Speaker 1: My view of social media is nuanced, hopefully, but when
Speaker 1: I worry about it, one of my biggest worries is
Speaker 1: the way in which it shapes norms for teenagers. Teens
Speaker 1: will start to have a different understanding of norms around
Speaker 1: those things and then will change their behavior, and so
Speaker 1: it matters what gets mainstreamed.
Speaker 2: On this episode of the Psychology Podcast, I chat with
Speaker 2: the clinical psychologist Lisa de Moore about the emotional lives
Speaker 2: of teenagers. Lisa dispels a number of myths, such as
Speaker 2: the idea that emotion is the enemy of reason, that
Speaker 2: difficult emotions are bad for teens, and that with their
Speaker 2: amped up emotions, teens are psychologically fragile. She puts a
Speaker 2: lot of nuance and compassion into the discussion and shows
Speaker 2: us that emotional does not mean fragile, and she also
Speaker 2: offers the best evidence based ways to support teens through
Speaker 2: their emotional and mental journey. I've been willing to have
Speaker 2: this conversation with Lisa for quite a while, and I'm
Speaker 2: so glad we finally made it happen. This was a
Speaker 2: very informative episode and I'm excited to share it with
Speaker 2: you all. So without further ado, I bring you Lisa
Speaker 2: de Moore, Hi, Lisa, how are you?
Speaker 1: I am good? I am good, and we have a
Speaker 1: good mutual friend in Annie Murphy Paul.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 3: I love that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So just for our viewers who won a little
Speaker 2: Jeopardy trivia, Annie Murphy Paul was the first ever guest
Speaker 2: of the Psychology Podcast ten years ago, coming up on
Speaker 2: ten years and we have our tenth year anniversary this year.
Speaker 1: Good choice.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I adore her. So I have been willing
Speaker 2: to talk to you for a long time.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I love your work, and it's just I just want
Speaker 2: to have a really nuanced, compassionate discussion today because I
Speaker 2: think there's just so many competing theories out there right
Speaker 2: now about what's wrong with children, especially teens, and I
Speaker 2: want to just know.
Speaker 3: What the truth is. I want to know what's going on.
Speaker 3: What's going on?
Speaker 2: You see alarming headlines basically on a daily basis about
Speaker 2: the adolescent mental health crisis. Now that can make it
Speaker 2: terrifying for a parent, you know, thinking about conceiving.
Speaker 3: So what are your thoughts? Do you have any thoughts
Speaker 3: on this topic?
Speaker 1: Just a few, just a few. I just want to
Speaker 1: rest for a minute though on your phrase nuanced and compassionate, right,
Speaker 1: I mean that, man, oh man. If we can accomplish that,
Speaker 1: I will be I'll feel like it's a good day's work.
Speaker 1: You too, boy, oh boy? Okay, So I have cared
Speaker 1: for teenagers for my whole professional life. I got my
Speaker 1: PhD in ninety six. Of course, you know I was
Speaker 1: working clinically before that time. So I'm pushing thirty years
Speaker 1: of caring for teenagers. And let me just start by saying,
Speaker 1: teenagers have never been easy. It has never been easy
Speaker 1: to be a teenager or to raise a teenager. So
Speaker 1: it's not like, oh was easy going, and then the
Speaker 1: pandemic came and made a mess of everything. That's never
Speaker 1: been the case. But the pandemic did make things harder
Speaker 1: for teenagers without question, harder for the people around them,
Speaker 1: without question, and we are now dealing with the aftermath
Speaker 1: of that. So it is a hard time in raising adolescence.
Speaker 1: And it's the combined effects of the natural challenges that
Speaker 1: have always been part of being a teenager, layered with
Speaker 1: the realities of the historical moment in which we find ourselves.
Speaker 1: And I think we really want to think about it
Speaker 1: in that way, right that we are dealing with the
Speaker 1: aftermath of the pandemic, political polarization at a level you
Speaker 1: know that I don't remember in my fifty three years.
Speaker 1: You know, climate concerns that teenagers rightly take very seriously,
Speaker 1: changes how they think about themselves in the world. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's a lot happening here that impacts family life, but
Speaker 1: goes way beyond the scope of what we have normally
Speaker 1: dealt with in family life.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: You know, it's so interesting because there's there's different perspectives
Speaker 2: on that matter, you know, So I want to know,
Speaker 2: like taking stripping politics aside, you know, to what extent
Speaker 2: do you think we are causing some of this anxiety
Speaker 2: in teenagers versus the other view, which is like they're
Speaker 2: understandably anxious. They're understandably and we're more the healers than
Speaker 2: the instigators.
Speaker 1: Okay, little questions that have fourteen ramifications. So let me
Speaker 1: just just on the climate thing for a minute. In
Speaker 1: some ways, I think you could say that the climate
Speaker 1: crisis has to do with a failure of anxiety. Right
Speaker 1: if we had gotten appropriately anxious about this at scale
Speaker 1: decades ago, we would be in a different spot. You know.
Speaker 1: Anxiety is here to help us to help us pay attention,
Speaker 1: make a change, you know. And so I think there's
Speaker 1: sort of an interesting conversation to be had about anxiety
Speaker 1: and climate and and what it means now what it
Speaker 1: would have meant, you know, decades ago, to really get
Speaker 1: on this. Okay, But then the question of does talking
Speaker 1: all this feeling talk doesn't make things worse for kids?
Speaker 1: I think that's a really really critical clies. It's an
Speaker 1: interesting question, and I think it's one that doesn't need
Speaker 1: to be politicized. I think it's just a really fascinating question,
Speaker 1: and I think there's a yes in there. And what
Speaker 1: I mean by that is that if we are misunderstanding feelings,
Speaker 1: then the conversation around them can actually be more harmful
Speaker 1: to kids than helpful. And what I mean by that
Speaker 1: is that we are up against the circulating definition of
Speaker 1: what mental health is, which is that mental health is
Speaker 1: about feeling good, which it is not. Mental health is
Speaker 1: not about feeling good or calm or relaxed her at ease.
