Latest / The Trauma Therapist / Episode 793: Owning Your Kid's Mental Health with Jason Reid

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Episode 793: Owning Your Kid's Mental Health with Jason Reid · The Trauma Therapist

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Or welcome back to the Trauma Therapist Podcast. My name is Gamiferson. My
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mission is to help trauma therapist be their incredible selves, to be human,
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to be real, not just a clinician. I'm a big believer in who
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we are is more important than what we know, and this requires cultivating authenticity,
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genuineness, and vulnerability, and that requires intention. Can learn more about
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my courses and workshops by going to the Trauma Therapist project dot com. That's
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the Trauma Therapist Project dot com. Let's get started, all right, here
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we go five four, three, two and one. Our folks, welcome
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back to the podcast. I am very excited to have as Mike guest today.
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Jason read Jason, Welcome to the podcast. Thank you, guys.
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I really appreciate having me on here. You are welcome. So. Jason
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is the founder and chair of Tell My Story. In twenty eighteen, he
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lost his fourteen year old son Ryan to suicide. His tragic loss send him
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on a mission to educate parents and spread awareness about the dangers of youth suicide.
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Jason has dedicated himself to increasing awareness and ending the stigma around the conversation
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of mental health. He's committed to working with parents, educators and organizations that
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are in alignment with the Tell My Story mission. He's also a partner at
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CEO International, where he coaches CEOs on how to be successful. He co
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founded National Services Group, which employs twenty five hundred people across the three brands
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nationwide. He's a leader, an entrepreneur, and a devoted family man.
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Welcome, so Mean Before we can go in here, Jason, share with
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the listeners where you're from originally and where you are currently. So. I
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was born in Canada, lived in Toronto, Montreal, across Ontario and Quebec
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until I was twenty two, and I came down here actually on my twenty
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sive second birthday for a job that I had, and that was gosh,
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I'm fifty six now, so it was out thirty four years ago something like
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that. Awesome. And I live in sunny California. I live in Mariatta,
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California with my wife, and we've been married for thirty years and we
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still have obviously, we have our twenty six shorld son Derek, who's nearby,
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our daughter Ashlal, who was getting married this weekend and moving back nearby,
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and my son Kyle who lives about forty five minutes away, so family's
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all really close and comfortable in sunny California. That's where he planned to stay.
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Awesome, awesome, So what happened? Well, here's here's the message
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for the story is I can tell it to you as succinctly as possible.
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You know, Ryan had just turned fourteen and Kim and I were away celebrating
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her birthday, which we like to do every year, and we didn't see
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any signs if he had any challenges, to be completely honest, And then
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and one night while we were traveling, he sent us a text saying goodbye.
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That night he took his life. We raced back from Mexico. He
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was in Rady's Children Hospital for five days. They held they kept him alive.
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He really wasn't alive, but we were able to spend those last five
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days with him, and at that point we toomed off of life support and
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he passed on. So the obvious question is, you know, did you
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see signs? Did you know this was happening? And I can be completely
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honest and say we didn't, We didn't know. We were you know,
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we're very close family, and you know, if we travel together, we
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eat dinner together. We you know, I travel a lot, but when
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I was told I focused on my kids. And Ryan was pretty nice about
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that. Part of his last message just about us. But he was struggling.
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He was in pain, and he wasn't telling anybody. And from my
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standpoint, looking back on it, you know, I had four teenagers.
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He was the grumpiest. He was the least grumpy of the four, so
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I thought he was. I never thought about it. We never thought about
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mental health as a family because we thought everybody's fine. You know, we're
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all there's no big issues in our life. And you know, you look
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back and you say there were some science He was a little quieter, more
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time in his room. Thought it was just him becoming a teenager, but
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there was more to it. And now I look back and go, I
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should have seen this. I should have seen this, and I should have
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seen this. So since then, you know, I've gone on. I've
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done a couple of ted X talks, out of the Gate, a goal
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cast for dads. I was talking to a group of dads in Montreal at
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the library. Did the movie Tell My Story? We have the new program
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called What I Wish My Parents Knew? Was going in to schools Now,
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I've been on a on a mission to try and make a difference, and
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I would kind of put it to you this way, guys that when I
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started, I was angry and arrogant, and I thought I was going to
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change the whole world because no one was doing enough. So I've said,
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you know, and I don't know why Sherry decided to say something. It's
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actually it's son sonas now speaks to me. I don't know that's all about.
