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The Power of Teaching Self-Compassion to Teens · Pediatrics Now: Cases Updates and Discussions for the Busy Pediatric Practitioner

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I'm Holly Wehmint, and this is Pediatrics Now, cases, updates,
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and discussions for the busy pediatric practitioner.
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Click on the link in this podcast for free credit that may include CME,
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MOC, or ethics credit, depending on our topic or podcast.
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Today, I'm thrilled because joining me here on Pediatrics Now is Dr.
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Karen Bluth. Dr. Bluth, you're an associate professor emerita,
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University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and the author of Self-Compassion
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Workbook for Teens, The Self-Compassionate Teen, Mindfulness and Self-Compassion for Teen ADHD,
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Self-Compassion for Girls, A Guide for Parents, Teachers and Coaches,
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Mindful Self-Compassion for Teens in Schools.
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All of these topics I know our listeners have patience where it's just and a
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lot of us who have teenage kids myself included I'm just kind of blown away
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like oh I want my daughter to know all of this I want to read all of this you've
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been doing this for 50 years.
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What do you want pediatric practitioners to know, first of all?
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What's the most important thing in that exam room?
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Yeah, I think the most important thing, well, actually, first,
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I'd like to say that thank you for having me, Holly.
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I'm happy to be here and happy to talk about this subject that's so important
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to me and that I've spent so much of my life learning about and learning with teens.
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So what I really want clinicians to know is that their clients,
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these teens, do not have to struggle as much with things like anxiety,
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depression, and stress as they do.
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That there is a way out, that there are solutions for teens to become more resilient,
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to become less stressed,
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less anxious, to be a better support to themselves, and to be able to be there
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for themselves when things are hard, when they're encountering things in their
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lives that are difficult, which,
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as we know, this is not an easy world to live in right now.
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There's a lot of things out there that are very fearful and hard to deal with
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for adults, let alone for teens.
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So, you know, I think that's the main thing that I really want clinicians to
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know is that there are skills that teens can learn to be more resilient.
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And Karen, you've been in this compassion space for 50 years,
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and you have so much experience, obviously, in this.
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And how would you identify a teen who would be right, where you go right to the,
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let's look at self-compassion, where there's so much pediatric practitioners
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are seeing, as we all know, there's this epidemic of depression and anxiety.
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What would be some signs to look for where self-compassion could help?
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Yeah, well, I pretty much assume that most teens, if not all teens,
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are struggling at least somewhat with things like anxiety and depression.
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I think it's really rare to find teens who are just, you know,
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feeling great about themselves. It's part of what goes with the territory.
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So I just make that assumption. Of course, there are degrees and,
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you know, some teens obviously struggle a lot more than others.
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But some of the things to look for, I think, are teens who are isolating themselves,
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who are in their rooms, on their phones, not spending a lot of time hanging out with their friends.
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I think that's, you know, that's some of the main things really to look for.
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And what would you suggest? What would be some good things to say to try to
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help that teenager who's going through that?
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Yeah, I think one of the main messages that we try to get across,
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and this gets into the definition of self-compassion, but one of the main messages
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we try to get across is that they're not alone in their struggles.
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And most teens really feel like they're the only ones.
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They're the only ones who are struggling with anxiety. They're the only ones
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who feel lonely or feel sad or feel like they're an idiot.
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And when we teach teens about self-compassion, and we do have an eight-week
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class where we teach teens about self-compassion,
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that's one of the most eye-opening things for teens is when they realize that
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they're not alone in their struggles.
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So it might be helpful if I talk about the definition of self-compassion as
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it was defined by Krista Neff.
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She is the pioneer and self-compassion.
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At UT Austin, right?
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Right, at UT Austin. She's no longer at UT Austin, but you can find out all
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about her from her website, which is selfcompassion.org.
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You can also join as part of her self-compassion community. There's a small monthly fee.
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I think it's like $14 a month or something like that.
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But there are a lot of resources that you can access without joining.
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But anyway, that's all on the website.
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And I guess those emails, too, they're very helpful. And I didn't realize,
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though, she's not with the University of Texas at Austin anymore.
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But she was there for a number of years, right?
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Yes, she was there for a long time. I think at least 20 years, something like that.
