Speaker 1: Welcome to Go ask Ali, a production of Shonda Land
Speaker 1: Audio and partnership with I Heart Radio. Hi em Eli
Speaker 1: went Worth, And you're listening to Go ask Ali. Where
Speaker 1: this season I'm asking the question how do you grow
Speaker 1: a teenager in a pandemic? Today I'm gonna be talking
Speaker 1: about mental health versus mental illness and teens. It is
Speaker 1: incredibly relevant today. I know so many people who are struggling,
Speaker 1: and so many teens that are struggling. I actually, um,
Speaker 1: picked up a newspaper today and saw that, you know,
Speaker 1: one of these six degrees of friends daughter killed herself
Speaker 1: and I can't help but wondered was she suffering from
Speaker 1: from depression anyway? And did she feel during this pandemic
Speaker 1: just not hopeful at all? So um, it's it's good
Speaker 1: timing that Gene Blake is here or to kind of
Speaker 1: tell us a difference between mental health and mental illness
Speaker 1: and how we look for signs and how do we
Speaker 1: chart this very uncharted territory of a pandemic and teens
Speaker 1: that are dealing with a monstrous amount of things emotionally. So,
Speaker 1: my guest today, I'm going to give your credits right
Speaker 1: off the top. Jean Blake leadership, communication coach, author, award
Speaker 1: winning science and medical TV journalist, news anchor, and founder
Speaker 1: of Blake Works. And I have to tell you, Jean,
Speaker 1: I found you because I was doing some reading about
Speaker 1: teens and I came upon this article and you had
Speaker 1: so many great quotes in it. I circled your name
Speaker 1: and then I did what my teens do all the time,
Speaker 1: which is trying to Instagram you try to figure out
Speaker 1: who you were, Google you, and so I found you.
Speaker 1: And I'm so happy you're here because there's so many
Speaker 1: things that you can speak to. But today I do
Speaker 1: want to talk to you about, first of all, the
Speaker 1: difference between mental health and mental illness. So let's just
Speaker 1: start with the basics, okay. So mental health, good solid
Speaker 1: mental health is what we all need to thrive and
Speaker 1: to be resilient and deal now, particularly in a world
Speaker 1: that is so incredibly uncertain. Mental illness is when something
Speaker 1: goes awry and we need to go to professionals for
Speaker 1: help and get back on track. And we're fortunate in
Speaker 1: this country that we have brilliant people. I also served
Speaker 1: on on the board at McClain Hospital, which is Harvard's
Speaker 1: largest mental health facility, so we are blessed in this
Speaker 1: country to have access to that when something goes awry
Speaker 1: and the parents or the other adults and kids lives
Speaker 1: identify it and no whend to reach out for that.
Speaker 1: And I'm wondering in a pandemic it has to be
Speaker 1: more difficult. I mean, certainly you can find the people,
Speaker 1: but it's more difficult to get treatment and if certainly
Speaker 1: in hardcore cases to actually be committed to a place
Speaker 1: like McLean or Silver Hill or or wherever. Um are
Speaker 1: you finding that to be true? Well, we knew that
Speaker 1: there was a veritable tsunami of mental health challenges coming
Speaker 1: down the road early on in the pandemic, and of
Speaker 1: course there will be a billion studies done on every
Speaker 1: population and how they're navigating through this. So we don't
Speaker 1: have the real data yet, but there have been some
Speaker 1: early studies that point to how challenging this is, and
Speaker 1: in particular for teens. One out of China and a
Speaker 1: gallop Pole in May conducted with parents of children who
Speaker 1: are school aged. It was a percentage that was like
Speaker 1: thirty five or in that range. It's it's easy enough
Speaker 1: to google of parents who said that they were seen
Speaker 1: declining mental health in their own children as a result
Speaker 1: of the pandemic. So we knew that there was this,
Speaker 1: as I said, this tsunami of challenges that were coming
Speaker 1: down the line. It was hard already to access mental health.
Speaker 1: There's just a dearth of providers, and there are many
Speaker 1: reasons for that, but we do know. The president McClain
Speaker 1: Hospital told me that they have just seen a very
Speaker 1: big increase in the demand and the request for mental health.
Speaker 1: But the good news is telehealth has been put on
Speaker 1: fast forward and McClain and other wonderful places are now
Speaker 1: providing that as our hospitals for general care, so it
Speaker 1: can be accessed that way. One one thing that worries
Speaker 1: me is that school is where a lot of kids
Speaker 1: get their mental health support, and they're not in school
Speaker 1: right now, and when they return in some kind of
Speaker 1: a hybrid situation, they will likely not have as much
Speaker 1: time in school. Therefore, they not only won't have the
Speaker 1: time to access it, but eyeballs on these kids who
Speaker 1: might be showing problems will be us. Coaches are often
Speaker 1: the people who see kids that are in trouble, or
Speaker 1: the teachers, or Another thing that I see is that
Speaker 1: parents think it's just typical teenage angst. I mean, what's
Speaker 1: normal in a pandemic? I mean, what what is normal?
