Latest / Holding It Together (Kinda) / #4 Companion: Youth Mental Health Without The Fixes
Transcript
- 0:01SPEAKER_00: Welcome everybody to this week uh this midweek unpack for holding it together kinda.
- 0:08SPEAKER_00: I'm Michael Makniak.
- 0:10SPEAKER_00: On our full weekly episodes, I like to bring on experts and advocates and frontline workers and families uh to break down the heavy, the heavy stuff, the the legal mazes, medical systems, messy realities of caregiving.
- 0:25SPEAKER_00: But on these short midweek sessions, it's just you and me.
- 0:29SPEAKER_00: So I want to take you back to an episode that we did featuring five young people ages 13 to 23, and I called this the kids are all right, kinda.
- 0:40SPEAKER_00: Little homage to the who, if you will.
- 0:43SPEAKER_00: We sat down to listen to youth perspectives on mental health, school pressures, performance expectations, um, you know, and and frankly, that constant mirror of social media.
- 0:57SPEAKER_00: So if you've been listening to us for a while, you know that this conversation really hit home with a lot of people, and uh the kids were really great.
- 1:07SPEAKER_00: I enjoyed talking to them.
- 1:09SPEAKER_00: I have fun with with all my kids.
- 1:11SPEAKER_00: So looking back at the conversation, one of the lessons that stood out was that young people are not obviously problems to be managed, and they're not checklists that we want to complete.
- 1:25SPEAKER_00: They want to be seen as a whole person, of course.
- 1:27SPEAKER_00: They want to be included in decisions and and and they want to be supported without embarrassment, even though I tried to embarrass them a couple times during the episode.
- 1:36SPEAKER_00: Now, when we aired that episode, we didn't have these uh these companions, these action pamphlets uh ready yet.
- 1:45SPEAKER_00: But we went back and, you know, true to my word, we built them and we built one for the kids are all right kind of episode, and it's available right now.
- 1:55SPEAKER_00: So, again, be very clear about what this is not, uh or what they what they are.
- 2:00SPEAKER_00: It it it's not a homework assignment for you, it's not another thing to overflow your to-do list, it's just short printable documents that you could use to give you young people, parents, educators, just a little place to review what we talked about, what may have resonated uh with you and and and what may not have.
- 2:28SPEAKER_00: When I sat down with this myself this week, I thought about how often adults offer quick digital solutions or programmatic fixes to kids that are in distress.
- 2:41SPEAKER_00: But presence, trust, listening without interrupting, and real human connection uh seem to really matter more than another app or another lecture.
- 2:54SPEAKER_00: So this is why we built these action companions.
- 2:58SPEAKER_00: Uh they help young people, trusted adults, replace performance pressure with real uh connection.
- 3:09SPEAKER_00: So in in the in the companion, in the action worksheet, you get you know the next seven-day plan.
- 3:16SPEAKER_00: Write down a pressure or a head trash message you're tired of caring for yourself, or maybe your kids are tired of caring for themselves.
- 3:26SPEAKER_00: Spend time with one person who allows you to be real without performing, be that somebody other than your parents, maybe.
- 3:34SPEAKER_00: So, whether you listened to the episode when it first aired or you're just finding it today, go back and give it a listen.
- 3:41SPEAKER_00: Uh grab this um action guide and and follow the link below to to get it.
- 3:47SPEAKER_00: It's in the the the description.
- 3:50SPEAKER_00: And until next time, keep on holding it together, even if it's only kinda.