Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #801 Teen Boys - Yes, You Can Calm Their Farm

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#801 Teen Boys - Yes, You Can Calm Their Farm · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:03
Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the
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Speaker 1: time poor parent who just wants answers.
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Speaker 2: Now we're using our masculinity in ways that make others
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Speaker 2: feel weak and unsafe when not being healthy in our
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Speaker 2: expression of our masculinity.
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Speaker 1: And now here's the stars of our show, My Mum
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Speaker 1: and Dad.
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Speaker 2: Every Tuesday on the Happy Families podcast, well most tuesdays,
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Speaker 2: we do our very best to answer your questions. Listen to.
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Speaker 2: Questions can be sent through to podcasts at happy families
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Speaker 2: dot com. You that's podcasts with an s at happy
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Speaker 2: families dot com dot A You kylie. We've got a
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Speaker 2: got a really important and real life, gritty question that's
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Speaker 2: come through. In fact, we have two questions that are
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Speaker 2: both pretty much saying the same thing. I'm going to
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Speaker 2: get you to read them.
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Speaker 3: So the first one says, where can I get advice
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Speaker 3: and help for a female parent to best manage a
0:55
Speaker 3: teenage son male with anger when he's six feet tall
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Speaker 3: and the anger is frightening. And then the second one
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Speaker 3: is my son is going to be seventeen soon and
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Speaker 3: we've recently, in the last three or four months, noticed
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Speaker 3: some big changes in him. He's actually doing really well, personally,
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Speaker 3: he's happier, more confident, doing better socially, is really open
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Speaker 3: to anything related to church, grades are up, etc. But
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Speaker 3: his mood can change at the flip of a switch.
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Speaker 3: He'll be perfectly normal, having a regular conversation, and then
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Speaker 3: something triggers him, and within it one second, his entire
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Speaker 3: demeanor changes. I see it in his face. He just
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Speaker 3: goes from zero to one hundred. I fully believe that
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Speaker 3: it's not him. It's got to be hormonal, otherwise it
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Speaker 3: just doesn't make any sense. He's always been an angry
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Speaker 3: rather than an emotional kid.
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Speaker 2: But not like this.
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Speaker 3: Is there any research to support what I'm saying. I
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Speaker 3: feel like I've heard you talk about this for teenage boys.
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Speaker 3: We'd love a podcast episode on it.
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Speaker 2: Okay, so some really big challenges in any parent of
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Speaker 2: a teenage boy nose this feeling every now and again.
2:02
Speaker 2: Teenage boys, well, they start to flex a little bit,
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Speaker 2: don't they. We say no, we start to try to
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Speaker 2: constrain what's going on, and then I feel so good
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Speaker 2: about it. And because they're I guess, still learning about
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Speaker 2: their strength, their newfound strength, sometimes they use it in
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Speaker 2: ways that are quite frankly terrifying for parents, but are
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Speaker 2: not in everybody's best interests at all.
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Speaker 3: Well, I'm not going to have much of an opinion
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Speaker 3: about this today, being among to lots of girls and
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Speaker 3: an amazing, big burly son in law who towers over me.
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Speaker 3: But I am really interested on what the research says
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Speaker 3: about this.
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Speaker 2: Well, the research shas sorry, I couldn't help it. The
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Speaker 2: research research says that there are handful of things that
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Speaker 2: are worth touching on. First off, I want to talk
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Speaker 2: about self regulation, and then I want to talk about empathy.
