Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #827 The Emotional Lives of Teenagers (Part 2)

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#827 The Emotional Lives of Teenagers (Part 2) · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:03
Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast.
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Speaker 2: It's the podcast for the time poor parent who just
0:09
Speaker 2: once answers mew. Last week on The Happy Family's podcast,
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Speaker 2: I was talking with Doctor Listen to More, the author
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Speaker 2: of The Emotional Lives of Teenagers. Part one of that
0:16
Speaker 2: interview is last Wednesday. I recommend that you head back
0:20
Speaker 2: and have a listen to it if you haven't already.
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Speaker 2: It's just a delightful and really, what's the word, insightful
0:26
Speaker 2: conversation about our kids and their emotions. In fact, you
0:29
Speaker 2: don't even need to be a parent of a teen
0:31
Speaker 2: to get a lot out of it. If you missed
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Speaker 2: part one, you don't have to go back and listen
0:35
Speaker 2: to it before you listen to today's part two, although
0:38
Speaker 2: I would recommend it. In part two of our conversation,
0:41
Speaker 2: Lisa and I have a chat about the emotion of
0:44
Speaker 2: shame and what it does to our teens.
0:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, shame's really dangerous. I will tell you clinically, whenever
0:56
Speaker 1: I've been working with someone working with something and like
1:00
Speaker 1: it just like it won't move, like you know, we're
1:02
Speaker 1: working on an issue or a challenge, would have always
1:06
Speaker 1: discovered at the bottom of it with shame and shame's
1:08
Speaker 1: like this tar that just drags people down. It's really
1:14
Speaker 1: I'm not being very clear, but like just in terms
1:17
Speaker 1: of what it feels like clinically, So shame different from guilt, right,
1:21
Speaker 1: I think it's helpful to make that distinction. Guilt is
1:25
Speaker 1: criticism about what somebody did right, and teenagers do dumb
1:28
Speaker 1: things right. So you can be like you said you
1:31
Speaker 1: were going to walk a dog, you did not walk
1:32
Speaker 1: a dog. Like a little healthy guilt about that would
1:35
Speaker 1: be a great thing, right, I mean that that is
1:37
Speaker 1: that's valuable. That is how emotions helpless grow. Shame is
1:42
Speaker 1: criticism about who someone is. And I think that the
1:47
Speaker 1: way a parent could get there is to say, what's
1:51
Speaker 1: wrong with you that you didn't walk the dog? You know?
1:54
Speaker 1: So it's the same issue the dog didn't get walked,
1:58
Speaker 1: but two very different takes on it, and it's that
2:01
Speaker 1: what's wrong with you or you're somehow you know, there's
2:04
Speaker 1: some fault in you that is intrinsic and global and
2:09
Speaker 1: lasting and that explains whatever you did that I just
2:12
Speaker 1: didn't like. So it's dangerous because what it does is
2:17
Speaker 1: it puts kids in a horrendous position. I mean, it's
2:20
Speaker 1: horrible to be given the impression that one is somehow broken,
2:24
Speaker 1: there's something fundamentally wrong, and so what happens psychologically for
2:30
Speaker 1: anyone put in that position, but certainly a child or
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Speaker 1: a teenager, is they're like, oh my gosh, I'm broken.
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Speaker 1: This is a horrible feeling. The only way out of
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Speaker 1: it is to assume that the person who's saying it
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Speaker 1: is wrong that they're broken. I'm not broken. They're broken,
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Speaker 1: and that's why they would say such a thing to me. Now,
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Speaker 1: the person they're thinking about is their parent. Nobody wants
2:55
Speaker 1: to feel like in the whole wide world of the parents,
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Speaker 1: I've got, you know, which is a very like I
3:00
Speaker 1: got these one or two and like this is the
3:02
Speaker 1: hand I'm delt. I got a broken wood, right.
3:05
Speaker 2: Like.
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Speaker 1: That's not a good feeling either. So it just backs
3:08
Speaker 1: a kid into a horrible corner. Either I'm broken or
3:11
Speaker 1: you're broken. That's just not where you want to be.
3:15
Speaker 1: So it's always better, like you can get mad at
3:19
Speaker 1: a kid and kids do dumb things. That's like, I'm
3:21
Speaker 1: not gonna say kids don't make mistakes, but if one
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Speaker 1: can approach it from the side of dude, it is
3:28
Speaker 1: not like you to not take the dog out, what
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Speaker 1: is up right? To really couch those those criticisms, they
3:35
Speaker 1: can be criticisms in a generous assessment. This is a
3:41
Speaker 1: good kid who did a dumb thing, and to get
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Speaker 1: that good kid thinking about why they did the dumb thing,
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Speaker 1: as opposed to trying to shame them into submission.