Speaker 1: This is all around us as a framing. It happens
Speaker 1: in traditional media, it happens in social media, and then
Speaker 1: it creates conditions where adults and teenagers have understandable levels
Speaker 1: of discomfort and then suddenly have a lot of anxiety
Speaker 1: about the possibility that they have a mental health concern
Speaker 1: that's not helping us. So what I try to put
Speaker 1: forward in my work is a different definition, one much
Speaker 1: more true to how we think as psychologists, which is
Speaker 1: that mental health is about two things, having feelings that
Speaker 1: fit the context you're in, and then managing those feelings.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 1: So what I'd like to think is that definition actually
Speaker 1: kind of shoots down the middle.
Speaker 3: Both says, how dare you? It feels like you're a
Speaker 3: shamed if you're not extreme these days, I know, I know.
Speaker 1: Or another way to put it is you're on the
Speaker 1: right track if everyone's annoyed with you. I also of
Speaker 1: feel like that's the way to do it.
Speaker 3: I have a cop. I have a coffee cop that's
Speaker 3: says something similar.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well it's true. So I think think the way
Speaker 1: I like to walk up to it, which is really,
Speaker 1: as you know, in line with how we think as
Speaker 1: researchers and clinicians, is feelings are important, and negative feelings
Speaker 1: are part of life, but they don't need to stop
Speaker 1: us in our tracks. They do not need to always
Speaker 1: be taken as a sign of a mental health concern,
Speaker 1: and that really what matters matters is coping and coping
Speaker 1: well with the range of human emotions. So they don't
Speaker 1: need to paralyze us, they don't need to sink us,
Speaker 1: and yet they shouldn't be ignored either.
Speaker 3: I love that.
Speaker 2: I mean, you talk about some what's the word I'm
Speaker 2: looking for, myths, That's the word I'm looking for.
Speaker 3: How do you say myths?
Speaker 2: You talk about some big ones, and you know, there
Speaker 2: is this kind of notion that, oh, teenagers are just
Speaker 2: so emotional and that's the problem. But again, nuance and compassion,
Speaker 2: you argue that is not necessarily the enemy of reason.
Speaker 2: Can you elaborate a little bit more?
Speaker 3: Sure? Sure so.
Speaker 1: I In my book I credit a dear colleague of mine, Terry,
Speaker 1: and she's referenced in the back Terry Tobias, who's another clinician,
Speaker 1: and she has this fabulous metaphor, and what she says
Speaker 1: is we should think of emotions as being like one
Speaker 1: member of our personal board of directors. That we all
Speaker 1: have a personal board of directors that helps us run
Speaker 1: our lives. On that board, our interests, our obligations, logistical considerations,
Speaker 1: you know, financial considerations all sorts of things and our feelings,
Speaker 1: how we feel about things. And the way Terry tells
Speaker 1: it is, you know, they have a seat on the board,
Speaker 1: but they don't share the board, and they very rarely
Speaker 1: have the deciding vote. So again a nuanced view that
Speaker 1: doesn't throw feelings out or put them in charge, but
Speaker 1: says they get to weigh in on how we live
Speaker 1: our life. It matters how we feel about things. They're
Speaker 1: actually rich with data and we want to treat them
Speaker 1: as such, but they shouldn't be calling the shots.
Speaker 2: Well, I do love that, especially in a university setting,
Speaker 2: and they're still a teenagers in a university setting. In
Speaker 2: the first couple of years, and as a college professor,
Speaker 2: you know, I've noticed an increasing level of entitlement and
Speaker 2: that can't be good.
Speaker 3: That can't be good, it can't be well.
Speaker 1: And especially if the format takes is I'm uncomfortable. Everything
Speaker 1: has to stop until I'm.
Speaker 3: Comfortable exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: And one of the ways I'm talking about this a
Speaker 1: lot with the people I care for is is the
Speaker 1: situation uncomfortable or unmanageable? Because sometimes it's unmanageable, and if
Speaker 1: it is, then we need to make a big change,
Speaker 1: but to offer uncomfortable as the alternative to unmanageable, as
Speaker 1: opposed to saying either it's unmanageable or it's entirely comfortable.
Speaker 1: I think lets us move forward.
Speaker 2: You know, it's such a tough line to know, like
Speaker 2: when does it go into the realm of coddling versus compassion.
Speaker 2: I've had this discussion with Jonathan Hight and Greg lukianof
Speaker 2: We did a discussion at the Comedy Cellar in New
Speaker 2: York about this when Ricky Schlott as well, And I
Speaker 2: asked that question because to me, sometimes I feel like
Speaker 2: the wines are hazy. Sometimes some things that people are like, oh,
Speaker 2: we're calling we're caddling. I'm like, no, I think that's
Speaker 2: just caring. But then there are clear examples to me
Speaker 2: of coddling. But it's it's just there's no, it's not
Speaker 2: objective science.
Speaker 1: No. And I think, you know, I love you think
Speaker 1: big and you think about big ideas in big ways.
Speaker 1: And I think one of the traps that one risks
Speaker 1: falling into with that, you know, in these conversations is
Speaker 1: to try to come up with a one size, all
Speaker 1: solution solution answer you. So sometimes I mean, any you
Speaker 1: can come up with an example of anything that you
Speaker 1: want right, and you can. They're certainly coddling examples, and
Speaker 1: there's certainly deeply compassionate examples. But the question is who's
Speaker 1: the person in front of you and what do they
Speaker 1: need and what do they need to move forward in
Speaker 1: their own lives? And that is going to depend on
Speaker 1: the moment, the person, the data, the specificities of it.
Speaker 1: And so they're interesting theoretical arguments, but I don't think
Speaker 1: they actually give us answers that you can take to
Speaker 1: working with people specific people.
Speaker 2: But I do see some really nice linkages between some
Speaker 2: of the things you're saying and some of the things
Speaker 2: in the coddling of the American minds, such as difficult
Speaker 2: emotions are not necessarily something to immediately shun from the kingdom,
Speaker 2: but there isn't a level of nuance here. I think
Speaker 2: it's really interesting because you say even with their amped
Speaker 2: up emotion, that doesn't always translate to fragility. But that's
Speaker 2: something that stood out to me personally, is.
