: some things that people go through that are just so
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  Speaker 2: bad we call them traumas because they're almost certainly going
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  Speaker 2: to traumatize anybody, right, I mean, so you know, like
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  Speaker 2: horrors of war and you know, obviously terrible assaults like
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  Speaker 2: things like that. But the question of trauma usually comes
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  Speaker 2: down to is the person able to cope with what happened?
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  Speaker 2: And if the answer is no, then they stand to
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  Speaker 2: be traumatized. And if a person is traumatized, it leaves
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  Speaker 2: a mark. It is definitely bad for kids, it's bad
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  Speaker 2: for anybody to be traumatized. But when you get into
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  Speaker 2: the subtleties of it. It's not always so cut and dried.
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  Speaker 2: What's the trauma or what's not going to be a
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: trauma for any given person.
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  Speaker 1: I love the dam bursting and my resources to cope
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  Speaker 1: with the demands of the moment. That's such a beautiful
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  Speaker 1: illustration of that. It's terribly reductionist of me to say it.
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  Speaker 1: But the word that I'll usually use when I'm describing
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  Speaker 1: trauma is trauma is a result of processing. If we've
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  Speaker 1: got the capacity to process and respond in healthy, in
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  Speaker 1: adaptive ways, then even the most quote unquote traumatic things
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  Speaker 1: can be minimally impactful. And there's your word again, the
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  Speaker 1: quality of the impact, which which for me comes back
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  Speaker 1: to a processing issue. We still haven't dealt with the
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: underplaying of emotions. But I just want to stay with
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: this trauma concept for a minute. When our children experience
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: something that we perceive could be traumatic because of their
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: huge emotional response, because of the quality they're processing right now,
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  Speaker 1: the impact that it seems to have seems overwhelming. Outside
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  Speaker 1: of empathy, which we've obviously covered off quite comprehensively already,
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  Speaker 1: what other tools to parents have to support their children.
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  Speaker 1: Some of the kids can respond adaptively and process effectively.
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  Speaker 2: What that brings us to is like the giant, gorgeous
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: body of work on emotion regulation. I love that we're
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  Speaker 2: talking about kids having really big, powerful feelings and those
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: are unavoidable. Those are often valuable for growth and development,
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  Speaker 2: but they do need to be regulated. And as you know,
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  Speaker 2: nearly half of my book, the chapters four and five
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  Speaker 2: there's only five chapters, is devoted to very specific strategies
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  Speaker 2: to help kids regulate, and it's in two buckets. Chapter
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  Speaker 2: four is, sometimes kids regulate emotions through expressing them, talking
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: about them, getting them out, physically, weeping, listening to music
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  Speaker 2: that catalyzes the experience. And sometimes kids regulate emotions by
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: taming them, by finding ways to quiet them, so seeking comforts,
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: temporary distractions, problem solving, gaining a new perspective, taking advice.
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  Speaker 2: You know, like there's that sort of in that group
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: of regulatory strategies. And so the job of an adult
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  Speaker 2: is two things. One is watch what your kid does.
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  Speaker 2: I think so often we're like in there trying to
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: intervene and the kid is like, I'm going to go
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: cuddle with the dog and watch my show. Right, the
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: kid is already well underway with perfectly gorgeous coping. If
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  Speaker 2: and only if your kid cannot figure out a way
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  Speaker 2: to express feelings that brings relief and or a way
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: to tame feelings that brings relief, then you get in
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  Speaker 2: on it. Maybe get them talking if you think they
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: need to do that. Maybe offer them comforts if you
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  Speaker 2: think that would actually help take the emotion down a
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: few notches. But to see ourselves in that auxiliary role
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  Speaker 2: of supporting what truly kids do quite naturally. And I
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: think often, and I think this was very much an
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: effect of writing this book, I think often we don't
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  Speaker 2: appreciate enough how good kids are regulating their own emotions,
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  Speaker 2: because sometimes they use strategies that strike becaus as quirky
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  Speaker 2: or just don't appreciate them, like you know, gone outside
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  Speaker 2: to you know, run around and play sports and blow
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  Speaker 2: off steam. Like that's an emotion regulatory strategy for a
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  Speaker 2: lot of kids. It's a good one, but we don't
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  Speaker 2: always see it for what it is.
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  Speaker 1: Let's say we go back to that first example that
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  Speaker 1: you use. You've got a child who's had a big emotion,
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  Speaker 1: maybe they have experienced something that's quite traumatic, and now
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  Speaker 1: they're sitting in front of the television, eating ice cream
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: out of the blanket and pedting the dog like you
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  Speaker 1: suggested for me. I would see my child doing that,
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  Speaker 1: and I would be concerned. Hang on, this is not adaptive.
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  Speaker 1: Is you're not actually dealing with it. You're distracting yourself.
