Speaker 1: Welcome to Go ask Ali, a production of Shonda Land
Speaker 1: Audio and partnership with I Heart Radio. Hi Amali Wentworth
Speaker 1: and you're listening to Go ask Alli. Where this season
Speaker 1: we try to figure out how to grow a teenager
Speaker 1: in a pandemic. Today, I'm specifically asking how do you
Speaker 1: grow a somewhat stress free girl in a pandemic? And
Speaker 1: my guest today is Dr Lisa Damore. She's a psychologist.
Speaker 1: She has written what I call the two Bibles to
Speaker 1: surviving raising girls. One is untangled and one is under pressure.
Speaker 1: And I think under pressure couldn't be more relevant right
Speaker 1: now because we are in a pandemic. There are wildfires raging,
Speaker 1: there is all kinds of civil unrest, there's political unrest.
Speaker 1: What girl is not completely stressed out in anxious? Am I? Right? Oh? Yeah? Absolutely?
Speaker 1: Um that book. That book came out in February, and
Speaker 1: I I couldn't have imagined then how German it would be,
Speaker 1: to what would unfold since then one one would hope
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be as Germaine as it is now. But
Speaker 1: it's uh, it couldn't be more relevant. So, um, you
Speaker 1: talk about healthy stress, and in my opinion, healthy stress
Speaker 1: is what kind of propels us forward. I think of
Speaker 1: healthy stress as you know, my daughter trying out for
Speaker 1: the lacrosse team, or I think about for myself when
Speaker 1: I did the tonight show for the first down, I mean,
Speaker 1: my my knees were gonna buckle, But you know, it
Speaker 1: was an anxiety that gave me adrenaline and actually propelled
Speaker 1: me to be funny. And so talk to me about
Speaker 1: healthy stress in your terms. So we've always understood in
Speaker 1: psychology that stress is normal, expectable, totally unavoidable, and we're
Speaker 1: going to experience it any time we operate at the
Speaker 1: edge of our capacities, and when we operate at the
Speaker 1: edge of our capacities, we expand our capacities. So you
Speaker 1: do it once it's terrifying, you do at the second
Speaker 1: time it's slightly less terrifying, which means you grow. And
Speaker 1: so the culture, prior to all of the COVID and everything,
Speaker 1: had come to give stress a pretty bad name, you know,
Speaker 1: had sort of given people the impression that the goal
Speaker 1: is to feel calm and relaxed all the time. That's
Speaker 1: never been something we've seen in psychology. If you're stressed,
Speaker 1: you're usually growing, and sometimes it's good stuff that's making
Speaker 1: you grow, and sometimes it's bad stuff that's making you grow,
Speaker 1: like going through a hard time in your life, but
Speaker 1: it's all growth, and it all contributes to increasing durability.
Speaker 1: And so our general view has been really positive towards stress.
Speaker 1: Right now, we're into one of the two kinds of
Speaker 1: stress that we actually don't feel positive about. So we
Speaker 1: don't like trauma, which some people have experienced, and we
Speaker 1: don't like chronic stress, which everyone is experiencing right now.
Speaker 1: So no psychologist is going to say this level of
Speaker 1: stress is good for you, because you say there's three
Speaker 1: types of stress, right life events, daily hassles, and chronic stress,
Speaker 1: and you're saying the ladder is the one we're feeling now,
Speaker 1: and that's the bad one. That's one of the bad ones.
Speaker 1: And and and the way we see stresses, it's okay if
Speaker 1: you get a break, and it's okay if it doesn't
Speaker 1: blow you out of the water. So we don't like
Speaker 1: trauma because that blows people out of the water. But
Speaker 1: we do like things like the stress of school. School
Speaker 1: is supposed to be stressful. You work really hard, you
Speaker 1: learn something new, and then you rest and then you
Speaker 1: go back to it, but stress with outbreak, whether it's
Speaker 1: in the context of something like COVID nineteen, which never
Speaker 1: goes away and impinches on every aspect of our lives,
Speaker 1: or whether it's a context of living in poverty or
Speaker 1: living in a dangerous situation that just wears people down.
Speaker 1: And so the aim right now is to really buffer
Speaker 1: chronic stress for our kids and for ourselves. And what's
Speaker 1: the difference between stress and anxiety? We are a family
Speaker 1: of anxiety, but is different from stress. It sounds like
Speaker 1: it's the same thing. We can define them very sort
Speaker 1: of technically as different. You know, in psychology we like
Speaker 1: to make these like very fine grain distinctions, So we
Speaker 1: say anxiety is more in the neighborhood of fear. Stress
Speaker 1: is more in the neighborhood of pressure. But in real
Speaker 1: life they get all tangled up with each other. You
Speaker 1: know that if I live under chronic stress conditions, they're
Speaker 1: going to make me feel anxious. If I'm anxious all
Speaker 1: the time, that's stressful. So it doesn't mean that much
Speaker 1: to try to distinguish them in terms of their actual
Speaker 1: functioning in our day to day lives. They're both exhausting,
Speaker 1: they both can have useful forms and they both can
Speaker 1: cross the line from healthy to unhealthy. Because this is
Speaker 1: putting us in sort of a state of chronic stress.
Speaker 1: Should we all medicate? I mean, should I medicate my
Speaker 1: teenage girl? I don't know what to do. I can't
Speaker 1: tell the difference between what would be normal stress and
Speaker 1: what is you know, them worrying about every aspect of
Speaker 1: the globe. Right, and at this point it's almost impossible
Speaker 1: not to medications and option. I wouldn't go with it
Speaker 1: as the first choice. I think we got stuff before
Speaker 1: we get there. I'm good, I'd like good. Yes, there
Speaker 1: are things you know, when we look at like what
Speaker 1: does it mean to manage chronic stress? What that takes
Speaker 1: us into is the department of coping, right that it's
Speaker 1: all about coping and how we're coping and what's been happening.
