Episode: 67

How To Help Anyone In Your Life Who’s Struggling: Fantastic Strategies From A Yale-Educated Psychologist

with Dr. Lisa Damour, PhD

This conversation is packed with practical strategies that will help the people in your life who may be struggling.

Dr. Lisa Damour is a clinical psychologist and author of three New York Times bestsellers. Her latest book, The Emotional Lives of Teenagers, is nothing short of life changing.

You’ll learn:

The five powerful words that can change everything in a tough moment
How to avoid turning conversations into battles
When therapy is the right call
Why struggles are actually a sign of mental wellness

Listen on:

We're not going to medicate or therapize our way out of this adolescent mental health crisis. It's going to be about the adults around teenagers, parents, caregivers, bosses, mentors, coaches, teachers being there for teenagers, and being invested in their emotional lives.

Dr. Lisa Damour, PhD

Featured Clips

Transcript

Mel Robbins (00:00:03):

Today you're going to meet Dr. Lisa Damour. And if you thought the last three years in lockdown impacted you, wait till you hear her, describe the impact that it had on young adults. Whether you're worried about kids in your life or you're worried about somebody else or you're worried about yourself, this is a remarkable opportunity for you to learn, for you, to get scripts, for you to know exactly what to say and do to become a better you. Hey, it's Mel and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast. Alrighty, welcome. My name is Mel. I am so excited for today's conversation. You're going to leave so hopeful, full of strategies that you're going to put to use immediately. You're going to feel empowered if you're brand new to the Mel Robbins Podcast. Welcome. Thank you for being here. I'm Mel. I'm a New York Times bestselling author, and I am one of the world's leading experts on stress.

(00:01:05):

Well, actually not stress. I said stress because our expert today is an expert on stress. I talk about behavior change and motivation. And today you're going to meet Dr. Lisa Dior. She has made such a huge difference in my life. She used to write the article Mother Load for the New York Times. I held on to that article like a blankie when I was parenting our teenage daughters. She is so full of wisdom and just incredible advice and perspective. I also love her voice. Wait till her voice. You're just going to feel calm when she comes on. Dr. Lisa Damour is a clinical psychologist. She's a New York Times bestselling author of three, yes, three incredible books. She has a PhD from the University of Michigan and an undergraduate degree from Yale. She is one of the world's leading experts in parenting education, child development, stress and anxiety.

(00:02:03):

And I've invited her on because she not only hosts an incredible podcast called Ask Lisa, but she has changed my life with her three books, untangled Under Pressure, which is all about the pressure that girls in particular are feeling. And her latest New York Times bestselling book, the Emotional Lives of Teenagers is revolutionary. She wrote it during the last three years of upheaval. And if you thought the last three years in lockdown impacted you wait till you hear her describe the impact that it had on young adults. And this is not, by the way, a conversation just for those of us that have kids. This is a conversation for all of us because we're going to go deep into the difference between normal big emotions and distress and upsetting situations, which by the way are normal and you need to be able to deal with them.

(00:03:07):

And so you're going to get tools from her for yourself. You're also going to get advice about how to help people in your life, not just the kids cope with very stressful situations. So you're going to come out of this just armed with things that you can do. But what I love about Dr. De Moore's work is that everything that I've ever read also makes me feel smarter because she helps me understand these big complicated topics. And I always leave knowing what to say, what to do. And so whether you're worried about kids in your life or you're worried about somebody else or you're worried about yourself, this is a remarkable opportunity for you to learn, for you, to get scripts, for you to know exactly what to say and do to become a better you and to support the people around you. Her latest book, the Emotional Lives of Teenagers, is a must read. In my opinion. This is a conversation I've been dying to have. Dr. Lisa Damour. Welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast.

Dr. Lisa Damour (00:04:11):

Oh, Mel, thanks so much for having me.

Mel Robbins (00:04:14):

Oh, I'm so excited. I have so much I want to talk to you about. I do have a confession. Yeah, you were a tow rope that dragged me up the hill of parenting teenage daughters because I was an avid mother load reader and disciple. So thank you for your work. That means so much. You have no idea what a difference it made. And when I saw that you were releasing yet another book, your latest book, the Emotional Lives of Teenagers, I thought, oh wow. And this was all written during the last three years of upheaval. And what was it that made you want to write this latest book, Lisa?

Dr. Lisa Damour (00:05:03):

So there were two things that really drove me to do it. One was of course, what teenagers went through in the last several years, and I've been practicing with adolescents for coming on 30 years now. I got my PhD 26 years ago and I was taking care of teenagers while I was in training, and I've never seen anything like it. I've never seen teenagers go through such a hard time. The other force that got me to my computer to bang out this book was that the way we talk about mental health as a culture does not square with how we as psychologists understand it. And what I mean by that is that so much of the discourse about mental health suggests that being mentally healthy means feeling good or calm or relaxed or at ease. And those are all good things, but those do not actually factor into how psychologists assess mental health.

(00:05:57):

And when we're looking at it, we're looking for two things. Do the feelings fit the circumstance and are they managed well? So we expect to see distress. If somebody gets dumped in a romance, we expect sadness. We expect them to be really heartbroken and maybe bitter and a little angry. Those are all appropriate emotions. What we're really interested in is what does the kid do next? Do they weep? Do they talk to their friends? Do they get their ice cream? Do they do things to help themselves feel better? Or do they trash that kid online? Do they turn it against themselves? Do they smoke a ton of weed? We only worry when we're in that second category of unhealthy coping. That's what we're most interested in.

Mel Robbins (00:06:42):

Well, what's immediately striking to me is that this applies to people of all ages, right? Absolutely. That what I have noticed is that there seems to be, and I know that you write about this too, but I'm constantly struck by how eloquent people are about some mental health thing or some diagnosis and their ability to talk about it. But it seems as though people's ability to tolerate uncomfortable emotions and the ups and downs in life have gotten way worse over time.

Dr. Lisa Damour (00:07:25):

It's true. I think we have run into a situation where for far too many people uncomfortable feels like unmanageable, that there's not a distinction between those two. And it's an important distinction because discomfort is part of life and teenagers are going to feel it. Adults are going to feel it, and it's important and we want to care for people under those conditions. But we don't want to assume that discomfort means that everything must stop and it cannot be managed. Some people find themselves there and then we have the full force of our clinical supports that we can bring to that. But those are two very different things.

Mel Robbins (00:08:04):

I want to break apart the two reasons why you wrote the book. One being the impact that the last three years when March, 2020 dropped like a bomb on all of us and everybody's lives got turned upside down. You write extensively about the specific impact that it had on the lives of teenagers. And just for the sake of this conversation, when you say teenager, what age group are you talking about?

Dr. Lisa Damour (00:08:31):

That's a critically important question. So adolescence begins at 11, and this is something that psychologists have done a terrible job of getting out to the public. Most people think 13 because they hear teen at the end of that and they think teenager, we have always marked the onset of adolescence at age 11. And that is because adolescence begins when puberty's underway. And by 11, most kids, even if you can't see on the outside, they're underway with puberty and we mark the end of adolescence. You can push it as far as 24, 25. You can hear the asterisk in my voice on that. By and large, their brains are in great shape, very fully developed by 18, 19, 20. But their better reasoning is still more readily knocked offline

(00:09:20):

Until they're about 24, 25. So if they're very, very stirred up, young adults don't always handle things as well as they will after 24, 25. But I always get a little uncomfortable when people are like, oh, their brains are not developed till they're 24, 25. I'm like, well, but look at that English paper that kid wrote. Look at that beautiful piece of art that kid made. That's a developed brain. It's just that it can be a little bit easily undermined in terms of their perspective maintaining until they get fully, fully into adulthood. But we're talking a big window here. I mean 11 to 24, 25. I mean those are very, very wide range of numbers and very different kinds of people filling in that space.