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And yeah, she has retired from the university. and so that she could really
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put more of her time and energy into developing other resources for people who
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want to learn how to be more self-compassionate.
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So, you know, and we know that self-compassion is tied to less anxiety,
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less depression, less stress, most recently less suicidal thinking,
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particularly among teens.
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And so just to offer you the definition of self-compassion.
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So the first, there's three different parts to self-compassion as Kristen Neff defined it.
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The first one is mindfulness, and mindfulness is just simply having the awareness
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of what we're experiencing, the feelings and the emotions that we're experiencing
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as we're experiencing them.
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So this might seem kind of obvious, but often when we are really struggling
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emotionally, we tend to not want to face those feelings.
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We tend to, you know, for some people, you know, bury them under the rug or
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push them away in some way.
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Or alternatively, we tend to overemphasize them or exaggerate them. So.
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Mindfulness is having a balanced perspective and looking at the emotions that
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we're experiencing in the moment that we're experiencing them.
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And then the second component is common humanity. And this is what I was just
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talking about, that this understanding that these difficult emotions that we're
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experiencing, like sadness,
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loneliness, frustration, anger,
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anxiety, depression, that these are part of the human experience.
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It doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with us. It doesn't mean that we've done something wrong.
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And this is not the message that we get, right? This isn't the message that
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we get from our culture and our society.
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The message that we get is that we're supposed to be happy.
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And if we're not happy, then we're doing something wrong. And we need to examine
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our lives or we need to improve or, you know, we need to look at self-improvement,
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you know, ways to self-improve.
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It's just not the way things are, you know. And I think we all really know that.
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Anybody who's older than age 20 has gone through things in their lives that
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are really hard, that are stressful, that are sad, that cause anxiety.
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And this is the human condition.
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But often, although we may know that on some level, often when we're the ones
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who are going through that, we don't recognize that.
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We don't acknowledge that to ourselves. And so we feel lonely. We experience shame.
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We experience isolation, particularly for, you know, teens.
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So it's part of that. Or sorry, go ahead. I didn't mean to interrupt you. So go ahead. You can ask.
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Well, I was just going to ask, is part of the problem that on social media,
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so many of us look so happy in every single post that it kind of adds to that
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societal pressure for happiness? Yes, absolutely.
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So social media, we know, definitely exacerbates this, right?
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Because people post images that are curated, that have filters.
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Of course, they're not going to post their most painful moments or when they
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felt, you know, isolated or left out. They're going to post those images of
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when they're having fun and having a great time and everything's going well.
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And yeah, so social media definitely exacerbates this feeling of like, I'm not good enough.
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Or I'm not worthy.
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Or everybody else's lives are going great. I'm the only one who,
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you know, feels like an idiot.
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So yes, so social media definitely...
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Weighs heavily, particularly among teens in this regard.
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And so then the third component of self-compassion is self-kindness.
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And self-kindness is about taking an active step to do something supportive
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or kind to yourself when you're having a hard time.
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So we readily do this for other people. We readily support our good friends
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or say kind things to our good friends when our good friends come to us and they're struggling.
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But we don't do that for ourselves. So one of the things we teach people when
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we're teaching self-compassion in either workshops or courses or talks,
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we teach people specific tools on how to be kind to themselves and how to support themselves.
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And so we know that, first of all, that this is possible, that people can learn
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how to be more self-compassionate.
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And then second, that it's through many research studies at this point.
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We know that those people who
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are more self-compassionate have experienced less anxiety, less stress,
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less depression, have better outcomes as far as academic stress,
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as far as getting along with others.
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Their friends and partners see them as being very kind and giving and understanding,
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et cetera. So there are a lot of positive outcomes.
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What would you say to the teen?
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And this probably won't happen ever in the exam room, but it's kind of more
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for the parent in the exam room who may be saying this to the pediatrician.
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But my daughter says, let's say her name is Allison.
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Like, how could you be so stupid, Allison?
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That was so dumb. I hate myself.
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Like, what do you do? You know, something like that. Is that something to be alarmed about?
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How do you address that?
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Yeah, so we know that this actually is pretty common and not just among teens,
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but adults do it also, right? Are they learning from us?