Speaker 1: So it's all just it's just a big kind of
Speaker 1: messy soup right now that we're all figuring out together, right,
Speaker 1: if if somebody had a child that needed real medical assistance,
Speaker 1: how are these hospitals dealing with the safety roles in
Speaker 1: COVID And well what what McClain did early on, They
Speaker 1: did an absolutely remarkable job of just changing the way
Speaker 1: care was delivered and it was all hands on deck seven.
Speaker 1: Just one of the many things that Clay Hospital does
Speaker 1: remarkably well, it's amazing. I mean, in the eighties, I
Speaker 1: was a teenager. I was at boarding school and um,
Speaker 1: you know, I remember I had a friend taken away
Speaker 1: in a straight jacket. I had friends had a hawk
Speaker 1: of eating disorders. You know, this was sort of before
Speaker 1: antidepressants were so commonly given. But I think then when
Speaker 1: I was a teenager, how fraught everything was. Um, And
Speaker 1: now you know now that I have teens, and now
Speaker 1: that we're in a pandemic. As a parent, I just go,
Speaker 1: I don't know what to do do I just put
Speaker 1: them all on zo oft and hope for the best.
Speaker 1: No well, I mean some children might need that, but yeah,
Speaker 1: so we do know that anxiety and depression we're already
Speaker 1: increasing in the team population before the pandemic, and suicide
Speaker 1: among I believe it's twelve to nineteen year olds is
Speaker 1: the second meeting cause of death in the country after homicide.
Speaker 1: We're already worried, and then you drop a pandemic on
Speaker 1: top of all of that, where everybody is scrambling and
Speaker 1: we've got plenty of reason for concern. Now I do
Speaker 1: want to talk about kids and resiliency, But for I've
Speaker 1: got a neighbor, a thirteen year old that I'm crazy about.
Speaker 1: Her name is Megan, and she and I had a
Speaker 1: really wonderful chat recently. She really canned its super articulate,
Speaker 1: and she just described how really difficult this is for her,
Speaker 1: and I had chills talking to her. There are children
Speaker 1: in my life, but I really really sat and talked
Speaker 1: with her about it and what she was feeling, and
Speaker 1: she said, you know, one day. So she's a self
Speaker 1: described nerd and last year she found her her little group.
Speaker 1: We would have lunch together every day and she said,
Speaker 1: I just I never realized how much my friends made
Speaker 1: every day better and she said, we would share our
Speaker 1: food at lunch, and we kind of tease each other
Speaker 1: and kind of push each other playfully, and we'd fight
Speaker 1: over each other's tater tots. And she said, then, you know,
Speaker 1: and then we're in school one day singing Disney songs
Speaker 1: and the next day we're in quarantine. There was this
Speaker 1: visceral feeling of loss that I that as she described this,
Speaker 1: is it lost because of the isolation or because yeah,
Speaker 1: and not having that kind of tacticle relationship with her.
Speaker 1: She said, it's just so different over them. She said, first,
Speaker 1: you know, you can't I thought this was cute. She said,
Speaker 1: you can't see what they're wearing or whether they have
Speaker 1: new shoes, and we have our priorities straight. I'm glad,
Speaker 1: but she was. She was just very thoughtful about how
Speaker 1: how it's just not as free and if she's on
Speaker 1: with her group of friends, you know, the muted mics,
Speaker 1: there are the cameras on, and she said, and then
Speaker 1: we're not that good about planning that far ahead. So
Speaker 1: then we were just kind of seeing each other every
Speaker 1: two weeks because they live a little bit of farther
Speaker 1: apart from each other. That's a girl, Ali that's got
Speaker 1: a mom and a dad and two younger siblings, and
Speaker 1: she's really close to them, and she describes her mom
Speaker 1: as her best friends. And so she's struggling. And she
Speaker 1: cried when she talked with me, which I really was
Speaker 1: quite privileged that she shared that emotion with me, and
Speaker 1: talking about out, you know, not just the pandemic, but
Speaker 1: she said they had just lost a family friends. Then
Speaker 1: she talked about George Floyd, and then she talked about,
Speaker 1: you know, the world. She's thirteen, and she said, you
Speaker 1: know what, what about my kids? What kind of world
Speaker 1: are they going to get? She said, it seems like
Speaker 1: every month is worse and it's not going in the
Speaker 1: right direction. So I thought, if a thirteen year old,
Speaker 1: she just her in thirteen, can articulate that, and she
Speaker 1: she called it overwhelming, and I asked her, I said,
Speaker 1: what's the emotion under that? And you know, I thought,
Speaker 1: I wonder she even knows what that means. And she said,
Speaker 1: it's just overwhelming. I said, well, some kids are anxious,
Speaker 1: some kids are depressed, some kids are sad, and she said,
Speaker 1: I'm sad. But then I cry and my mom gives
Speaker 1: me a hug and we talk and then I'm okay.