Mel Robbins (00:10:06):

Yes. Okay, good. I'm so glad we started there because I also honestly would lump in adults that are emotionally immature and has never matured in terms of their emotional processing. But I'm glad that we're talking really the range of early middle school all the way through. You're through college and we're going to go step by step in just a minute around how the world turning upside down and going into lockdown and all of the isolation and complicated feelings that happened, how it impacted this age group specifically. But I want to talk first about the second reason why you wrote the book because this applies to all of us, which is the big disconnect between the wellness industry and a lot of the sort of self-help pop psychology that's out there saying, you should be happy, you should be this, you should be that. And I say that a lot too. However, there is a major need for people's ability to tolerate the really low moments and the uncomfortable moments. And what you're saying is that there's a difference between what clinically and what people believe is the baseline that mental health does not mean be happy. What does it mean to be mentally? Well,

Dr. Lisa Damour (00:11:35):

What it means is that the emotions you have are actually in concert with what's happening in your world.

Dr. Lisa Damour (00:11:42):

And I think that I'll see you and raise you. Mental health is often defined by experiencing distress, and that is 180 from where the culture is right now. Often mental health concerns and distress are treated as though they're one and the same. But I'll give you several examples. It's so easy of where the presence of distress is actually evidence of mental health. So if the kid gets dumped, we expect distress. The absence of it would be concerning if a teenager has a huge test tomorrow and they have not started studying, we want to see some anxiety. The absence of anxiety is more concerning than the presence of anxiety. If someone's really mean to you, right? If you're a teenager or an adult and someone's really mean to you, we expect to see hurt. And then probably a self-protective anger. Those are all unpleasant emotions. Those are all unwanted emotions. Those are evidence that we work exactly as we should. And so to pathologize all of that means that people are spending their normal healthy days feeling like there's something wrong with them when in fact that distress is proof that they work perfectly.

Mel Robbins (00:12:52):

Lisa, you're a genius. I just had this huge breakthrough because you're right, we have just painted with such a broad stroke that guilt, fear, shame, anger, upset, heartbreak, that somehow that makes you weak when what you're actually saying is no, no, no, no, no, no. If it's occurring in reaction to the appropriate situation, that is a sign that you're mentally well.

Dr. Lisa Damour (00:13:24):

Absolutely. And it's also data. That's the other way. We think about all of our feelings, negative and positive. They tell us how things are going. So if every time you have lunch with somebody, you walk away feeling kind of stepped on and diminished, that's really good data. Don't have lunch with that person if you can help it. And if you go to a job interview and it feels just thrilling to be in the space, that's good data that we, emotions psychologists are surprisingly agnostic about them. We don't really value positive ones over negative ones. It's just all information and our job is to take it in.

Mel Robbins (00:14:05):

Wow. I love this reframe. I absolutely love it. I would love to tease this out a little bit more because I think this applies to all of us. It does. How do you know when it's a normal distressing emotion versus something that you should be concerned about in either yourself or somebody else?

Dr. Lisa Damour (00:14:34):

So there's a few ways. I mean, part of it is there's no real right feeling, right? You have the feelings you have. And I think that I would never want to say, we always expect to see this feeling under these circumstances because of course our feelings are informed by who we are, our histories, what's come before. So there's not always a perfect map of what we expect to see. And here again, psychologists can just usually just take a much more curious borderline anthropological stance towards emotion as opposed to judging or valuing. But here's what we don't want to see. We don't want to see emotions getting in the way of people's lives. That's where we start to be concerned. We fully expect to see sadness under sad conditions. We don't expect to see depression, which is where mood becomes so low that it really casts aall over everything in a person's life.

(00:15:29):

We fully expect to see anxiety if there's something wrong, if there's danger around you or a lethal virus in the environment, we expect to see anxiety, but we don't expect anxiety to become paralyzing and get in the way of people's ability to do the things that really are safe or that can and should be able to do. So for us, the index is really much more about functioning and do emotions undermine the ability to function well in the world because they should be supporting our ability to navigate our lives and deepen our relationships. They shouldn't be getting in the way.

Mel Robbins (00:16:06):

So the real kind of takeaway here for all of us is that distressing emotion.

Mel Robbins (00:16:14):

It is part of being mentally well, but when you start opting out of seeing friends and you stop the kind of hygiene protocol of taking showers and exercising and eating, or you start overmedicating your feelings with alcohol or weed or whatever, that's the red flag,

Dr. Lisa Damour (00:16:35):

Right? So I'm going to even tease that apart a little bit more. So the emotions can either get in the way, so mood that actually disturbs the ability to live one's life and you moved in this direction in such a critically important direction, what I would call costly coping. So people are coping with moods, but they're doing it in ways that come at a cost. So either abusing substances or being incredibly hard on the people around them or turning it against themselves, whether they're running themselves down or even engaging in self-harm, those may be actually providing some relief. People only do things that actually work for them, but they come with a price tag. So that's the other two thing we look for. So we look for a mood that gets in the way of the ability to live one's life or coping that is a costly way to go about things, if not immediately. Certainly over time. Those are the flags that we keep an eye out for.

Mel Robbins (00:17:31):

I got it. Two flags, mood and costly coping. And I want to role play for a little bit if that's cool, because I love to leave our audience in action and empowered and everybody, you have got to go pick up this book. It is not only so enlightening, but it is hopeful. I mean, I wish I had this book three years ago, and I'm so happy that I have it now because I find that these tactics are incredible, not only for our teenagers, all three of them in our kids are 24 through 18, but also for adults and for people I work with. And so if you're in a situation where, let's just talk about the costly coping stuff that you talked about. I can't tell you how many parents and friends where we would confide in one another during the last three years. My kids are completely off the roads.

(00:18:26):

They're not even showing up for the Zoom classes. My son is hitting the vape, smoking weed, playing video games for six hours a day. I don't even care anymore. The stress level is so high as long as they're waking up in the morning and they're not mean to me. How do you as a parent or a friend or a partner of somebody, you see somebody smoking too much weed playing video games for too long, those sort of coping mechanism that you're right, let you escape. How do you even begin to approach it? Because every time we would approach it in our household, you get the big shove back.

Dr. Lisa Damour (00:19:05):

So I think the first step is to really recognize that it is working for that person, that it is serving a purpose. And you described that, right, that substances can help numb distress. They're incredibly effective at that. That's the problem with them is that they work to make pain go away. Oh my

Mel Robbins (00:19:22):

Gosh, hold on a second. Can I just stop there? I don't know that I've ever heard anybody ever hit the pause button and tell the truth that people engage in these behaviors because they work for them, which is why they become so damn defensive when you try to take them away from them.

Dr. Lisa Damour (00:19:46):

Exactly. Wow. This is where I'm so glad I got the training I did when I did, because the premise of my whole training is that humans are rational actors. They don't do things that don't serve a purpose. Even if those things outwardly end up causing so much trouble, there's always a rationale. And that's actually the best part about my job is that when people come my way clinically, my job is to figure out you're doing this thing that is just damaging your life and getting in the way. We have to understand why, so that you then can feel like you've got some choices.

Mel Robbins (00:20:25):

Wow, I'm sorry. I'm just letting the profound nature of what you're asking us to do, because I can think of several friends who had daughters in particular self-harm, cutting very self-destructive behavior, and from the outside you look at it and you panic and then you make it wrong and you'd want to do anything because you love this person to stop it. But I think it means that we're missing this critical step in connecting, which helps us lead to the problem solving. So why is it so important, even though it's terrifying when your kid is hurting themselves or they're clearly escaping and addicted, why is it so important to say to yourself, this is a coping mechanism that's working for my kid, and I actually have to start there?

Dr. Lisa Damour (00:21:30):

Here's why it's so important, because the alternative is a dead end. And what I mean by that is that if you come at a kid or anyone saying you need to stop and then fill in the blank, what you're going to run into is a part of them that is like, you don't get why this is working for me. And now you have a conflict. If you go the route of saying, you're a smart kid,

Dr. Lisa Damour (00:22:05):

You wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't working for you. At some level, the conflict ends up in the kid or the adult that you're trying to help between the part of them that doesn't want to be cutting or abusing substances or playing video games eight hours a day

Mel Robbins (00:22:24):

Or running around and sleeping with the wrong people, which is what I was doing in high school, but okay.