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Speaker 2: But we've also got to have a conversation about power
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Speaker 2: and how we are in our relationship our kids. And
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Speaker 2: I'm interested because I'm a dad, but I've been a
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Speaker 2: teenage boy or who hasn't had a teenage boy. But
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Speaker 2: as I share what I'm sharing, I would be interested
3:09
Speaker 2: in your take on how that feels to be a
3:12
Speaker 2: mum and hear the advice that I'm giving, okay, and
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Speaker 2: putting yourself in that situation. So the first thing that
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Speaker 2: I want to emphasize is just about self regulation. So
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Speaker 2: self regulation is the ability to either express our emotions
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Speaker 2: or contain our emotions in healthy ways. Sometimes they need
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Speaker 2: to be expressed, but other times regulation meant that we
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Speaker 2: hold them in, not that we're going to be bottling
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Speaker 2: them up forever, but we've got to be able to
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Speaker 2: deal with them in appropriate and functional ways. Teenage boys
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Speaker 2: specifically are on a developmental curve. I think, we might
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Speaker 2: say politely, they're just learning about self regulation in all
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Speaker 2: new ways. So self regulation begins. The ability to either
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Speaker 2: contain or express emotions begins at around about two or three,
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Speaker 2: and it develops slow over time. We all know plenty
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Speaker 2: of adults who are lousy when it comes to either
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Speaker 2: expression or containing of their emotions. Some people express too much,
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Speaker 2: some people contain too much, and getting the balance right
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Speaker 2: is a maturation process, and it demands thinking and in
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Speaker 2: a work. When we get into the adolescent years, with
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Speaker 2: all the hormones buzzing around, and with the newfound strength
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Speaker 2: and the newfound power that comes with being a teenage
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Speaker 2: boy as they grow into their bigger bodies, the idea
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Speaker 2: that I can express my emotions and just get it
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Speaker 2: out is something that a lot of parents will grapple
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Speaker 2: with their teenagers. May slam doors, may shout, and screen
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Speaker 2: may even become physical. So this is a really big
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Speaker 2: challenge it develops on a continuum. They get better at
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Speaker 2: it as they get older. But if we look at
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Speaker 2: research by the world's leading adolescent psychological researcher, Lawrence Steinberg,
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Speaker 2: he's shown that this continuum, this trajectory, it's not linear.
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Speaker 2: It's not like they just get a bit better every
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Speaker 2: day and every month and every year with their self regulation.
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Speaker 2: There are peaks and troughs, and it also relates to
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Speaker 2: how much sleep they're getting, what their diets like, the
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Speaker 2: quality of their friendships, how things are going at school.
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Speaker 2: So does this have.
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Speaker 3: Anything to do with the way they process emotions? Like,
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Speaker 3: obviously we're dealing with some significant physiological changes that are
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Speaker 3: taking place through this period of time, But then stereotypically
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Speaker 3: boys don't talk about their emotions. Is this the byproduct
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Speaker 3: of that?
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Speaker 2: So the first thing I want to say about this
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Speaker 2: stereotypical situation is boys and girls do differ on average. Now,
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Speaker 2: there's a lot of overlap of distributions. That is, there
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Speaker 2: are a lot of boys who act a little bit
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Speaker 2: more like girls and a lot of girls who act
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Speaker 2: a little bit more like boys. But on average, we
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Speaker 2: see a pretty clear differentiation between the way natal boys
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Speaker 2: and natal girls are going to respond to big emotions
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Speaker 2: the way they're going to process them, and boys often
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Speaker 2: will be quite contained until they're too tired or until
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Speaker 2: that thing happens. And as that second mum said in
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Speaker 2: her email, my son then goes from being really happy
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Speaker 2: to zero to one hundred on anger in the blink
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Speaker 2: of an eye.
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Speaker 3: This reminds me of my dad when I was growing up.
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Speaker 3: He was like this gentle, gentle, gentle person all the
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Speaker 3: time until he wasn't. And it was the way he
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Speaker 3: described me. He said it was like a balloon. He
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Speaker 3: could take so much, and it was like the air
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Speaker 3: going into the balloon, blowing blowing, blowing, blowing, blowing, and
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Speaker 3: then all of a sudden, pop, it just explodes and
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Speaker 3: it would come out of nowhere, seemingly, But it was
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Speaker 3: because he held everything in. He dealt with all of it,
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Speaker 3: and then until he couldn't, there was no reserves.
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Speaker 2: I love the balloon metaphor. I would change it just
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Speaker 2: a little bit. Rather than blowing more air into it
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Speaker 2: until it pops, I think that it's a little more
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Speaker 2: like you've got that balloon full of air and you're
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Speaker 2: holding it under the water in the pool and eventually
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Speaker 2: you just can't hold it under the water anymore. Eventually
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Speaker 2: it forces itself to the surface and it explodes out.