Speaker 1: So she's got all of that support, I believe that
Speaker 1: she'll be okay. So no, not every kid should just
Speaker 1: automatically have you know, Zoloft in their breakfast cereal every morning.
Speaker 1: And I think there are things that parents can do
Speaker 1: in their exhaustion and strain that will really help make
Speaker 1: the difference in how kids respond. We don't know what
Speaker 1: the lunch term effects will be. As I said, there
Speaker 1: will be you know, billions of studies, but one factor
Speaker 1: definitely is family dynamics, for good or bad. By the way,
Speaker 1: we're going to take a short break and we'll be
Speaker 1: right back. Welcome back with more. Go ask Alley. Before
Speaker 1: we get into family dynamics, aren't you concerned about the
Speaker 1: millions of kids who whether they had an ongoing, you know,
Speaker 1: problem with depression, or they were anxious, or they were fine,
Speaker 1: and suddenly their parents have lost their jobs and so
Speaker 1: not only are they dealing with the pandemic and fear
Speaker 1: of get sick, but now they have parents that are
Speaker 1: probably in some kind of a depression based on whatever
Speaker 1: has happened to them. Um economically, I wonder, is there
Speaker 1: going to be a whole generation of depressed people because
Speaker 1: of the tidal wave of what's happened right now in
Speaker 1: this moment. Well, I don't think that we want to
Speaker 1: automatically diagnose, you know, every child who's going through a
Speaker 1: really hard time. I did read recently that during the
Speaker 1: recession in the nineties, the number of kids who experienced
Speaker 1: mental health challenges really went up, and it was directly
Speaker 1: correlated with economic insecurity. And when I read that, I
Speaker 1: thought about my childhood. I grew up in a tiny
Speaker 1: town in Minnesota. My dad owned a little corner grocery store.
Speaker 1: A bigger market came to town and my dad lost
Speaker 1: his business. My mother wasn't working at the time. She
Speaker 1: took her first job outside of the house at the
Speaker 1: age of fifty, or we would have lost our home.
Speaker 1: And and to this day, I can tell you that
Speaker 1: experience is very much with me, very very much with me.
Speaker 1: And I remember conversations that my mother and I had
Speaker 1: about it, and it was terrified. There are times in
Speaker 1: my life when I've gone through, you know, different shifts
Speaker 1: in my life where all of those emotions came back.
Speaker 1: But you know, I've worked hard on that and and
Speaker 1: I'm resilient. We can't just automatically say that every kid,
Speaker 1: um that's going to really suffer through this will pay
Speaker 1: for a lifetime, they'll remember it. Yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: think that's true. You say that about your upbringing. I
Speaker 1: had a horrible depression in my twenties where I couldn't
Speaker 1: even get out of bed, and you know, my whole
Speaker 1: family was terrified because I was this close to going
Speaker 1: to a McClean or a hospital. I couldn't eat, I
Speaker 1: couldn't do anything. And now when I look back at
Speaker 1: that time, I do feel resilient. There is something about
Speaker 1: going through an incredibly difficult period, whether it's personally historically,
Speaker 1: it does make you stronger. Um, so maybe I'm I'm
Speaker 1: looking at it the glass half empty instead of half full. Well,
Speaker 1: what you just described going through an adverse situation, there's
Speaker 1: actually a name for that. And Dr Amy Gagliardi at
Speaker 1: McClean taught me post traumatic growth. When we experience adversity,
Speaker 1: it's the actual struggle, and resilience is what helps us
Speaker 1: get through that struggle. And Amy talked about three ways
Speaker 1: that we can build and foster that resilience, and we
Speaker 1: can talk about those now if you want to. I'd
Speaker 1: love to. I love post traumatic growth instead of post
Speaker 1: traumatic stress. Have you ever heard of that? No? But
Speaker 1: I really like it, isn't it great? Yeah? Thing, It's
Speaker 1: a real thing. I mean, there's she sent me papers
Speaker 1: on it. I mean I read about it and I
Speaker 1: was I too, is just so thrilled. And she even
Speaker 1: said that she's doing some of the things that we
Speaker 1: talked about that day, and I definitely am. So. The
Speaker 1: first one is building connection. And so for example, when
Speaker 1: I think about Megan, you know, she one of the
Speaker 1: things that she really misses is not being able to
Speaker 1: see her friends. But she has had opportunity to safely
Speaker 1: be around other kids, and parents have to work hard
Speaker 1: to find that. It might be a bike ride with
Speaker 1: the kid, a socially distance trip to the park where
Speaker 1: you sit on a blanket and have a picnic, but
Speaker 1: those are more structured sort of senses of connection. And
Speaker 1: you know, as much as we didn't like social media
Speaker 1: before and zoom and face time and all of that,
Speaker 1: that's really helping right now. Of course, there are all
Speaker 1: kinds of boundaries that have to be put around that,
Speaker 1: but that is helping. Just for your listeners, I really
Speaker 1: want to share this because this was eye opening to me.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be an intimate exchange. You don't
Speaker 1: even have to know the person. You don't even have
Speaker 1: to like the person. So I lived by a beach,
Speaker 1: so I had been to the beach that morning, I believe,
Speaker 1: before this conversation with Amy, and it was high tied,
Speaker 1: so there wasn't a lot of room to walk, and
Speaker 1: so this woman that I didn't know was coming in
Speaker 1: my direction. So I stopped. She stopped, and we negotiated, Okay,
Speaker 1: who's going to go where? And and it took a
Speaker 1: second because we kind of went back and forth, and
Speaker 1: then I just paused and I said, you know, how
Speaker 1: are you doing? And we just had this exchange that
Speaker 1: was about twenty seconds long, and she said, that counts.