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Speaker 2: I love the way you describe that. My senses I'm
3:54
Speaker 2: listening to you talk is that. I mean, we can
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Speaker 2: we can inadvertently do this right. We can say something
4:01
Speaker 2: that feels completely innocuous and our child can internalize it
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Speaker 2: and interpret it as something that is a slight on
4:07
Speaker 2: their character. It's a market deficiency against who they are.
4:12
Speaker 2: And even as I'm thinking through that, it strikes me
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Speaker 2: that an adolescent's sense of self is fragile. They rely
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Speaker 2: so much on our I want to say, judgments, but
4:22
Speaker 2: we're trying not to be judging, right, But they do
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Speaker 2: rely on our perceptions of them to form their sense
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Speaker 2: of self.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. No, the I mean they're very attentive feedback from
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Speaker 1: the world. They're very anxious about themselves, and they also
4:38
Speaker 1: are acutely aware of their imperfections, right, I mean, they're
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Speaker 1: thinking a lot about what they're good at what they're
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Speaker 1: not good at and what they wish we're different, or
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Speaker 1: mistakes they've made. And so I think, you know, there's
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Speaker 1: so much work to be done as parents to both
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Speaker 1: be clear right about it and be like, all right,
4:55
Speaker 1: so you must up. Okay, you can make it right,
4:58
Speaker 1: you know tonight, minimize or deny. You know that we
5:05
Speaker 1: all have aspects of our personality that we don't love,
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Speaker 1: or we all do things that we regret, but to
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Speaker 1: not turn it into a handwringing irredeemable sign about who
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Speaker 1: this kid is or who they're gonna be. I mean,
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Speaker 1: I think that's the part that makes me So we're
5:26
Speaker 1: like tender with parents or teenagers because I think like
5:30
Speaker 1: teenagers do all sorts of things, and I think a
5:31
Speaker 1: lot of times friends are like, oh my gosh, like
5:34
Speaker 1: are we raising a sociopath? Right, because like they said
5:38
Speaker 1: they weren't going to drink at the party, and then
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Speaker 1: they drink at the party, Like why did they lie
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Speaker 1: to me? And you're like, not a sociopath a sixteen
5:44
Speaker 1: year old? I mean, so's it can be hard sometimes
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Speaker 1: people can, I think, jump to big worries about what
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Speaker 1: it means about character.
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Speaker 2: So this conversation. As it's evolving, it's reminding me of
5:54
Speaker 2: something else that I really wanted to ask you about,
5:55
Speaker 2: and you spoke about it so well. In the emotional
5:58
Speaker 2: lives of teenagers, you've just highlighted that social awareness that
6:01
Speaker 2: kids are really trying to assess themselves relative to others,
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Speaker 2: and you've highlighted the party situation. So I want to
6:08
Speaker 2: bring that up when I think about my adolescent years. Lisa,
6:11
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, I did so many dumb things, like
6:15
Speaker 2: just stupid things. A quick story to illustrate there was.
6:20
Speaker 2: So I'm a really keen surfer. I started surfing in
6:22
Speaker 2: my early teens. By the time I had my driver's
6:24
Speaker 2: license and I was allowed to drive the beach on
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Speaker 2: my own, have my own car. I was about seventeen
6:28
Speaker 2: years old. We've been watching the weather forecast and we
6:31
Speaker 2: knew that there was going to be some huge swell.
6:34
Speaker 2: I'm talking I've got to convert to so we're talking
6:37
Speaker 2: for me to swell. So what's that like? Sixteen four
6:40
Speaker 2: times three twelve to fifteen feet swell? So big, big
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Speaker 2: seas and there's a break near my house. We were
6:49
Speaker 2: so excited, the boys and I we all had to
6:51
Speaker 2: sleep over at my place. We jumped into our two
6:53
Speaker 2: cars and we drove to the beach as the sun's
6:55
Speaker 2: coming up over the horizon. We've come around the corner,
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Speaker 2: looked across the lagoon. We can see the point break
7:01
Speaker 2: and this enormous wave is rolling through. And I'm driving
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Speaker 2: the car and I remember seeing this wave and thinking
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Speaker 2: I'm actually going to die today. This is not a
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Speaker 2: good day to go surfing. This is a day of
7:13
Speaker 2: death and destruction. But instead of saying that to my friends,
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Speaker 2: I wound the window down and I pumped my fist
7:20
Speaker 2: out the windows two or three times, and I screamed whoao,
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Speaker 2: and my friends in the car were going, whoa, this
7:24
Speaker 2: is going to be amazing. So the five or six
7:27
Speaker 2: of us got to the beach. We're watching these waves
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Speaker 2: roll in as we put our wetsuits on and get
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Speaker 2: our surfboards under our arms. And I'm still thinking at
7:34
Speaker 2: some point somebody is going to say this is a
7:36
Speaker 2: bad idea. You've shaken your head like, no, they're not.