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Speaker 2: Either one works, but for me, the pressure is there
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Speaker 2: a lot and for a long time, and all of
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Speaker 2: a sudden, bang out it comes. So this first issue
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Speaker 2: of self regulation, we've got to acknowledge that our kids,
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Speaker 2: especially our teenage boys, they're learning about their emotions, well
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Speaker 2: hopefully they are. Hopefully we're giving them an emotional vocabulary,
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Speaker 2: and hopefully we're making it safe for them to express
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Speaker 2: their emotions, but doing it in ways that are socially
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Speaker 2: responsible and that are not intimidating and frightening. I think
7:31
Speaker 2: we need to have an important conversation with our kids
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Speaker 2: about what masculinity is. Letting our boys know that a
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Speaker 2: real man is strong. There's no doubt about that, but
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Speaker 2: a real man. And we've got plenty of research that
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Speaker 2: shows that the average boy is stronger than ninety nine
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Speaker 2: percent of girls, right, I mean, this is just again
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Speaker 2: the reality of biology. Boys are stronger than girls, and
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Speaker 2: as they move into adolescents, they discover that but a
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Speaker 2: real man, somebody who is masculine. A healthy form of
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Speaker 2: masculinity is that when you're strong you help the people
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Speaker 2: around you to feel both strong and safe. And when
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Speaker 2: we're using our masculinity in ways that make others feel
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Speaker 2: weak and unsafe, we're not being healthy in our expression
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Speaker 2: of our masculinity. Now, that's a hard conversation to have,
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Speaker 2: and you're not going to have it while your son
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Speaker 2: is blowing up. You're not going to say, I'm feeling
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Speaker 2: we can unsafe. Stop this. That doesn't work. But all
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Speaker 2: this comes back to self regulation. The second thing that
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Speaker 2: I want to talk about is empathy. And we've got
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Speaker 2: data from decades of research now that shows that empathy
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Speaker 2: in boys relative to girls declines as adolescence hits. So
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Speaker 2: there are two kinds of empathy, Kylie. There's cognitive empathy.
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Speaker 2: That's the I can think about how you're feeling and
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Speaker 2: I can label it, I can see it. And then
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Speaker 2: there's the affective kind of empathy, that's the I'm feeling
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Speaker 2: in my heart what you're feeling in yours.
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Speaker 3: So, just to clarify, when you say empathy declines, are
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Speaker 3: you saying empathy in the boys declines or empathy expressed
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Speaker 3: towards boys declines?
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Speaker 2: You know what it could actually be both? I don't
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Speaker 2: know of any data that looks at how empathy is
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Speaker 2: expressed to boys and girls. But when you say that
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Speaker 2: that really resonates for me. We become impatient and tolerant
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Speaker 2: of boys and their boisterous behavior. They're knocking into things,
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Speaker 2: they're using their bodies, they're outbursts, they're testosterone fueled expressions
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Speaker 2: of emotions, and so we will often respond to that
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Speaker 2: kind of behavior with a lot less empathy. I think
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Speaker 2: that's a really important insight. The data that I'm talking about, though,
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Speaker 2: shows that for girls, as they move into and through adolescents,
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Speaker 2: both cognitive and affective empathy both go upwards on a
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Speaker 2: fairly steady trajectory. This is part of the maturation process
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Speaker 2: for them. They just become more empathic, they're more relational.
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Speaker 2: For boys, though we see that they're cognitive empathy, it
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Speaker 2: sort of stabilizes at about thirteen and does not go
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Speaker 2: up for a couple of years, and they're affective empathy.
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Speaker 2: The feeling I get how you're feeling. I'm feeling it too.
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Speaker 2: That actually drops off from about the age of twelve
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Speaker 2: or thirteen and doesn't start to go again until about seventeen.
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Speaker 2: Like it just it stays down, really really low, and
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Speaker 2: so we're having this thing where we're saying I want
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Speaker 2: you to understand how another person's feeling, and they say,
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Speaker 2: I don't care how they feel, not interested, and I'm
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Speaker 2: not perceiving it even if you ask me to. So
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Speaker 2: those are two really big issues that explain why teenage
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Speaker 2: boys relative to teenage girls, are reactive the way they are.
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Speaker 2: There's the hormones, there's a self regulation, there's the empathy.
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Speaker 3: So the big question is what do we do about it.