Speaker 3: I was like, that's a really good point.
Speaker 2: I think that we have this kind of societal connotation
Speaker 2: that to be strong means to not have your emotions,
Speaker 2: that you're fragile if you're emotional, but those two don't
Speaker 2: necessarily go together, right, No, But.
Speaker 1: Again, like just to say it, people do mistake emotional
Speaker 1: for fragile. Like that that is, that is an equation
Speaker 1: that exists in the world which is highly unnecessary. That
Speaker 1: you can be a deeply emotional person while being totally
Speaker 1: sturdy in terms of your ability to move through your
Speaker 1: day and do the things you need to do. And again,
Speaker 1: it's really about our posture toward emotion, right, whether it's
Speaker 1: natural to life waves that rise and crest and recede
Speaker 1: almost always on their own, or whether we treat them
Speaker 1: as fires that need to be stamped out as quickly
Speaker 1: as possible.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, absolutely, In terms of as a psychologist, where are
Speaker 2: the lines? And I know, I feel like whenever I
Speaker 2: say lines, you're going to say everything's contextual. But give
Speaker 2: me something more in the sense that how do you
Speaker 2: know when professional help is required versus when a certain
Speaker 2: situation is something where we have a discussion with the
Speaker 2: teenager and say, look, what your experiencing is actually normal
Speaker 2: human emotions. Because I do fear we're living in a
Speaker 2: sir right now, we're attributing everything to like, we need
Speaker 2: immediately get your professional help.
Speaker 1: And there is a clear line. Actually I am heavy.
Speaker 1: And also there are some parameters I can easily lay down. Okay,
Speaker 1: So the way I like to think about.
Speaker 3: It relatives really requires this. So thank you. My autism
Speaker 3: really requires some clear.
Speaker 1: And actually EU autism. And also anyone who's trying to
Speaker 1: get through their day needs at some point nail this
Speaker 1: down somewhere. Tell me where the line.
Speaker 3: Is, give me rules.
Speaker 1: Me, I can give you rules. So the way I
Speaker 1: like to give rules is to in my when to
Speaker 1: worry approach to things. So in my first commercial book, Untangled,
Speaker 1: at the end of every chapter, I have a when
Speaker 1: to worry section. So the first part of each chapter
Speaker 1: is all the contextual stuff that comes up with teenagers,
Speaker 1: and now it's time to worry. If you see this, this,
Speaker 1: and this. So in the generic when to worry about
Speaker 1: a teenager, I want adults to be worried. Not as
Speaker 1: we've been saying, if their mood goes up and down
Speaker 1: that is adolescence, but if their mood goes to a
Speaker 1: dark or concerning place and stays there and stays there,
Speaker 1: I mean, depending on the kid. Twenty four hours thirty
Speaker 1: six hours. Teenager's moods, as you and I would say,
Speaker 1: it should be highly labile all over the place. We
Speaker 1: worry about the kid whose mood is low, ranky, blank,
Speaker 1: nasty for an extended period of time. So that's one
Speaker 1: thing to be concerned about. Another thing to be concerned
Speaker 1: about is what I call costly coping. So this is
Speaker 1: the not managing feelings. Well, so they may be coping
Speaker 1: but by abusing substances, or they may be coping but
Speaker 1: by self harming, and so it's all coping, but there's
Speaker 1: better and worse coping. And if they're relying on destructive coping,
Speaker 1: that's a problem. And then of course if there's any
Speaker 1: question about safety, right, if there's worries that they might
Speaker 1: harm themselves or someone else, then of course it's time
Speaker 1: to get that kid to safety. And you know, those
Speaker 1: are the rules, Those are the rules in terms of
Speaker 1: when to worry. But everything up to that is probably
Speaker 1: the rich and spicy business of being or raising a teenager.
Speaker 3: Yeah, great point.
Speaker 2: I mean just even just saying sometimes, like you know,
Speaker 2: way you're experiencing your emotional volatility is is quite a
Speaker 2: normal part of being too. I mean, yeah, I experienced,
Speaker 2: your father, experience to your mother, whatever it is, and
Speaker 2: you know, we all you know, been through it. Called hormones,
Speaker 2: hormones or a thing, it's a real thing. I think
Speaker 2: there's a certain empowerment to also validating experience and and
Speaker 2: and and normalizing some of it. But you know, with
Speaker 2: the exemption of a lot of things you just mentioned,
Speaker 2: which I think it's very very important. So thank you
Speaker 2: so much for for for outlining that there's you know,
Speaker 2: it's a controversial area when you talk about gender differences.
Speaker 2: Actually interesting enough, it's more controversial if use the phrase
Speaker 2: sex differences. I find it's the phrase gender differences, it's
Speaker 2: not as controversial. And so you use the phrase gender differences.
Speaker 2: So you're safe. Yeah, you're safe. But I it's so
Speaker 2: interesting in your book some of the the ones that
Speaker 2: you outline are the most salient that you've noticed in
Speaker 2: your own work. Can you kind of outline that for
Speaker 2: our listeners, the most salient ones?
Speaker 3: Sure?
Speaker 1: So, you know, it's so interesting, as you know, to
Speaker 1: write a book, because you go in with one idea
Speaker 1: and then you start mucking around on the research and
Speaker 1: you come out with better understanding and maybe not the
Speaker 1: same understanding. That you went in with. And so my
Speaker 1: goal in this section was to really lay out what
Speaker 1: the data are on gender differences in terms of the
Speaker 1: expression of emotion, because this is where the data sit.
Speaker 1: It is a very binary approach to gender. That's what
Speaker 1: the data. That's the data we have. Now, So that's
Speaker 1: what I'm summarizing. That's true and one critically two critically
Speaker 1: important things to say before we get into the nitty
Speaker 1: gritty of it. First of all, these are broad generalizations.