Dr. Lisa Damour (00:22:29):

Yeah, right? I mean, whatever it takes to help yourself feel better. So there's a part of them that doesn't want to be doing those things, and there's a part of them that is doing those things. And the job of the helpful outsider is to try to get a conflict going between those two parts of the person who is doing the thing and to stick up for the side that wants to be healthier. And that, I'll tell you the language that I remember when I learned this as a clinician around if a client comes in and is talking about suicide, which is of course terrifying,

Mel Robbins (00:23:06):

Isn't it also normal to have suicidal ideation?

Dr. Lisa Damour (00:23:08):

Let's come back to that. That's a really critical question. It's a really critical question. But sometimes clients will come in and talk about suicide, and I remember the day I learned the language from a senior clinician to say to someone, listen, clearly, part of you is really thinking about hurting yourself, but part of you wants help. And that's the part that's telling me that you're having those thoughts. I'm going to stick up for the part of you that wants help. And that's how you don't turn it into a fight.

Mel Robbins (00:23:40):

That's incredible. And you can probably hear me, everybody. I've got a pen in my hand. So this is one of those conversations where I am having a conversation and furiously scribbling notes, which I don't know why I have to do that given that I can listen to this again. But there's a part of you that is really considering this or there's a part of you that is in so much pain that you're resorting to cutting to feel alive, or you're in so much pain that you're smoking dope so that you can just numb out and forget about it. But there's a part of you that wants help,

Dr. Lisa Damour (00:24:23):

And

Mel Robbins (00:24:23):

That's the part of you that I'm speaking to.

Dr. Lisa Damour (00:24:25):

Did

Mel Robbins (00:24:26):

I get that right?

Dr. Lisa Damour (00:24:27):

Yeah. You just say, you wouldn't be letting me know if you didn't want help. There's a part of you that wants help. What do you

Mel Robbins (00:24:32):

Do if they didn't tell you or you don't? You know what I mean? Because a lot of times, particularly with these behaviors, people hide them.

Dr. Lisa Damour (00:24:41):

It's true. So eventually you find out or you smell the weed coming out of their room, or you notice that a young person has harmed themself. So I think the first thing we want to do as sort of the helpful people who are trying to step in is to get to a place with ourselves where we feel a bit centered, reacting strongly in those moments does not go well. But then I think it does sometimes happen that you have to confront a person about their behavior. And again, I think teaming up with them and teaming up with what I know all teenagers have and all adults have, which is that growth giving health seeking side is the way to go. So I think let's just use marijuana as an example, and you can smell it.

Mel Robbins (00:25:31):

I'll be the kid. So I'm sitting in my room, I've litten up a big doobie, I'm smoking, I don't even know you're outside mom, I got my headphones on and I'm playing Minecraft, and I'm just, or I'm scrolling on Instagram. I don't think you're home, didn't hear the garage doors open. There I am in my room,

Dr. Lisa Damour (00:25:48):

Okay. And here I come. So knock, knock on the door, no answer. So I let myself in, right? And I say, oh, buddy. Oh buddy, you and I both know that smoking weed, this is going to get in the way of the kind of life you want to lead. We got to figure out what's getting in the way of you making different choices.

Mel Robbins (00:26:13):

Whoa, you just spoke to a different part of me.

Dr. Lisa Damour (00:26:19):

That's the goal,

Mel Robbins (00:26:20):

Right? That's the goal. Now, do you leave the room? Do you just drop it like a grenade and then let that kind of settle for them? Or do you sit down on the bed? Because I think we just don't know what to do, and then we get so emotional, Lisa, that we react, which makes it worse.

Dr. Lisa Damour (00:26:35):

Well, I think I'd see what the kid does. I'd sort of take the cue from them. He just did say something. I think we also to give kids room to come to where we are. I mean, I think it's so hard in parenting so often, and I have two teenagers myself, so often in parenting we have a full head of steam. They walk in the door and we're like, we need to talk about boom. And the kid's like, whoa, I was going to go get a snack. I was not ready for this conversation. So I think

Mel Robbins (00:27:01):

Plus now I'm high mom and my tongue feels like it's filled my mouth. I can't have a conversation with you. I can't have a conversation.

Dr. Lisa Damour (00:27:07):

Then I think you may, let's just say for the sake of argument, like this isn't a great time to have the conversation. The kid is not entirely available to it. And then I think you say, we're going to have to have a conversation about what's happening here. And my favorite phrase, and I also remember the moment I learned this in my training is because what we're doing isn't working. What you're doing isn't working right. And that's the thing about substances. They do get to a place where they start to undermine a person's life that they're not showing up at school or they're under functioning academically, or they aren't actually maintaining friendships or they're not contributing to the home or the community. And so that becomes the thing, you can't keep doing this because what you're doing isn't working. We have to come up with something else. So if you're in so much pain that you're doing this, we're going to find another way for you to address that pain. But the goal, and you can hear this in every approach, is to not turn it into a showdown between the person who's trying to help and the person they want to help.

Mel Robbins (00:28:12):

That's amazing. It's like I just had this visual of kind of that you're right, it is a showdown, the knock on the door, the screaming, the shame, the this. And now you're putting your 40 or 50-year-old angst about this onto your 16-year-old, and it just compounds everything that they're trying to escape anyway. And I had this visual of if you don't have that as you said, head full esteem, but you can center yourself and realize you're trying to get on the same page with the part of them that wants to do better. And I had this visual instead of pounding on the door of literally putting your arm around them like, buddy, I love that. You're like, Hey buddy, and I love this. I wish I had talked to you two years ago because that what you're doing isn't working.

Mel Robbins (00:29:04):

When my husband's depression came to a head, I was the bitch on the door knocking. And what I was trying to say is that I was trying to say, what you're doing isn't working. And instead of course I'm like, thank God you're doing yoga and all this stuff. You'd probably be dead if you weren't, but you got to start that. You're like, you got to get in therapy and you got to take, but what I wish I would've known, and what I hope everybody's taking away is that phrase, what you're doing isn't working.

Dr. Lisa Damour (00:29:35):

We got

Mel Robbins (00:29:35):

To do something else. We got to do something else.

Dr. Lisa Damour (00:29:37):

And I'll tell you, Mel, so when I was in training, I had a really brilliant and terrifying supervisor, and she said to me, you get eight words and utterance when you're listening and sitting with a client. They can say as much as they want to say, you can't go past eight words. And the reason for this is as soon as you're past eight words, you're into somebody's head, you've bypassed their heart. But if you can keep it tight, and if you can go to the core of it in eight words or fewer, it lands. And so what's interesting is that discipline of needing to find just the arrow and the through line, that's how I've ended up actually being able to translate over into writing and podcasting and all of the other forms of work I do. Because if you're doing good clinical work, you're just going for the central message as cleanly and as easily understood as possible.

Mel Robbins (00:30:47):

I love how you've simplified this for us, that you have really drawn this highlighter and highlighted the notion that distress is a really important part of being mentally well. And it's only when it becomes destructive to your mood and your daily functioning, or you start having costly coping mechanisms that we got to sound the alarm, so to speak, because what they're doing is working for them to escape or cope, but it's not helping. And so your role, and you've just made this, you are like an arrow hitting the target, Lisa, this is your genius that your job is to appeal to the greater part of them. What you're doing isn't working, and I'm here to help you figure out what could work.

Dr. Lisa Damour (00:31:43):

Exactly.

Mel Robbins (00:31:44):

Wow. You also write in your latest bestseller, the Emotional Lives of Teenagers, that there is a difference with how the different genders cope with stress. Can you walk us through that?

Dr. Lisa Damour (00:32:00):

Sure.

Dr. Lisa Damour (00:32:01):

Let me say a whole bunch of caveats first.

Mel Robbins (00:32:03):

Sure.