Speaker 1: That counts. So now when I go to the grocery store,
Speaker 1: which I don't go that often still, but I will
Speaker 1: now stop with the cashier and I will intentionally engage.
Speaker 1: I'm really mindful of connection because I know that it's
Speaker 1: I know that it's helping us. The second is practicing gratitude.
Speaker 1: And Amy gave a really great example of this a
Speaker 1: study that was done. She talked about a study in
Speaker 1: which people were over a week. It might have lasted longer.
Speaker 1: But in the first week, one group was asked to
Speaker 1: write down something they were grateful for. The second group
Speaker 1: was just to write down something they were really hassled about,
Speaker 1: the third just neutral, right, whatever you want. And after
Speaker 1: one week, the people who wrote down things that they
Speaker 1: were grateful for showed a more positive mood. They were
Speaker 1: more likely to exercise, which hello, and that was that
Speaker 1: they were more willing to do things for other people,
Speaker 1: and importantly, they slept better regardless of the time of
Speaker 1: the day that they did it. She gave this as
Speaker 1: a very convincing piece of evidence around this practice of gratitude.
Speaker 1: And then the third one is doing for others. And
Speaker 1: I know that you and your family does a lot
Speaker 1: for others, so you may already know this, but this
Speaker 1: doing for others, even in teeny tiny doses, generates positive emotions,
Speaker 1: and more so than receiving. And there study is done
Speaker 1: on functional MRI machines where they actually show that the
Speaker 1: reward center lights up more when you're giving than when
Speaker 1: you're receiving. And so we can practice just doing small
Speaker 1: things for people and it makes us feel good. There's
Speaker 1: this thing called um you know, because it boosts endorphins
Speaker 1: as well. It's called the Helpers high, and it's kind
Speaker 1: of like the runners high. It will benefit a real
Speaker 1: physiological benefit of doing these things. And I think we
Speaker 1: can help our kids by encouraging them to do something
Speaker 1: for somebody else. I mean it's a distraction, but it
Speaker 1: also gives them a sense of purpose and meaning. One friend, Tanya,
Speaker 1: told me that she and her girls and possibly some
Speaker 1: other people in their neighborhood built or created lunch boxes
Speaker 1: for their the food pantry through their church. One of
Speaker 1: the girls built a rainbow of balloons, uh and put
Speaker 1: up a sign thank you frontline workers that might see
Speaker 1: it by going by their house. I mean, just these
Speaker 1: little tiny things teach kids. There are things that we
Speaker 1: can do and it's not just about us. It's interesting
Speaker 1: you say that because I mean it is something that
Speaker 1: we try to implement with our kids. And in terms
Speaker 1: of the grateful um, one of the things we try
Speaker 1: to instill with with our two daughters is we try
Speaker 1: to have family dinner every night, and we certainly did
Speaker 1: during the pandemic, and we would go around the table
Speaker 1: and say what are you grateful for? Particularly in a
Speaker 1: world where you know people are dying and suffering and
Speaker 1: losing their homes and their jobs. And I could see
Speaker 1: a tiny little change in them because instead of being,
Speaker 1: oh my god, this is so horrible the pandemic, they
Speaker 1: had a moment where they go, well, I'm so grateful
Speaker 1: that I'm with my parents or whatever it was. So
Speaker 1: it took them, you know, certainly took them off themselves,
Speaker 1: which they were on their phones all about themselves for
Speaker 1: hours before that. But it got them out of their
Speaker 1: um sort of self involvement, I guess, and and did
Speaker 1: make them look at the world in a much bigger
Speaker 1: way instead of you know this, this sucks for me um,
Speaker 1: which I think is is you know, they teach it
Speaker 1: in religion, they teach it in so many sort of
Speaker 1: spiritual practices about being grateful, and it works exactly. There's
Speaker 1: just evidence that all of this, and you saw those
Speaker 1: tiny little bits and your girls, and when when that's
Speaker 1: cumulative in a practice that continues, those are the kinds
Speaker 1: of things that I believe will get so many of
Speaker 1: our teams to the other side of this, who can
Speaker 1: then reflect back and be changed in a positive way.