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  Speaker 1: You're not there at all. Now I know the value
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: of distraction in my mind. Logically, I get that sometimes
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  Speaker 1: you just need a day or two or a week
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  Speaker 1: or two to adapt to the new reality. Your friends
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  Speaker 1: have been bullying you, you've lost your friendship group, you've
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: dumped your boyfriend or your girlriend, or they dumped you.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: Some big emotional upheopal has happened, and you kind of
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: do need to just hide under the blankets and hibernate.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: And yet on about day two or day three, you
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: know that, even though you know that this is necessary
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: and mourning and grief are part of the emotional repertoire
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: and experience of kids, you know that you're going to
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: be banging on that door and saying you need to
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: get up, You need to get on with things like
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: this process of leaving it to them, but feeling a
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: need to interfere. It's a reality of parenting right, and
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: we just want the best for our kids. Our intentions
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: are good. Where do we draw that line.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: Let's say it wasn't traumatic, but it was very upsetting,
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: because obviously if a kid's been traumatized, we're going to
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: go down a different path in terms of intervention, but
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: just very upsetting. The goal of good coping is that
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: it brings relief and does no harm. That's the definition
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: of what constitutes good coping. And so it's well within
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: the realm of possibility that a kid could use distraction
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: for coping and get relief, but start to use so
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: much distraction, you know, day after day binge watching TV
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: or day after day playing on video games to try
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: to suppress emotions, that it starts to cause harm, meaning
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: they're not doing the other things they're supposed to be doing,
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: or they're not getting enough sleep, or they're now becoming
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: you know, and they're not physically active, or it's damaging
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: their good relationships. And so I think that that if
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: we work with then that idea of like, if it's
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: bringing relief and doing no harm, it's fine. And I
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: tell this story in this book about my older daughter
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: with her permission at the height of her stress about
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: the college process taking she had a can of Seltzer
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: and she was closed and she was shaking it, and
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: I was like, what are you doing. She's like, I'm
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: so stressed about the college process. I'm gonna go spray
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: this all over the backyard. Okay, super weird brings relief
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: does no harm? Fine, Like fine, Like we can sacrifice
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: one can of seltzer to the college process. So what
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: I've come to really think about and again, like it's
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: so useful, and I know you have this experience too,
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: like when you write a book, like you really have
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: to sort out a new way of thinking about things,
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: especially around distraction. The issue with distraction is not in
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: and of itself distraction. Distraction can actually be very valuable.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: It's dosing, right that you can't distract so much that
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: you create a new set of problems. And so my
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: own conversation is clinically with teenagers are much much better
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: now that I'm like, yeah, distract yourself, fine, like video games. Fine,
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: it's not the distraction, it's the dosing. That conversation goes
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: well because they're like, yes, I'm not doing my homework
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: because of the distraction. I'm like all right, you need
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: to fix the dosing, like you can still play video games,
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: but not so much.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: I love the simplicity of that. It's just so it's
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: so reassuring to hear. Now, let's step back into that
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: last part of that question that we kind of moved
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: away from shooting emotions, shooting our kids from their big emotions.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: Can we talk about why that's counterproductive and are there
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: any times when it actually would be useful?
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: So the useful time is if you think there's a
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: chance they could become traumatized, right, I think that that's
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: the line, Like, we don't let kids become traumatized if
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: we can help it. And so if you know, you know,
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: that is just going to overwhelm a kid. And it's interesting,
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: like even you can picture, like you know, kids looking
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: at horror movies, right, that could be traumatizing for some kids,
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: or kids watching pornography can be traumatizing for them like
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: that they'd start unable to cope and then they really
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: are suffering as a result. So we shield kids from
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: those kinds of things. There is, however, and this is
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: I think the hardest thing to come to terms with
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: as a parent. There's such value in our kids experiencing distress.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: And I think the reason it's so hard as a
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: parent is that we are programmed to not want to
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: see our kids in pain, right, I mean, when your
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: kid is in pain, like it's just everything in you
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: as a parent wants to make it stop. And even
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: like anytime my daughters have had like colds, right or flus,
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: I have thought, like I would give anything that I
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: could have the symptoms and not watch them have the symptoms.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: Like I would so much rather be sick than witness
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: them being sick, you know. And and so I think
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: when our kid's in pain, like every like sell in
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: our parenting body is like what can I do? What
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: can I do to stop this? Okay, but here's why
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: we don't want to. Number One, it's the waste of
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: your energy. Your kid's going to be in pain, so
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: like save your energy for helping them through it, Like
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: you're you can't get around this. Number Two, it helps
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: them grow. You know that when kids are in pain
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: either because you know, maybe they had a bad breakup
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: and so they have to like really figure out how
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: to get past that. Who they can draw on for support,
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: like making sense of that relationship for themselves figuring that out.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: Like it's miserable to watch, but it's a huge growth
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: experience to come through something like that, or they learn
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: not to do something that they shouldn't have done that
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: caused so much pain, right, I mean, just you know,
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: I think about a fifteen year old boy I had
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: in my practice who cheated and got caught and it
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: was bad and he was in big trouble and he
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: got stuck with me and it was not good. And
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: I remember him saying, like, you know, this is really
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: making me think about the kind of person I want
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: to be, you know, and you don't get there through
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: easy experiences. So it's hard to watch our kids in pain,
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: and yet there's real value. And it also, this is
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: the other thing. It's where empathy comes from. I mean
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: that experience of like being willing to face and accept
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: one's own distress. I think it is actually the basis
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: of being able to tolerate and accept other people's distress.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: I've been talking with doctor Lisa Demore. She is the
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: author of the Emotional Lives of Teenagers, a brand new
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: best selling book on the New York Times List all
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: about the emotional lives about teenagers. Because I had so
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: much fun talking with Lisa, and the conversation went so long.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: We're going to bring you part two of this discussion
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: next Wednesday. Can't wait to share it with you as
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: we talk about a whole lot of other things like
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: why are boys doing such harmful things, especially not just
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: to themselves but also to the girls around them, And
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: what does shame do as an emotion to our teens.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: That's all coming up next week as we continue our
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: conversation with doctor Lisa Demore, the author of the Emotional
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: Lives of Teenagers. The Happy Families podcast is produced by
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: Justin Ruland from Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: producer and if you like more about making your family happier,
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: please please visit us at Happy Families dot com dot
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: au and become a member today. When you become a member,
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: you support the work that we're doing and help us
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: to reach more families to make a bigger difference in
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: their lives.