Dr. Lisa Damour (00:32:04):

Anytime we're looking at gender findings, we're looking at huge numbers. There's tremendous overlap between the genders. And then of course, we've only really studied conventional genders. We've only really studied male female. We are slow to the table to study kids who do not fit into one of the traditional categories. So everything I'm saying needs to sort of be couched in that broader understanding of how we do the research and what we've studied. So having said that, when we look at traditional gender categories, a pretty consistent broad is that when they're in distress, girls are more likely to discuss and boys are more likely to distract. And these are both actually acceptable forms of managing emotions. There's actually nothing wrong with either, but where we see trouble is if you veer to the extreme or you use that strategy all the time, ideal. Can you

Mel Robbins (00:33:04):

Give us an example of what you mean by discuss or distract? So we kind of have a knowing and then also what's sort of within range of helpful coping? Absolutely. And what gets to be on the fringe?

Dr. Lisa Damour (00:33:18):

Absolutely. So let's say a girl, someone's mean to her at school and she goes and finds her best friend and she's like, ah, you're not going to believe what so-and-so just did. She was so such a jerk to me. And her friend says, oh man, she is such a jerk and I love you and you're fine and you're cool. Okay, yay, good outcome. We like that. We could also have a boy where someone's a jerk to him at school and he's upset by it and he doesn't want to talk about it, but he goes home and he plays basketball for a little while, blows off steam, gets it out of a system, gets past, it lets it go moves on. Those are two perfectly reasonable outcomes of those two different strategies. What we don't want to see is, and I'll just stay with the boy girl, great stereotypes we don't want to see is girls who then they discuss it with their friend and then they end up in a three hour conversation discussing it with their friend, and then they are doing the critical analysis of the text thread with the girl who was mean.

(00:34:24):

And then four other girls hop in on this. And there's two problems with this. One is, and this is sort of a secondary finding, girls are more likely than boys to engage in vicarious distress. Meaning if my friend's upset now I'm upset too.

Mel Robbins (00:34:38):

Dr. Lisa Damour (00:34:38):

It has this widening swath of distress. The other thing is that it threatens to turn into what psychologists call rumination, which is basically a spinning of one's emotional wheels. And though it's kind of gross, it's really helpful metaphor. It's like picking at an emotional wound. The more you talk about it, the worse it gets. It's not healing up better to just leave it alone. So we don't want to see that extreme. And if we go down the boy stereotype, what we don't want to see is that every time this kid has something that feels bad, he just shuts down, goes plays basketball or hops on his video game and just stays in this distracted place until the feeling dies down enough that he can tolerate it. Because the cost to him is number one, he's not getting the kind of social support he deserves. Nobody knows he's in pain.

(00:35:28):

Number two, he's not actually developing the fluency in verbalizing emotions that we'd like to see. The part of what happens if we go down these boy girl pads is that girls get better and better and better at talking about feelings. They practice it all the time. And boys can get worse and worse and worse at talking about feelings because they're not practicing it with one another especially. And so the ideal management is somewhere in between, a little disgusting, a little distracting, or any variety of other strategies that help to tame or express emotions. We just don't want to see anybody leaning too hard on one strategy.

Mel Robbins (00:36:07):

These were super relatable examples, and again, because I know that what our listeners crave is, okay, so what do I do? Because these are so relatable and I know so many people in our family and also friends whose we're going to start with the kind of rumination side, and I'm sure this goes for adults too. You have those people in your life that can't let it go. They're still talking about the divorce and it's been final for three years. They're still complaining about what happened when mom died and who got what, and just holding on to it. How do you approach that with somebody?

Dr. Lisa Damour (00:36:54):

I think that lemme do the girl example version and then let's think, yes, let's go rumination. Let's just go right down that rumination road. So what I encourage parents and also peers to do if they're caring for a teenager who is really spinning their wheels, spinning their wheels, is to say to them, listen, talking about feelings usually helps, but what I'm noticing is the more we're talking the worse you feel. So let's do this. Let's put a pin in this. Let's make a plan to talk about it tomorrow. What time do you have? What time do I have? We'll schedule it, we're coming back to it, but between now and then, let's just do something else. Let's go think about something else. Let's just take a mental vacation from this situation. And what is extraordinary is it so often when you do that, when I've met with that kid the next day or talked to the person the next day, they're like, yeah, I dunno what I was so upset about.

(00:37:50):

Just the space alone, the time alone brings it down to size and they're no longer dumping stress hormones into their bloodstream for that 24 hours. They're not thinking about it. So it helps people to find their feet. So that's a short term, something that just popped up. I think there's probably a different answer for those bigger questions around people who are struggling to let go of a painful divorce or struggling to let go of how things went down in the family in the wake of a parent's death. And my hunch is for that, there's just a lot of meaning to what occurred that has not really been examined or

Mel Robbins (00:38:29):

Resolved. Yeah. What about with the boys? How do you approach that or any behavior of just distraction and literally losing yourself in something so you don't have to face the pain of the situation and the emotions that you're feeling.

Dr. Lisa Damour (00:38:50):

So it's interesting. Distraction can end up as costly coping. We can go right back to that category, which is so say a boy's had a really rough day and his strategy is to play video games for eight hours. Okay, well, he may have gotten past the rough day, but now he has a new problem. He hasn't done his homework and he needs to go to bed. I mean, it creates its own side effects. So one way to take it up is just from that side of saying, look, I get it that you may have had a rough day and playing some video games helps you get through it. You can't be doing this so much that you now have a new situation to deal with.

(00:39:24):

Is there another way you could help yourself feel better? Now, the thing here about boys and expression, right? That's really what's underneath us is getting kids, but of boys in particular to talk about feelings is that there's a lot caught up in why they don't talk about feelings. And I would say it's one of the hardest things in parenting that I hear about is parents of adolescent boys in particular who become very, very sphinx and very, very reserved. And I think that's its own fascinating and complex universe sense. We'll have you

Mel Robbins (00:40:04):

Back to talk about that to make sense. I think that's its whole 45 minute conversation, don't

Dr. Lisa Damour (00:40:09):

You? It's a big one. It's a big one and it's an important one and it can be done, but I'll just for now, I'll just say expression of emotion takes a lot of forms and it's not always in language. And what I've really become much better at is honoring that there are healthy ways that the boys express emotion. But it's not always in words though. I also wish they were more often talking about what they were feeling,

Mel Robbins (00:40:35):

Speaking of expressing themselves. One of the things that I learned in this book that was just life-changing, I wish I had known this 10 years ago. It's a word that explained my entire experience of raising teenage daughters, which is externalization.

Mel Robbins (00:41:02):

And the fact that, and it still happens today, we joke in our family, Lisa, and you may have, as you're hearing me explain this, you probably have somebody in your life who does this. They emotionally dump on me. So I've realized that when our daughters want to chat, they call my husband and they have wonderful conversations about their life and what's going on in their relationships and what they need help with. And when there is any kind of upsetting or distressing situation, I will get three FaceTime calls in a row until I pick up. I get the tears, the venting, the frustration, the world is ending, and then it's as if it's all done. They go back to their life. And I feel like somebody has thrown a bucket of slime on top of me. And now of course I'm all worked up and your research shows that this is normal and it has a name. This is normal behavior

Dr. Lisa Damour (00:42:03):

In teenagers. It's actually one of the very few things that is especially organized around adolescence is the use of the, we call it the defense of externalization. And Mel, I have a story. I have such a vivid memory of being a freshman in college myself, and I grew up in Colorado and I went to college in Connecticut. And I remember doing this to my mom. I remember getting her on the phone. Yeah, you did too. And I remember calling her and being like, I don't know. I don't really like it here. I don't really have any friends. I'm not sure I'm going to make it. I don't know. Then I see my roommate, I'm like, I got to go. So I hang up the phone, I go out with my roommate, I have a super good time, and I remember my mom called me the next day and she's like, are you okay?