Speaker 1: I mean, since the minute this came down on us,
Speaker 1: everybody started coping. It's a very intuitive thing. We all
Speaker 1: start doing it. What we want to watch out for
Speaker 1: is how are people coping? Because there's bad coping and
Speaker 1: there's good coping. So give me an example of bad
Speaker 1: coping places. Yeah, you want to you want to know
Speaker 1: my diary? So bad coping is stuff that works really
Speaker 1: well in the short term but not well in the
Speaker 1: long term. So it's stuff like misusing substances highly effective
Speaker 1: in the short term helps you feel better, not a
Speaker 1: good long term strategy. Um taking bad care of oneself,
Speaker 1: you know, using what I call junk habits. You know,
Speaker 1: so taking your phone to bed and scrolling and scrolling
Speaker 1: instead of sleeping, or only watching you know, TV all
Speaker 1: the time, or only eating comfort foods. Those feel good,
Speaker 1: but they don't hold up. So in their place, what
Speaker 1: we want for everyone, grown ups and kids alike is
Speaker 1: good coping. So that means good solid social relationships and
Speaker 1: staying connected in ways that are sustaining, and instead of
Speaker 1: abusing substances, using happy distractions, finding things that let us
Speaker 1: take a mental vacation from the pandemic and then come
Speaker 1: back to it having gotten some restoration and a break.
Speaker 1: Are you saying like a walk or I want to
Speaker 1: just so? For some people, the mental vacation is I'm
Speaker 1: going to go lose myself in a book, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna go get lost in sixteenth century England.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take a vacation there. For some people, they're like,
Speaker 1: I'm going to go bench watch a TV show just
Speaker 1: for you know, the afternoon. For some people it's like
Speaker 1: going out in nature. They can just let everything fall away.
Speaker 1: And so when it comes to mental vacations, I think
Speaker 1: the goal is to make sure that you have what yours.
Speaker 1: You know what works for you, we know it works
Speaker 1: for our kids. We help make those happen because we
Speaker 1: need these vacations. We don't get other vacations right now.
Speaker 1: And so that and then incredibly good self care at
Speaker 1: this point as a non negotiable. When New York was
Speaker 1: really bad during the pandemic, I mean, I I just
Speaker 1: made bad parenting choices, and one of them was because
Speaker 1: I don't I don't drink or do drugs or smoke,
Speaker 1: but I ate a lot of ice cream because um,
Speaker 1: that was my comfort. And I just went to the
Speaker 1: doctor and my cholesterols three hundred. And the interesting thing
Speaker 1: is that it was my two teenage girls that said, Mom,
Speaker 1: that's really bad, Like you, you know, they sorted sort
Speaker 1: of parenting me, and I felt like there was a
Speaker 1: moment where I let I let go of the reins.
Speaker 1: And that's not always the right thing to do. She said,
Speaker 1: maybe a little, but in a long term no, right,
Speaker 1: And I think that that's what we're up against with
Speaker 1: this pandemic, is that it is a long term engagement.
Speaker 1: You know that this is not something that we're hungering
Speaker 1: down for two three weeks and then can just you know,
Speaker 1: go back to normal. You know, one of my colleagues
Speaker 1: that I thought it was so beautiful. She's like, we
Speaker 1: have to move from coping to adaptation, you know, to
Speaker 1: really start to think, all right, how do we live
Speaker 1: in a healthy way given the conditions We're right, So, Lisa,
Speaker 1: I have to ask you this is the this is
Speaker 1: the big question for a parent, particularly right now in
Speaker 1: a pandemic. How do we manage a meltdown? You could
Speaker 1: write a whole book on that. By yeh, I can,
Speaker 1: probably somebody could absolutely. Um. So the first thing is,
Speaker 1: meltdowns are at an all time high. You know, I
Speaker 1: think everybody's reserves are spent. Um. I think there's so
Speaker 1: little that is filling young people up. So everything that
Speaker 1: doesn't go well in my experience, things are going to
Speaker 1: meltdown pretty quickly, more than usual. I've never gotten the
Speaker 1: finger more than I have in my whole life, and
Speaker 1: I have the past few months. Yeah, it's it's a
Speaker 1: it's a hair trigger finger right now, and people have
Speaker 1: no reserves. Um. So the first thing you have to
Speaker 1: do to manage the meltdown is you actually have to
Speaker 1: be in kind of decent shape yourself, because meltdowns are
Speaker 1: so upsetting and so exhausting. Is a parent that if triggering,
Speaker 1: they're really triggering. So if you can get yourself a
Speaker 1: good night's sleep and go out for a walk before
Speaker 1: you hit that melt down, you're gonna be in better shape.
Speaker 1: I think the first thing you do with the meltdown
Speaker 1: is you recognize that more than anything, what the person
Speaker 1: wants probably is just to be heard. That when they're
Speaker 1: deeply upset and having a sort of you know, and
Speaker 1: saying other things. Our instinct, and this is true if
Speaker 1: the meltdown is our kid or our spouse or an employee,
Speaker 1: is to wait for them to stop talking so that
Speaker 1: we can make a suggestion about what might make things better.
Speaker 1: And it's such a well meaning instinct, and it's usually
Speaker 1: the opposite of what's wanted. That's so often when we
Speaker 1: are having a meltdown or a kid is having a meltdown,
Speaker 1: we just need to say it all out, get it out.