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I'm sorry about that. But anyways, you know, I I set
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up a mission under chooselife dot org, which was my original nonprofit, which
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was great up until the you know, all the anti abortion stuff came back
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into the light. That was, by the way, originally a anti suicide
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or a suicide awareness name Choose Life, but it got co opted. Anyway,
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let me let me if I may. First of all, I want
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to sorry, you know, that's perfectly right. I just want to jump
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in here and really thank you for coming on here and sharing this. I
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mean, there's no other way to say it. Then. This is horrible,
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I mean it's so tragic and for you to come on here and talk
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about this, Uh, I really appreciate it. I mean, it's obviously
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hard. It takes a lot of guts, and I just want to put
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that out there and say thank you, thank you. I also you're welcome,
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and I also want to move on, but I want to if we
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may. You know, you said you didn't see any signs, but now
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in retrospect, bomb, you know, you still maybe you should have seen
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this, this, this, this, sure and a lot of us are
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listening. I have a fourteen year old son. You know, a lot
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of us are listening to this, and all of our hands are up.
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What didn't you see? I didn't see that he was truly hurting inside.
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I didn't see that he saw the zero outs besides taking his own life.
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I didn't see any of it. Why was he hurting? Do you know,
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to this day, we'll never know, right, because he gave us
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a couple of quick notes basically saying I love you, but nothing of any
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color that said, here's what I was struggling with. And I think this
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is an important piece for everybody, and I'd like to get, you know,
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just to take this in a little bit of a different direction for a
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second, look at what went what I went through. My wife went through.
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I hope no one goes through. And the reality is you're probably not
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going to go through it because the seven to ten thousand whatever the stats are
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saying these days of kids that took their life this last year. It's a
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big number, right, but it's not a big number in the scope of
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how many kids aren't or in the United States. So your odds are pretty
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good. But here's where your ods are not very good. Forty percent of
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kids out there have experienced in the last year some kind of major depression and
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anxiety issue that and they're hurting and they don't know what to do about it.
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And that's where I kind of want to shift the conversation away from suicide
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and more to depression and anxiety, because depression and anxiety not dealt with the
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right way ends up potentially being suicide. But we got to catch it earlier,
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and the chances are that your child, not yours, necessary guy,
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but someone someone's child has. That issue is a heck of a lot bigger
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than it was when I grew up, when you grew up, and even
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ten years ago, even pre pandemic, it's not I mean, it's massive,
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right. We were in the biggest mental health crisis we've ever seen,
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right, And a lot of us don't know what to look at for I'm
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a fifty six year old guy. What that I grew up? No one
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did this. We didn't talk about depressure, We didn't talk about anxiety.
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There's no suicide. If you were if you were frustrated, if you were
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sad, someone shake it off. And we just did. But it was
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a different world, right, It's a whole different world now, like when
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you and I grew up. I'm assume we're close to the same age somewhere
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in there, right. Yeah. Of course when the phone rang, it
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was on the wall, right, and my dad answered it, and he's
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saying, and he decided if you were allowed to talk to that person,
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and if he let you and stand next to you until you awkwardly say eve
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tomorrow. Right, that was life there was. We didn't pay attention to
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the news. I don't know about you, but the news on at six
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and seven o'clock at night. I didn't watch it. I was thirteen,
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fourteen years of age. Why the hell am I gonna watch the news?
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Because you asked your son right now, it's a son, right, your
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son's fourteen Your son probably knows that someone has told him where he's read it
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that the whole world's going to come to an end in ten years because of
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global warming, So why bother that. You know, he was worried about
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dying from the pandemic and now he feels like he's probably okay, But gosh,
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he took that vaccine, So now what's going to happen? Right?
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And then you know, are we going to go to war with Russia?
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And if we don't go to war with Russia, are we to worth China.
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I didn't think about that stuff as a kid, right, I didn't
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have all this pressure to get into school and have the best grades and have
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a scholarship. His college was cheap and if you went, great and your
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parents like you should go, but okay, up to you. So the
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pressure to being a child today at thirteen fourteen is so much different than being
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in child back then. And then you overlay this thing is that when you
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think about it as parents, our lives are so much more complicated because we're
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dealing with the same stuff. Right, We're like, oh my gosh,
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this is the world going to come to an end. I have both parents
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now have to work to keep things together. They're on social media like what
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the heck right, my life's crazy and this other people's lives are better.