(00:42:46):

And I'm like, yeah, I don't know what your problem is, but I'm fine. My dad told me later, she'd been up all night. I mean, she was getting ready to pack the cooler and drive across the planes to retrieve me. So this is not a new maneuver. Teenagers have forever and always done this. It's not a fun maneuver for parents for sure, but it is also really hard to be a teenager and they have a lot of big powerful emotions. And I think sometimes the way they get through their day is to conveniently dump them, treat them like emotional trash. I think of on the people who love them and are willing to collect their trash and having discarded the trash. What we often find as parents is the kids don't want to talk about it. They're like, no, no, no. I've done the trash. Don't ask me about it. I'm not going to answer your texts. I'm not going to pick up your phone calls, just take the trash and make it go away.

Mel Robbins (00:43:39):

That's unbelievable. You're exactly right. Because on the receiving end of it, I feel like they've dumped the trash on me. I'm weighted down. I'm worried about it, I'm thinking about it. I just had a sleepless night the other night because of something that one of our daughters is going through. And then I spoke to her in the morning. She's like, oh, what? That's fine. And it was, if nothing happened, I'm like, excuse me, I should have taped the conversation. So you heard the Defcon 10 bomb that you dropped on me, and I should probably apologize Lisa to my mom because I would call her,

Dr. Lisa Damour (00:44:10):

I know

Mel Robbins (00:44:11):

Every day from the payphone in my dorm hallway at Dartmouth collect to cry and complain. I don't like it here. I don't know anybody here. Everybody always has their friends here. And it got so bad after two weeks of this that my mom said, you either hang up the fucking phone and don't call me again and get out there and make some friends, or I'm coming to pick you up the next time you call me and you'll come back home and you'll go to the community college and that'll be that I never called her again. But then our daughters both that same scenario, the first couple of weeks of school just processing the hard emotion. But it's so liberating to hear that it's normal. And so should we just let the trash fly and kind of step out of the way and not feel like we have to collect it? Just let them litter.

Dr. Lisa Damour (00:45:04):

Yes. And I think that if you're worried in this interaction, you can say to your kid, do you want my help or do you just need to vent?

(00:45:13):

And that is often if they say, I just need to vent, which is overwhelmingly what they are looking for, what I would say is visualize yourself opening an emotional garbage bag and just let them unload all of that garbage into the bag. And then when the call is over, dispose of it, right? Don't carry it around. Don't take it to bed with you. Just be like, that was a garbage collection moment and the kid needed a place to dump the garbage. And I am as the loving person in their life, willing to collect their garbage. But you don't need to then go through the trash yourself.

Mel Robbins (00:45:49):

You could have saved me years in marriage counseling because I feel like a lot of the times what my husband and I then are at odds about is my stress about what the kids have just externalized by handing me their emotional garbage and his ability to just either not be bothered by it, not worried about it, knowing that the wave is going. Thank you, thank you. Thank you for writing about that. One final question about this kind of category and then I want to jump into the incredible insights that you have about how the last three years and lockdown in particular impacted teenagers and young adults specifically and what you've seen in your work. And so when do you know it's time to get a therapist involved and how do you look for one, the right one?

Dr. Lisa Damour (00:46:52):

So I think we would go back to what we're doing isn't working and we're not able to find another way. The things we're trying aren't helping, right? Because nobody starts at a therapist. They try at home to make things better.

(00:47:09):

And so I think if you feel like we've given this as much thought as we can, we've thought of everything we can, what we're doing isn't working. Our kid is not better enough, our kid is still suffering, that's when it's a great time to get help. And I think that's really critically important. I think one thing when we talk about teenagers and therapy, one thing that I always like to remember is something that I remember when I was taught this in my training that teenagers worry that there's something wrong with them. Almost universally, this is a worry that teenagers carry, and it's because being a teenager is a very dysregulating and very disorganizing experience. Their emotions become very intense. The way their brain works changes. And so I think it's true that a lot of teenagers harbor a secret concern that there's something wrong with them.

(00:47:59):

And so when it comes time to suggest that they should be in therapy, we have to do it carefully because I think if you just say, you know what, you need to talk to a pro, then the kid's like, oh my gosh, this is exactly my secret concern is now confirmed. So I always am very careful about how I approach it, even when I know it's the right recommendation. And I will tend to say to teenagers, listen for what you are up against. You deserve way more support than you have, and we need to get someone who actually knows what they're doing to help support you through this.

(00:48:30):

That is just a tiny shift that can make an enormous difference. Then there's the issue of finding somebody, and this is hard, and part of what's hard about it is there's just not a lot of clinicians who specialize in caring for teenagers. And one thing that really never got discussed in the broad conversation about the adolescent mental health crisis, there were two reasons for that crisis. One, what teenagers went through that really increased their suffering at a very fast pace. And the other, everyone who cares for teenagers was already full in their practice before March, 2020. And so we're not really in a position to scale up the workforce, the people who care for teenagers very quickly. It takes a long time actually to become trained at it. And so that was really where things ended up in a bad place is that the need accelerated and the workforce to address the need cannot be scaled up at that pace. So finding a clinician is hard. It was hard before 2020, March, 2020, it's hard. Now it's getting a little better. What I would say is in my experience, pediatricians are actually a really good resource. They know your kid, they know the local talent in terms of psychotherapy. They are often good at actually doing a good match between your kid and who they know in the community. They can sometimes help facilitate making an appointment happen. And so that's usually my generic advice is ask your pediatrician who they like.

Mel Robbins (00:50:01):

I think that is so hopeful and so accessible, and I really appreciate that answer because it's something anybody can do and it makes a lot of sense. Let's pivot to this accelerating mental health crisis that we are reading about.

Mel Robbins (00:50:18):

We are experiencing every single one of us, Lisa, I don't have a single friend who doesn't have a family member who is spiraling and all through the kind of lockdown and coming out of the last three years, it doesn't feel like a new normal. It feels like there is something that's been bubbling underneath the surface. And if it hasn't already erupted with the young people in your life, it feels like everybody is very tender and that there is something going on beneath the surface. And so I would love for you to talk about what you've seen and what your concerns are about what and how this age group 11 to 25 roughly experienced the last three years, social isolation and lockdown.

Dr. Lisa Damour (00:51:21):

Well, let's look at it this way. Teenagers have two jobs. Their jobs are to become increasingly independent and to spend as much time with their friends as possible. And those jobs were made impossible by what they went through. And I'll tell you, Mel, I saw a wide range of responses, a few kids, but this isn't a sign that this was a good thing. We're glad to be home, we're anxious about school. Very, very small minority of kids felt some relief under lockdown, but we now have the reality that they do need to return to the world at large. And that's harder than it was before. Most kids just suffered through it, found their way one way or another, while feeling miserable. I mean, they were miserable and miserable in all of its variety, some incredibly anxious about what was happening with their social lives. Some unable to do school in 2D.

(00:52:30):

That is its own fascinating universe of kids who were otherwise very strong students. And I saw several of these really, as long as they were in a bricks and mortar school, could do school, and as soon as it was collapsed into a 2D space, we're actually incapable. And it got me thinking, you can hear I get excited about the phenomenology of this. It got me thinking about, oh, we never knew that so much of what kids kept some kids organized at school was moving physically from room to room. So, oh, I must be in this class now because I'm sitting next to the kid I sit next to in this class. I'm going to focus on this class. Or that they knew that it was time to get out their notebook because everyone around them was getting out their notebook or they knew that it was time to start writing down notes, noticing people doing it.

(00:53:17):

I just became completely fascinated by all of these ancillary supports that we had never thought about because we had never been put in a position to think about. And I watch kids who really were incredibly strong academically crater. I mean absolutely be completely unable to do school. There were also kids who could do school. They just hated it and they did it and they hated it. So we saw all of that. And then at the other far limit, and unfortunately we saw way too many kids in this area, I saw kids entirely derailed who developed horrifying eating disorders, who were smoking so much weed that it really probably changed their developmental trajectory at least for a while, who ended up in just rip roaring social conflicts that I think were partly to deal with boredom and partly out of desperation and partly out of who knows what. I will tell you, Mel, and from having read my work, I am generally on the lake. Kids are resilient. It's all good. We'll find our way through this. And I still believe that. But I can tell you having been a practicing clinician for a long time before 2020 march and then post the stories I hear now of kids derailing are just much, much more extreme than what I used to hear. And that part is alarming to me, and I don't get alarmed very easily.