Speaker 1: I mean, the uncertainty right now, we can't make promises
Speaker 1: to what it's going to look like Megan, the thirteen
Speaker 1: year old said, you know, what is this world going
Speaker 1: to look like? And you know that's not something we
Speaker 1: can answer. But what we can do right now is
Speaker 1: help give them purpose. In meeting, another friend of mine
Speaker 1: talks about the importance of helping kids build competencies and
Speaker 1: that at a time when, of course, the teenage years
Speaker 1: are when you are building your social skills. There, when
Speaker 1: you are figuring out who the heck you are, you're
Speaker 1: developing empathy and importantly and you know this for sure,
Speaker 1: they want that autonomy from their parents. But oh they
Speaker 1: when they need you, they really really really really need you,
Speaker 1: and so right, yeah, that that is very difficult for
Speaker 1: a parent. I mean I barely remember it as a teenager,
Speaker 1: but I'm getting a lot of wanted to be close,
Speaker 1: like cuddling with me and telling me everything, and then
Speaker 1: the next minute like I don't want to talk about it.
Speaker 1: Door slams. You know, I know, good, congratulations, they're right
Speaker 1: on track. Oh my god, celebrate, But how do they
Speaker 1: how do they create autonomy and a pandemic? How do
Speaker 1: I tell them? Yeah intentionally, so you know they are
Speaker 1: going to spend more time in their room, and you know,
Speaker 1: we have to continually check in and just make sure
Speaker 1: that that kids are okay. It's really all hands on deck.
Speaker 1: But I want to talk a little bit about building
Speaker 1: competency because I think that as kids are struggling with
Speaker 1: that wanting autonomy, and you know, some kids were able
Speaker 1: to get on you know, public transportation for the first time.
Speaker 1: There they were out in the world in a way
Speaker 1: that they're not now. Obviously, friends have told me really
Speaker 1: interesting stories about things that that their kids are doing
Speaker 1: that are giving them that sense of um not adult nous.
Speaker 1: Well okay, let's use that. I don't even think that's
Speaker 1: a word, but like caring for their siblings, you know,
Speaker 1: in a way that they didn't before because mom and
Speaker 1: dad are on zoom and they're working fourteen hours a day,
Speaker 1: and so the kids have to step up. Another friend,
Speaker 1: her son was supposed to be in a school play
Speaker 1: and found out, I think three days before they were
Speaker 1: going to perform that it had been canceled because of
Speaker 1: the pandemic, I mean suddenly boom quarantine and he went
Speaker 1: to bed for four or five days, and his mom
Speaker 1: was obviously and correctly the very concerned and would check
Speaker 1: in and he said, Mom, I just need time. I
Speaker 1: just need some downtime. And then she she really did
Speaker 1: have to prod him after I think about the fifth day,
Speaker 1: and so he went out and he started to run
Speaker 1: and then Vola, he discovered cooking and he just loves
Speaker 1: to cook. I'm jealous, right, I mean, I want him
Speaker 1: on to my house and having what she described as
Speaker 1: restaurant quality meals every night. She said, this came out
Speaker 1: of nowhere, so that's building competency and the family's loving
Speaker 1: the food. And she said, oh my god, I'm driving.
Speaker 1: You can't believe where I'm going for these ingredients. Because
Speaker 1: she wants to foster this and her kids. So there
Speaker 1: are ways we have to stay really tuned into our kids.
Speaker 1: My clients are to a person depleted. And a friend
Speaker 1: of mine is a therapist and she said that there
Speaker 1: are parents that are just saying, whatever, just go do it.
Speaker 1: What I'm done, do it, what do what you gotta do?
Speaker 1: And you can't do that because kids, kids don't know.
Speaker 1: They're not delicious. They don't want to do something bad,
Speaker 1: but they're like, well, me seems fine, he doesn't seem sick.
Speaker 1: I think I'll go hang out with him and suddenly
Speaker 1: there are fifteen kids there. I mean, this happened and
Speaker 1: you might have read about it. In Greenwich, Connecticut, they
Speaker 1: had parties. At one of the parties, the parents were
Speaker 1: serving alcohol and guess what boom. As of my last reading,
Speaker 1: people had become infected by this. So, you know, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: we can't let our guard down. I mean, yeah, we
Speaker 1: we can't let our guard down for a number of reasons.
Speaker 1: But um, I will say too that I've noticed, certainly
Speaker 1: with my friends, UM, I didn't realize how many things
Speaker 1: are children just need to learn in general. I have
Speaker 1: a friend and she and her husband both worked there
Speaker 1: on zoom calls all day, and you know, to their
Speaker 1: youngest twelve year old, said, you know, you're got to
Speaker 1: clean the toilets. I'm gonna buy you a brush. You're
Speaker 1: going to clean the toilets like you gotta do the laundry,
Speaker 1: like you got to pitch in. And we started implementing
Speaker 1: that a little bit in our house, and I realized,
Speaker 1: this is a good thing. They shouldn't do all this stuff.