Speaker 1: They do not apply to any one kid. And of all,
Speaker 1: when we think about things like this, when we think
Speaker 1: about gender and the expression of emotion, we want to
Speaker 1: remember this is all almost entirely a function of socialization.
Speaker 1: Very very little of what we would consider a gender
Speaker 1: difference in emotion is grounded in biology. This is how
Speaker 1: we teach kids to do emotion, whether they are boys
Speaker 1: or girls. And so that's like, you can't walk forward
Speaker 1: without first acknowledging those two key points. Okay, so then
Speaker 1: what do we find when we go into the literature,
Speaker 1: what do we find? What we find is that bluntly,
Speaker 1: girls enjoy a very wide emotional highway with many lanes.
Speaker 1: They can be sad and anxious, and vulnerable in all
Speaker 1: sorts of ways. They also express anger and frustration, and
Speaker 1: they are not much constrained in terms of the emotions
Speaker 1: they are culturally allowed to express. Boys, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: in our culture, are given a two lane highway of
Speaker 1: permissible emotions. And then I'm going to come back and
Speaker 1: trouble this because I think there's more to this story,
Speaker 1: much more. But as the research says, right now, boys
Speaker 1: are culturally allowed to express anger or pleasure at someone
Speaker 1: else's expense. Those are the two permissible emotions for boys. Okay,
Speaker 1: here's my big giant fat asterisk on that. That and
Speaker 1: this is thinking I've done post submitting this book and
Speaker 1: writing this book. You know my thinking is proceeded. I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 1: that may be true in many domains, but we also
Speaker 1: need to acknowledge that boys have all the feelings and
Speaker 1: express all the feelings in some circumscribed domains. So, for example,
Speaker 1: around sports, either as a viewer or a participant, a
Speaker 1: lot of boys use the universe of sports to cry,
Speaker 1: be excited, be disappointed. I mean, like a much more
Speaker 1: colorful and rich emotional experience than we're seeing other places.
Speaker 1: And so I've started to think it's not really fair
Speaker 1: to say guys only have these two emotions or guys
Speaker 1: only express these two emotions, if we can point to domains,
Speaker 1: and especially I mean the Kelsey brothers right now are
Speaker 1: like bust in this wide open with like tears all
Speaker 1: the time in a highly permissible way. If we see
Speaker 1: other areas where we do see a much more rich
Speaker 1: emotional life, I think the question more becomes why are
Speaker 1: those emotions not allowed in other domains? Not why don't
Speaker 1: guys have these emotions?
Speaker 2: Ooh, what a great question you just give me. You
Speaker 2: gave me a moment of reflex in there. You know
Speaker 2: that's that's a good point. And then that's boys. And
Speaker 2: then for girls, what do we do about mean girls?
Speaker 2: Because they exist? Do they tend to grow up to
Speaker 2: be mean? Is there a research showing the correlation between
Speaker 2: being a mean girl in college and being a mean
Speaker 2: girls an adult or in high school in adulthood.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know honestly that there's a
Speaker 1: very rich literature on mean behavior among adult women. I
Speaker 1: don't think that's a well studied.
Speaker 3: Not familiar with that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so here's the deal. I'm not the world's
Speaker 1: biggest fan of the term mean girls. The reason why
Speaker 1: is when we look at the research literature, it's usually
Speaker 1: used to describe relational aggression, a form of aggression that
Speaker 1: girls do specialize in of experiencing rumor spreading things like that.
Speaker 1: When we actually look at the data, boys engage in
Speaker 1: as much relational aggression as girls do, and on top
Speaker 1: of that, they engage in physical aggression. And so what
Speaker 1: we see in the literature is that boys not that
Speaker 1: anybody's a winner in this. I'm not saying this is good.
Speaker 1: Boys are actually meaner than girls. Oh and interestingly, girls
Speaker 1: will bully girls, but not boys. Boys will bully boys
Speaker 1: and girls, right, I mean, so there's all of these
Speaker 1: interesting nuances. Okay, but we hear about mean girl behavior
Speaker 1: more often. And I think, and I wrote about this
Speaker 1: for The Times ages ago, I think you can actually
Speaker 1: chalk that up to another gender difference in kids, which
Speaker 1: is how they respond when upset. Girls are more likely
Speaker 1: to discuss. Boys are more likely to distract. So there's
Speaker 1: a mean interaction at school, and the most likely outcome
Speaker 1: for a girl is that she's going to talk about it.
Speaker 1: She's going to tell her friends, she's going to tell
Speaker 1: another adult or something. And this is good in many ways,
Speaker 1: and that she may get social support and awareness of
Speaker 1: what's happening. It also can turn the corner into rumination,
Speaker 1: where there's talking and talking and talking and talking and
Speaker 1: not feeling better. Boys, on the other hand, are more
Speaker 1: likely to distract, to come home after a painful day,
Speaker 1: hop on a video game, lose themselves in something else,
Speaker 1: and not necessarily share what it is they went through.
Speaker 1: And so girls aren't actually meaner, but it looks that
Speaker 1: way in terms of what rises to the level of
Speaker 1: adult perception.
Speaker 3: Thank you for elaborating that data. I really appreciate that.
Speaker 2: I really appreciate that, because you do you mean. You
Speaker 2: see in this psychological literature in terms of adults, you
Speaker 2: see this sex difference over and over with relational aggression
Speaker 2: indirect they call indirect aggression higher in females direct antagonism
Speaker 2: amongst males. I was generally curious what the data looks
Speaker 2: like for teenagers, and it sounds like things are a
Speaker 2: little bit more nuanced than they are.
Speaker 1: But I will say we're seeing much more meanness post pandemic.
Speaker 1: It's been interesting. I work for a lot of schools.