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Sorry? Are they learning from us? I hope I've never said anything like that
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to my kids, but I don't know if I try to think back.
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We're hiding ourselves. Yeah, so as adults, we have lots of opportunities to
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model self-compassionate behavior in front of our kids, right?
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So, because we make mistakes as adults.
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So one example I like to give is, you know, a parent who's cooking dinner and
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they burn whatever, they burn the food that they're cooking, right?
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So instead of saying to themselves, oh, I'm such an idiot that I shouldn't have
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done this, so stupid, or even just like that kind of tone as that happens,
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like, you know, whatever it is, you have the opportunity as an adult,
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as a parent to say, you know what, I just burned the rice.
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I've had a really hard day. I've had so much going on, you know,
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a lot of pressure at work, you know, lots of things happening.
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What I really need is just to take a moment for myself and take a couple of
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deep breaths, sit down, even for 30 seconds, and just relax for a minute,
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and then go back to cooking.
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So you can have this outward dialogue with yourself in front of your teens.
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Your teens may seem like they're not listening, but what we know about teens
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is that they might appear like they're not listening, but they really are listening.
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So we have ample opportunities to model self-compassionate behavior in front of our kids.
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And I've done it in the classroom with teens.
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So for example, I remember one time specifically where I forgot to turn off
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my phone and, you know, my phone buzzed or something during class.
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And I used it as a teaching example. And I said, look, I have the,
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you know, I have the choice right now.
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I can say to myself, oh, Karen, that was so, you know, you should know better.
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You've been teaching for a long time. You should have known better.
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You should have turned your phone off.
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Or I could say to myself, whoops, I'm human. I made a mistake.
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Next time, I will make a point to check my phone.
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Maybe I'll even write a little note to myself, a Post-it note,
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and put it on my desk or someplace that I can see it so I'll know to turn off my phone.
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So what we're demonstrating when we do that in front of teens is that,
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first of all, you're not off the hook, right?
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You've made a mistake. You have to take responsibility for it.
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You can learn from it. But you don't have to beat yourself up so much.
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Because we know that really is not actually helpful.
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Well, and I love how in the food example too,
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where it's not like this, I don't know if toxic positivity would be the right
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word, but like, hey, now it's a great opportunity to order out or something,
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but to really kind of talk about like, it feels bad when you burn the rice and you're trying to,
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you know, and it has been a long day and I have this pressure at work and then
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like doing that for yourself, it's okay to take a moment for yourself kind of thing.
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Right. And to acknowledge that it doesn't feel good, you know?
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Yeah. It doesn't feel good to make a mistake. And that's okay.
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It's okay, first of all, to make a mistake. And second of all, to not, not to feel good.
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You know, I mean, discomfort is also part of being human.
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And I think what we've seen a lot lately is this kind of disdain for discomfort.
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Oh, we're not supposed to feel discomfort.
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We have to kind of bypass that. And that's not healthy either.
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Discomfort's part of life. And what we need to know and learn and experience
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is how to deal with discomfort and not to push it away. Not to push it away.
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And I don't know if this applies, but it,
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It seems to be like for a lot of parents now, it's that they want to,
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like, if this will make my child happy, then he or she can do this.
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And like, I just remember an example, my daughter was having a sleepover and
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she was allowed to have a certain number of kids.
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And then when it came down to it, this one friend, I asked her mom,
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like, we just need to know by today, because if you can't make it,
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if your daughter can't make it or doesn't want to come, then we'll invite someone else.
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And then she said her daughter was not able to make it, couldn't go or whatever.
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And then last minute, right before the party started, the mom contacted me.
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She's decided now she wants to go and spend the night.
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And then I told her, well, now we invited someone else, so let's get together
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another time. Something like that.
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But then she still brought her daughter over and dropped her off and said,
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this will make her too sad.
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So she needs to come and
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spend the night here and just let you know she
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can just mingle in with everyone and she dropped her off so like
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you know I hear things like this a
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lot I heard a story actually just yesterday similar kind of
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thing you know it's of course we
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want our kids to be happy it's the hardest thing
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in the world to see our kids struggle you know of course but But I just don't
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think it's teaching them how to deal with difficulty and challenges if we smooth
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everything over for them and we make it easy for them.