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So we're trying to keep our stuff together while we're trying to have our kids'
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lives together. And this has been on the top of my mind a lot
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in the last twenty four hours because I did a talk with a group of
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kids that a Sagulaw, Michigan yesterday did an online thing and these were just
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normal because Sagulin, Michigan is a very trouble that's a tough place to grow
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up, low income, lots of challenges. And the kids I spoke to
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were five top kids from the school district. The school district set it up
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and they were the valedictorians, football players. One of the kids sat,
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I mean, just amazing kids Rosa Parks Scholarship, Like amazing freaking kids.
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And when I talked to them about their mental health and their families and what
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it was like, here's the kind of stuff you hear or I heard my
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mom's a saying, mom, she works three jobs. I don't want to
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tell her what's going on, right, scare right. I had to do
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on my own stuff because my mom's got around stuff to do with, and
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they just it's a lot of trying to get by. I hear if these
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kids going. You know, one of the kids said, this is all
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great, Jay, but you know the thing we don't talk about. We
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tend a all these mass shootings and all this kind of stuff, But there
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were five kids at my school and my buddy school last year each five kids
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at each school who died from gang violence, and nobody talks about it.
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So these kids are dealing with a whole bunch of different stuff that you and
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I didn't have to deal with, right, because when I came home,
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my mother was a stay at home mother. A lot of people were back
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then they could do it. And my mother didn't have a phone, and
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my mother didn't have a computer. And the only thing my mother would do
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that would distract her from the kids is maybe she watched Days of our lives.
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Otherwise she's just there to focus on the kids. Right. So it's
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a whole different world, right, But that twelve thirteen, fourteen year old
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kid, the brain is the same brain, and you know this bedan I
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would that we had, But they're dealing with so much more. Am I
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making sense? Well, you're making perfect sense, and I think you know
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we're talking globally. I mean, what it? What is your message?
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What do you want to hear that they can do? Okay, so let
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me tell you what I what My big message is to parents. Excuse me.
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I want you to own your kids' mental health the way you own your
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kid's physical health. And I'll tell you what I mean by that. Right
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now, when you're child walks into your room where it stumbles out to have
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bread, I don't want to go to the first thing we do is you're
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lying. It's Monday morning. You know what it was called? Because that's
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a number of reaction. Right. Then we go, all right, so
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what's going on? Well, my stomach hurt's here, and we go push
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on, Oh well maybe done. Oh wait, you got a fever.
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Oh wait, I should get you to the doctor. And we go into
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that mode. Let's figure it, let's go figure it all out, right,
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par many times now, our thirteen fourteen year old son daughter comes home
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and says, I broke up with my boyfriend or my girlfriend, and I
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don't think life starts living anymore. And this is just terrible, And we
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go, oh, you're so dramatic. It's gonna be fine. There's so
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many other kids out there. If they can't see how wonderful you are,
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don't worry about them. You're gonna be just fine. I got to go
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back to my meeting. And maybe when I grew up and you that was
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fine. It's not more. So I want parents to, Okay, I
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need to take an active role in the mental health of my kids, not
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because I think that my suicide, because they might be depressed and that's a
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crappy way to live them dealing with their depression and anxiety is not a fun
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way to live. And then so parents then ask me, okay, so,
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Jay, I tell me what it's supposed to do. I'm like,
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well, I'll tell you a couple of things because I'm not you. I'm
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not trained, I'm not a therapist, right, I'm telling you what I've
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learned from a whole bunch of people. I've talked to you and the stuff
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that I've kind of made up on my own. And one of the things
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I've made up on my own is this whole idea of I've never been depressed.
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Guy, I've never been depressed. I don't know what it's like right.
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I have been sad a lot, but it passes right right after Ryan
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passed, definitely sad, right, But depression no. So what I like
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to explain to people is that if you've never dealt with depression, that it's
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you have to get this through your head. I live in southern California.
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I can look out that window most days, not this year, and it's
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sunny, not a cloud in the sky. If I had someone with me
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who's depressed right now, they can look at that same sky and they'll see
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only clouds. And there's nothing I can say that's going to make them not
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see clouds. They're going to see clouds. I can say, what are
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you crazy, there's not a in the sky. What are you looking at?
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I'm going I don't see a cloud, and I see it like clouds.