Speaker 1: Of our head, in front of ourselves, onto the table
Speaker 1: and just let it be heard. And so the first
Speaker 1: thing to do when managing a meltdown is actually to
Speaker 1: not try to think of solutions and just try to
Speaker 1: listen really carefully and make it clear that you listened.
Speaker 1: And the way you make it clear that you listened,
Speaker 1: and this is easy to say, very hard to do,
Speaker 1: is you listen so intently that you can take that
Speaker 1: three paragraph meltdown and summarize it back to the person
Speaker 1: in one golden sentence. And it's a real challenge. So
Speaker 1: you might have a kid tell you how awful school
Speaker 1: is and none of it is fun and it just
Speaker 1: stinks and there's nothing to look forward to. And if
Speaker 1: you say with full tenderness, it's like school is all
Speaker 1: vegetables and no dessert, usually you're done. Usually they could
Speaker 1: be like, thank you and it's over. If you start
Speaker 1: making suggestions, usually exacerbate. That's what happens in my house. Yet,
Speaker 1: so first and foremost listen and then try to just
Speaker 1: see if you can get the heart of it and
Speaker 1: return it as a gift. And if you're not sure,
Speaker 1: to do it tentatively, you know, like, is this what
Speaker 1: you're saying that is wildly powerful. And then if you
Speaker 1: still need to keep going, which you usually don't, if
Speaker 1: you've gotten it right, but it's not easy to get
Speaker 1: it right, then go straight to empathy. Just say, honey,
Speaker 1: this stinks. You are right, this stinks, and stop and
Speaker 1: and and just make it clear that you can tolerate
Speaker 1: that they are unhappy, which means that they can tolerate
Speaker 1: that they are unhappy. Um. And then if you still
Speaker 1: need to keep going, you can validate their distress. You
Speaker 1: can say, look, you're having the right reaction. Anyone in
Speaker 1: your shoes would be this upset. But those are the
Speaker 1: first steps I would take with a meltdown. And you know,
Speaker 1: eventually you might get the problem solving, but only if
Speaker 1: you offer to help. You don't throw solutions at kids,
Speaker 1: but think of melt towns more as an invitation to
Speaker 1: show what's happening inside to someone who can stand to
Speaker 1: hear it. That that's what is being asked, even if
Speaker 1: it doesn't always come across that way, and you can
Speaker 1: sit with the discomfort, which is what we're really having
Speaker 1: to do a lot is just sitting with the discomfort.
Speaker 1: I'm saying to kiddos all the time. Look, you've got
Speaker 1: a few crummy options. There's no good option here. Which
Speaker 1: crummy option would you like? I hate that. This is
Speaker 1: where we are. This is where we are. Um. Do
Speaker 1: you think there's a difference between how girls and boys
Speaker 1: are reacting to the pandemic and the stress and anxiety
Speaker 1: that comes with it. Um, In the most sort of
Speaker 1: broad strokes, No, I think they all hate it. I
Speaker 1: think it stinks for all of them. I think, you know,
Speaker 1: the disruption of school there's so um so kind of
Speaker 1: predominant in the landscape, and that applies to all of
Speaker 1: them equally. Um. The only really gendered difference I've noticed
Speaker 1: in this is that the sort of nine to fifteen
Speaker 1: sixteen year old boys whose social lives were heavily on
Speaker 1: gaming before this, they're doing better than anyone else, Like
Speaker 1: their social lives have been undisrupted by this. There is
Speaker 1: happy is gonna be actually, So that's the only gender
Speaker 1: difference where I'm like, Okay, those guys had to figure
Speaker 1: it out. We were giving them a hard time. They're
Speaker 1: now happier than anyone. The rest of us are trying
Speaker 1: to figure out how to have a social life. They're
Speaker 1: just doing what they were doing. That's the big gender
Speaker 1: difference I've seen. And didn't girls do that with social
Speaker 1: media a little bit? Weren't they trying to throw a
Speaker 1: lot a larger net when it came to followers and
Speaker 1: following and all that stuff I love to hate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they were. But what we see in the data is
Speaker 1: that social media went up for kids, but they've buy
Speaker 1: and large also reported more loneliness. So those two things
Speaker 1: went upside by side this summer. So upping the social
Speaker 1: media has not for kids in general, staved off feelings
Speaker 1: of loneliness for those who really were accustomed to getting
Speaker 1: to be together in person. Um. I think at this
Speaker 1: point all kids will tell you a hands down that
Speaker 1: is their preference, and if they weren't conscious of it before,
Speaker 1: now they really are. We're gonna take a short break
Speaker 1: and we'll be right back. Welcome back with more. Go
Speaker 1: ask Alli, Alright, let's talk about school, because everybody's on
Speaker 1: back to school, and you know, I have so many
Speaker 1: feelings about it as a parent, you know, I have
Speaker 1: feelings about kids, certainly underserved kids that are even struggling
Speaker 1: with getting a computer to be able to be remote
Speaker 1: and everything, and I just can't imagine that remote schooling
Speaker 1: in the long term is going to be helpful. And
Speaker 1: I feel like there are so many other aspects, certainly
Speaker 1: for teens in high school, that are going to be
Speaker 1: stunted and hurt. It's such a second choice. You know
Speaker 1: that that first choice, of course, would be normal school. Um.
Speaker 1: What we're seeing when I'm talking to those who are
Speaker 1: in normal school is it even normal school is pretty
Speaker 1: not normal right now. It's pretty rigid, it's pretty removed,
Speaker 1: it's pretty joyless for all involved. Um. Kids don't really
Speaker 1: get to see their friends in the same way. They
Speaker 1: don't get to enjoy their teachers company in the same way.