Mel Robbins (00:54:48):

Wow, what do we need to know? Because what we saw, which is very interesting, is we saw a lot of grief because our daughters were in the middle of their college experience. And so there was daily ricocheting emotion about policies changing. Are we going back? Are we not going back? Who's going back? Am I going to live off all of that stuff? And then all of those sort of milestones of graduation or prom or all of these things that people look forward to or just expected being ripped away. And so I saw a lot of that. And I also have lots of friends whose kids just opted out of school, who started smoking pot, who became incredibly rebellious, who became super depressed eating disorders. And so I think we've all, if it's not happened in our family, we have somebody close to us who is going through it. And what do you want us, first of all, to know about how not being able to do the two things you're supposed to do, which is become more independent and spend more time with your friends, how does that impact a child developmentally?

Dr. Lisa Damour (00:56:18):

I think the best language for this is to think in terms of delay, not loss, though there's a lot of loss and what your daughters, they lost elements of college that they're never getting back. And I think that needs to be acknowledged is exactly what it is. But in terms of developing a sense of independence, finding one's path and one's interests, developing one's peer relationships and increasing reliance on peer relationships and moving out into the peer world, we just have to accept that there's a delay in that. And there's no getting around the fact that there's a delay. I really do think that development isn't the most powerful force in the world, and kids will find their way back onto a trajectory that works for them. I really do know that humans as a group bend towards health, but sometimes I think it's hard for us to accept that there are delays.

(00:57:13):

I have sometimes found myself in conversations where people are hand wringing about how kids look academically, which we are still seeing the aftermath academically. And I say to them, okay, but wouldn't it be so weird if kids didn't go to school for a year and a half and they came back and we saw no impact from that? That's true. We would've been thinking, what have we been doing all this time requiring them to show up for school? So we just have to say they're going to be delayed because they missed out. And that language I think is better than a lost language. I also think we got to look for the big stuff. So we talked about suicidality. Let's just hit it head on. It's the scariest thing. So it is true now that thoughts of suicide are actually not rare, that I don't have the statistics at my fingertips, but

Dr. Lisa Damour (00:58:02):

I know that when we've looked before 2000, we would take surveys of adolescents and the frequency with which the thought had crossed their mind. And it's not rare. And I remember being a teenager, and one time my mom and I were in a fight and I was like, oh, wouldn't she? If I hurt myself right now, she'd feel so bad, right? So did I think about it? Yes. Was I myself close to doing it? No. Right. So I do want people to know that if you have a worry about a teenager or anybody in your life around questions of whether they are suicidal, what we recommend as psychologists is you just have to ask. You have to ask. And here's how I would have you do it. I would say to the person, listen, I need to ask you a question. And this may feel out of the blue, something like that. But because, and then you tell them why, right? You don't just ask randomly. You say, because you've been in your room for a day and a half, or you have not seemed like yourself, or you were so upset about that thing.

(00:59:04):

I need to ask, have you had any thoughts of harming yourself or ending your life? And the reason we're reluctant to do this is we're afraid we're going to give the person the idea That's a concern. We know that it's not a concern. What we do know when we have researched adolescence is if a teenager is thinking about suicide, they're glad you asked. So I think we start with the scariest thing and how to address the scariest thing. And then we can go think down the line of more manageable concerns. But that is the one we just have to address very directly.

Mel Robbins (00:59:38):

Thank you. And it was very reassuring to hear the research that teenagers are just glad you asked.

Dr. Lisa Damour (00:59:44):

They're glad you asked.

Mel Robbins (00:59:45):

Yeah. We did a episode with our 18-year-old son now where he disclosed to me on the episode, I did not know that this was the case, that he had had big scary thoughts like that freshman year, and I had no idea. And so one of the things that was interesting about it is he was pretty surprised to learn that it is frequent and normal to have a thought like that. And there's a big difference between having a thought and actually wanting it to happen, and that they do come and go, and they do go away. And it doesn't mean you're at the end of the end, but even just talking about it made 'em feel better. And so I love that you just gave us permission based on the research to just ask. They will feel better even if the thought didn't even cross over mind. Thank you for checking in. I would love for you to help us understand some of the issues that you've seen coming out of this and how to really parse, especially in the wake of the rising crisis that you're seeing, even if it's just starting to come to the surface, it's sort of even delayed that now we're kind of through it and quote back to school and back to this, that there's still this delay and there's still this hangover, so to speak,

(01:01:07):

Of the emotional experience. And I'm convinced everybody's nervous system is in fight or flight still.

Dr. Lisa Damour (01:01:14):

I'm with you on the nervous system stuff. I mean that really rocked our world. And when we think about really hugely unsettling events, they do sort of rewire our nervous system. And I think that we're having to find our way through that. Two things we are seeing aftermath, and we can be very specific about that. I really worry about eating disorders. I really worry about kids who are abusing substances. We don't know yet what the snapshot of mental health is right this minute for teenagers. And part of what's confusing is that in February of this year, the CDC released a report that was very devastating about adolescent mental health. But what's important about those numbers is that they were collected in the fall of 2021, asking about mood over the previous year.

Mel Robbins (01:02:02):

Dr. Lisa Damour (01:02:03):

Yeah. That kind of got lost in a lot of the reporting. And I think that's actually a really critically important point because when I think about the fall of 2021, what we were looking at were kids who were either entering their third school year that was disrupted.

(01:02:16):

They were all entering their third school year. Either they were back in masks and terrified or not going back in masks and terrified or still hybrid and unhappy. So it was a very particular time. So just to say we kind of don't know and we won't know for about another 18 months where we stand now, anecdotally, and this is important to say for kids who are back to their regular routines, they look to me like kids did before 2020 that I'm seeing a lot of just typical adolescents, which is also rich and spicy on a good day. But it's typical, right? But the things I worry about, I worry about increased isolation. People spend more time away from one another.

Dr. Lisa Damour (01:02:59):

I worry about eating disorders in kids of all genders. We have traditionally attached these to girls. That's not actually how it works. And I worry about, we haven't talked about social media. It's a big topic and I feel like it's way more complicated than just all good or all bad. I worry about the norms in digital environments where kids hang out. And what I mean by that is that one thing I feel that we definitely saw between March, 2020 and then the subsequent years was that kids who were stuck at home, who felt like they were going to use that time to get in shape and improve themselves. So they start searching online for fitness, diet, exercise, anything like that. The algorithms that drive social media pick this up and start to flood their feed with image after image after image of ultra thin or ultra fit. And then how to lose weight. And here's an advertisement for it.

(01:04:02):

Teenagers are vulnerable to norms. They are more vulnerable to norms than kids are. They are more vulnerable to norms than adults are. And it's hard, we can't prove this with the data, but I will just go out on a limb and say, I am convinced if you are looking at 4,000 images a day of ultrafit, ultra thin people, that impacts real world behavior and that changes how you eat and that changes how you exercise. And we did see an explosion of eating disorders. So what I would say is we got to watch where kids are online now and forever because the norms are powerful.

Mel Robbins (01:04:42):

I can't agree more. In fact, it happened to our daughter. I remember when she got into treatment for disordered eating, she ended up deleting her visco and her Instagram. And I don't even think TikTok was really a thing. This was back in high school, so it hadn't quite exploded yet. And she said, my entire feed is basically models and waste trainers and puppies, and it makes me feel terrible. And I keep looking at these images and it makes me feel like I need to get like that. And I know that these are fake. I know there are filters, but I still can't help it. I want to be like that. And so it drove all of this obsessive behavior. Is there also a connection with the spike in eating disorders because it is typically something driven by this need to

Dr. Lisa Damour (01:05:41):

Control? It's interesting. I wrote a piece for the Times, I think it came out in April, 2021 about the spike in eating disorders. And there's a variety of reasons that can come into it. So some is everything fills out of control. Here's one thing I can't control that can be really powerful. Another that one of the experts I interviewed referenced that I thought was really important is that we had a lot of very hard driving teenagers with a whole lot of energy who suddenly couldn't do the things they usually did, who would've poured their growth, self-improvement juice into band and sports and all these other things, and who had just a whole bunch of that lying around. And so then they turned it against themselves into I'm just going to get really fit. I might as well do something to make myself better in this time. But I do also just think if all you're looking at are ultra thin ultrafit bodies and you are not going to school and looking at normal bodies in 3D, your sense of what bodies looks like changes and your view of your own body changes.