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If you're trying to convince them there's no clouds in their sky, all
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they're going to do is shut down and I'll talk to you. And you
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want them to talk to you, right, So what I try to say
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is all you can do is ask them about their clouds and get them to
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talk about their clouds. What do they look like? What makes them come
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and go? How do they make you feel. Are there good clouds and
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bad clouds or they all bad clouds? And then with all bit of your
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body, this is the difference between the mental health and physical health. Resist
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with every five of your body. Tell them to try to fix it.
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The minute you try to fix it and tell them that it's going to be
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different, don't worry about that or anything else, they're going to stop talking
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to you. Well, you just don't understand, right, And this is
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like to guys like me who have done a lot in life. Guys like
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you've done a lot of it's hard because all we want to do is protect
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our kids. I'm going to fix that problem. Well that's not how you
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fix the problem. You have to get them and you correct me if I'm
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wrong, But you have to get them to talk to you and feel safe
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and want to talk to you. And the more they talk, the safer
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they get. The more they get off their chest about how they feel,
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the better they feel. It's like a pressure cooker, right, those old
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pressure cookers. This pressure's blowing, burning up, building up, building up.
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The only way is to release that little dial and let the pressure come
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out. Otherwise nothing could blow. You got to release the pressure and then
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the pressure talking. I mean, and we all know that that's not easy.
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It's not easy to you know, quote unquote get your kid to talk,
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or invite them to talk, or create a space where they can talk.
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And maybe sometimes they may need to talk with someone else, right,
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And that's a hard place to be in. I mean, my kid's fourteen
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year old, fourteen years old, and it's he's really a quiet kid,
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you know, and it's it's hard, it's really hard, and it's hard
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to you know, look for signs and should I have seen this or you
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know, there's so much going on in each of our kids' lives that you
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could construct a story that can give you any answer you want. All right,
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let's just pause here for a second to thank our sponsors. All Right,
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we are back. What are you hearing from kids that's helping you in
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terms of your message? You talked a little bit about these kids in Michigan,
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and you know how their parents were off and they're working and maybe they
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didn't want to burden them. We'll talk more about that. Well, So
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I think that there's kids in some ways are even more advanced than us in
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terms of their conversations about this with their peers. And I think they're going
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to their peers because they're afraid to come to us. Now, it doesn't
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mean to be afraid to come to us. Well, first of all,
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we're not that approachable. We like to think we are, right, we
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like to think as we are, we are totally approachable. Come talk to
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me anything I don't. I'll stare deeply in your eyes so you know I'm
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paying attention to you, and then you tell me everything you want to tell
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me. Kids hate that, absolutely. They do not want to look you
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in the eyes at all ever, Right, And you go, no,
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I love my kids. Not the point. Think about it, Like I
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grew up Catholic, How did the confessional work? There's a brown you sit,
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the priest sits here. I sit here. There's a born in between
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us. He probably knows who I am, but he's not looking at me.
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Right, I can talk. He's not gonna look at me. He's
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gonna say, you give your hall Mary's be nice to your mother. You're
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out of there. Right. Kids don't want to look you in the eye.
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That's why you've got to find the time that you can actually talk to
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them where they feel like they're comfortable. So what you know, We just
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did an album called Songs for the Drive Home and so on. It's on
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Spotify and YouTube is through BMG Music and my partners. I did this.
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It's all ten mental health songs. The first side is his songs for younger
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kids, exercise songs for older kids. But they're all conversations, things that
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will start conversations. So when you're in the card driving home, you can
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play this album and go and your kid might go, oh, let's I
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want to talk about that? And why are they They're staring straight ahead and
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you're not looking at you, and they don't want to. You're intimidating.
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Get over it. You are, you're taller than they are. So you
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got to the time that you can go for a walking and time. I'm
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giving you a stistic There's no easy way to do this right right, right,
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but getting them to be comfortable talking to you and feeling like no matter
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what they say, they're not going to be judge. It's kind of like
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the whole thing, like you know, and maybe I'm trading on bad spots
22:18
here, but you know, the drinking and the drinking thing when you get
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kids are eighteen nineteen twenty. Right, you have a choice in this matter.
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You can say to your kids you can never drink alcohol at seventeen eighteen
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nineteen, even though I did. I'm going to tell you can't and if
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you do, you're gonna be in so much trouble. And you can try
22:34
that technique and see how that works for you, right, yeah, Or
22:37
you can say I don't care what happens, holmri, that won't be mad
22:52
right, right, but coback right, do not give that car and try
22:59
drunk and how can carve somebody else? Call me so you know which is
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going to work better? Yeah? Right, Yeah, it's so different,
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Like, no matter how you feel, how crazy you might feel, talk
23:18
to me about I won't judge you, I won't try to fix you,
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I won't tell you're wrong. Know that you can talk to me. That's
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the message you have to get across to your kids, because all most people
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need someone to talk to to feel safe around. And that's what therapists do.