Speaker 1: It's pretty stiff and uncomfortable. UM. I think kids would
Speaker 1: often still say they'd prefer that to being home. UM.
Speaker 1: But one of the things that I've been thinking about
Speaker 1: a lot is I know a lot of kids who
Speaker 1: are really worried about contamination. And so I think, well,
Speaker 1: if you've got a kid who is sitting in class
Speaker 1: so uncomfortable about that kid who's got their mass hanging
Speaker 1: off their ear, and that kid who's getting way too close,
Speaker 1: they're better off at home. But what this has given us,
Speaker 1: it's just like a whole menu of horrible choices. Right,
Speaker 1: would you like the horrible choice of doing education from home?
Speaker 1: Would you like the horrible choice of being anxious at school?
Speaker 1: And is sort of this rigid environment. Um, we right
Speaker 1: now have nothing to offer kids that really is what
Speaker 1: they deserve, and and that part is heartbreaking to watch.
Speaker 1: How do I how do I help my girls with
Speaker 1: academic confidence in a pandemic? You talk about it a
Speaker 1: lot in your book, But now that they're confined, how
Speaker 1: do I help them with that? Here's where we might
Speaker 1: have a little room to work to try to actually
Speaker 1: make some some headway, especially as if we think about
Speaker 1: girls and academic confidence good, I love, I love a
Speaker 1: positive answer. Let's find us a little lining in here.
Speaker 1: Let's do it. Um. One of the soapboxes that is
Speaker 1: my favorite is about how inefficient girls are about school.
Speaker 1: That by and large, when we look at how girls
Speaker 1: do school, they are really good students, but they often
Speaker 1: overdo it a little bit. They're not that tactical. They
Speaker 1: tend to overstudy, they tend to go over material they
Speaker 1: already know. They tend not to use their time all
Speaker 1: that well. Even when they are really pressed for time,
Speaker 1: they can kind of polish everything to a really high
Speaker 1: shine as opposed to just getting it done and UM
Speaker 1: to make broad gender stroke. So this will not apply
Speaker 1: to all girls. This will not apply to all boys.
Speaker 1: That's not my kids direct voices a group are much
Speaker 1: more efficient about school. They're much more likely to walk
Speaker 1: up to something and be like, Okay, what is the
Speaker 1: absolute least to have to do to get the job
Speaker 1: done or to get the grown ups off my back?
Speaker 1: In terms of the volume of where kids have, we
Speaker 1: actually need to think about the boys approach and encourage
Speaker 1: girls to be more strategic in their deployment of their efforts.
Speaker 1: So one maybe little benefit of this is that UM
Speaker 1: make of us more immediate contact with how kids are
Speaker 1: spending their time because they're spending their time in front
Speaker 1: of us, and it may give us more room to
Speaker 1: say to either hyperconscientious daughters or sons you're still studying
Speaker 1: that like, do want me to quiz you? I think
Speaker 1: you might have it right, and to really push them
Speaker 1: to UM to not over study and not over exert
Speaker 1: and not um try to shoot the lights out on
Speaker 1: everything if they don't need to. But let stem from
Speaker 1: the girls need to please pleasing the parents, pleasing their teachers,
Speaker 1: pleasing the schools and and isn't that just we have
Speaker 1: it ingrained in us? And so it makes it harder
Speaker 1: we do. And this is our big chance to disrupt
Speaker 1: that in our daughters are big chance. And so I
Speaker 1: will say to girls, you know, what do you mean
Speaker 1: you turned an extra credit in a class where you
Speaker 1: have an a right because they will do that and
Speaker 1: they'll say, well, I didn't want to disappoint the teacher.
Speaker 1: They're very plugged into if they've given the extra credit,
Speaker 1: they fully expect we're going to do it, and so
Speaker 1: I'm going to do it. And that's actually the moment
Speaker 1: when you can say, all right, but is that strategic
Speaker 1: on your part? Or even better? And this is what
Speaker 1: I really prefer is if the teacher says, what are
Speaker 1: you doing turning an extra credit? Because then the teacher says,
Speaker 1: if you want me to be impressed, I want to
Speaker 1: see you use your time more efficiently. But this is
Speaker 1: something we have not traditionally done with girls about school,
Speaker 1: and I feel like the moment is here and we
Speaker 1: should really help them. If one of my daughters doesn't
Speaker 1: do well in a science exam, it's because Mr So
Speaker 1: and so doesn't like her, tell me how to get
Speaker 1: them out of this idea of bringing this back to
Speaker 1: the pleasing thing, because I somehow they correlate that with grades. Well,
Speaker 1: I would just really push on that assumption, and and
Speaker 1: I would even say, you know, Mr Soul, and so
Speaker 1: I think he's going to grade you fairly, and I
Speaker 1: think he knows you've got a lot to do, and
Speaker 1: I think he'll be impressed if you bring in what
Speaker 1: has to be done. But whether he likes who is
Speaker 1: actually not important here. What matters is that you're getting
Speaker 1: enough sleep that you have energy to do the things
Speaker 1: you want to do. Yeah, he may still like you,
Speaker 1: or he may not like you. And what would that
Speaker 1: be like? I mean to actually entertain that possibility that
Speaker 1: it is not the girl's job to make sure that
Speaker 1: all of her teachers feel their job has been made
Speaker 1: easy and she is delightful. I mean to even really
Speaker 1: pick away at that idea, So not to say, like,
Speaker 1: please go be rude to your teacher, but to say,
Speaker 1: if he likes you less because you're not turning an
Speaker 1: extra credit when you don't need to, can we examine
Speaker 1: if that's fair? Is that okay of him to do?