7:39
Speaker 2: And we went surfing on this day, and how we survived,
7:42
Speaker 2: I don't know. It was nuts. And if I'd been
7:46
Speaker 2: on my own, there's no way I would have gone surfing.
7:49
Speaker 2: It was just silly. And what I'd love for you
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Speaker 2: to do is maybe share a bit about what you've
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Speaker 2: written in the book about the way that our teenager's
7:58
Speaker 2: friends influence our teenager's emotional lives and subsequent decisions. What's
8:04
Speaker 2: the deal with teens and friends and emotions.
8:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, so this is the asterisk on the emotions are
8:14
Speaker 1: helpful to reasoning argument. So you know, emotions, they deserve
8:18
Speaker 1: a place of the personal board of directors. But what
8:21
Speaker 1: we know with teenagers is that when they get around
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Speaker 1: their friends, emotions can actually shift their reasoning to make
8:29
Speaker 1: it quite poor. And the technical terms we use are
8:33
Speaker 1: cold and hot reasoning. So cold reasoning is the reasoning
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Speaker 1: you would have done on your own. It's the reasoning
8:39
Speaker 1: with the kid at four o'clock in the afternoon when
8:40
Speaker 1: you're like, hey, is there a party tonight and you're
8:42
Speaker 1: like yes, and you say are you going to drink?
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Speaker 1: And they're like definitely, not not safe, not a good idea,
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Speaker 1: and you say fantastic and they mean it. They are
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Speaker 1: not lying. And then they get to the party or
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Speaker 1: they're with all their friends and everyone else is doing it,
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Speaker 1: or the kid they have a crush on is offering
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Speaker 1: them a drink, and they're like sure like and they're
9:02
Speaker 1: completely in And it's because the wish to be part
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Speaker 1: of the group. This emotional charge of the situation takes
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Speaker 1: over and calls the shots. Right is the chair of
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Speaker 1: the board. And so the solution and it's not a
9:19
Speaker 1: perfect solution, Like I'm not going to say, like, so
9:21
Speaker 1: you can magically keep teenager safe all the time if
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Speaker 1: you just do this, you cannot do that. Is at
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Speaker 1: four o'clock when the kid says I am definitely not drinking,
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Speaker 1: you say, fantastic. If you get to the party and
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Speaker 1: all your friends are drinking, or the kids you have
9:34
Speaker 1: a crush on offers you a drink, what's the plan?
9:37
Speaker 1: So you make a plan in cold reasoning conditions, You're
9:42
Speaker 1: going to you drive, so you tell them you can't
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Speaker 1: drink because you've got the car. You tell them that
9:46
Speaker 1: you know you're on a medication. Like you tell them
9:48
Speaker 1: anything you want. You come up with it, but come
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Speaker 1: up with the plan right now under cold cognition conditions.
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Speaker 1: Do not try to make it on the fly. Right
9:57
Speaker 1: when you are with your friends and it's all happening.
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Speaker 2: The planning thing doesn't just work for the party. The
10:03
Speaker 2: planning thing works. So in our home we have a system.
10:06
Speaker 2: Every Sunday we have a family meeting on It takes
10:09
Speaker 2: ten or fifteen minutes, but we want to make sure
10:10
Speaker 2: that our family is improving and that we're functioning well,
10:12
Speaker 2: and so we have this family meeting where we talk
10:14
Speaker 2: about what went well, what didn't, what are we going
10:16
Speaker 2: to focus on this week. And what we've discovered is
10:19
Speaker 2: when we go through that process with the family, we're
10:23
Speaker 2: really good at identifying what's going well, and we can
10:25
Speaker 2: put a pretty done good list together of what hasn't
10:27
Speaker 2: gone well this week as well, the kids are pretty
10:29
Speaker 2: attentive to what's not working and then we'll pick one
10:31
Speaker 2: thing to work on for the next week because we
10:33
Speaker 2: really want our family to do well. But if we
10:36
Speaker 2: just walk away at that point, all right, we're all
10:37
Speaker 2: going to work on being nice to our siblings this week,
10:40
Speaker 2: and then we walk away. So meetings done, nothing happens.