Speaker 1: I spend a lot of time speaking at and consulting
Speaker 1: to schools, and there is a rawness in kids, a
Speaker 1: just a straight up madeness in kids. Then feels of
Speaker 1: a different order than what we were seeing before the pandemic,
Speaker 1: much lower tolerance for one another, much more eager to
Speaker 1: push kids out of their social networks, to use pretty
Speaker 1: aggressive ways to do it. But it's funny when you're
Speaker 1: in When I talk to all boys' schools, there's a
Speaker 1: i'm gonna use finger quotes teasing that boys do with
Speaker 1: each other almost incessantly, which is sort of meant to
Speaker 1: be funny, and you know, not rarely crosses a line
Speaker 1: into something that actually feels really painful. And I hear
Speaker 1: plenty from schools that have younger boys. You know, it's
Speaker 1: all really funny until somebody's badly hurting, hols off and
Speaker 1: punches the kid who was given them a hard time.
Speaker 1: So I think our job as the adults around kids
Speaker 1: is to be attuned to when they're getting hurt and
Speaker 1: to help them handle conflict well like, regardless of gender
Speaker 1: questions at all.
Speaker 3: That's that's a great point.
Speaker 2: What I want to bring to the picture is the
Speaker 2: appreciation of the highly sensitive boy or the highly sensitive
Speaker 2: girl as well. But let's just double click on the
Speaker 2: highly sensitive boy for a second, because.
Speaker 3: That was me.
Speaker 2: That was me, so I could come at this from
Speaker 2: a very personal thing. And I wear that badge as
Speaker 2: an HSP with pride. I don't wear it with like
Speaker 2: I'm ashamed of it, you know.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: And I also like to think I'm strong, you know,
Speaker 2: and maybe like there's no there's no contradiction there between
Speaker 2: being a highly sensitive human and being strong. But I
Speaker 2: do think we have this kind of societal stereotype that
Speaker 2: these those two things are not compatible in some way,
Speaker 2: that you're being too sensitive if you if you don't
Speaker 2: like bullying, you know, when as opposed to just like
Speaker 2: you know, like no, you're you're you're having a normal
Speaker 2: human reaction to something.
Speaker 1: I think your question about are sensitive and strong compatible?
Speaker 1: I think linds up very nicely what we were talking about,
Speaker 1: which is that emotional and being sturdy, you know, are
Speaker 1: both compatible. You know, emotional doesn't mean you're not sturdy.
Speaker 1: Sensitive doesn't mean you're not strong, right, I mean, I
Speaker 1: think that the more we can have these things live
Speaker 1: side by side, the better I think. In terms of
Speaker 1: the question about highly sensitive and a tuned and aware
Speaker 1: I think that maybe, and this is the kind of
Speaker 1: question you are the best of all at getting into.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's that everybody feels things, and that there are
Speaker 1: differences actually in people's ability to shove those feelings to
Speaker 1: the side or hide their internal reaction. Because I think
Speaker 1: boys are getting hurt all the time. I think it's
Speaker 1: really a measure of how good are they at faking
Speaker 1: not being hurt, and that there may be guys who
Speaker 1: are better at faking not being hurt than all that.
Speaker 1: That may be work here. But the other thing that
Speaker 1: you gestured at it and I think it's really important
Speaker 1: when I'm taking care of teenagers and I hear about
Speaker 1: these dynamics unfolding where often it's a guy either going
Speaker 1: after a girl or a boy with some joke that's
Speaker 1: meant to be funny, but it's not funny, it's mean,
Speaker 1: and then the person on the receiving end has a
Speaker 1: totally rational reaction of like ouch or stop or don't.
Speaker 1: Usually the next play from the kid who just did
Speaker 1: that is like, oh my god, I was just kidding,
Speaker 1: Like why are you making such a big deal? So
Speaker 1: that just joking thing is actually I think a pretty
Speaker 1: tricky armor that gets worn by people who are doing
Speaker 1: things that are not that nice. These are tough questions
Speaker 1: and I think, you know, I think about what gets
Speaker 1: served up in the context of entertainment and what it
Speaker 1: means if meanness becomes part of entertainment, right, I mean
Speaker 1: I think that again, like you have to move across
Speaker 1: the domains, like why is this here? And does it
Speaker 1: belong here? And what does it mean for it to
Speaker 1: show up here? I think are tricky questions. You know.
Speaker 1: One of the areas of research that we have is
Speaker 1: the idea of desensitization, right that if you're exposed to
Speaker 1: something over and over again, the first time you see
Speaker 1: it, it may be shocking, but then if you see it repeatedly,
Speaker 1: it stops being shocking. And years ago I wrote a
Speaker 1: piece for The Times about rape being shown on TV, right,
Speaker 1: And it's actually not that rare anymore, especially with streaming platforms,
Speaker 1: for pretty violent stuff to just be woven into stories.
Speaker 1: And we do have data showing that repeated exposure to
Speaker 1: you know, violence, violent rape makes it less alarming to
Speaker 1: the viewer. And I think it's probably just a naw
Speaker 1: rual human you know, defense that comes up, and so
Speaker 1: I guess what I would say, Like setting aside the
Speaker 1: question of whether it's funny or not funny, you know,
Speaker 1: cancelable not cancelable, like that's you know, above my pay grade.
Speaker 1: I think that the question I would ask is if
Speaker 1: these things become mainstream, you know, viewing rape, joking about
Speaker 1: you know, anti Semitic jokes, right, I mean, like, if
Speaker 1: these become mainstream, they threaten to stop shocking us. And
Speaker 1: I think that that's a problem of its.
Speaker 3: Own great point.
Speaker 2: And they also in a way I'm gonna sound so
Speaker 2: woke right now, and also in a way they perpetuate stereotypes.
Speaker 2: They reduce a whole group of people to a particular
Speaker 2: stereotype that's exaggerated and which may make us as a
Speaker 2: society start to view people we view in that group
Speaker 2: only through that lens, all.
Speaker 1: Right, And so okay, So there's two things we can
Speaker 1: play with just from the side of psychological sign you know.