Speaker 1: But this is this is actually the other thing again
Speaker 1: to try to find a little positive in all of this. Um,
Speaker 1: we have time for more conversations than we used to have.
Speaker 1: I have two daughters. We are having longer, more detailed
Speaker 1: conversations about these kinds of things than the rush of
Speaker 1: pre COVID life allowed. I think this may be a
Speaker 1: time when we can just talk more about what they're
Speaker 1: observing and trouble more what has been conventional. I'm finding
Speaker 1: personally that I'm having to be much more mindful of
Speaker 1: my time. Um, my calendar has become much busier than
Speaker 1: it is healthy for me, and so talking openly in
Speaker 1: front of my daughter's about my strategies for turning things
Speaker 1: down in a way that doesn't damage relationships, or to
Speaker 1: have my adolescent daughter has something she doesn't want to
Speaker 1: do and actually have spent time to think with her.
Speaker 1: All right, how are you going to say no in
Speaker 1: a way that you feel comfortable with? That time for
Speaker 1: more sort of precise and deliberate coaching. So often in
Speaker 1: family life, under normal conditions, we're kind of running around
Speaker 1: and we don't always do that. So I would say
Speaker 1: that we could do that now too. So you're talking
Speaker 1: about stress and anxiety and boys are you talking about boys?
Speaker 1: Are like, what are your top subjects at dinner? Top subjects? Um? School?
Speaker 1: Online school is a big top subject. Um they wish
Speaker 1: for TikTok is a big top subject. Are your girls
Speaker 1: on computers? Are they doing homework? But there are they
Speaker 1: also have tech scrolling next to them, and there they
Speaker 1: have a YouTube thing going in the corner. Are they
Speaker 1: sort of poltic tasking their brain? Yes? Yes, um My
Speaker 1: my daughters are nine and sixteen, so hopefully my nine
Speaker 1: year old is a little bit so more in within
Speaker 1: the guard rails. I know my sixteen year old um
Speaker 1: is doing a really good job of paying attention in class,
Speaker 1: and I also know that some of her friends are
Speaker 1: busy on texts during class, and I I'm not sure
Speaker 1: where I come down on it, because if they got
Speaker 1: to be together in school, there would be a wordless
Speaker 1: delight they were taking in one another being in the
Speaker 1: same room together. And so to the degree that I
Speaker 1: know teenagers are sometimes now carrying that over to like
Speaker 1: being in classes and then also carrying out a lengthy
Speaker 1: text chain with their friends, part of me feels like, oh, no,
Speaker 1: you're supposed to pay attention, and part of me feels like, dude,
Speaker 1: whatever makes eighty hours own classes bearable for you? Do
Speaker 1: it right? Yeah, I agree with that. Now a quick
Speaker 1: word from our sponsors, welcome back to go ask Alli.
Speaker 1: Let's get back to the discussion now. The other big
Speaker 1: subject in our house is um social life, how to
Speaker 1: have it, social anxiety. Tell me what you mean by
Speaker 1: social turmoil, because you turn that in your book. What
Speaker 1: do you mean by social turmoil? Well, so it's the
Speaker 1: Nate sure of middle school especially and then sometimes sort
Speaker 1: of carrying over into high school. UM for kids to
Speaker 1: really be anxious about their social connections, to do everything
Speaker 1: they can to make sure they have social connections because
Speaker 1: they have sort of loosened their ties to their family
Speaker 1: and are trying to strengthen their ties to their friends. Yes,
Speaker 1: and this is particular of one of my daughters that
Speaker 1: she's actually fine with two friends or one friend, but
Speaker 1: they have to be her best friend. So there's a
Speaker 1: big label about best friends. So I find that there's
Speaker 1: a lot of anxiety with with my girls and girls
Speaker 1: I know, between having too many and putting too much
Speaker 1: pressure on one. Well, so what you're describing is very
Speaker 1: well established in the research that it's actually exhausting to
Speaker 1: have a big, broad social network when we actually look
Speaker 1: at the data. Even if you're getting along, that sense
Speaker 1: of maintaining an obligation or keeping everybody happy is actually
Speaker 1: very taxing. So we do see mostly that the least
Speaker 1: dressed kids have a couple of good friends, you know,
Speaker 1: they're really sort of settling into that group. The anxiety
Speaker 1: that arrives with that is, my group is small. I
Speaker 1: need to know what's guaranteed. I don't have an elaborate
Speaker 1: backup system, and so then there can be the sense
Speaker 1: of like a tight grip, which you know is what
Speaker 1: you're describing and can be kind of anxiety provoking. So
Speaker 1: one way to think about it is there's no perfect solution.
Speaker 1: Each solution has its downside. So the big social group
Speaker 1: means you've got a broad network and a lot of backup.
