Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #961 Parenting Teens When Life Sucks

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#961 Parenting Teens When Life Sucks · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

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  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.
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  Speaker 1: Hello, this is doctor Justin Coilson. Welcome to another Happy
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  Speaker 1: Family's podcast. Today on the podcast, I'm excited to talk
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  Speaker 1: to doctor Joe Prendergast. Joe is a parent, a psychiatrist,
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  Speaker 1: and a stand up comedian based in christ Church. I
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  Speaker 1: was going to say based in Heaven, Joe, but we'll
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  Speaker 1: go to the christ Church. It's close enough, though.
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  Speaker 3: Isn't it. Justin looking out my window at the moment,
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  Speaker 3: looking at Littleton Harbor looking like a pond with all
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  Speaker 3: the boats reflecting in it.
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  Speaker 2: In Heaven is pretty close.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: It's not quite Queenstown though, so that's why it can't
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  Speaker 1: be Heaven, right.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's much quieter.
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  Speaker 1: And Joe, you've written a brand new book. It's called
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  Speaker 1: When Life Sucks. It's been published by HarperCollins. And this
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  Speaker 1: is a book for parents who are raising teams that
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  Speaker 1: are having just the challenges, the struggles, the difficulties. But
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  Speaker 1: it's actually not a horrible hard book, even though even
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  Speaker 1: though you're a psychiatrist talking about difficult things. I guess
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  Speaker 1: being a stand up comic helps there. When you sat
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  Speaker 1: down and decide to write a book about when life sucks?
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  Speaker 1: What did you intentionally leave out?
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  Speaker 3: Probably about another hundred thousand words that I would have
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  Speaker 3: liked to put in the book. So the book was
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  Speaker 3: very much a case of pruning and sifting out gold nuggets.
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  Speaker 3: So I essentially translated all of my psychiatry knowledge, all
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  Speaker 3: of the practical things that I do and various subspecialty
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  Speaker 3: experts do to support young people who are struggling, and
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  Speaker 3: then tried to put all of those gold nuggets through
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  Speaker 3: a filter of easy to read conversational language with a
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  Speaker 3: bit of humor when it was appropriate, so that it
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  Speaker 3: was accessible to the average parent.
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  Speaker 1: Joe, when you wrote the book, you described three rs.
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  Speaker 1: Three rs of great parenting. I think this might be
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  Speaker 1: one of the most beautiful encapsulations of something that every
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  Speaker 1: parenting expert tries to teach all the time. Can you
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  Speaker 1: describe those three hours?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah?
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  Speaker 3: So essentially the three hours regulate, relate, and reason. So
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  Speaker 3: this came from Bruce K. Perry, who is a renowned
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  Speaker 3: American psychiatrist who was probably the big inspiration for my
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  Speaker 3: career listening to him talk about childhood trauma and the
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  Speaker 3: effects on brains and the importance c of early intervention.
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  Speaker 3: So he's an incredible person.
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  Speaker 1: He wrote a book with Oprah. I mean, this guy's
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  Speaker 1: a big deal.
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  Speaker 2: He's a big deal.
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  Speaker 3: And he came to Sydney and I was a first
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  Speaker 3: year registrar and I went, wow, this is mind blowing.
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  Speaker 3: This is so important. So he was probably my biggest
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  Speaker 3: inspiration to work in the area of early intervention and
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  Speaker 3: with young people.
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  Speaker 1: So let's talk about these three things. Okay, So if
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  Speaker 1: I'm raising, I mean, you don't even have to be
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  Speaker 1: dealing with a teenager here. Regulate, relate, and reason. This
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  Speaker 1: essentially sounds to me like we're dealing with a situation
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  Speaker 1: where kids are feeling disregulated. They're upset, they're crying, they're angry,
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  Speaker 1: they're moody, they're withdrawn. Yeah, and we're trying to talk
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  Speaker 1: to them and it's not going anywhere. So regulate, relate,
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  Speaker 1: and reason. It sounds like a It sounds like a
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  Speaker 1: simple process to get things back on track.
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  Speaker 3: I think the first step even before thinking about regulating
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  Speaker 3: the large, stroppy child who has just said that you've
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  Speaker 3: ruined their lives and you're the worst parent in the world.