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Because guess what? These difficult things are going to arise again at some
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point in their lives, and we
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may not be around to help smooth them over and to make it work for them.
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So the best thing that we can do as parents really is to teach them how to deal
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with when things are hard and when you've made the decision not to go to a party,
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well, that was your decision.
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And now, unfortunately, you're going to have to deal with the consequences of that decision.
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Right. I think that that's really good advice.
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Is it important that we intervene as parents and say something if we hear our
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kids being hard on themselves or say something not necessarily saying that's not true?
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Or what do we say? Or do we say, that sounds so hard. It sounds like you're
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in such pain. I'm so sorry. Or what do you advise there?
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I think the first thing that I would do is validate their feelings.
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Like, wow. You know, just like what you were saying.
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Wow it sounds like you're you know that that's that's really
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hard that you know what you're experiencing right now is really tough
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that's really hard yeah i can i
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can see that you know and and and
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asking them and and this is you know we teach this
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we teach self-compassion in a
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pretty extensive class so there's a lot of steps to
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this and there's a lot of tools so what i'm doing right now
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is kind of jumping to the tools without having
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the intervening steps because obviously the
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you know the teen or you
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you know haven't taken the class but but you know is there something that you
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can say to yourself right now that can be supportive or if your friend if you
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have a good if you had a good friend who is going through what you're going
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through right now what would you say to them?
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You know, what would you say to your friend who was struggling with this same
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kind of thing, whether it was, you know, getting a bad grade and on test or whatever?
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What would you say to them? And then whatever they said, you know,
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can you say those words to yourself?
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Can you support yourself in the same kind of way that you supported your good friend?
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Yeah, because we would, we would never say that to a friend that's going through
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something. They then they wouldn't want to be friends with us.
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Right, right. I was going to say in the first class that we teach in our program,
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we do an activity around how would I treat a friend.
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And this comes actually from the adult. There's also an adult course,
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and we've adapted it for teens.
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But it basically teaches just that. It's like, you know what?
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We don't talk to our friends the way we talk to ourselves. We're much harder
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on ourselves than we are on our friends.
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And we don't have to be, you know? We don't have to be.
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We can speak to ourselves in the same kind of supportive way that we speak to our good friends.
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Dr. Bluth, is the workbook, the self-compassion for teens, is that the class
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or does that go along with the class? Or can you tell me more about this?
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Yeah, so the workbook, there's a lot that's in the class that's in the workbook.
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And then there are things in the workbook that aren't in the class.
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There are things in the class that aren't in the workbook. So they're overlapping,
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I guess, is the best way to see it. Yeah.
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But there's a lot in that in the workbook and also in the other books that come from the class.
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But then there's also new things in the class too. So where can we find your class?
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Where can our teenagers find your class or patient teenagers find the class?
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Yeah, so my website is OneWay, and that's just my name, dot com, KarenBooth.com.
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We are in the process of developing a website specifically for teens,
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which I'm hoping will be launched in the next few weeks.
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I'm being very optimistic about it. We've been working on it for quite some
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time, and it will be selfcompassionforteens.com.
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And yeah, so that one will have lots of, you know, kind of easily accessible
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things for teens so that they can learn more about self-compassion.
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So they can go to the, but your website, parents or pediatric practitioners
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who want to know more can go to karenbluth.com and, and you can take the course.
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And is that where we could, and can we find the workbook, the self-compassion workbook for teens?
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You can find that wherever you would get a book, Amazon or somewhere.
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Right so right so yeah
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so all the books are available at barnes and noble or amazon or wherever you
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buy your books your local bookstore on my website on the on the landing page
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there is a link directly to the courses a page in the website where there are
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some of our teachers have,
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little have their bios and information about the courses that they're taught
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that they're teaching So we've trained teachers, I don't know how many at this
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point, probably close to, you know, four or 500 internationally in this, to teach this program.
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I just came back from teaching, training teachers in China.
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And I, earlier in the year, in February, I was in Korea training teachers there. Wow, how did that go?
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Great, great. It was the third time I was in Korea, second time I was in China.
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I was in China last year also, training teachers.