Speaker 1: The small group means you don't have the stress of
Speaker 1: a broad network, but you don't have the backup. But
Speaker 1: what I what I like about articulating like the ups
Speaker 1: and downs of these is that it takes the critique
Speaker 1: away from the kids I think so often growing up
Speaker 1: to like look at those kids with their dumb social configurations,
Speaker 1: why they made themselves so unhappy. There's not really a
Speaker 1: perfect solution for them. I also think during this time,
Speaker 1: during this pandemic, I have found myself that I have
Speaker 1: let a lot of acquaintances go, and that that I
Speaker 1: almost don't have time for the bullshit and the chit chat,
Speaker 1: and I need very few but significant, strong bonds. And
Speaker 1: in a strange way, I'm I'm seeing that a little
Speaker 1: with my teenagers as well, because it's all being done
Speaker 1: on their phone and on their computer, and they just
Speaker 1: they literally can't spend twenty four hours on it, so
Speaker 1: they have to make decisions. You know, I need to
Speaker 1: work on an English paper, and I do want to
Speaker 1: say hi to Timmy or Susie, but I can't possibly
Speaker 1: I can't FaceTime Sarah and Judy and Sophie and Lulu,
Speaker 1: And you know, it's too much. It's true. I mean,
Speaker 1: it makes you realize a lot of friendships are very
Speaker 1: much context driven. You know, there were friends because that
Speaker 1: person is in our traffic pattern, But if our traffic
Speaker 1: pattern changes, that doesn't necessarily mean that there's still the
Speaker 1: person we're gonna want to talk to. And I think
Speaker 1: kids are finding that also. But then the other thing
Speaker 1: you're saying and I'm watching as happened as the month's
Speaker 1: rack up with COVID is everyone is pretty raw, everyone
Speaker 1: is pretty depleted. And so then, um, I'm watching myself
Speaker 1: and I'm watching others get much more um picky about
Speaker 1: their relational nutrition. I guess is what I would say.
Speaker 1: You know, we're like, You're like, I can't do dunk
Speaker 1: food anymore. Like if this is all I've gotten, this
Speaker 1: is gonna go on for a long time. I'm going
Speaker 1: to bring in what makes me feel good, what feels supportive,
Speaker 1: but that draining relationship or that person who's kind of manipulative,
Speaker 1: Like I can do that under normal conditions, I cannot
Speaker 1: do that right now. And I want people to give
Speaker 1: themselves that permission, Like I really, I know some people
Speaker 1: are like, well I'm a bad friend. No, no, you
Speaker 1: you get to take good care of yourself right now,
Speaker 1: and our kids get to take good care of themselves.
Speaker 1: Can we say that to our kids? Can we say,
Speaker 1: you know what you're allowed to You wouldn't say let
Speaker 1: go of your some of your friends, but you're you're
Speaker 1: allowed to focus on a few right now because there's
Speaker 1: so much that you have to deal with. It's okay,
Speaker 1: you're not going to be unpopular, you know, let's say
Speaker 1: when we start to go back to school, or you know,
Speaker 1: it's you're you're not going to get bullied or teased
Speaker 1: or any of the fears that they have because you've
Speaker 1: made a quieter life for yourself. Absolutely, And the phrase
Speaker 1: it often helps kids is that you're allowed to accomplish
Speaker 1: a polite distance with some people, because I think, especially
Speaker 1: for girls, they don't always feel like there's something between
Speaker 1: best friend and cold shoulder. And I think articulate that
Speaker 1: that space of like, oh no, there's people from whom
Speaker 1: I keep a polite distance when I see them on
Speaker 1: polite but I'm not knocking myself out to be close
Speaker 1: with them. I think that is really useful. And I
Speaker 1: also think if there's really a worry you say, blame me.
Speaker 1: Say you know, my mom was being really you know,
Speaker 1: rigid about this and she said, I can only talk
Speaker 1: to a few people because I'm you know, spending too
Speaker 1: much time on the phone, you know, you know my
Speaker 1: mom like, And I think that is a huge gift
Speaker 1: we can give our kids if they need an out,
Speaker 1: is just to go ahead and say, like I'll be
Speaker 1: the bad guy and then that that's a fair thing.
Speaker 1: I think. Yeah, I say that for everything. They're very
Speaker 1: happy to make me the bad guy. Yeah, no, it
Speaker 1: absolutely does work. Um. The other thing I that I
Speaker 1: talked to the girls about is uh, their quote unquote
Speaker 1: romantic relationships, because you know, they're teenagers and there they
Speaker 1: would be kind of interacting with each other and whatever
Speaker 1: that is and smelling each other or whatever they do.
Speaker 1: And so I I feel like a lot of girls
Speaker 1: are not having the normal growth when it comes to
Speaker 1: that kind of thing because there no one's face to
Speaker 1: face and there's no parties and you know, all of that,
Speaker 1: and that that is a that is very anxiety making
Speaker 1: for my eldest daughter, the idea that, um, there's no love,
Speaker 1: especially when we're all quarantine watching romantic movies and TV.
Speaker 1: You know, she's like, I'll never have what Reese were.
Speaker 1: There's own house. So there's and I don't know how
Speaker 1: to address that. You know, just wait, you know, wait
Speaker 1: a few years until you know things have cooled down
Speaker 1: and you can actually go meet a boy in a mask,
Speaker 1: not at a movie theater, because we might not have movies.
Speaker 1: I mean, I really I don't know what to say. Um,
Speaker 1: I think there's missing out. I mean, there's no getting
Speaker 1: around that. I still think there's flirting at a distance
Speaker 1: and digitally. I also think we don't give enough airtime too.
Speaker 1: How much gratification, not entire gratification, but partial gratification. I
Speaker 1: know teenage girls get from um crushes on people they
Speaker 1: will never meet. So I was actually just talking with
Speaker 1: a group of teenage girls about what they were doing
Speaker 1: that they were interested in. And I didn't quite understand this,
Speaker 1: but they're like, you know, the Draco TikTok's, I'm like
Speaker 1: Draco TikTok's. So apparently there's a subset of adolescent girls
Speaker 1: who find the character Draco Malfoy from the Harry Potter
Speaker 1: movies to be very handsome. And there's this whole elaborate, um,
Speaker 1: you know, world around this guy, and it's collective and
Speaker 1: it's shared. It's like it's the boy band thing on
Speaker 1: steroids and across a million platforms, and a lot of
Speaker 1: times in the course of normal events, that becomes a
Speaker 1: sort of love life of sorts, you know, the fantasy
Speaker 1: about that person enjoying them. There's a life size cut
Speaker 1: out of Timothy shallow ma a in one of my
Speaker 1: daughter's rooms. Well, there you go. So there's definitely that,
Speaker 1: and there's UM. And that's what I mean about their
Speaker 1: watching Netflix romantic movies and they're following all kinds of
Speaker 1: people on Instagram they've never met. But he's so cute
Speaker 1: and but but that's not a tangible that's not a
Speaker 1: awkward that the boy reaches over to hold your hand
Speaker 1: kind of thing. That That's my only concern is I
Speaker 1: wish for teenagers to have those wonderful moments in those
Speaker 1: his steps, getting your lip caught in his braces, all
Speaker 1: that stuff which I feel like they're missing out on.