Speaker 1: So one is the idea of desensitization. The more you're
Speaker 1: exposed to, you know, something that was shocking, it stops
Speaker 1: being shocking. Another common example among adolescent boys, a lot
Speaker 1: of boys game, you know that in and of itself
Speaker 1: is a complex world, not all bad by any measure,
Speaker 1: But one thing that's very common is for them to
Speaker 1: have kind of banter going on over headphones or through
Speaker 1: other you know, simultaneous means. And that banter often involves
Speaker 1: a lot of you know, kind of giving each other
Speaker 1: a hard time and or using slurs, and so like
Speaker 1: the N word, for example, comes up a lot in
Speaker 1: these environments. And then what we see is that it's
Speaker 1: not then all that unusual anymore for like some sixth
Speaker 1: grade kid to show up at school and be thrown
Speaker 1: around the N word because it's lost its potency, yeah,
Speaker 1: and doesn't seem as like completely over the line because
Speaker 1: he just heard it thirty times over on discord.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So that's one phenomenon we want to be really mindful of,
Speaker 1: which is related to the second, which is norms. We
Speaker 1: are shaped by norms, and you don't want to know
Speaker 1: who's really shaped by norms adolescence. Right, So what you're
Speaker 1: describing of, if we, you know, talk about this group
Speaker 1: in one way all the time, that starts to be
Speaker 1: how we see them. Well, yeah, because the norms of
Speaker 1: how we talk about them are shaping how we perceive
Speaker 1: them and how we think about them same thing. This
Speaker 1: is like, you know, for all my worries, my view
Speaker 1: of social media is you know, nuanced, hopefully compassionate, hopefully
Speaker 1: you know, not too single sided. But when I worry
Speaker 1: about it, one of my biggest worries is the way
Speaker 1: in which it shapes norms for teenagers. Then the way
Speaker 1: the algorithms work, they will flood a feed with a
Speaker 1: single topic or lots of content in one area, and
Speaker 1: if it is ultra fit, ultra thin people, if it
Speaker 1: is heat content, if it is you know, any variety
Speaker 1: of things, teens will start to have a different understanding
Speaker 1: of norms around those things and then will change their behavior.
Speaker 1: So they will start to diet, they will start to
Speaker 1: engage in hate behavior. And so it matters what gets mainstreamed.
Speaker 1: In my own work and I on my own podcast
Speaker 1: where I answer questions from parents, I try not to
Speaker 1: get bogged down in what the broad and quite polarizing
Speaker 1: discourse is around these topics, and just to go to
Speaker 1: our science, which is such a wonderful thing to say, well,
Speaker 1: here's what we have from the research, here's what I
Speaker 1: know from thirty years of clinical practice, and hopefully that's
Speaker 1: of help to people.
Speaker 3: I love it. I try to do the same. I
Speaker 3: try to do the same. I love that. Why does
Speaker 3: your team hate how you chew?
Speaker 2: In other words, why do the little slightest things cause
Speaker 2: such big drama?
Speaker 1: So okay, so Scott, we're going to file this under
Speaker 1: things that looked a lot different to me once I
Speaker 1: became a parent myself.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: So I have two daughters. I have a daughter who's
Speaker 1: twenty a daughter who's thirteen, and I've been practicing and
Speaker 1: working and writing for a while before I became a parent.
Speaker 1: And one of the things you know in our science
Speaker 1: is this idea of separation individuation that kids get to
Speaker 1: a point around adolescents where they need to become separate individuals.
Speaker 1: They need to, you know, make their individual like nature known.
Speaker 1: And so, yes, great theoretical understanding, seeing it in my practice, Okay,
Speaker 1: then there's living it with your own kid.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: So around thirteen, what I discovered is like nothing I
Speaker 1: did was okay, nothing I did was okay, And then
Speaker 1: I started to put it through the lens of separation
Speaker 1: and individuation, and I understood that theory, that concept in
Speaker 1: a whole new way. Okay. So here's how I write
Speaker 1: about it in my book. So the way I like
Speaker 1: to think about it is, teenagers around thirteen suddenly need
Speaker 1: to create their own brand, right. They need to sort
Speaker 1: of feel like their own brand and separate from their
Speaker 1: parents and their own individual brand when they are doing this.
Speaker 1: Anything we do as parents that overlaps with their emerging
Speaker 1: brand is annoying to them because we're stepping on their brand.
Speaker 1: So here's how this played out in my house. I
Speaker 1: have liked Beyonce for a very long time, a long
Speaker 1: long time. She's been around for a while now. And
Speaker 1: there was a moment when I had Beyonce on in
Speaker 1: the kitchen and I was bopping to Beyonce in the kitchen,
Speaker 1: and my thirteen year old daughter walked in and she
Speaker 1: had just discovered Beyonce and Beyonce was now hers, and
Speaker 1: she was like, mom stop, I could not have Beyonce anymore.
Speaker 3: I'm any more of adults like it, right, like Beyonce's mine.
Speaker 1: They get away from Beyonce, okay, so I'm stepping on
Speaker 1: your brand. So that was a problem. We were overlapping,
Speaker 1: and that was a problem. Yet at the same time,
Speaker 1: they are still so close to us and still so
Speaker 1: embedded in family life that anything we do that doesn't
Speaker 1: match their brand that is emerging is also antagonizing to them.
Speaker 1: So I think here of my dear friend who for
Speaker 1: her son's eighth grade graduation and not graduation orientation, she
Speaker 1: laid out all the potential outputs she could wear, and
Speaker 1: she's like, just tell me what you want me to wear, like,
Speaker 1: because you know, if she wore something that was like
Speaker 1: not cool enough, he was going to be in pain,
Speaker 1: and then if it was too cool, he was going
Speaker 1: to be in pain. So, Scott, what this looks like
Speaker 1: is there is a juncture in raising a teenager where
Speaker 1: everything you do that is like how they see themselves
Speaker 1: becoming is annoying. Everything you do that is unlike how
Speaker 1: they see themselves becoming is annoying. So everything you do
Speaker 1: is annoying.
Speaker 2: That makes complete sense from the individuation perspective, makes complete sense.
Speaker 2: So it's almost like it's really hard to just be
Speaker 2: viewed cool as a parent.
Speaker 3: It's hard.