Speaker 1: I can't believe I've been doing all this stuff for them,
Speaker 1: you know. And then there became kind of a sense
Speaker 1: of community of like, these are the chores, these are
Speaker 1: we all live together, we all need to kind of
Speaker 1: help out, and and that was certainly helpful. It also
Speaker 1: kept them busy for a little while. But I think
Speaker 1: what's happening now is things are opening up a little bit,
Speaker 1: certainly for us in New York, and so the parents
Speaker 1: are kind of going, well, that was that was an
Speaker 1: exhausting few months. Yeah, now go do whatever you want.
Speaker 1: And that makes me very very nervous, certainly for you know,
Speaker 1: my eldest team who wants to go out and socialize. Um,
Speaker 1: I think there's a majority of parents that are tired
Speaker 1: and are allowing the teens to kind of, you know,
Speaker 1: go out. And this is not on any from any statistic,
Speaker 1: but I would assume these teens, some of them are
Speaker 1: just raring to get out there. They've been cooped up
Speaker 1: with their parents for months, you know, So it's a
Speaker 1: little bit like letting the grayhounds out of the gate.
Speaker 1: So how do you speak to parents when they say,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm exhausted, Well, you can't put the baby back.
Speaker 1: It's your job. That's how I say it, you know.
Speaker 1: And did we come through all of this two then
Speaker 1: just say, okay, let the greyhounds out. Now. Kids want
Speaker 1: to do the right thing. I think we need to
Speaker 1: recognize that they want to do the right thing. It's
Speaker 1: our job to help them understand what that is. And
Speaker 1: and if you create concrete examples for them, they're much
Speaker 1: more likely to take it into their still developing brain.
Speaker 1: So they should so. For example, should a parents say,
Speaker 1: you know, I just read about what happened in Greenwich, Connecticut.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you you know this would happen and
Speaker 1: consequently grandparents were sick? I mean, should people actually pull
Speaker 1: real stories as learning to us. I mean, before the pandemic,
Speaker 1: I always said that about whether it's sex, or alcohol
Speaker 1: or other drugs. The media is full of real life stories,
Speaker 1: and so absolutely because the more concrete and real that
Speaker 1: we make it, the more likely they are to stand
Speaker 1: up to their civic duty and try to do their part.
Speaker 1: I mean, some kids are going to be really good
Speaker 1: about that. Some are going to be very laws a
Speaker 1: fair and get by with it, and others will be
Speaker 1: laws a fair and they will regret it because someone
Speaker 1: that they love will get sick because of their behaviors.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's happening. It's as easy to predict as
Speaker 1: the sun coming up tomorrow. Yeah. Now a quick word
Speaker 1: from our sponsors, welcome back to go ask Gali, let's
Speaker 1: get back to the discussion. So you talked earlier about
Speaker 1: growth from adversity. So I want to talk about positive
Speaker 1: things because again this is coming off of parents being exhausted.
Speaker 1: How do I instill that sense to my kids and
Speaker 1: other parents and still to theirs, that sense of you
Speaker 1: can grow from this, that we go forward as opposed
Speaker 1: to locking ourselves in our rooms and then pulling down
Speaker 1: the shades. Right. Well, first of all, just being present.
Speaker 1: Kids need someone that they can bump off of that
Speaker 1: they really trust. You know, it's easy for me to say,
Speaker 1: but I know how hard this is because all of
Speaker 1: the people that I know and my clients are working,
Speaker 1: you know, around the clock. I mean, they get up
Speaker 1: at the crack of dawn to work before all hell
Speaker 1: breaks loose in the household. I'm not saying that every
Speaker 1: house is dealing with stuff, but you know, you combine
Speaker 1: quarantine with raging hormones and really long work schedules and
Speaker 1: you've got something going on there. And so listen, listen.
Speaker 1: John Reid, the former CEO of City Bank, I talked
Speaker 1: with him about I don't know how many years ago,
Speaker 1: but I've never forgotten what he said. I was talking
Speaker 1: with him about because I work with leaders primarily now,
Speaker 1: and I said, you know, what do you think is
Speaker 1: the key quality of an effective leader? And he said listening?
Speaker 1: And he said when I say listen, I mean listen
Speaker 1: with both ears and with your eyes and not think
Speaker 1: about the next thing you're going to say. Because we
Speaker 1: know kids are intuitive. They can tell when we are
Speaker 1: really really listening, and so to listen and put down
Speaker 1: the phone, really engage. That's what empathy is, is really
Speaker 1: understanding where somebody's coming from. A friend's kid was, you know,
Speaker 1: in tears over something and she said, this isn't worth
Speaker 1: crying about. And the daughter said, I don't need you
Speaker 1: to fix it. I just need you to listen. And
Speaker 1: I mean it was worth crying about because the kid
Speaker 1: was crying. I hear that from my kids too. Now
Speaker 1: I've given myself permission when I'm with my girls to say, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm scared too. I I don't know, I don't know,
Speaker 1: but the parent in me wants to fix it. And
Speaker 1: the parent of me was like, oh, I'm sure you're
Speaker 1: going to have problem this spring. Oh no doubt school
Speaker 1: open soon, you know, because that's instinctual for me to
Speaker 1: try to fix it for them. I think it's scary
Speaker 1: to say to the kids, I don't know what's gonna happen.