Speaker 1: Do you know what I mean? I do. It's funny
Speaker 1: I don't worry about this that I don't And I'll
Speaker 1: tell you why. I think teenage boys were wonderful and
Speaker 1: I love caring for them. In my practice, I think
Speaker 1: most parents of teenage boys would it be in agreement
Speaker 1: that when it comes to relational sophistication, they lag a
Speaker 1: bit behind the girls that UM and and there's a
Speaker 1: reason for this. There's a reason that UM girls are very,
Speaker 1: very interested in talking with their friends about relationships, and
Speaker 1: they develop a real fluency in this, and boys are
Speaker 1: socialized by our culture not to do this. There's no
Speaker 1: biological underpinning for this, but boys are not socialized by
Speaker 1: our culture to talk about feelings and talk about emotions
Speaker 1: like girls are. And it does drive a bit of
Speaker 1: a mismatch in terms of sophistication about thinking about relationships
Speaker 1: and thinking about engaging in relationships. And I think that
Speaker 1: mismatch last, you know, through high school often. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's some wonderful, very emotionally in touch and subtly nuanced boys.
Speaker 1: But I would say, if you go on broad strokes
Speaker 1: and we look at the data, girls have been taught
Speaker 1: by our culture to think and talk in these ways
Speaker 1: and boys have not, been, to their detriment encouraged. So
Speaker 1: there's a little part of me that's like, you know,
Speaker 1: a little more time for that gap to close, is
Speaker 1: all right? We were thinking about it. I completely get it.
Speaker 1: But it's funny because if I were to write a
Speaker 1: movie right now, it would be a movie that would
Speaker 1: be a teenage boy who's during this pandemic completely insular.
Speaker 1: A couple of years later or a year later, they
Speaker 1: come out of the pandemic and he's expecting one thing
Speaker 1: and she's expecting something completely different. How do these two
Speaker 1: people have a relationship. That's a great question, right, that's
Speaker 1: a great question, and I don't need to generalize. And
Speaker 1: by the way, it could be a girl having amantic
Speaker 1: watching romantic movies about meeting a girl and vice versa.
Speaker 1: But I'm just talking about a a certain mentality and
Speaker 1: gender mentality in this example. Well, we do have some
Speaker 1: research showing that those, you know, those wonderful romantic movies
Speaker 1: do actually set the bar a little bit too high.
Speaker 1: They make the first kiss seem like, you know, there's
Speaker 1: going to be fireworks, and you know, we all know
Speaker 1: from real life, like you know, sometimes it's kind of
Speaker 1: that's just kind of weird, you know. And so one
Speaker 1: thing we can do as parents when we're watching our daughters,
Speaker 1: you know, get very excited about our romantic sons. You
Speaker 1: know that I'd beel like that's Hollywood. This is the
Speaker 1: you know, like in real life, like you'll figure it
Speaker 1: out or his breath will be weird or something like that.
Speaker 1: So we can lower the bar. And then the other is,
Speaker 1: um those raising suns to be really mindful of the
Speaker 1: cultural messages that boys are sent. You know that they're
Speaker 1: supposed to be much o they're supposed to be cool,
Speaker 1: that they're supposed to have as many girls on there,
Speaker 1: you know, um paying attention to them as possible, and
Speaker 1: to work against that. I was talking to a bunch
Speaker 1: of college students is about ten years ago, and we
Speaker 1: were talking about the various cultural messages the boys are given,
Speaker 1: and it was a coed room, um, about how they're
Speaker 1: supposed to be about women. And there were two guys
Speaker 1: in the class who were like kind of studley, like
Speaker 1: you could tell that they maintained, you know, very happy weekends.