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Speaker 2: This is a tough one because our boys don't usually
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Speaker 2: like sitting down and hearing about their development from us
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Speaker 2: as parents. As we say, I've noticed that you're having
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Speaker 2: some really big emotions right now, let's talk about how
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Speaker 2: you're expressing or containing those emotions, and let's talk about
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Speaker 2: your empathy decline. Let's get a hormone about this. That's
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Speaker 2: not going to work with them.
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Speaker 3: If we start these kinds of conversations with our children
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Speaker 3: from a young age, then not more likely to be
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Speaker 3: able to continue those conversations.
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Speaker 2: He So this is called pre arming and by letting
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Speaker 2: them know that the changes are coming, that can be helpful.
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Speaker 2: But the changes still arrive, and when they do, sometimes
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Speaker 2: the kids will still feel completely helpless and out of
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Speaker 2: control anyway.
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Speaker 3: But you've built a relationship, right right, built a relationship
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Speaker 3: with them where you can sit down and you can
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Speaker 3: have hard conversations.
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Speaker 2: So the point here is not necessarily that you've taught
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Speaker 2: them all about development, because not everybody knows that. The
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Speaker 2: point is you've developed a relationship of trust around emotions.
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Speaker 2: And so what I really would emphasize is a couple
11:36
Speaker 2: of things. First off, teach them that it's normal that
11:38
Speaker 2: they will want to resist you as they move into
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Speaker 2: their teen years. Let them know that and that you're
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Speaker 2: okay with that. That's called differentiation or individuation, and that's
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Speaker 2: what teenagers are designed to do. That's important for healthy development,
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Speaker 2: so that they can go and be adults without us
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Speaker 2: being over their shoulder all the time. That's the first
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Speaker 2: thing i'd say. The second thing is I would really
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Speaker 2: emphasize the principle that I talk about all the time,
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Speaker 2: that is a high emotions equals low intelligence. The kids
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Speaker 2: have got to know and understand that when their emotions
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Speaker 2: are peaking, they are going to do and say things
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Speaker 2: that are not wise or safe or healthy. Their intelligence
12:13
Speaker 2: is going to be low. And as they develop that
12:16
Speaker 2: awareness and they hear that mantra again and again. When
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Speaker 2: our emotions are high, our intelligence is low. Our IQ drops.
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Speaker 2: Like if you were to do an IQ test when
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Speaker 2: you're feeling normal and then do one when you're feeling angry,
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Speaker 2: you are going to score low the second time around.
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Speaker 2: Your IQ literally drops when you're angry.
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Speaker 3: So explore your focus narrows right exactly, and just you
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Speaker 3: focus on the thing that you're angry about. You can't
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Speaker 3: see anything else.
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Speaker 2: Blinders perfect and so using that metaphor and talking about
12:42
Speaker 2: these things with your kids when they're not in the
12:44
Speaker 2: moment can be really helpful so that when they are
12:47
Speaker 2: in the moment, they can remember. Ultimately, though, we need
12:50
Speaker 2: to deal with what to do in the moment as well.
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Speaker 3: Well, you've got a mum who's obviously acknowledged she's actually scared.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, this could six for it and intimidating. So let
12:59
Speaker 2: me run a line. I'm not big on giving people scripts,
13:01
Speaker 2: but sometimes you just need something and I think that
13:04
Speaker 2: it could be useful if your child lashes out says
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Speaker 2: something in an angry outburst, male or female. Frankly, what
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Speaker 2: does this feel like for you? If you would look
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Speaker 2: at your child and say, I'm going to give you
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Speaker 2: another chance to answer that, or I'm going to assume
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Speaker 2: that you didn't quite mean that. Why don't you try
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Speaker 2: that again? Does that sound like something that you could do?
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Speaker 2: What does that sentence carry with it?
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Speaker 3: I think it's empathy because it acknowledges that you recognize
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Speaker 3: that in this moment, they're not acting like they normally would.
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Speaker 3: They're not the person that you know and love right now,
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Speaker 3: and it's not because they want to be that person.
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Speaker 3: They've got some big stuff going on inside. They just
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Speaker 3: don't know how to express it in a positive way.
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Speaker 3: And so by saying that, you're acknowledging that it's probably
13:56
Speaker 3: not what you want to say right now. Can we
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Speaker 3: try that again?