Speaker 1: I have no idea, I'm terrified, Like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: am I giving them a solid? But it's yes, you are,
Speaker 1: because that's honest. And we all have emotions. Emotions are good.
Speaker 1: It's how we talk about them. I mean, if you
Speaker 1: say I'm not scared, well, I mean, first of all,
Speaker 1: your girls have access to the news. They know what's
Speaker 1: going on, and they're not going to believe you, and
Speaker 1: so you're gonna lose trust. And then just subconsciously, they're
Speaker 1: gonna think moms just trying to make me feel better.
Speaker 1: I think it's how we talk about them. I mean,
Speaker 1: if we if we are angry and we get really
Speaker 1: angry and throw a pot across the room, you know,
Speaker 1: that's not modeling how we deal with these very real,
Speaker 1: very real emotions. We can say I am so angry
Speaker 1: about this. I mean, we we can modulate our own
Speaker 1: emotions and then model to them how to handle these.
Speaker 1: But in talking about our fear and our frustrations and
Speaker 1: even how exhausted we find. Everything is just really honest
Speaker 1: and they absorb much more by watching us then the
Speaker 1: advice we give them. And you know that, yes, it's
Speaker 1: not what we say, it's what we do. Actually, Um,
Speaker 1: we talked about what Amy said helpful positive things, so
Speaker 1: I want to just quickly go over them again. It's connection.
Speaker 1: So uh, go on a bike ride with somebody, UM
Speaker 1: in my case, find a friend who will go clamming
Speaker 1: with me. UM safe in a pandemic one on one things.
Speaker 1: So I can say to my daughters, why don't you
Speaker 1: ask a friend if you want to go to the
Speaker 1: beach and social distance at the beach, or like you said,
Speaker 1: have a picnic. But Ali, I just want to say,
Speaker 1: it doesn't have to be like a two hour thing.
Speaker 1: You know, if the mailman comes or the ups guy
Speaker 1: drops something now at the end of my walk, you know,
Speaker 1: I'll yell out and I'll say, hey, thanks so much,
Speaker 1: and you know we we can have a twenty thing.
Speaker 1: I don't even know his name. Amy says that counts
Speaker 1: as connection, okay, right, right, right, So that's that's acts
Speaker 1: of kindness basically, especially right now, and people are are
Speaker 1: needing it? Um. And the gratefulness what are you grateful for?
Speaker 1: And the third is is doing doing for others? Doing
Speaker 1: for when those little, many tiny things. It can be
Speaker 1: just the smallest thing and it counts great. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: uh so you don't have to bake banana bread for
Speaker 1: everybody in the in the state, but you can us. Yes,
Speaker 1: I know. UM, And are there any you know these
Speaker 1: are such simple but helpful positive things. Are there any
Speaker 1: things that we should be looking at, um are looking
Speaker 1: for with our teens in terms of mental health that
Speaker 1: should be warning signs? Yeah, what we want to look
Speaker 1: for is when they have more bad days than good,
Speaker 1: when they're sleeping, patterns shift and they're not curious or
Speaker 1: interested in doing the things that they were interested in
Speaker 1: doing before. It's time to check in ask your pediatrician.
Speaker 1: Just staying on top of it super important because we
Speaker 1: know that there are going to be young people who
Speaker 1: really need professional help at the end of this that's
Speaker 1: just a given. I've written a series of booklets. Words
Speaker 1: can work when talking about depression, words can work when
Speaker 1: talking about alcohol where it's gonna work, and talking about
Speaker 1: drugs and parents in every one of those situations, really what,
Speaker 1: regardless of what the public your mental health challenge was
Speaker 1: that their kid was experiencing. I had parents tell me
Speaker 1: I just thought it was typical teenage angst. So now
Speaker 1: when we are so distracted and we're tired and we're stressed,
Speaker 1: we have to dig much deeper, I think, to make
Speaker 1: sure that we're on top of what normally is for
Speaker 1: our kid and when they vary from that. A friend
Speaker 1: of mine, Laura, has three teens, and she said that
Speaker 1: she has to remind herself every single day that she
Speaker 1: has to be the parent, because she said, sometimes I
Speaker 1: want to be ten. I'm just you know, she just
Speaker 1: wants to sucker thumb and pull the blanket up. But
Speaker 1: she has to remind herself every day that she has
Speaker 1: to do this now because in the long run it's
Speaker 1: going to really help her kids come through this much
Speaker 1: stronger and um more productive, happier, healthier, And we can
Speaker 1: do it. You know, it will make a difference. I
Speaker 1: know I'm trying. And then I do want to say,
Speaker 1: are there things particularly going on now that that would
Speaker 1: trigger a depression or trigger um real height and anxiety?