Speaker 1: And they were talking about how, um, how much boys
Speaker 1: tease one another if a boy expresses real affection for
Speaker 1: a girl. You know that if a boy sort of
Speaker 1: is it makes it clear that he has a crush
Speaker 1: on a girl, that the boys will be like, oh,
Speaker 1: she's got you whipped, or that's not cool. You know
Speaker 1: that there's a lot of pressure among the guys to
Speaker 1: not um express feelings of devotion. But then this thing happened,
Speaker 1: and I think it was entirely unconscious. One of these
Speaker 1: like really kind of studley guys had a large water
Speaker 1: bottle in front of him, like um for for sports,
Speaker 1: and he leaned across the desk and he cuddled it
Speaker 1: and he was like, but really, everybody just really wants
Speaker 1: a girlfriend, you know, And he sort of like affectionately
Speaker 1: cuddled it, and I was so um. I was so
Speaker 1: glad that they were willing to be unguarded and sort
Speaker 1: of dropped the cool guy thing for a moment. But
Speaker 1: I think that's the piece we we can work on
Speaker 1: with boys, is to try to find a room to say, like, buddy,
Speaker 1: you know, like, I know you're supposed to play this
Speaker 1: game of being a player, but it's all right if
Speaker 1: you just really want one person. Don't You feel like
Speaker 1: the gen Z generation now is becoming better at understanding
Speaker 1: that that girls are now calling boys out when they're inappropriate,
Speaker 1: and you even write about it, you know, this about
Speaker 1: changing the language of hoe and sled and all that,
Speaker 1: even in jest. And I feel like that boys are
Speaker 1: starting to be educated in a way where they're realizing
Speaker 1: it too, and their act actively becoming more comfortable going
Speaker 1: I actually want a girlfriend instead of racking them up. Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: I hope so. And I actually I wish I could
Speaker 1: remember the piece of literature, But there was a piece
Speaker 1: of literature that a high school teacher was looking at
Speaker 1: with the co ed class and it's the same piece
Speaker 1: of literature she'd covered and maybe it's from classical literature
Speaker 1: for years and years, And she said, for the first
Speaker 1: time in the last couple of years, the boys are like, ah,
Speaker 1: this is a little rape, you know, and like it
Speaker 1: did never come up. And so that I think is
Speaker 1: a really good sign. As much as there's always going
Speaker 1: to be some retrograde stuff, there's always going to be
Speaker 1: knuckle dragging. If the if the general move is for
Speaker 1: girls and guys just start to call out stuff that
Speaker 1: you didn't feel you could call out before, even if
Speaker 1: you didn't like it, that's a good step. Do tell
Speaker 1: us how, in your opinion, we can parent better by
Speaker 1: example right now, and how can we help our teams
Speaker 1: in this moment. So in parenting better by example, I
Speaker 1: think it really is that we two are coping and
Speaker 1: our kids are watching us cope. And and one of
Speaker 1: my favorite phrases and all the parenting I got off
Speaker 1: of the inside of a chocolate wrapper, which is don't
Speaker 1: talk about it, just be about it. So I think
Speaker 1: you know, we can say, you know, have you done
Speaker 1: your mindfulness meditation or have you exercised, or you know,
Speaker 1: like we can say those things and I think it
Speaker 1: mostly annoys young people. Or we can say I had
Speaker 1: a really rough day. I'm going to go take a
Speaker 1: walk around the block because you know, do you want
Speaker 1: to come with me? You know that that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: So them watching us deal with our own frustration and
Speaker 1: sadness right now, And it doesn't mean we always have
Speaker 1: to be up beat. I mean we can say today
Speaker 1: it was really hard, I feel really worn down and
Speaker 1: I feel worried. Um, here's what I'm gonna do to
Speaker 1: try to get myself through it. You know that that
Speaker 1: that's sort of open modeling of healthy coping, I think
Speaker 1: is really not hide it. You're saying not keep a
Speaker 1: stiff upper lip and okay yeah, and or not come
Speaker 1: down and say it had a really hard day, Like
Speaker 1: where's the booze? You know, like yeah, like don't do that. Um,
Speaker 1: that's I mean, that's a that's a great thing. I
Speaker 1: I worry that we get susceptible to everybody in their
Speaker 1: own rooms. You know, I'm doing school, well, I've got
Speaker 1: a lot of work to do, and we're all just
Speaker 1: zooming all day. Parent by example, like you said, like
Speaker 1: I gotta just turn my computer off and go, you know,
Speaker 1: let's go outside and mow the lawn. Not that I
Speaker 1: ever would, but let's go outside, you know, that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. Or to be openly strategic. I UM. I
Speaker 1: started a podcast as a result of the pandemic too,
Speaker 1: out of the sense of like, I need a way
Speaker 1: to operate at at ways to plug it right now,
Speaker 1: what's in it? I will because they're all gonna want
Speaker 1: to go there now. I UM. I am really worried
Speaker 1: about family mental health, and so I started a podcast
Speaker 1: called Ask Lisa the Psychology of Parenting, and I do
Speaker 1: it with my colleague Green and nine and who's this
Speaker 1: incredible journalist. But I was like, I need something that
Speaker 1: is quick and nimble and can address the parenting needs
Speaker 1: immediately because they change so fast right now, and for
Speaker 1: some people who couldn't afford to go see you for
Speaker 1: forty five minutes twice a week, this is life saving.
Speaker 1: It's a gift to be a psychologist right now. Um.
Speaker 1: And you know in that I get to be useful,
Speaker 1: which is part of what helps me cope with my
Speaker 1: own feelings about the pandemic. But I um um sort
Speaker 1: of stupefied by how intense this is. And you know
Speaker 1: that what I can contribute is only a drop in
Speaker 1: the bucket. But if I can get a drop in
Speaker 1: that bucket, I'm going to try to do that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a dry bucket right now. So thank
Speaker 1: you and uh ask Lisa. Ask Lisa as a podcast
Speaker 1: and the books are untangled and under pressure. Both of
Speaker 1: them are on my bedstand. I read chapters of it
Speaker 1: all the time. Thank you for your time today and
Speaker 1: thank you for everything you're doing helping parents get their
Speaker 1: teens through this time. And thank you and thank you
Speaker 1: for this podcast, which I know is also a lifeline
Speaker 1: for so many. Thank you for listening to Go Ask Ali.
Speaker 1: My huge thanks again to Dr Lisa Damore who is
Speaker 1: helping us all parent our teens, particularly girls, during this
Speaker 1: difficult time. I gotta send her a muffin basket. She
Speaker 1: really helped me today. Remember Subscribe to Go Ask Ali
Speaker 1: and follow me on Twitter, Ali Wentworth or Instagram. The
Speaker 1: Real Ali Wentworth. Go ask Alli is a production of
Speaker 1: Shondaland Audio and partnership with I Heart Radio. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.