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  Speaker 3: But the first step is to regulate yourself as a parent,
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  Speaker 3: because if you are disregulated and emotional, all wound up,
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  Speaker 3: that's going to be very difficult to regulate your young person.
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  Speaker 3: You know, if you go back to when kids were babies,
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  Speaker 3: you know, just regulated baby is one that's kind of
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  Speaker 3: crying its lungs out, and so we'd pick it up
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  Speaker 3: and we'd see that and hold it and contain it
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  Speaker 3: and jiggle it around. You know, we did things to
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  Speaker 3: regulate and stop the crying. And so essentially we need
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  Speaker 3: to do that first with ourselves and then second with
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  Speaker 3: the stroppy teenager or other young person that's in front
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  Speaker 3: of us.
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  Speaker 1: So I want to talk about the stroppy teenager, but
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  Speaker 1: we need to talk about this first. When I talk
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  Speaker 1: to parents about this one, this seems to come up
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  Speaker 1: all the time, the ability to parent yourself before your parents,
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  Speaker 1: your child. What's your go to? And obviously every situation
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  Speaker 1: is different, but I'm thinking about the parent who is overworked, overwhelmed,
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  Speaker 1: maybe doing it on their own. They've been at work
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  Speaker 1: all day, They've come home, the house is a mess,
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  Speaker 1: there's ironing and folding to do, there's a dinner to cook,
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  Speaker 1: there's a child who's refusing to contribute and participate because
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  Speaker 1: they've had a crappy day as well. And now this
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  Speaker 1: parent's supposed to take three deep breadths and regulate themselves
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  Speaker 1: that they can talk to. How do we as parents
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  Speaker 1: regulate ourselves so that we can be that adicult in
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  Speaker 1: the room for our kid.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think that depends a lot on the
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  Speaker 3: individual as well. You know, if you're a parent who's
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  Speaker 3: had a pretty benign sort of upbringing yourself and are
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  Speaker 3: not struggling with mental health issues.
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  Speaker 2: So the average sort of stressed parent whose.
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  Speaker 3: Doesn't have a whole lot that they're dealing with themselves,
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  Speaker 3: they're often just walking out of the room literally taking
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  Speaker 3: some deep belly breaths to get your nervous system back
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  Speaker 3: into the sympathetic nervous system, to kind of call it
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  Speaker 3: the team chill tool kit in terms of the different
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  Speaker 3: things we can do to get more of that chilled
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  Speaker 3: out parasympathetic nervous system into our bodies is really important.
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  Speaker 3: And even though it seems like a cliche of take
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  Speaker 3: a deep breath, there's a lot of science behind doing
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  Speaker 3: that slow belly breathing in terms of actually changing our
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  Speaker 3: nervous system because that does seem to be a real
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  Speaker 3: connection between people. If one person's wound up, stressed all
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  Speaker 3: in their sympathetic fight and flight mechanism and they're in
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  Speaker 3: a room with someone else, it becomes contagious. We start
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  Speaker 3: kind of picking up that tension. So the real challenge
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  Speaker 3: is parents, is to get ourselves into a calm, mish
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  Speaker 3: enough state so that we can then regulate our young people.
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  Speaker 3: Because if you think of the crying baby, if you're
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  Speaker 3: really overwhelmed as a parent, quite often, handing that baby
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  Speaker 3: to sort of grandma or a friend who's very calm
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  Speaker 3: and relaxed, the baby settles really quickly because they pick
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  Speaker 3: up that calm, regulated sense from another adult. And so
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  Speaker 3: we're trying to do the soothing the crying baby with
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  Speaker 3: a disregulated teenager who's standing in front of us. So
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  Speaker 3: it is a bigger challenge because it is harder to
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  Speaker 3: regulate a teenager, and particularly one who's struggling with their
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  Speaker 3: mental health.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, emotions are so contagious as well, aren't they, Like
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  Speaker 1: we really do. Yeah, we catch whatever vibe is in
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  Speaker 1: the air when our teenager storms in, or when they
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  Speaker 1: skulk in, or where they try to avoid us. Entirely.