Mel Robbins (01:06:52):

I want to ask you a very specific question on this topic because I think there's also this kind of cultural obsession with being in shape and being healthy and being good looking. And if you've got a kid that suddenly goes on a health kick and now they're exercising and they get positive reinforcement because they're looking great and they're not going to run the 5K and now they're going to get in triathlons or now everyone's like, oh, you look great in that bathing suit.

Mel Robbins (01:07:25):

Where is the line where it's a healthy thing versus this is now something that's scary. I think we all know when somebody has stopped eating when they're deteriorating in terms of their weight, but how do you, because I miss the signs and kids are also remarkable at just kind of, oh, it's fine just and then because it's in this lane of, but they look better, but they're exercising, but they say they're going for a run. How do I insert myself here? How do you do that?

Dr. Lisa Damour (01:08:10):

It's tricky and it is easy to miss. So some framing stuff. One is teenagers shouldn't be losing weight and usually they're gaining weight in the course of typical development and later puberty that they're gaining weight and they're gaining strength. So if you notice that your teenager has lost weight, you should be attentive to that. It's just an unusual thing for teenagers to do. And it's not all bad. I mean, you can talk with your pediatrician and there are some teenagers who the pediatrician may say, this weight is not an healthy place. Losing some weight would be a healthier thing to do. Then you can do that with the nutritionist and the pediatrician and do it in a controlled and careful way. But one thing I've learned from my colleagues in the eating disorder world is by the time a teenager's losing weight, something's usually up. And I think that's just a valuable marker to have. The other thing that we want to watch out for is dropping entire food categories. So I'll put it this way. Not everybody who becomes a vegetarian goes on to develop an eating disorder. Everybody who goes on to developing an eating disorder drops a food category.

Mel Robbins (01:09:29):

Oh my God. I literally just had this conversation with somebody about how it's become, and you said teenagers are so 11 to 25, very impacted by norms. And our daughter, the one who did have disordered eating, did a research paper in college about, I don't even remember the name of it, but that there's a lot of people in her age group that are gluten-free or vegan or dairy-free or this, and it is a socially acceptable and praised way to have disordered eating. It's not actually an allergy. It's literally it's crossed a line. Is that what you're talking about?

Dr. Lisa Damour (01:10:21):

It is a flag. It's a flag. And one of the ways I sometimes assess that flag is I'll sometimes care for teenagers who are like, I don't eat sugar. And I'll be like, Hmm, right. And my eyebrows will go up. But if I also know that they don't eat sugar, unless somebody brings in some really good cupcakes, I don't worry about it too much. So there's what people say and what people do. And what we want fundamentally is to see that food is a pleasure, that it is a wonderful source of energy, that there's variety in a young person's diet and any of our diets. So those are the flag. Those are some flags to keep an eye out for. And then I would say if concerns really start to rise, we can actually go back to where we started around people having two sides.

(01:11:09):

And it's the job of all of us and teenagers are developing in their capacity to take good care of ourselves. That's our job. And so if a teenager is suddenly eating nothing but celery and running a lot, that kid is not taking good care of themselves. And so before it gets to that extreme, I would want the loving person in their life to say, Hey, I see that you're getting pretty fit, but I'm not so sure you're taking good care of yourself. Are you taking good care of yourself? Are you eating the kind of variety of nutrition? Are you being gentle enough on your body like exercise? Yeah, but not to the point of injury to use that as a guardrail that fundamentally that's the goal is for the teenager to be doing a really, really excellent job of caring for themselves.

Mel Robbins (01:11:57):

Beautiful. Just a couple more questions. One that I had is I worry a lot about anxiety and I worry about how we seem to have a parenting crisis of parents who can't tolerate their kid's anxiety and are allowing their kids anxiety to run the house. Can you give us some advice, especially given that teenagers are such emotional beings to begin with, how do you give space for the normal emotion without letting a teenager's emotion run your house or dictate what they do?

Dr. Lisa Damour (01:12:46):

Well, thank you for bringing up this. I mean, it's a huge topic, and actually between untangled and the emotional lives of the teenagers, I published a book called Under Pressure Confronting the Epidemic of Stress and Anxiety in Girls. But what I hear all the time is 80% applies to kids of all genders, which I am sure is true. And in that book, I actually make at the outset a case for healthy anxiety and a case for healthy stress. And we have always, as psychologists recognize that healthy anxiety is the anxiety that alerts us when something's wrong. It is not on its own pathological, and we have not helped the situation by using the same word to describe healthy anxiety and something that we diagnose, it's sort of better set. We have the word sadness and we have depression for the diagnosis, but we use anxiety in both categories. So that doesn't help us as much. And same with stress. Stress is actually the human experience of adaptation. We experience stress anytime things change, anytime we have to adapt to a new condition, and it can be a wonderful condition or a lousy condition, but we always experience stress under change conditions, and we only consider stress pathological if it is chronic or traumatic. But all other stress, we just talk into the helping you grow doesn't always feel good category.

(01:14:03):

What I will tell you is that the most important thing for people to know about anxiety is that feeds anxiety. And this is one of the, again, most critical findings in psychology, and one that we have done a completely terrible job of getting out to the public. And here's how it works. If I, let's say, have some social avoidance, some social anxiety, and there's a party that I've been invited to and it's a good party to go to, it's a rational, should be fun friend of mine's party. But say, I feel anxious and say, I agree to go to the party, but the day of my anxiety is starting to really accelerate, and then I'm thinking, I don't think I should go. I don't want to go and say, my parent is like, ah, it's just a party. You don't have to go. Here's what happens.

(01:14:51):

The first thing that happens is, I feel so much better. My anxiety was cresting and then I get to avoid, and it immediately plummets. It's like what we call reinforcement instantly relief. And so the upshot of that is, the next time I feel anxious, I know what helps me feel better. It's avoidance. So that's the first problem. The second problem is that I never go to the party and check out how it's right. So whatever I have daydreamed about how terrifying this party is or how cruel everyone will be at the party that is now sealed in Amber, and I continue to believe it, I have no counter evidence. Whereas if I go to the party, I'm like, oh, wait, it's not so bad. But if I don't go, so it actually entrenches anxiety to avoid the things we fear. Now, if a kid is avoiding school, which a lot of kids are right now, there's a third issue, which is the minute you don't show up at school, you are out of the loop socially, and you are out of the loop academically.

(01:15:51):

So it's that much harder to get back in. So there's not a lot in psychology where there is agreement across the entire field where there is zero controversy. But on this one, everyone's in agreement that avoidance feeds anxiety and everyone is in agreement that exposure is the answer. And what I mean by that is you have to get in. You don't have to go to every party all the time, but you have to baby step your way in. You have to go check out the party. You cannot have the reinforcement avoidance. You cannot have the daydream become the reality. And so if this is your kid and they're like, I can't go to school, I can't go to the party, I can't fill in the blank. You say, alright,

Dr. Lisa Damour (01:16:32):

Here's the deal. You're going to go to the party for 20 minutes and then I'm going to forget something and text you and see if you need me to pick you up. And if you need me to pick you up after 20 minutes, I'll get you. But if you can stay, that would be better. So you have to negotiate, you have to help them get in. Breathing is powerful for helping to control anxiety. Reframing is powerful for helping to control anxiety, but avoidance is anxiety's best friend.