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And so, yeah, we've been lots of places, Australia, Germany,
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Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland, lots of different places to try to get,
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you know, because teens are struggling everywhere, right?
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Are you teaching teachers of self-compassion or teachers in general how to teach
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self-compassion, like school teachers?
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Some are school teachers, some are clinicians, some are therapists,
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school counselors, parents, really anybody who wants to learn and is willing to take the course.
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We do have some prerequisites.
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One is to have some experience teaching teens.
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So if you're a clinician or an educator, you have that experience or a Girl
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Scout leader or some experience teaching teens.
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The reason for that is that sometimes people feel like they want to teach teens,
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but they really don't have a sense of what all of that is about and what it involves.
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And so we'd like people to have some experience with teens in groups.
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And the other prerequisite is taking the mindful self-compassion class for adults,
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which is a fabulous class, which I think anybody and everybody should take.
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And that's available now online it's available in person lots of different places
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one place to find out about that is the center for mindful self-compassion and the website for that is.
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Centerformsc.org and they have a listing of people taking that class for adults
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all over the world And also,
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I'm sure Kristen Neff has it on her website, which is the selfcompassion.org website.
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I admire Kristen Neff's work. And I remember one of her exercises,
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it says to say to ourselves, if you've been lucky enough to have had a kind mother,
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have or have had to say to yourself, it's okay, darling.
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And if you haven't had or don't have a kind mother, to imagine having that.
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And kind of talk to yourself so sweetly like that.
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Yeah, and you can, you know, and it doesn't necessarily have to be a mother.
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You know, it could be, you know, some imagined figure.
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When we teach this to teens, we, you know, we offer, you know,
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it could be a grandparent. It could be a teacher.
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It could be a coach. It could be somebody who you just imagine, you know.
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You know, you can create this person in your own mind. Or you could be a character
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from a book you've read or comic book or a movie or whatever.
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But some imagined being that is, you know, that cares about you and wants the best for you.
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And yeah, you know, and they can be your compassionate friend.
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And is it good to say things out loud or is it more of an internal voice or
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does it not matter? It's whatever feels comfortable?
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I would say it's whatever feels comfortable for you. You know,
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I think for some people, you know, some people like to do it silently.
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Some people like to say something out loud.
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You know, I've taught adults for a long time as well as teens.
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And what I hear, you know, I wouldn't say consistently, but,
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you know, not inconsistently, is that it can feel awkward.
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So if it feels awkward to you to say these kind words and kind messages to yourself,
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have no fear it's simply because we're not used to doing it and what we know
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is that when we're not used to doing anything it's going to feel uncomfortable
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or awkward at first right so you know even think about the first time you know
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if you play a musical instrument the first time we sat down at that musical instrument,
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it felt really uncomfortable and awkward.
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Or the first time, you know, you played a sport, it's uncomfortable or awkward.
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You know, things are always awkward the first time you do them.
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So it's only because we're not in the habit.
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What if, say, in the exam room, a teenager or a teenager at home,
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you know, the parent or the pediatric practitioner asks, like,
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have you been taking your medication?
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And she says, like, I'm so stupid. I forget to take it sometimes.
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Is that an opportunity? What do you say there?
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I would say something like, you know, we all forget at times,
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right? You know, we're all human, and part of being human is,
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you know, we can be forgetful.
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So, again, that's that common humanity message.
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You know, this is part of being human. It doesn't mean that you're,
28:13
you know, that there's anything wrong with you.
28:16
So, you know, so you're human. You forget. What are some steps that you can
28:21
take right now so that you can remember, so that you can remember to take your medication?
28:28
So again that's you know the self-kindness
28:32
piece so medication you know you need to
28:35
take the medication medication is good for you so
28:38
what can you do that will help you remember what are
28:42
some actions some steps so it could be you know whatever it could be tying it
28:47
to you know you know anything from you know putting a string around your wrist
28:53
you know it's an old kind of a old-fashioned kind a way to remember or tying
28:58
it to something that you do every night,
29:01
you know, if it's a medication that you have to take in the evening.
29:04
When you go to brush your teeth, you know, put a note on your toothbrush to take your medication.
29:09
You know, tying, what are some steps that you could take that will help you remember?