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Speaker 2: I think you take on that.
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Speaker 3: I think the hard thing is when you're feeling threatened
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Speaker 3: to express that in such a way.
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Speaker 2: Great, And this is the point that I really wanted
14:09
Speaker 2: to emphasize. I wasn't thinking so much about the empathy side,
14:11
Speaker 2: but I'm really glad that you picked up on it.
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Speaker 2: The point that I want to emphasize is as much
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Speaker 2: as you might feel intimidated, you're the mum, be the adult,
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Speaker 2: hold your own space, like There's something that's really profoundly
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Speaker 2: powerful when you can look at somebody who is bigger
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Speaker 2: than you and who is a little bit scary, and
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Speaker 2: you can say, I'm going to give you another chance.
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Speaker 2: What you're saying there is I'm confident enough in my power,
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Speaker 2: even though I'm not bigger than you, and even though
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Speaker 2: physically you can dominate me, I have the psychological space
14:40
Speaker 2: to deal with this. And by being able to say,
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Speaker 2: you just said something, but I think you probably meant
14:46
Speaker 2: to say it a different way. Why don't you try again,
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Speaker 2: it causes that fourteen or sixteen or eighteen year old
14:51
Speaker 2: boy to go, oh oh, I've just been challenged, and
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Speaker 2: because it's my mum, I'm actually not gonna last yet.
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Speaker 2: Like there's something powerful about being able to do that
15:00
Speaker 2: for me. That would be my ideal response. Now, there
15:03
Speaker 2: are a couple of others that I think are also
15:05
Speaker 2: going to be really useful. The first is giving them
15:07
Speaker 2: in fantasy what they can't have in reality, which is
15:10
Speaker 2: how we draw or a line, but with lots of empathy.
15:12
Speaker 2: So you might say, don't you just wish that things
15:16
Speaker 2: weren't the way they are right now? Don't you just
15:19
Speaker 2: wish that you could do whatever you want, because now
15:21
Speaker 2: that you're fifteen, you feel like you should be allowed to.
15:24
Speaker 2: And when you're saying don't you just wish you're actually
15:26
Speaker 2: saying but you can't. But there's so much empathy there.
15:30
Speaker 2: And I guess the last idea that I would share,
15:33
Speaker 2: among many others that we could talk about, is just
15:37
Speaker 2: some gentle emotion coaching again, being confident enough in yourself
15:41
Speaker 2: to look at your child and say, you are so
15:43
Speaker 2: upset about this, I get it, or just look at
15:47
Speaker 2: them and say, oh, that that is really hard, that stinks,
15:52
Speaker 2: that's rotten.
15:54
Speaker 3: Is there any research to suggest that having male role
15:58
Speaker 3: models in their lives that can actually sit down with
16:00
Speaker 3: them and, you know, kind of walk them through the
16:04
Speaker 3: experiences that they had and share that empathy and understanding
16:09
Speaker 3: from from common ground.
16:12
Speaker 2: I'm so glad you asked the question. The last thing
16:14
Speaker 2: that I had on my list of things to talk
16:16
Speaker 2: about was the importance of good men in their lives.
16:20
Speaker 2: One thing that I'm coming across more and more as
16:23
Speaker 2: I talk to dads in particular, and a lot of mums,
16:27
Speaker 2: but mainly dads is if you ask men how they're doing,
16:30
Speaker 2: so many of them will say I'm either fine or
16:34
Speaker 2: I'm over it. I'm fine, I'm angry, I'm happy, or
16:37
Speaker 2: I'm mad, and there's there's no middle ground. No men
16:40
Speaker 2: are stable and stoic and just fine or they're blowing up.
16:46
Speaker 2: And our boys are learning that. We've got to help
16:49
Speaker 2: our kids to see men experiencing the full range of
16:52
Speaker 2: their emotional repertoire, and that means that there's a whole
16:55
Speaker 2: lot more than angry or fine.