10:43
Speaker 2: But when we go through the process of saying, all right,
10:46
Speaker 2: how are we going to do it, what accountability measures,
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Speaker 2: what we put in place, or what steps are we
10:50
Speaker 2: going to take to make sure that that happens, it
10:53
Speaker 2: makes all the difference in the world, and it's that planning,
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Speaker 2: that planning that you've just described in the cold light
11:00
Speaker 2: of day, when emotions are way way down. Yeah, Lisa,
11:09
Speaker 2: I know that our time's starting to draw to an end.
11:10
Speaker 2: There's a couple more questions points that I want to
11:12
Speaker 2: draw from your book because it's just so valuable. I
11:15
Speaker 2: love how you talk about perspective and being north of
11:18
Speaker 2: thirty five. So in the book, you're just talking about
11:21
Speaker 2: how well I use a metaphor that I call the
11:24
Speaker 2: ladder of life. I have this conversation with my kids
11:26
Speaker 2: when they want to do something dumble, when their emotions
11:27
Speaker 2: are really big, I'll say to them, you know what,
11:29
Speaker 2: you're fifteen, you're sixteen, you're eighteen, and you've just climbed
11:33
Speaker 2: eighteen runs on the ladder of life, and the view
11:35
Speaker 2: is spectacular. The view has never been so good from
11:37
Speaker 2: the eighteenth run. Guess what you know. I'm just about
11:40
Speaker 2: on run number fifty and I can't I'm not as
11:44
Speaker 2: close to the ground as you are. I can't see
11:45
Speaker 2: what's immediately under the ladder like you can anymore. But
11:49
Speaker 2: my view is pretty darn expansive compared to being eighteen
11:52
Speaker 2: runs up your commentary around being north of thirty five
11:56
Speaker 2: is I guess very much along the same lines.
11:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great metaphor. That's a great metaphor. It's
12:02
Speaker 1: so perfect, you know. I think the thing about the
12:07
Speaker 1: neurology of adolescence is it's hard for them to maintain perspective,
12:12
Speaker 1: especially when they're upset, that their emotions are very very powerful,
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Speaker 1: and their emotions can override their very good reasoning more
12:20
Speaker 1: than is true for people who are ages twenty four
12:23
Speaker 1: to twenty five and then certainly older than that. And
12:26
Speaker 1: I have memories and I'm sure you do too, of
12:28
Speaker 1: being a teenager and like maybe like a bad day
12:31
Speaker 1: or some you know, difficulty, and feeling horrible and feeling
12:35
Speaker 1: sure that that would last forever, like not being able
12:39
Speaker 1: to imagine being able to get through or pass that.
12:43
Speaker 1: And that is a very uniquely adolescent experience, right that
12:47
Speaker 1: of just feeling really lost in an emotion. And so
12:51
Speaker 1: when our teenagers are upset and they really are spinning
12:56
Speaker 1: in that place where they just can't seem to get
12:59
Speaker 1: past it, or they just are really sure that it's
13:02
Speaker 1: you know, as bad as it feels right now, is
13:05
Speaker 1: how it's going to feel forever. It's sometimes really helpful
13:10
Speaker 1: to do one of a few things. One is to
13:12
Speaker 1: just say, look, I know how horrible this feels right now.
13:15
Speaker 1: I promise you. I'm fifty two years old. I've seen
13:17
Speaker 1: a lot. I really do think you're going to get
13:19
Speaker 1: through this, right, I mean not a lot. But it's
13:21
Speaker 1: a vote of confidence and that can be valuable. Another thing,
13:25
Speaker 1: and this comes from some really cool research that I
13:27
Speaker 1: cit in the book, is you can say, if your
13:30
Speaker 1: friend was going through this, what would you say to them?
13:32
Speaker 1: And just that act of saying, oh, well, I would
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Speaker 1: tell her like, it's not that big a deal and
13:38
Speaker 1: it's gonna be fine, or find out with the teacher,
13:39
Speaker 1: you know, like I mean like they can immediately switch
13:41
Speaker 1: gears and find that part of their brain really and
13:45
Speaker 1: then the other and again, using these judicially, I think,
13:49
Speaker 1: is to say, how do you think you'll feel about
13:51
Speaker 1: this in a week?
13:52
Speaker 2: You know?
13:53
Speaker 1: And even that for a lot of teenagers, they'll be like, well,
13:55
Speaker 1: in a week, it won't be that big a deal.
13:56
Speaker 1: And we have research showing that that instantly actually grants
13:59
Speaker 1: some emotional belief.