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And not to take away from your chosen profession, but what they really
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do, from my understanding and what I've seen, is they're easy to talk
23:45
to. They're not giving you a whole much advice. They're getting what about
23:48
this, They're asking questions and more, and they get you to talking,
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and you feel better after an hour because you spoke about it, and you
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talk, you got off your chest. I am I on the right track.
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Yeah, I totally agree. And I would even go further and say,
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uh, you know a good therapist. We'll do that. We'll be
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away. When how has this this whole experience shifted you. I mean,
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did you know in the wake of your son's passing, did you have to
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rewire how you looked at things and approach things? Was Was this a a
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quote unquote easy transition for you to say this is freaking crazy. I've got
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to I've got to start. I want to start, you know, addressing
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this and helping people talk about that, if you would, Jason, thanks
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for asking. No, it's miserable, but this is what I'm supposed to
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do. So don't get me wrong. I don't walk around crying all day.
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I've had a wonderful life. I've had thirty year marriage. We're still
25:22
together, we all stay together. My kids and I are much in a
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really good spot. My daughter and I went through a tough time for a
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couple of years, but she's getting married this weekend and I'm actually doing the
25:30
ceremony. But none of that. Yeah, my businesses are great. I
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mean I'm able to spend a whole bunch of time in this space. I
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have a very balanced life, very full life, and you know, thirteen
25:45
fourteen hours a day of working and doing stuff. But no, it's not
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easy. But this is what this is part of what I'm supposed to do.
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I was supposed to get out there and say, look at we need
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to do this differently and need to learn from what I learned, what I
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missed. So it doesn't make you know, this kind of stuff isn't easy,
26:00
But do it every week, right, because it's I did it twice
26:03
yesterday, and but I'm not complaining about it because I'm very clear that this
26:10
is what I'm supposed to go do now, right, and I'm supposed to
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make a difference and help parents see things differently in my own little way.
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I'm not going to end teen suicide like I thought I might, right,
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I mean, I had a great plan. By the way. We just
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have to fix the government, the schools, the medical system, the teachers,
26:27
social media, and the kids and the parents and it's all fixed.
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That's not going to happen, but I stand by my plan. It can,
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it could happen. I realized that my big messages to parents, like
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you've got to take this seriously, You've got to own it because like you
26:41
kind of made the joke about there's not enough good therapists, there's not enough
26:45
therapists, not enough good ones, right, and like it takes. It's
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one thing to say I'm going to be a therapist. And if I was
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gonna be a therapist, what do I want to go? Do you know
26:55
what? I'm going to take marriage counseling because the worst thing that's going to
26:59
happen is to get divorced and whatever, right, right, right, But
27:03
we need to decide I'm gonna work with suicidal depressed kids and you and it
27:07
doesn't go, well, that's a lot on you, that's a lot,
27:11
and and so there's not a lot of people want to go do that,
27:14
right, So it's a parent like if you're gonna if you think you're gonna
27:17
outsource that to someone else, it's not a maybe it works and maybe it
27:22
doesn't. It's I hate to say it. It's inconvenient and it sucks,
27:26
and I wish it wasn't true. But this is what we need to do
27:30
as parents. And I'm not saying you need to bubble wrap your kids,
27:34
right, you need to build resilient kids. They do need to learn that
27:38
they broke up with somebody and eventually it'll be okay, right, and they'll
27:45
find somebody else. They need to learn that just because they didn't get picked
27:48
up to be the first on the team, they'll be okay. They need
27:52
to learn that bullies exist and how to deal with their bullies and you don't
27:56
and and that's part of life. So how's it also changed me? I'm
27:59
a lot more I'm a lot more open and vulnerable than I ever used to
28:02
be. Like I showed up at home prior to Ryan is the guy who
28:06
had built these big you know, I built these businesses. I coach all
28:08
these CEOs. I've written seven books. I've been ironing a man in a
28:11
black belt. I never cry. That's how I showed up. What I
28:15
didn't share with my family was, you know, I failed at twenty businesses.