29:13
Your class that's on your website, is that a recording or do you do live sessions too?
29:19
And is there a cost or can you tell us more about that?
29:23
Yeah, so different teachers who we have trained offer the class,
29:27
and there is generally a cost associated with it.
29:31
The cost is, you know, up to the teachers who offer it. You know,
29:36
there's a kind of a range that we suggest.
29:39
And some teachers teach in person, some teachers teach online,
29:44
some do both. So it varies, you know.
29:48
Prior to the pandemic, it was always offered in person. Since the pandemic,
29:53
things have changed, and it's now offered online as well as in person.
29:58
Okay, great. Karen, tell me about Self-Compassion for Girls,
30:03
a guide for parents, teachers, and coaches.
30:06
Yeah, so this is an Audible original that I wrote. I was approached by Audible
30:14
to write a book specifically for girls.
30:18
This was maybe 2018, 2019, and I believe it came out in 2021.
30:27
And it's one of the few books that I wrote that's specifically for adults.
30:35
So I'm saying book and quote because it's not in print. It's only on Audible
30:40
if you have a subscription to Audible.
30:43
And it's free offering through Audible.
30:47
So it's all different ways that parents, teachers, and really anybody who works
30:54
with teens, specifically teen girls, although there's a lot in there that's
30:58
also applicable to teen boys,
31:02
to help support them.
31:05
You know, and to help teach them some self-compassion tools.
31:08
It sounds great. And what about your mindfulness and self-compassion for teen ADHD?
31:14
Can you tell me about that? Yeah, so I worked with Mark Burton,
31:19
who is an ADHD expert, as I am not the ADHD expert.
31:23
And so we wrote this book specifically for teens who are struggling with ADHD,
31:29
Because what we know is that teens who experience ADHD tend to be really hard on themselves.
31:36
They've experienced a lot of negative feedback in their lives from teachers,
31:44
from their school experience, from, you know, sometimes from parents.
31:48
And so how they can be kind to themselves and how they can support themselves
31:53
in spite or maybe even because of their ADHD so that they can manage their ADHD
32:01
experience with, you know,
32:04
greater kindness and greater compassion and, you know, manage their lives in
32:10
a way that they can be successful and not so hard on themselves.
32:15
That sounds wonderful. For our parent listeners and our pediatric practitioner
32:21
listeners, can you go through some things?
32:25
Because as parents, we know, you know, it's, I like to say, I like what Oprah
32:31
says, it's the hardest, best job in the world.
32:34
And we know that being a general practitioner, that's also really hard.
32:40
They have so much coming at them.
32:41
What are some things we should be saying to ourselves for self-compassion.
32:46
Can you give us some more examples?
32:48
Yeah, I'm so glad you're asking this question because, as I said earlier,
32:53
I think the best thing that we can do for kids, and I'm saying kids generally
32:57
of all ages, is practice self-compassion ourselves and to learn self-compassion ourselves.
33:03
And as I mentioned, there's a lot available out there for that specifically,
33:09
the two websites that I mentioned, selfcompassion.org and centerformsc.org.
33:17
And, you know, to learn how to be, how to support ourselves,
33:21
because it is really, really hard to be a parent.
33:25
I'm a parent of two adults.
33:28
I can't even say young adults anymore. They're 30 and 33. And so.
33:34
It's still You know it still has its challenges Certainly
33:38
it's not as hard as it Was when they were teens but it's
33:41
It still has its challenges so Parenting is
33:44
The hardest I always say it's the hardest job ever So we too To Be kind to ourselves
33:54
and supportive To ourselves and there are people Working with In pediatric clinics also,
34:02
working with pediatricians to teach pediatricians how to be kinder to themselves.
34:08
Up until I retired early January this year,
34:12
and before that I was working with residents and some pediatric residents in
34:18
hospitals teaching self-compassion to residents because,
34:24
as you know very well that it's, it's, it's hard.
34:28
It's very, you know, being a clinician is very hard and people look to you often
34:33
with answers and it's, and sometimes the answers are hard or they're hard to
34:38
come by or sometimes they're, and we worked very,
34:41
very hard, you know, it's a hard job.