Mel Robbins (01:16:57):

It's devastating, right? I think about the fact that I was homesick at every camp, so much so that I would just escalate it until the counselors got so tired, then my parents would show up because it works. It goes back to your original thing. We do these things because they work, they work. And when we allow our kid to keep transferring from one school to another because they can't handle it, we are locking in anxiety as a coping mechanism and avoidance as a coping mechanism. Wow. You are so good. I want to ask you one final question, which is if you had to bottom line it to make it really simple, because clearly it's very complicated to have teenagers in your life, they're amazing and they're also incredibly challenging emotional beings going through a lot of change.

Mel Robbins (01:17:50):

If you had to bottom line the way you want us to think about your role in a teenager's life, what are we there to provide for them as parents, uncles, aunts, mentors, teachers, doctors? How do we show up in this cauldron of emotion and uncertainty?

Dr. Lisa Damour (01:18:16):

I can say it in two words, but Mel, this is to be filed under easy to save, very hard to do. Our job is to try to be a steady presence. What does that mean? That means that when teenagers are having their big feelings and their feelings are big, and they come our way with their big feelings, that we don't meet them where they are, we don't get as agitated as they are, oh, that we can listen, be attentive and offer empathy, which a huge percentage of the time is all they want. And there's two reasons why this is critically important. One is that when teenagers are bringing us their concerns, they're watching our reaction. And if they're having a really bad 15-year-old day and then they bring it to us and then we hit the ceiling, they can't help but think, oh my gosh, I thought this was like 15-year-old size pad.

(01:19:21):

It turns out it's 52-year-old size pad, so that is not reassuring to them. And then the other thing is when we offer empathy as the response, so we're there, we're there and we're empathic with whatever their distress is. I think that is actually the all times steady presence move because what you're doing is you're highly present, you are empathizing, you are saying, that stinks. I am sorry. I wish that had not happened. So you are there for it, but you're incredibly steady. You are not picking up the phone, you are not canceling plans. You are not yourself becoming highly agitated. And so deep empathy and just listening goes so much further than we sometimes give a credit for. And even if there's more to be done, starting with is never a bad move and a huge percentage of the time gives teenagers everything that they want and need.

Mel Robbins (01:20:16):

Wow. I love your phrase. It stinks, right? If there are big emotions, that's all you need to say. That stinks. That if you, I never really thought about it from the standpoint that if I get distressed, I magnify their distress, and if I embody, I think I'm going to use the power of objectivity and use you as my avatar, and the next time Kendall FaceTimes me because she graduates from college a week from Thursday, and so I'm just sort of waiting for the roller coaster and I am going to embody you. I'm going to just be a steady presence, and I'm going to realize that the emotions that she's going to feel from the grief to the excitement to the fear, to the sadness, I just have to hold space for it. I don't need to project, oh, no. What if it triggers the eating disorder? What if this happens? What if, Hey, cheer up, calm down. It's going to be okay. I don't have to do any of that. I just have to say it stinks. Wow, because that's normal and it's actually a sign that she's mentally well, oh my

Dr. Lisa Damour (01:21:31):

Gosh, exactly. The evidence of her perfect functioning.

Mel Robbins (01:21:34):

And the same is true the adults in your life that if the big feelings and the distress is related to a corresponding event that makes sense, they're mentally well. That is a revelation. A revelation, everybody. You have got to pick up this book, the Emotional Lives of Teenagers. I cannot tell you how helpful, hopeful, encouraging, empowering it is. You've done it again, you've dragged me through motherhood with Mother Load, and you now taught us so much. When it comes to, when you kind of tease out the advice, Lisa, it always is kind of like a giant duh, not your advice necessarily. Clearly, since all of it, I'm like, holy shit, but I find your work so helpful because it is always grounded in a larger framing, and so the advice that sounds simple is suddenly so profound because you understand it in the context of the larger framing.

Dr. Lisa Damour (01:22:37):

Thank you. I am so glad I can be helpful.

Mel Robbins (01:22:41):

Dr. Lisa Damour (01:22:41):

Gosh, it's a hard time to be a person, and it's a hard time to be raising teenagers.

Mel Robbins (01:22:45):

It sure is. Any final words of hope or that you want people to know?

Dr. Lisa Damour (01:22:56):

Here's what I want people to know. We have studied adolescent mental health for decades, and the single most powerful force for protecting teenage mental health is strong relationships with caring adults. We're not going to medicate or therapize our way out of this adolescent mental health crisis. It's going to be about the adults around teenagers, parents, caregivers, parents, caregivers, bosses, mentors, coaches, teachers being there for teenagers, and being invested in their emotional lives. That's how we're going to find our way through this.

Mel Robbins (01:23:34):

Well, thank you for giving us the tools to be able to show up and do just that. It's an honor

Dr. Lisa Damour (01:23:38):

To be here.

Mel Robbins (01:23:41):

I got so much out of that conversation. Holy smokes. I wish she lived closer to me. You wish she lived closer to you. I would love to have her on speed dial or as my walking buddy, but now we've got her on the Mel Robbins podcast and you've got me, and I've got you, and I'm so happy we're doing this thing called Life Together in case nobody else tells you today, I wanted to be sure to remind you that I love you. I believe in you, and I believe in your ability to feel all those big emotions, to ride the wave and to be a steady presence for the people in your life and for yourself, because as we just learned, that's exactly what everybody needs from us. Alrighty, I'll talk to you in a few days. I love you. Oh, one more thing. It's the legal language. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. It is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Hey, it's Mel. Thank you so much for being here. If you enjoyed that video, bye. God, please subscribe because I don't want you to miss a thing. Thank you so much for being here. We've got so much amazing stuff coming. Thank you so much for sending this stuff to your friends and your family. I love you. We create these videos for you, so make sure you subscribe.

Share With a Friend

Guests Appearing in this Episode

Dr. Lisa Damour, PhD

Dr. Lisa Damour is a clinical psychologist, bestselling author, and expert in adolescent development and mental health.

Book: The Emotional Lives of Teenagers
In teenagers, powerful emotions come with the territory. And as teens contend with with academic pressure, social media stress, worries about the future, and concerns about their own mental health, it’s easy for them—and their parents—to feel anxious and overwhelmed. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

With clear, research-informed explanations alongside illuminating, real-life examples, The Emotional Lives of Teenagers gives parents the concrete, practical information they need to steady their teens through the bumpy yet transformational journey into adulthood.
Podcast: Ask Lisa: The Psychology of Parenting
Raising kids can be a bumpy, stressful, and uncertain process – which is why Lisa’s podcast brings her sane, informed, and practical perspective to your timely and timeless parenting questions. Cohost Reena Ninan, a world-class journalist who has covered the White House while packing a breast pump, makes sure to get you the answers you need.

Resources

- Harvard Business Review: It’s okay to not be okay.
- American Academy of Pediatrics: Stages of adolescence.
- Frontiers: How did the lockdown affect children and adolescents?
- APA: Study shows reducing time on social media improves self-esteem.
- Clinical Psychiatry: Covid and the impact on our nervous system.
- CDC: How to help teens regulate their emotions.
- TED: The mystery of the adolescent brain, from a neuroscientist.

Related Episodes

New Here?

How To Help Anyone In Your Life Who’s Struggling: Fantastic Strategies From A Yale-Educated Psychologist

Listen on:

Featured Clips

Transcript

Share With a Friend

Guests Appearing in this Episode

Dr. Lisa Damour, PhD

Resources

Related Episodes

Anxiety

Confidence

Habits

Health

Happiness

Motivation

Relationships

Most Popular

The Let Them Theory

The High 5 Habit

The 5 Second Rule

How To Help Anyone In Your Life Who’s Struggling: Fantastic Strategies From A Yale-Educated Psychologist

Listen on:

Featured Clips

Transcript

Share With a Friend

Guests Appearing in this Episode

Dr. Lisa Damour, PhD

Resources

2 Million Readers. 1 Life-Changing Newsletter

Related Episodes

Anxiety

Confidence

Habits

Health

Happiness

Motivation

Relationships

Most Popular

The Let Them Theory

The High 5 Habit

The 5 Second Rule

2 Million Readers.
1 Life-Changing Newsletter