28:18
I never told them about it, just happened in the background, almost
28:22
lost the house three times. Didn't tell him that, well, right,
28:26
I didn't tell my wife family, and yeah I was. I struggled with
28:32
my own stuff, but I kept that from everybody because I grew up in
28:36
a point where you went, you're not supposed to show that as a man.
28:41
So unfortunately, what probably happened with Ryan is he looked at me and
28:42
went, my dad's life is perfect, because that's how we ever saw and
28:49
therefore, if I'm struggling, it must be me. So are you suggesting
28:57
that we as parents? Uhh, I mean this might tell stupid, but
29:07
are you Are you suggesting that we're obvious? Rather, are you suggesting that
29:11
we just share more of ourselves, more of our the many facets of ourselves.
29:19
Our vulnerabilities are our realness. I am to a point, right.
29:26
I am not suggesting you go home and tell your family. I think I
29:29
might lose my job on Wednesday, right right, not suggesting that at all.
29:33
Sure, but what if you went home one day, sat with your
29:37
son or daughter and said, these are just having to go. You know,
29:40
what a tough day today. What do you mean, Oh, I
29:45
got this guy who's a bully at work. I man, I just don't
29:51
like this guy. What do you mean? Give your kids the opportunity to
29:57
see that life is, that's a part of life. Bullies aren't just in
30:03
elementary school and middle school, they're in life. Let them give you some
30:07
advice on how to deal with your bully. You'll be surprised to go,
30:10
well, Dad, I have a bully. Now you're having a conversation right
30:17
right now, you're connecting on a different level. They view us as up
30:22
here, unreachable. I'll say a word that me and Michael they view us
30:27
almost godlike, and you go, what are you talking about it? I'm
30:32
just dad, not to them. So you're omnipotent, scary, intimidating,
30:40
even though you think you're not right, and you're hard to reach, you're
30:45
hard to talk to. So how do you bring it down the level seriously
30:48
to talk to? And this is, by the way, I mean,
30:49
I get this stuff all the time. I go through life thinking I'm easy
30:52
to guy to talk to, and I employ a couple thousand people, and
30:56
people tell me people are scared to death to talk to you. I'm like,
30:57
why, I'm just Jay. They all have my cell phone. No,
31:03
they're scared. I don't get it. But that's how your kids think
31:07
about you. So you've got to try to bring it down, and I'm
31:11
like, you still have to be the parent. You still have to have
31:14
rules. And I'm not saying you can't have those things right, you need
31:17
to have them. The worst thing you can do is bubble wrap your kids
31:21
and then say get out into the world and don't worry about it. I'll
31:23
take care of you. One of the things that you know, I've had
31:30
a few people on this podcast talk about UH suicide and one of the things
31:38
that I think just I'm curious about is, you know, if you look
31:45
at UH stress or discomfort or suicidality on the spectrum, you know, on
31:52
the on the on the the side, here we have nothing at all and
31:57
all the way at this end we have the act of suiciding. But to
32:02
get to that point, you know, you think, what there must be
32:07
so much going on. You know, you talked about having no out at
32:13
all. That is such a you know, an intense place to be at
32:19
and it's go ahead. Oh I'm not I was coughing of fault. No,
32:22
and it just it just you know, when I think about my own
32:24
kid, I I just think about you know, I'm always asking you what
32:31
am I? What am I not? Am I not seeing anything? What
32:34
am I not seeing? What do I How am I gonna see more?
32:37
What glasses do I need to put on? You know? And I'm not
32:42
trying to scare you guy. You are you are fully trained in all this
32:45
kind of stuff, and you know I'm not trying to scare your audience.
32:47
All I'm trying to say is that you just need to pay attention and ask
32:52
the questions. Right. So it's like people will ask me from my knowledge,
32:55
going, hey, well, what kind of kids do this? All
33:01
types of kids like It's like, it's not the shy, quiet kid in
33:07
the corner all the time that does this. It's the quarterback who's got the
33:14
great life that everybody thinks is amazing, who suddenly takes their life, which
33:19
is having no friend of mine everybody's but what the hell because deep down that
33:22
kid was brooding and didn't know what to say. It's the cheerleader who seems
33:28
like she has all the friends on the planet, but in her mind she
33:30
has none. There's signs for that, right. It's like when your kids
33:34
start talking about I have no friends, and you're like, wait a second,
33:37
you no friends? I see you with people. I have no friends
33:39
that's a I mean, Ryan didn't get there. But when I look back
33:44
into my other kids, I heard that from like, well, I should
33:45
have pay attention to that and didn't go into a bad spot. But when
33:50
they were saying that I should have paid more attention than I'm like, no,
33:52
you got lots of friends. What you mean I dropped off at the
33:53
school. There's they all grab you. But why do you feel you have
33:57
no friends? Why do you feel that way? And and what is it
34:00
smart? I mean sometimes like does it build? Yeah, sometimes it doesn't.