34:44
So, so learning how to be kind to ourselves, learning how to be compassionate
34:48
to ourselves and how to support ourselves when things are hard,
34:52
knowing that they will be hard.
34:54
I find that when I go through a self-compassion exercise, if I'm having trouble
34:59
sleeping, I fall right to sleep.
35:01
Does that help? I do the same.
35:04
Yeah, it's pretty amazing. Yeah, I do the same.
35:07
So one of the things, and this is just one tool, one quick tool that we teach
35:12
and we teach it in the first class, are self-compassion gestures,
35:16
or we call them supportive gestures.
35:18
And we readily do these gestures for other people.
35:22
When other people are, you know, our friends are struggling,
35:25
we would think nothing about giving them a hug or patting them on the back or
35:29
putting our arm around them.
35:30
But we don't do those kinds of things for ourselves.
35:33
Although we know that they elicit a release of oxytocin, which of course is the feel-good hormone.
35:41
So I do this for myself in the middle of the night. I wake up and I can't sleep.
35:45
I will just cross my arms and maybe stroke my upper arms, or give myself a hug,
35:51
or just rest my hand over my heart.
35:55
There's a whole number of supportive gestures that we teach that people can
36:01
do to just elicit a little bit of this physiological response,
36:06
this release of oxytocin in our systems when we can't fall asleep or when we're struggling.
36:15
Easy. When we teach teens, they tell us that they use them frequently because it's easy.
36:21
We can do it at any time. Very portable. Yeah, it's very helpful.
36:27
Well, Dr. Bluth, this has been so wonderful, and it's such an honor to talk
36:32
to you about this important topic of self-compassion.
36:35
Is there anything else you want to mention regarding self-compassion for teens,
36:40
kids, adults before we wrap?
36:44
Yeah, I think the only thing that I want to mention is that to remember that
36:49
this is a really hard world that we're living in right now.
36:54
And I think it's really easy to forget that. It's a lot easier.
36:58
Harder than it was a couple decades ago, certainly when I was a teen,
37:03
but even in generations since then, it's particularly tough.
37:09
And what teens and young adults report to us is that they really struggle with
37:15
undue pressure around academics.
37:20
Around the divisive political discourse around, you know, the issues around
37:26
climate change and violence and school shootings.
37:30
I mean, there's a lot going on there that causes a lot of fear in young people
37:36
that hasn't, that wasn't there in previous decades.
37:41
So in social media, of course, we talked about that.
37:44
And so just to remember that and to keep that in mind is that this generation
37:48
is growing up with a lot of pressure that we didn't have previously.
37:55
And also, of course, that there are tools, that there are tools and there's
38:01
things that can really help alleviate some of these stresses.
38:07
One clinician, when I was talking to her in the clinic where she works the other
38:11
day, she was just saying, the biggest thing is just it's screens.
38:14
What do we do about all the screens? they're constantly on
38:18
screens even when
38:21
they're like i saw i was on a
38:23
a walk the other day and out in nature but the i mean i and i can also understand
38:29
the situation when kids are little it's it's hard to even be able to go on a
38:33
walk but the child was holding a cell phone watching a video while they were
38:37
walking through the forest you know and the child the it was a big like one
38:40
or two year old in a stroller Sure.
38:44
Like glued to the phone.
38:48
Yeah, it's, you know, it's, it's really hard.
38:52
It's hard. And it's something I think that we'll be dealing with for a long time.
38:58
When we teach teens, I'll tell you what we do around social media is we don't
39:02
tell them don't use social media, because of course, that would just be,
39:05
we just get a lot of backlash from that. And we know that that wouldn't work anyway.
39:09
So what we teach them is to be aware of how they're feeling when they're on
39:14
social media, you know, and to notice their feelings.
39:18
And, you know, if they're feeling, you know, joy, or they're feeling connected,
39:24
or they're feeling something good, then great.
39:26
But notice how they're feeling and know that they have a choice.
39:29
So we empower them with making
39:33
the decision that we let them know that they're capable
39:36
of making the decision to limit their social media
39:39
use if that's what they so choose or not
39:42
you know but to notice how they're feeling when they're
39:45
on so ask that question how is this making you feel how does it make you feel
39:50
afterward yeah notice notice how you're feeling when you're on social media
39:55
we actually have them take out their phones and scroll on their favorite social
39:59
media platform and notice how you're feeling.