14:01
Speaker 2: Yeah. I love that second one. I use that one
14:03
Speaker 2: on myself all the time when the kids are driving
14:05
Speaker 2: me crazy, I think, what advice would I give somebody
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Speaker 2: else about this situation. You don't have to be a
14:10
Speaker 2: parenting expert to do that. But I don't know if
14:12
Speaker 2: you've ever done that to yourself.
14:13
Speaker 1: I think I do more than like, how's this going
14:16
Speaker 1: to feel in a week? Like? You know, is this
14:17
Speaker 1: because I can get like, oh, it's such a big
14:19
Speaker 1: deal at the end of the world, I'm like, not really,
14:21
Speaker 1: you know.
14:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love the perspective. Is that from Ethan Cross?
14:25
Speaker 1: And yeah?
14:26
Speaker 2: I love his work? Yeah? Okay, So I have two
14:29
Speaker 2: more questions. One of them is a very, very big question.
14:32
Speaker 2: The other one's pretty short and tight. But before we
14:34
Speaker 2: get there, I'd love to do a rapid fire around
14:36
Speaker 2: with you. Just eight or ten really quick questions, one
14:39
Speaker 2: sentence answers, whatever comes off the top of your head.
14:42
Speaker 2: Are you up for that?
14:43
Speaker 1: Absolutely?
14:44
Speaker 2: All right? What's the best parenting book that you've read?
14:46
Speaker 2: Not yours online?
14:47
Speaker 1: I love The Magic Years by Somemmer Freyburke. It's a classic.
14:51
Speaker 1: It's for young kids.
14:52
Speaker 2: What's the hardest mental health challenge that you regularly face
14:56
Speaker 2: with your clients? They're coming in and seeing you in
14:58
Speaker 2: your officers.
15:00
Speaker 1: Avoidance, Using avoidance to manage anxiety very very sticky, and
15:04
Speaker 1: much worse post pandemic.
15:06
Speaker 2: Wow, your biggest personal doctor, Lisa de Moore emotional trigger?
15:11
Speaker 2: What sets you off?
15:13
Speaker 1: I can feel pretty swamp by work. I can get
15:16
Speaker 1: pretty overwhelmed and feel like I'm never going to get
15:19
Speaker 1: it all done, and get really anxious and feel frustrated
15:23
Speaker 1: that I'm not making the kind of headway that I
15:24
Speaker 1: wish I were.
15:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can relate to that. What's the one thing
15:28
Speaker 2: that you think will turn things around? Regarding the current
15:32
Speaker 2: adolescent mental health crisis? If there was a silver bullet,
15:35
Speaker 2: what would be the closest thing to that.
15:37
Speaker 1: We know what it is. Actually, it's strong relationships with
15:41
Speaker 1: carrying adults. That is the single most powerful for us
15:44
Speaker 1: for adolescent mental health.
15:45
Speaker 2: So I'm glad you said that. Let me ask you,
15:47
Speaker 2: is social media to blame for mental health challenges in
15:50
Speaker 2: our teams?
15:51
Speaker 1: If it were the only explanation, I don't know what
15:53
Speaker 1: I was doing for the first twenty years of my career.
15:56
Speaker 2: Okay, very good. I love that response.
15:59
Speaker 1: Here's what we know. It can be really problematic, and
16:02
Speaker 1: it can be really problematic if kids are looking at
16:04
Speaker 1: harmful content, or if social media is getting in the
16:06
Speaker 1: way of what we know is essential for healthy development, sleep,
16:10
Speaker 1: in person interactions, physical activity, helping others. So it's a
16:14
Speaker 1: double edged sword and we've got to watch out for
16:16
Speaker 1: the dangerous side of it.
16:18
Speaker 2: Okay, thank you. Three more. What's been your favorite age
16:22
Speaker 2: for your children to be? I mean, you've raised one
16:24
Speaker 2: to adulthood already and another one who's entering the adolescent
16:27
Speaker 2: is what's been your favorite age?
16:29
Speaker 1: I love fourteen year olds. There are such goof balls,
16:34
Speaker 1: and they are so philosophical right, and they get on
16:40
Speaker 1: either side of that they are more GOOFBALLI and more philosophical.
16:43
Speaker 1: But fourteen for girls is where it all goes. Like
16:46
Speaker 1: they're equally in equal parts goofy and philosophical.
16:50
Speaker 2: And so many people are rolling their rise right now
16:52
Speaker 2: saying fourteen. How could you say fourteen? But I love that.