34:05
Sometimes it doesn't right Hayden's corner. Looked up Hayden's corner Brad Hunstable,
34:12
a buddy of mine. He lost his son during COVID. His son was
34:16
playing a video game, reacted poorly. The video game broke the screen on
34:24
his computer had done that a couple of weeks before. And Brad's a wonderful
34:31
guy. There were no consequences he was gonna get happened to him in Hayden's
34:35
corner. He snapped into his life. Wait like that, because it was
34:45
like, oh my gosh, I can't live I just broke this. There's
34:49
nothing I know, Brad, really well, there's nothing in Brad's life for
34:52
how he raised his kids, gonna make his kid worry about that. But
34:54
in Hayden's mind, right, you can't. I wish I could tell you
35:01
that look for this, this and this. It's like, no, you
35:04
just have to pay attention all the time. Right, And what I wish
35:07
it starts up and what I wish my parents in the movie starts off with
35:10
you know a child who a little girl who's talking out when she was seven
35:14
years old, she wanted she tried to throw herself out of a moving car,
35:17
but thank god the child locks wrong, and people go, they got
35:22
to be thirteen fourteen, Like they're like, kids got to be thirteen fourteen,
35:27
fifteen years of age before they start thinking about this. What I learned
35:30
and what I wish my parents did is they they know they knew when they
35:32
were seven and eight that they were different. They just didn't know who to
35:37
talk to about it. Yeah. I mean, there's so many variables,
35:46
right, there is no one recipe, but I think if I could pull
35:52
out one. One commonality of what you're saying is to be able to create
36:01
a space where you can be approachable, where you can talk, where you
36:06
can listen and that is may sound simple, but it's not. It's hard
36:13
to do, I think, and it's how you do it. I like
36:17
to sell parents, do not listen to this podcast, run into your kids
36:22
room and tell them we have to talk. Right, that's not gonna work.
36:27
How many times have your kids screened at you and told you you get
36:29
the f out of their room? Right, because it's their only little space
36:31
in life, that's all they have. Right, give them that, right,
36:35
give them that and go take go for a walk. Don't look them
36:37
in the eye, don't scare the crap out of them. You are intimidating,
36:40
whether you believe or not. And you kind of want to be as
36:45
a parent, right. You want them to feel safe that if anything's wrong,
36:49
you're there for So you're not on their level completely, but you need
36:52
to be able to be approachable. Right. It's walking that fine line.
36:57
It's trying to balance that. It's really how as we kind of wind down
37:02
here, how has this change your relationship with your other kids practically speaking?
37:13
Well, I always thought I had a good relationship with my other kids.
37:19
Now my daughter and I were challenged, and then my daughter were tough.
37:23
She was tough all the way growing up all the way until she was about
37:29
twenty one twenty two. For all your dads out there have daughters and go,
37:31
wow, my daughter doesn't get well, it does change most it'll change
37:35
it. Actually, I have a a daughter who's eight. I'm like,
37:39
oh my god, it's tough with her. Oh man, I look at
37:44
I always joke about it. I've always joked to going on. Raising boys
37:47
is somewhat easy because I've never hit my kids out of anger. But my
37:52
boys are still afraid I might. So if I get mad, they're still
37:57
gonna step back. There's an element of respect. My daughter's like, what
38:01
are you gonna do? She knows, But I guess my point was my
38:07
I think I've got I got a great relationship with my kids, but I
38:12
had a great mention of all my kids prior. Now. Am I a
38:14
little more vulnerable a little east you get along with a little less intense.
38:19
Yeah, I mean I'm a little different phase in my life. I'm not
38:23
worried about my businesses, I'm not worried about money. I'm not worried of
38:25
those things. So those things take pressure on all this. Right, So
38:29
when you're a parent, and you're a father and a mother, and you're
38:30
trying to pay the bills and pay for college and figure this stuff out,
38:35
and and you've got all that pressure. I get it. It's a lot.