Speaker 1: What is a safe dialogue to have with your teen
Speaker 1: about any sort of mental health issues, because doesn't. Brian Johnson,
Speaker 1: who's a friend of mine is an addiction specialist, told
Speaker 1: me recently that interestingly, many young people, teens can are
Speaker 1: buying drugs in the hallways at school. You know, essentially
Speaker 1: you can swing a cat in a hallway school and
Speaker 1: hit someone who's got drugs in their pocket for sale,
Speaker 1: and all kinds of drugs, whether they're at at all
Speaker 1: for a d H D or oxycont in marijuana. I mean,
Speaker 1: you can buy this stuff in the schools. Parents, definitely,
Speaker 1: now that kids are going to be going back to
Speaker 1: some kind of school schedule hybrid in school thing, need
Speaker 1: to be talking with their kids because we are in
Speaker 1: its heightened time of anxiety and uncertainty, and we know
Speaker 1: that adults and kids both self medicaid, and so it's
Speaker 1: important that parents have these conversations and help role play.
Speaker 1: How you know, what would you do? Do you know
Speaker 1: any of your friends that are using drugs? You know,
Speaker 1: what what are your dreams and aspirations? What do you
Speaker 1: want to accomplish? And let me help you understand that
Speaker 1: that's much more likely to happen if you don't get
Speaker 1: engaged in drugs. So, gee, you have UM. I actually
Speaker 1: I read about this before we spoke. Words Can Work,
Speaker 1: which are books about how parents can speak to the
Speaker 1: teenagers their kids about many different subjects. So tell me
Speaker 1: about these because I think these will be so helpful
Speaker 1: for parents. So prior to being an executive coach, I
Speaker 1: produced multimedia about kids in the public and mental health
Speaker 1: challenges that they faced growing up. And I did that
Speaker 1: for a long time. So we have a library of multimedia.
Speaker 1: And I was when I was producing a video called
Speaker 1: Alcohol True Stories that Matt Damon hosted that parents would
Speaker 1: say they would I'd say, do you talk to your
Speaker 1: kids about alcohol? And they came up with these They
Speaker 1: so many parents said I don't know what to say,
Speaker 1: and literally some people said, give me the words. So
Speaker 1: I was really fortunate to work with a number of
Speaker 1: experts from McClean Hospital, from Mass General, from my friend
Speaker 1: Brian Johnson who's now at Sunny in Syracuse, UM on
Speaker 1: this set of booklets, so they're available on the booklets. UM.
Speaker 1: Words can work when talking about alcohol, words can work
Speaker 1: when talking about drugs, words can work when talking about
Speaker 1: depression and UM and our our website Blake works dot com.
Speaker 1: You can find this under a blog that I wrote
Speaker 1: recently about kids and meant their mental health. That's fantastic.
Speaker 1: One of the biggest hurdles for parents is finding the
Speaker 1: words and how to talk to kids about any of
Speaker 1: these things. Yeah, and so many parents are afraid that well,
Speaker 1: if I talk about it, they'll do it. Well, guess what,
Speaker 1: They're already doing it. They're already thinking about it. And
Speaker 1: so I just I think giving them context and and
Speaker 1: helping them role play how they can negotiate out of
Speaker 1: situations because we know that kids are under peer pressure
Speaker 1: to do all of this stuff, and it's it's a
Speaker 1: big gift that we can give our kids to meet
Speaker 1: them where they are and help them find their way
Speaker 1: out of it. I mean, I've found that by talking
Speaker 1: about it, I've even given them a few hints, like
Speaker 1: if you if you feel like you're going to be
Speaker 1: judged at a party because you don't drink, have a
Speaker 1: cup of ginger ale. They don't know what it is,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. There's there's ways of kind
Speaker 1: of going around peer pressure and stuff. And you know,
Speaker 1: these are conversations I never would have had with them
Speaker 1: had I not sat down and said, look, I'm not
Speaker 1: this is not a lecture. You know, I'm not saying
Speaker 1: just say no to drugs. I want to have a
Speaker 1: real conversation with you about them, what you're thinking, what
Speaker 1: you're feeling, how scary they are. Um. And that's helped,
Speaker 1: But I do know that there have been times I've
Speaker 1: been tongue tied about how to approach a subject. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much, Jane Blake. Thank you for helping me
Speaker 1: and so many parents through this. And I may pull
Speaker 1: you back on my podcast again in a few months
Speaker 1: to see how we're doing, I hope. So it's just
Speaker 1: a pleasure. Thank you for what you're doing making a
Speaker 1: difference in people's lives. Thank you. Thank you. Three positive
Speaker 1: things we can implement in our lives. Connection, gratitude, acts
Speaker 1: of kindness. Thank you for listening to Go Ask Ali.
Speaker 1: Remember to subscribe to Go Ask Ali and follow me
Speaker 1: on my social media Twitter at Ali e Wentworth in Instagram.
Speaker 1: The Real Ali Wentworth. Go Ask Ali is a production
Speaker 1: of Shonda land Audio and partnership with I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from shondaland Audio, visit the I Heart
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Speaker 1: favorite shows.