16:56
Speaker 2: I love that. I have a daughter who is thirteen
16:58
Speaker 2: right now, and we just delight and hurt, super sensitive,
17:02
Speaker 2: so much emotion, Lisa, but so much fun. What psychological
17:06
Speaker 2: finding or research has influenced your work with teens the most.
17:12
Speaker 1: This is going to seem so boring and basic. The
17:15
Speaker 1: research on the impact of sleep on emotion regulation, that
17:20
Speaker 1: teenagers need about nine hours of sleep a night. As
17:22
Speaker 1: soon as they're getting less than that, they are more irritable,
17:26
Speaker 1: more reactive, more anxious, more prone to suicide. I mean,
17:31
Speaker 1: like everything hinges on a good night's sleep.
17:34
Speaker 2: And so.
17:36
Speaker 1: Those findings that are so clear about how powerful sleep
17:40
Speaker 1: is have really shaped my clinical work so that I
17:43
Speaker 1: start by assessing how a teenager is sleeping before I
17:45
Speaker 1: do anything else.
17:47
Speaker 2: You think that I'm going to find that boring, but
17:48
Speaker 2: I actually find it reassuring because for some time now,
17:53
Speaker 2: when people have asked me similar questions, I have said,
17:56
Speaker 2: the number one thing you can do to be a
17:57
Speaker 2: bit of parent and the number one thing you can
17:59
Speaker 2: do to raise a emotionally healthy kids, other than making
18:01
Speaker 2: sure that the relationship is strong and solid, is to
18:05
Speaker 2: make sure you kids are getting enough sleep. I think
18:07
Speaker 2: it's the number one well being aide, and.
18:11
Speaker 1: It's so powerful because it contributes, you know, because as
18:14
Speaker 1: soon as you're not sleeping, then you become more anxious,
18:16
Speaker 1: and then as you're more anxious, you sleep less. I mean,
18:19
Speaker 1: is it's like the Lynch pan for mental health.
18:21
Speaker 2: Okay, so we've slowed down the rapid fire. But this
18:24
Speaker 2: is the last one. But I just love your answers
18:28
Speaker 2: so much. What podcast do you currently hooked on?
18:31
Speaker 1: Oh, I really like the Azra Kline podcast. He's an
18:34
Speaker 1: American journalist for the New York Times, and he's really
18:37
Speaker 1: a nerd and he gets nerds on his podcast, and
18:39
Speaker 1: I like nerds.
18:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, I enjoyed that podcast as well. I'm glad that
18:42
Speaker 2: I've got one on my list. All Right, my last
18:44
Speaker 2: two questions for you. This one's a slightly heavier one.
18:47
Speaker 2: When I picked up your book, I didn't think this
18:49
Speaker 2: would be in the emotional lives of teenagers, and I
18:53
Speaker 2: was so delighted when I got probably halfway through the
18:56
Speaker 2: book and you began to address it. I didn't see
18:58
Speaker 2: it coming, and I had it on my list of
19:00
Speaker 2: things that I wanted to ask you about anyway, and
19:01
Speaker 2: then when I saw it, I thought, like, yes, So
19:04
Speaker 2: it may initially seem like it's a step away from
19:07
Speaker 2: emotions in teens, but you address it so beautifully. And
19:10
Speaker 2: it was a burning question that teenage girls had when
19:13
Speaker 2: I interviewed them from my book about teenage Girls, Misconnection,
19:16
Speaker 2: and it's the question of how they're treated at the
19:19
Speaker 2: hands of boys. They experience everything from basic disrespect to
19:24
Speaker 2: name calling right up to sexually explicit commentary and interaction
19:28
Speaker 2: and expectation. And what I would love to get is
19:31
Speaker 2: your take on where this comes from. Why does so
19:34
Speaker 2: many boys feel like this is acceptable? Now, I know
19:37
Speaker 2: it's a supremely complex issue.
19:40
Speaker 1: I'll give you two reasons.
19:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, please please, yeah.
19:43
Speaker 1: Okay. So one, unfortunately, is there's a lot of norming
19:46
Speaker 1: of this behavior in the culture. I am trying to
19:51
Speaker 1: wrap my head around how many boys are interested in
19:53
Speaker 1: the work if you can call it that of Andrew
19:55
Speaker 1: Teat and people like him who are flagrantly misogynistic who
19:59
Speaker 1: I mean, that's certain higher platform. And so there's a
20:03
Speaker 1: huge amount of exposure to talking about girls and women
20:07
Speaker 1: in really degrading ways, you know, endorsing treating them in
20:09
Speaker 1: those ways. And I really think a lot about norms
20:13
Speaker 1: and boys can spend a lot of time in social
20:15
Speaker 1: media environments where that is just how things go, and
20:18
Speaker 1: it carries over even into things like sports commentary on
20:21
Speaker 1: women's sports, Like I mean, they can just see it,
20:22
Speaker 1: and so it just doesn't seem so strange to do
20:24
Speaker 1: that anymore. If you're in environments where that's really common.