Speaker 1: It certainly is at that point. Yeah, And I will say,
Speaker 1: teenagers don't really want their parents to be all that cool.
Speaker 1: One of my fat learnings. I'm coming to you from
Speaker 1: my practice office so a lot of what I've learned
Speaker 1: about teenagers I've learned right here from teenagers. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I have such a vivid memory. I've had this conversations
Speaker 1: a few different ways. But it's the kind of conversation
Speaker 1: where a teenager will say to me like, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: we're going to go to Jenny's this weekend, her mom
Speaker 1: will buy for us, and I'll say really, and they'll go,
Speaker 1: I know, it's so weird. I don't know why she
Speaker 1: does it. Right, So they sometimes press adults to loosen up,
Speaker 1: be cool, but they actually much prefer that we be
Speaker 1: unpredictable and rigid and adult, not rigid to the point of, like,
Speaker 1: you know, being miserable. But I know, but I think
Speaker 1: for them, they're like, listen, I'm surrounded by unpredictable people
Speaker 1: who are pushing the limits, Like I need to know that.
Speaker 1: You guys, you know, you middle aged people are not that.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, wow.
Speaker 2: You know there's so many parenting books right like what's
Speaker 2: the ultimate? And in all the research just keeps going
Speaker 2: back to a middle of the road, you know, it
Speaker 2: just keeps going back over again that there's a there's
Speaker 2: a there's a gentle mix of author of not authoritarianism,
Speaker 2: but a gentle mix of a parting style that's flexible
Speaker 2: but also firm.
Speaker 3: And it's like.
Speaker 2: Structructure, right, you just see it over and over again,
Speaker 2: and yet you still see all these other best selling
Speaker 2: books that try to depart from that in some way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then you wonder. I mean, one of the
Speaker 1: things that's tricky about writing about parenting is that it's
Speaker 1: a very big world with a lot of people with
Speaker 1: strong opinions who don't have actually broad training. And so
Speaker 1: I think if you are pulling books from people who
Speaker 1: are trained in the field, you're going to get a
Speaker 1: more measured take on it, which is not always the
Speaker 1: sexiest possible take on the topic.
Speaker 3: That's true.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you know that that the middle the middle
Speaker 2: ground view is usually the least sexy, and it's usually
Speaker 2: the most correct.
Speaker 1: Correct and grounded in the science exactly. But I think
Speaker 1: I think you know, one of the things I've worked
Speaker 1: really hard to do is to create content that is
Speaker 1: available and interesting and pathy without actually bending to any
Speaker 1: extreme or reacting to what's going on in a way
Speaker 1: that's unhelpful.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh for sure. Are you also friends with a Do.
Speaker 2: We have another mutual friend Jess Lahy we yes, am
Speaker 2: I imagining that? I feel like, yeah, okay, awesome, Yeah,
Speaker 2: she's She's written some great stuff about from an education perspective.
Speaker 2: For the remaining time we have today, can we talk
Speaker 2: about education a little bit? Why do kids hate school
Speaker 2: so much? What do we do about that to get
Speaker 2: their love of learning? To increase their level of learning?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: All right, so a matter. I love metaphors, and one
Speaker 1: metaphor that I detail in this most recent book is
Speaker 1: that I think it's appropriate for us to think about
Speaker 1: school as being like a compulsor a buffet of things,
Speaker 1: where teenagers are required to eat everything on the buffet.
Speaker 1: And what I like about this metaphor is we accept
Speaker 1: the idea that there are food preferences. We do not
Speaker 1: shame people for not liking beats, right, We accept that
Speaker 1: that is, you're not going to like everything. I think
Speaker 1: we shame kids for not liking every single thing they're
Speaker 1: served up. And I think it's fine to ask kids
Speaker 1: to try everything on the buffet. I also love being
Speaker 1: an adult. I go up, I serve myself some psychology,
Speaker 1: you know, A side of a novel for the evening,
Speaker 1: But like I don't I haven't dealt with physics since
Speaker 1: I was in high school, right, I mean I haven't.
Speaker 1: There's a lot I don't engage anymore. But I think
Speaker 1: if we can take that attitude that you didn't choose
Speaker 1: all of this. Left to your own devices, you would
Speaker 1: not have selected all of this, but you do need
Speaker 1: to consume it, I think it does a lot of good.
Speaker 1: First of all, we take the shame piece out of
Speaker 1: the picture, which is not helpful. Secondly, and think like,
Speaker 1: what supports do you need to get through the content
Speaker 1: that you would not have chosen. How do I think
Speaker 1: about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, not as like the bad
Speaker 1: motivation and the good motivation, like you know, bad kids
Speaker 1: need extrins that good kids are all intrinsic, but rather
Speaker 1: see them as two different strategies for getting through that
Speaker 1: plate of food. I think it just moves away from
Speaker 1: a very judgmental and again the word shame seems like,
Speaker 1: you know, shaming of kids not being into all of it.
Speaker 1: And I think Scott about this, like I basically I
Speaker 1: love my I love my job, like I love what
Speaker 1: I do. I'm with you like I love the like
Speaker 1: variety of what it means to be a psychologist how
Speaker 1: you never stop learning. There's still plenty of times, I mean,
Speaker 1: especially as the week drags on, where I'm like, I
Speaker 1: don't want to do this work right now. And so
Speaker 1: if I feel that way about the stuff I chose
Speaker 1: that I'm getting paid for, of course, kids are going
Speaker 1: to feel that way about things they did not choose
Speaker 1: and that they have to do. So we can be
Speaker 1: on their side a bit more, I think, as we
Speaker 1: help them get it done.
Speaker 2: Well, that's a great point. And a subset of children
Speaker 2: in the school system are neurodivergent.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: That's an area my career that I've been very interested in.
Speaker 2: I've been studying twice exceptional children who are both have gifted.
Speaker 2: They both have gifts as well as learning difficulties. I
Speaker 2: like to say learning difficulties, not disabilities. Now in your
Speaker 2: own work, well, how much have you worked with children
Speaker 2: who are neurodivergent? First of all, a.