16:58
Speaker 3: But then this comes back to that station we had
17:00
Speaker 3: earlier about starting young right right, helping them to recognize
17:04
Speaker 3: and understand. Months ago, we talked about even me as
17:09
Speaker 3: a woman, recognizing that for the first time, there was
17:13
Speaker 3: more than three emotions in my repertoire, that it wasn't
17:16
Speaker 3: just you know, happy, sad or angry, that there were
17:19
Speaker 3: a multitude of other emotions because nobody kind of talked
17:22
Speaker 3: me through those. So if we can start at a
17:25
Speaker 3: young age to help our kids recognize all of the
17:28
Speaker 3: nuance that is around emotion, So does that help?
17:32
Speaker 2: It does? We're really out of time, but I want
17:34
Speaker 2: to take sixty more seconds and I'm going to do
17:36
Speaker 2: a quick activity with you. Okay, teach your kids, your boys,
17:40
Speaker 2: your girls, teach your kids that emotions exist in two
17:43
Speaker 2: different ways. They exist on high and low pleasantness, and
17:46
Speaker 2: they exist on high and low energy. So you can
17:50
Speaker 2: have high energy and high pleasantness, or you can have
17:53
Speaker 2: low energy and low pleasantness. Or you can have high
17:55
Speaker 2: of one and lower the other, or vice versa. So
17:58
Speaker 2: let me ask you, what's a high energy, high pleasant
18:01
Speaker 2: emotion excited great? What's a high energy, low pleasant emotion
18:08
Speaker 2: anxiety great? What's a low energy, high pleasant emotion joy great?
18:15
Speaker 2: I would say contentment or calm? And what's a low pleasant,
18:20
Speaker 2: low energy emotion apathy? I'll take it. That's great. Simply
18:26
Speaker 2: doing an activity like that with the kids and draw
18:29
Speaker 2: it on two axes like a line like a cross right,
18:31
Speaker 2: and have pleasantness on one and energy on the other,
18:35
Speaker 2: and talking with your kids about that and helping them
18:37
Speaker 2: to develop an emotion of vocabulary. See, if you only
18:41
Speaker 2: have two words for emotions or three words for emotions,
18:44
Speaker 2: then there are all the emotions that you're actually going
18:45
Speaker 2: to be identifying that you're feeling. But the bigger emotional vocabulary,
18:48
Speaker 2: the more you can identify the emotions that you're feeling,
18:50
Speaker 2: and the more your emotional range expands. Your words create
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Speaker 2: your world. And if you don't have the emotional vocabulary
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Speaker 2: for all of these other emotions we can feel, then
19:00
Speaker 2: you won't know that you're feeling them. You'll think you're fine,
19:03
Speaker 2: or you'll think you're angry.
19:04
Speaker 3: Brene Brown brought out a book recently called The Heart
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Speaker 3: Atlas of the Heart as a book to just read
19:10
Speaker 3: from cover to cover. Boring, it was quite pooring, but
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Speaker 3: I love how she's able to take that nuance of
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Speaker 3: emotion and go, well, hang on a second, it's not
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Speaker 3: just sad. You could be feeling you know, seven or
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Speaker 3: eight different emotions, and these are how they differ from sadness.
19:28
Speaker 3: Sadness is this, but loneliness is this, or disappointment it
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Speaker 3: looks like this, and just you know, having those conversations
19:37
Speaker 3: with the kids is powerful.
19:38
Speaker 2: I'm going to drop one last teaser in here. In
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Speaker 2: a couple of months time, early September, we're launching what
19:47
Speaker 2: might be our last summit ever. It's called These Smells
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Speaker 2: Like Team Spirit Summit, and we're going to be talking
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Speaker 2: all about teenagers and their emotional lives. We have got
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Speaker 2: some of the very best world experts coming along for
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Speaker 2: this summit, and I think that both of the mums
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Speaker 2: who have sent these emails through will find this summit
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Speaker 2: so helpful, as will countless other parents. I wish we
20:09
Speaker 2: could talk more about this. I feel like we need
20:10
Speaker 2: another half an hour or so on this topic, but
20:13
Speaker 2: that's all we've got time for today. The Happy Families
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Speaker 2: podcast is produced by Justin Rolan from Bridge Media. Craig
20:17
Speaker 2: Bruce is our executive producer. For more information about making
20:20
Speaker 2: your family happier and the upcoming summit, make sure you're
20:22
Speaker 2: following us along at doctor Justin Pilson's Happy Families on
20:25
Speaker 2: Facebook or happy families dot com dot au.