20:27
Speaker 2: Well, even gaming, the conversations that happen when a girl
20:30
Speaker 2: enters an online game, it just become breathtaking, and it
20:34
Speaker 2: is totally the norm, completely the.
20:36
Speaker 1: Norm, totally normed. So that's a problem. I also lay
20:39
Speaker 1: out an argument in this book that you probably noticed.
20:43
Speaker 1: I have an extremely long note on it because I
20:45
Speaker 1: cannot believe no one else has said this before. So
20:47
Speaker 1: I'm I like laid out all of the research that
20:49
Speaker 1: I did find and what I didn't find, and apologized
20:52
Speaker 1: if somebody else came up with this before I did.
20:55
Speaker 1: What we know is that sexual harassment starts usually around
20:58
Speaker 1: age eleven or twelve, much younger than people think. And
21:02
Speaker 1: what we know is that by eleven or twelve, most
21:05
Speaker 1: girls are well underway with puberty and most boys are not.
21:08
Speaker 1: And so I think part of what may be at work,
21:10
Speaker 1: and this is not to forgive it, but I think
21:12
Speaker 1: we've got to come up with as many solutions as possible,
21:15
Speaker 1: is that it feels really lousy often to be an
21:18
Speaker 1: eleven or twelve year old boy because in the classroom,
21:21
Speaker 1: girls have an enormous cognitive advantage because puberty converse a
21:24
Speaker 1: great deal of neurological strength and developmentally, eleven and twelve
21:29
Speaker 1: year old girls are by and large taller, stronger, faster
21:32
Speaker 1: than boys. And so I've started to wonder about whether
21:37
Speaker 1: for some boys, harassing girls becomes a compensatory behavior to
21:42
Speaker 1: try to maintain a sense of self esteem because girls
21:45
Speaker 1: are running around, you know, circles around them in the
21:47
Speaker 1: classroom and literally running circles around them, you know, at recess.
21:51
Speaker 1: So those are some of the thoughts I have.
21:52
Speaker 2: On that, Lisa. Have you come across Richard Raves from
21:56
Speaker 2: the brook Chair and his book of Boys of Men? Yeah,
22:00
Speaker 2: so work in his podcast interviews and in his book,
22:04
Speaker 2: he makes an argument that because of that developmental difference,
22:08
Speaker 2: the fact that girls are at least a year in
22:10
Speaker 2: front of boys, particularly by the time they get to
22:12
Speaker 2: high school, he suggests that if we could start boys
22:15
Speaker 2: at school at least a year later, that would go
22:19
Speaker 2: some of the way towards I guess negating the issue
22:23
Speaker 2: that you're raising, that is that boys would be that
22:24
Speaker 2: year older, therefore that that year more mature, which means
22:27
Speaker 2: that they may be less likely to engage in this behavior.
22:30
Speaker 2: How does that sit with you?
22:31
Speaker 1: Pretty good? I mean, I do not tick lately. What
22:35
Speaker 1: it means on certainly in the US, wheld were horrible
22:37
Speaker 1: about childcare. You know what it means on the childcare
22:40
Speaker 1: end for the parent who then has that kid home
22:42
Speaker 1: another year. So that is a real issue. But I
22:46
Speaker 1: will tell you, I mean, I'm an advocate for all teenagers,
22:48
Speaker 1: but a lot of my work has been on and
22:49
Speaker 1: about girls. It'd be better for the girls, you know,
22:53
Speaker 1: I mean, like, don't we want our girls to be
22:55
Speaker 1: surrounded by boys who are there equals, you know. And
23:00
Speaker 1: it's not that the boys don't become their equals, but
23:02
Speaker 1: there's a lag and it's not the boy's fault. It's
23:05
Speaker 1: just a straight up developmental reality of who hits puberty first.
23:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, So your main thesis is it's modeling from
23:15
Speaker 2: the broader society and particularly from the online communities that
23:19
Speaker 2: that boys are involved in. And it's also a compensatory
23:23
Speaker 2: response because boys just feel INFERI the girls are. They're
23:26
Speaker 2: more intelligent, they're more regulated, they're more mature, they're developing earlier.
23:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're stronger. I mean, they're able to outrun there
23:34
Speaker 1: those boys. And I mean it shifts at thirteen, but
23:37
Speaker 1: it's very prominent at eleven.
23:39
Speaker 2: And twelve, and it's so much of their masculinity identity
23:42
Speaker 2: is tied up with their ability to be strong.
23:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, and not get beat by a girl. And so
23:46
Speaker 1: I mean it's a tricky time for boys. I mean,
23:48
Speaker 1: I really, I really have a great deal of empathy,
23:51
Speaker 1: you know, for in the US it's you know, fifth
23:53
Speaker 1: and sixth and seventh grade boys. I mean, I would
23:55
Speaker 1: not want to be them. I think.
23:58
Speaker 2: Last question for you, Lisa, And this has been such
24:00
Speaker 2: a delightful conversation. I'm so grateful for it. We've talked
24:03
Speaker 2: about the emotional lives of teenagers, and we've covered a
24:06
Speaker 2: lot of topics. I'd love to dive deeper into all
24:09
Speaker 2: of them. But I just want to ask a question
24:11
Speaker 2: for parents who are listening and who are just worried.
24:13
Speaker 2: They're hearing the things we've talked about, and they're thinking, oh, this,
24:16
Speaker 2: this still isn't covering off the stuff that I'm most
24:18
Speaker 2: worried about. When should parents worry about their teens and
24:23
Speaker 2: their emotionality?
24:24
Speaker 1: I love that question. It's a great place to wrap up.
24:27
Speaker 1: There's two times I want them to worry. One is
24:31
Speaker 1: if a teenager's mood goes to a concerning place and
24:33
Speaker 1: stays there. So we expect teenagers to be up and
24:36
Speaker 1: down and up and down. That's typical development. We don't
24:39
Speaker 1: expect them to be down or paralyzed by anxiety or
24:43
Speaker 1: extremely angry unhappy for more than a day or two.
24:49
Speaker 1: I mean, like, really, we expect a great deal of
24:51
Speaker 1: fluidity in their emotions. The other time to worry is
24:55
Speaker 1: if a teenager uses what I call costly coping, So
24:58
Speaker 1: they're managing emotion, they're doing it by like smoking a
25:01
Speaker 1: lot of marijuana or being really hard on the people
25:04
Speaker 1: around them, or self harming. Right that that may help
25:07
Speaker 1: them feel better, Like those things will actually help them
25:10
Speaker 1: feel better, but those are very you know, those are
25:12
Speaker 1: going to really add up and be problematic over time.
25:16
Speaker 2: What a great conversation, doctor Lisa de Moore, the author
25:19
Speaker 2: of The Emotional Lives of Teenagers. We've covered so much,
25:22
Speaker 2: and yet the one thing that we really haven't talked about. Actually,
25:25
Speaker 2: there are two things that we haven't talked about. Number One,
25:28
Speaker 2: you've used literally my favorite quote of all quotes about
25:31
Speaker 2: emotions in the opening page of your book that time
25:34
Speaker 2: cannot quote. It's a deep comfort to children to discover
25:37
Speaker 2: that their feelings are in all part of the human experience.
25:40
Speaker 2: That's really what our whole conversation has been about today.
25:43
Speaker 2: But the last two chapters in your book, helping teens
25:46
Speaker 2: to express their feelings and helping teens regain emotional control.
25:49
Speaker 2: I would pay five times the price of the book
25:51
Speaker 2: just for those two chapters. They're just so practical, so helpful,
25:56
Speaker 2: so so real. So folks, The Emotional of Teenagers Raising Connected,
26:02
Speaker 2: capable and compassionate Adolescents by the wonderful doctor Lisa the Moore,
26:07
Speaker 2: go out and grab a copy of it. It is
26:09
Speaker 2: just a fabulous book. Lisa. It's been so good to
26:12
Speaker 2: talk to you. Thank you for your so much.
26:14
Speaker 1: It's such a pleasure.
26:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely absolute delight to have you here. The Happy
26:18
Speaker 2: Families podcast is produced by Justin Rowland for Bridge Media.
26:21
Speaker 2: Craig Bruce is our executive producer. And if you'd like
26:24
Speaker 2: more information about Lisa's book, you can find it out
26:26
Speaker 2: show notes or just google it. You'll find Lisa wherever
26:28
Speaker 2: you need to and check out her podcast. Ask Lisa
26:32
Speaker 2: for really thoughtful advice on how to help raise teenagers
26:36
Speaker 2: and kids of all ages in fact, and also check
26:38
Speaker 2: out my Facebook page, Doctor Justin Coulson's Happy Families For more,