38:38
And it's not fear to have that and come home and have somebody go
38:40
I want to talk to you at ten o'clock in the night. You're like,
38:44
I can't even think straight. I can't Why do we have to do
38:47
this now? Can we do this later? Here's what I'm gonna carease you
38:52
do. Yeah, I know it sucks when they come to at ten o'clock
38:54
at night and you're exhausted, figure it out and talk to them, because
39:00
you don't know if that's the important time to talk to and you don't know
39:06
if they'll come back to you another time. And I did that both.
39:09
I worked out of the house offest in the attic, and there are cobboms.
39:12
When the kids come and go, hey, can we talk, I'm
39:15
like, I let me finish this phone call and I'll come get you in
39:17
an hour. Ye. I can get them in an hour, Like what's
39:21
up now? I'm good, don't worry about it. Ye. Yeah.
39:24
So it's inconvenient being a parent, but and it's inconvenient unfair that you just
39:35
don't have to pay attention to their stomach ache anymore. You have to pay
39:37
attention to more than their stomach ache. And it's unfair that I'm sharing this
39:40
all with you, and now that you've heard it, you can hear it.
39:45
But I hope that you take a look at what I'm talking about and
39:51
maybe change your approaches a little. Jason. The documentary is called tell My
39:58
Story. Briefly, when did you do that? Why did you do that?
40:04
So when I was going I wanted to make a difference. When I
40:07
was going through the Ryan's drawers his room, you do that close whatever?
40:16
Opened one drawer and I said two sticky notes. Once said here's my user
40:22
name and passwords, and the other one said tell my story. So I
40:30
took that as to do a movie. I'll tell my story, which isn't
40:35
necessarily all Ryan's story. It's about every kid's story. And I interviewed kids
40:38
up and down the West Coast. I went to doctors and therapists and call
40:43
centers and Dede Hirsch and hopefully give people. When you watch it, you
40:49
can watch it with your kids. Guy, watch it with your son,
40:52
and it'll start a conversation you want the kids for What do you mean you
40:58
interviewed kids, but what about Oh? I interviewed about how they felt about
41:01
life, how they felt about the ice, interviewed kids that had been suicidal,
41:05
they were depressed. They're sharing their stories. It's and then when you
41:09
take a look at the natural the next positive. So tell my stories up
41:14
on you know, Amazon, Prime, Apple, wherever you watch your stuff.
41:17
Right, you're gonna you can get the movie. The next iteration of
41:21
that movie is what I wish my parents knew, which the trailers don't tellmostory
41:23
dot org, and that I interviewed eight kids and just them speaking. Because
41:28
the most compelling part to tell my story wasn't me, obviously, it was
41:31
listening to these kids talking about their mental health and what they thought. So
41:35
I interviewed eight kids and we put together a film that's short, but it's
41:38
eight kids talking about their mental health and what they fell to different phases.
41:43
And as a parent, you go, holy cow, that could be my
41:45
kid. You can't actually see that kid. That movie's nowhere to be seen
41:49
except in programs for schools because it's purposely done that way. Where please help
41:53
me bring this to your school where we set up an event for parents.
41:57
You watch the movie and we have a mental health professional talking about what you
42:00
learned and how to talk to your kids a little differently and what you can
42:04
get from it. And we're doing that across America right now. So that's
42:07
that's when you hear kids talk about their mental health, you go, Wow,
42:14
that's my neighbor, that's my cousin, that's my nephew, that's my
42:17
daughter, Jason. Obviously, there's a lot to talk about and I'd love
42:27
to have you back at a little time. Love to be back. Thank
42:30
you. What is the best way for people to get in contact with you?
42:34
If you got to tell Mystory dot org, you go to the contact
42:37
information, you can fill that out and that's going to go to all the
42:38
people that will reach out to me. I'd say, here's my email.
42:43
I don't I have other people read my email. I'm terrible at it.
42:45
So if you go to tell my story dot org if you can, if
42:49
you want to reach me, they will make sure that they text me and
42:52
tell you tell me to call you. I'm happy to talk to you.
42:54
I love your help. Anyone who wants to help us get this into schools.
42:58
In the companies into the churches. My message is getting parents to understand
43:04
they need to own their kids' mental health and helping them be able to talk
43:07
to their kids. Awesome, awesome, well dude, man, you are
43:10
one inspiring individual and again appreciate you coming on here and just being open and
43:17
real. It was great talking with you. I really appreciate an honor that
43:22
you have me on your show. All right, man, take care