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  Speaker 1: We kind of catch that, don't we.
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  Speaker 3: Ah absolutely, And I think one of the real challenges
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  Speaker 3: of parenting is understanding yourself enough to know what things
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  Speaker 3: really press your buttons.
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  Speaker 2: You know.
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  Speaker 3: I know, for me, being invalidated or blamed really presses
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  Speaker 3: my buttons.
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  Speaker 2: It's very hard. If a teenager goes, You've ruined my
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  Speaker 2: life by emailing that teacher about Dady dadda, you.
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  Speaker 3: Know, then it really presses your buttons. That is just
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  Speaker 3: and unfair. And I did something to try and help,
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  Speaker 3: and so you get wound up. They get wound up,
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  Speaker 3: and the whole thing escalates. And if parents have had
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  Speaker 3: their own trauma history, have had difficulties in the you know,
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  Speaker 3: I talk in the book about ghosts in the nursery
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  Speaker 3: in terms of our own experience of being parented that
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  Speaker 3: we bring with us at a very nervous system level.
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  Speaker 3: And often, you know, we might find ourselves slamming doors
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  Speaker 3: or kind of stomping around the house or saying something mean,
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  Speaker 3: or going into ignoring your kids, or you know, there's
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  Speaker 3: various things that happen that are often re enacting some
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  Speaker 3: of the experiences that we had developmentally. And I think
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  Speaker 3: that's where parents really understanding themselves, knowing what happens when
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  Speaker 3: I'm stressed, How do the ghosts in the nursery affect
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  Speaker 3: my own behavior when buttons are pressed is a really
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  Speaker 3: important part. So that regulate the parent before you even
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  Speaker 3: try to regulate the kid is like a whole book
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  Speaker 3: in itself, really, but you know, that's and the reality is,
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  Speaker 3: you know, anxious kids often have anxious parents. Kids who
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  Speaker 3: are neurodivergent often have neurodivergent parents. Kids who are traumatized
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  Speaker 3: often have traumatized parents, you know, So that makes that
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  Speaker 3: regulation even harder if your kids. You know, for example,
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  Speaker 3: in my family, where there's quite a lot of neurodiversity,
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  Speaker 3: one of my big struggles is being on time, and
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  Speaker 3: so having neuro divergent kids who also struggle being on
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  Speaker 3: time creates a huge amount of stress because it's like,
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  Speaker 3: I'm trying to do my thing better, but your kids
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  Speaker 3: are making it even harder. And I know this is
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  Speaker 3: the thing that you really struggle with, and so this
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  Speaker 3: is tough, you know. So I think parents really knowing
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  Speaker 3: themselves what they bring to parenting. I use an analogy
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  Speaker 3: about parents being the foundation of the house, and that
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  Speaker 3: knowing what you do when the going gets tough is
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  Speaker 3: really important. You know, do your foundations get ultra rigid
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  Speaker 3: where you have lots of consequences that haven't been discussed,
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  Speaker 3: or do you get all soft and wobbly and there's
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  Speaker 3: no kind of direction and the kids just fend for
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  Speaker 3: themselves when you're stressed, you know, so thinking of parents
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  Speaker 3: being the foundations and the kids be the walls at
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  Speaker 3: the house that be to kind of be supported by
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  Speaker 3: the foundations.
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  Speaker 1: Joe, when does life suck for teens a lot?
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  Speaker 3: I think the reality is that for most teens, there's
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  Speaker 3: a lot of really big emotions to deal with, and
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  Speaker 3: so a relationship breakup is way more intense. There's much
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  Speaker 3: bigger feelings, and those feelings are not very well connected
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  Speaker 3: with the frontal lobe where decisions and choices are made,
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  Speaker 3: so there's often risk taking behavior or you know, things
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  Speaker 3: that add fuel to the fire. So that's just sort
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  Speaker 3: of you know, this change, loss, rejection, being bullied. You know,
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  Speaker 3: there's so many things that happen just in a standard
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  Speaker 3: teenager's life, and you know, increasingly with tweens and teens,
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  Speaker 3: they're dealing with big things as well. And then if
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  Speaker 3: you add another layer in terms of struggling with anxiety
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  Speaker 3: or depression, or starting to develop eating problems or having
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  Speaker 3: learning problems, or you're a divergence. That make it all
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  Speaker 3: a lot harder. You know, you've put another layer on that,
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  Speaker 3: and then you add COVID isolation and missing out on
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  Speaker 3: developmental milestones, and you know, the sort of layer layer
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  Speaker 3: upon layer, and then you know, is our world going
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  Speaker 3: to catch fire in a few years, what's my future?