Speaker 1: Fair bit actually, because I have spent a lotos And
Speaker 1: the nice thing is schools like the I love marrying
Speaker 1: practicing and working in schools because practice you get a slice,
Speaker 1: schools you get to see a lot more.
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, and in your own experience. Then do they
Speaker 2: have unique emotional lives needs slash needs? What have you observed?
Speaker 1: Okay, There's a lot one could say, so I'm just
Speaker 1: going to pick a couple of things. So, first of all,
Speaker 1: I have so much respect that they maintain motivation at all.
Speaker 1: I think all the time about what it must feel
Speaker 1: like if you go to school and everything is presented
Speaker 1: in a way that is not working for you or
Speaker 1: not accessible for you. I am like, how do these
Speaker 1: kids came day after day after day if we're not
Speaker 1: actually making this work for them? And just like the
Speaker 1: like when I think about, like, who's really showing us
Speaker 1: what motivation looks like? It's so often the kids from
Speaker 1: school is not well designed, and yet they persist, And
Speaker 1: I just don't know that we admire that nearly enough.
Speaker 1: In terms of the emotional piece, there's a couple key
Speaker 1: things to say. It's not unusual. I mean, neurodiversent is
Speaker 1: a big, big tent, as you know. Oh yeah, it's
Speaker 1: not unusual for there to be some language challenges in there.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And one thing we can say about emotion and its
Speaker 1: expression is that being able to put words to feelings
Speaker 1: is a real asset right that it helps bring the
Speaker 1: feelings down to size, It communicates what's happening, it can
Speaker 1: bring good support on board. And so for the subset
Speaker 1: of neurodiversent kids where there's a language interference, we see
Speaker 1: they struggle more to share what they're feeling in ways
Speaker 1: that are legible to the people around them, and to
Speaker 1: get relief through talking about emotions. So that's one issue.
Speaker 1: The other thing, though, that I think needs to be
Speaker 1: sort of thrown into high relief and appreciated and probably
Speaker 1: shared more broadly about neurodivergent kids is that you know,
Speaker 1: from my book, I feel like talking about feelings is
Speaker 1: one way to get relief for negative emotions. But there
Speaker 1: are many, many, many options, and language is only one
Speaker 1: of them. And so you will see neurodivergent kids in
Speaker 1: particular really be incredibly wrong at finding ways to calm
Speaker 1: themselves when they feel upset. They may not involve language.
Speaker 1: Ways to find a brief distraction that can help manage
Speaker 1: the feeling effectively does not involve language that they are
Speaker 1: often quite a bit more fluent in. These other highly adaptive,
Speaker 1: perfectly wonderful ways of managing feelings that we don't showcase
Speaker 1: nearly enough, because everybody's pretty preoccupied with getting kids to
Speaker 1: talk about feelings.
Speaker 3: Good good.
Speaker 2: That's that's a wonderful huh. Layers lots of shades there
Speaker 2: that we should consider in the Dare I say, the
Speaker 2: full rainbow of a lot of minds, Yeah.
Speaker 1: The huge variety that is kids at school.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I get it, I get it. I see you,
Speaker 3: I see you for sure.
Speaker 1: Sort of.
Speaker 2: Last, this is my last question for our interview today
Speaker 2: to be I want to be respectful of your time.
Speaker 2: Do you have any sort of parting thoughts on the
Speaker 2: best ways for parents to stay connected in an authentic,
Speaker 2: meaningful way to their teens and provide the kind of
Speaker 2: relationship to the adolescents may not say they need in
Speaker 2: one but actually need in want.
Speaker 1: I have two suggestions, Okay, So the first, when I
Speaker 1: talk with teenagers about what they really want from adults,
Speaker 1: I can sum it up in two words, our agenda
Speaker 1: less presence. So they like us and they like to
Speaker 1: have us around, but not so much with all the
Speaker 1: questions all the time. So I would say, you know,
Speaker 1: make sure there's plenty of time in a week where
Speaker 1: if you have a teenager where you're just driving in
Speaker 1: the car letting them pick the music, or you're watching
Speaker 1: the show they want to watch, or you're over there
Speaker 1: doing their email, your email while they're sitting near you
Speaker 1: doing their homework. They like us there, but they're surrounded
Speaker 1: by adults with an agenda, and they like a break
Speaker 1: from that too. So that's one thing. The other thing
Speaker 1: I will say is like the no fail help you
Speaker 1: connect with your kids strategy. Kids do share that they're
Speaker 1: upset when something is wrong. The first response. I cannot
Speaker 1: think of a time when this is not a great
Speaker 1: first response. The first response, I think should almost always
Speaker 1: be empathy, where you just say, oh man, that's stinks,
Speaker 1: or I'm really sorry, or I wish that weren't true,
Speaker 1: or of course you're upset. Start there, you may be done.
Speaker 1: That is often all kids want. That is all they
Speaker 1: are looking for. I think. Usually instead they get advice.
Speaker 3: Or quite have adults. Sometimes it's all an adult ones too.
Speaker 1: Exactly, it's all any of us want. And so if
Speaker 1: you do those two things, make yourself an agendleist presence
Speaker 1: as often as you can, and respond with empathy when
Speaker 1: your kid comes your way with distress. Honestly, those two
Speaker 1: things are like superpowers. For connecting with teens.
Speaker 3: It's wonderful.
Speaker 2: Always a doctor de Moore, Thank you so much for
Speaker 2: your level headed and empathetic approach. It's obvious to anyone
Speaker 2: listening that you really care about this population and and
Speaker 2: you genuinely want to You want what's best for them.
Speaker 3: You're not you're not in this too for finger.
Speaker 2: Pointing or too for political re like you know what
Speaker 2: I mean, Like you really want to use the science
Speaker 2: to to help them.
Speaker 3: So thank you so much for being on my podcast
Speaker 3: and for the work you do.
Speaker 1: You're welcome. Thank you so much for having me the
Speaker 1: real honor.
Speaker 3: It's an honor for me too,