40:03
And and then also after and if you were not feeling good how can you support
40:10
yourself we don't give them the answers right because they're capable of answering
40:15
it for themselves how can you support yourself how can you be a better friend
40:20
to yourself if you're not feeling good when you're on social media.
40:24
And could your workbook, could that help a child on his or her own,
40:29
or is it important to take the class too?
40:32
What I've heard is that the book helps on its own. Absolutely.
40:37
So, you know, depends on the kid. You know, sometimes they just want to work alone.
40:42
I think the one really huge benefit of working in a group is the common humanity piece.
40:48
So teens see, oh, wow, I am not alone. I'm not the only one.
40:54
Who feels really badly about myself, you know, all these other teens do also.
41:00
And it's really hard to convince teens of that if they don't see it for themselves.
41:06
And it sounds like this self-compassion could really help the child who doesn't
41:13
just say harsh things about his or herself,
41:16
but then in addition to that might hit
41:20
something or break something or hurt someone else
41:23
like is saying that first the precursor to that sometimes and
41:26
the self-compassion could help be
41:29
the anecdote to all of this the anecdote to to kind of like teenager wanting
41:36
to hurt themselves or others or just slamming something down you know after
41:42
when they're mad or they or something like that or hitting a wall or slamming a door,
41:48
Well, what we know is that teens who are more self-compassionate are less likely
41:54
to self-injure when they're depressed.
41:58
So, you know, we just know that from a research study.
42:01
So that we know depression, of course, is tied to self-injury.
42:05
But teens who are more self-compassionate are less likely to make that jump
42:10
from depression to self-injury.
42:13
And that's true. So, you know, self-compassion we know is a protective factor,
42:18
is a buffer against a lot of those negative outcomes.
42:22
And we know that from various different research studies. Well,
42:26
this has, it's all been so great.
42:28
Any parting thoughts or do you want to mention how it helps you in your life
42:36
being an expert? Every day. Every day.
42:40
It helps me every day, you know. And, of course, with all my work over the years,
42:46
being with not just self-compassion but with mindfulness,
42:48
that I'm constantly—I'm much more self-compassionate than I was 10 or 20 years ago.
42:59
But it's always a work.
43:03
I, like everybody else, it's a work in progress. And you're never done.
43:07
It's a lifelong journey, actually, to be kind to yourself.
43:13
But you develop the awareness. You develop more awareness of when you're not
43:18
feeling good about yourself. And so you can bring in those tools more readily.
43:22
And I would imagine this can help the teen. It can help all of us to be more
43:26
compassionate to others if we have that self-compassion, if we're practicing that regularly.
43:32
Right, because we're more resilient and we have more to give.
43:34
You know, when our own cup is full, we're more able to give to others.
43:39
Mm-hmm well thank you so much dr karen bluth professor and expert in self-compassion
43:48
and author thank you for being here on pediatrics now and pediatrics now for
43:54
parents well it's my pleasure to be here thanks so much holly.
44:00
Music.
44:03
Um is it important to say things to yourself like i'm doing the best i can or
44:08
stuff like that or or like is there another like running line to say like in times of,
44:15
instead of i think the main running line would be when i say this to a friend
44:20
no what would i say to a friend and can i say that to myself okay that's good because,
44:27
sometimes we're not necessarily doing the best we can we can't can we always
44:31
do the best we can maybe always i don't know but right right but you know when
44:36
i say that you know and it's okay hate sometimes to not do the best you can.
44:40
You're human, you know, it's going to happen.
44:41
But yeah, same.
44:44
Yeah. I mean, how would I, when I say something, it's just somebody else.
44:48
No, then don't say it to myself.
44:49
And then do you, is there anything like in internally in your mind that you
44:54
like a go-to line, like whatever, say like, it's okay, darling,
44:57
you know, it's going to be okay.
44:59
Or something like that. My go-to line is everything's going to be okay.
45:04
Everything's going to be okay. Even if it doesn't turn out the way that you
45:07
expect it to, it will turn out. Something will happen.
45:11
That's nice. And it often does.