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  Speaker 3: You know, there's a lot going on for young people developmentally,
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  Speaker 3: and then just adding on top of that mental health
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  Speaker 3: struggles and living in the current world. So when life
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  Speaker 3: sucks is a lot and life sucks quite a lot
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  Speaker 3: for a lot of parents as well. So it's that combination.
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  Speaker 1: I wouldn't go back and be a teenager today for anything. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: so much compassion for kids being raised in twenty twenty three.
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  Speaker 3: Oh absolutely, I think you know, I think we're sort
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  Speaker 3: of similar of being teenagers. You know, back then it
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  Speaker 3: was just you know, all my parents, let me go
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  Speaker 3: to the school dance. You know, does my brush like me?
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  Speaker 3: You know, very small? You know, is the surf going
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  Speaker 3: to be good today? You know, the issues just seem
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  Speaker 3: so much more manageable back as a teenager in the
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  Speaker 3: eighties and nineties. That the descent, you know, and that's
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  Speaker 3: what the statistics are telling us as well, especially after COVID.
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  Speaker 3: You know, one in three teenagers is suffering from very
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  Speaker 3: high levels of distress, you know, and pretty much all
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  Speaker 3: of the mental health issues have shot up in Victoria
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  Speaker 3: and New South Wales and particularly in particular, they're not
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  Speaker 3: really coming down either, which is very concerning.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, Joe, So I'm a parent. I'm listening to this
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  Speaker 1: conversation and I just want one thing that I can
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  Speaker 1: do because it feels like if I was to ask
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  Speaker 1: my teenager teenager, they would say, you, actually, your life
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  Speaker 1: does suck right now. If I am that parent and
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  Speaker 1: I want to do just one thing this afternoon that's
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  Speaker 1: going to make a difference all this morning or whenever
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  Speaker 1: we're listening, what would that one thing be. You have
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  Speaker 1: an entire book about it. There's so much in the book,
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  Speaker 1: and I've actually been through every single page of the book.
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  Speaker 1: There is a lot of information about so many of
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  Speaker 1: the challenges that our teenagers are facing. But what would
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  Speaker 1: be your number one thing?
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  Speaker 3: I think probably the number one thing is you need
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  Speaker 3: to regulate yourself. You know, no matter what your teenager
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  Speaker 3: is going through, if you can find ways to be
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  Speaker 3: in an okay place yourself, then every interaction you have
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  Speaker 3: with your teenager is likely to go better. And it
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  Speaker 3: was Bruce Perry again, my go to guru, talks about
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  Speaker 3: that a connected interaction with a caregiver is worth an
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  Speaker 3: hour of therapy. You know, it's a really really powerful thing.
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  Speaker 3: So if you can find ways of being calm and
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  Speaker 3: connected and present and noticing your kid, that in itself
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  Speaker 3: is likely to make any situation better.
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  Speaker 1: I wish we could talk all day about Joe. Doctor
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  Speaker 1: Joe Prendergast is the author of When Life Sucks, Parenting
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  Speaker 1: your team through Tough Times, a parent psychiatrist, and a
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  Speaker 1: helpful person to have in your pocket when you or
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  Speaker 1: your kids are having a rough time. Joe, it's been
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  Speaker 1: such a delight to be able to chat with you
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  Speaker 1: on a Happy Families podcast. Thank you for joining me today.
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  Speaker 2: That's no problems at all.
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  Speaker 1: The Happy Famili's podcast is produced by Justin Rawan from
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  Speaker 1: Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive producer. If you'd
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  Speaker 1: like more and fo about how to make your family
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  Speaker 1: happy at visitors at happy Families dot com, dot i