Speaker 1: Welcome to Go Ask Ali, a production of Shonda Land
Speaker 1: Audio and partnership with I Heart Radio. Hi everyone, it's
Speaker 1: Ali Wentworth. Did you know April is National Stress Awareness Month? Well,
Speaker 1: it has been a incredibly stressful year, especially if you
Speaker 1: have teenagers. You know, this week I'm re airing an
Speaker 1: episode about supporting our teens. Why because I have two
Speaker 1: teenagers and its final exam season and it's oh my god,
Speaker 1: we're having a last minute, socially distant prom season and
Speaker 1: all the craziness that's been happening in the world and
Speaker 1: the most insane school year in history. And that's why
Speaker 1: I would love you to listen to an episode I
Speaker 1: did with psychologist Dr Lisa Damore. I thought very important
Speaker 1: and very pertinent to air an episode about managing all
Speaker 1: the ups and downs that our teens are experiencing right now.
Speaker 1: Let's hope it helps enjoy my conversation. Hi, Emlie went Worth,
Speaker 1: And you're listening to Go Ask Ali, And today I'm
Speaker 1: specifically asking how do you grow a somewhat stress free
Speaker 1: girl in a pandemic? And my guest today is Dr
Speaker 1: Lisa Damore. She's a psychologist. She has written what I
Speaker 1: call the Two bibles to surviving raising girls. One is
Speaker 1: untangled and one is under pressure. And I think under
Speaker 1: pressure couldn't be more relevant right now because we are
Speaker 1: in a pandemic, there are wildfires raging, there is all
Speaker 1: kinds of civil unrest, there's political unrest. What girl is
Speaker 1: not completely stressed out and anxious? Am I right? Oh? Yeah? Absolutely?
Speaker 1: On that book. That book came out in February, and
Speaker 1: I I couldn't have imagined then how germane it would be,
Speaker 1: to what would unfold since then one one would hope
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be as Germane as it is now, but
Speaker 1: it's uh, it couldn't be more relevant. So, um, you
Speaker 1: about healthy stress, And in my opinion, healthy stress is
Speaker 1: what kind of propels us forward. I think of healthy
Speaker 1: stress as you know, my daughter trying out for the
Speaker 1: lacrosse team, or I think about for myself when I
Speaker 1: 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 latter 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 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 without break, 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 that different from stress. It sounds
Speaker 1: like it's the same thing. We can define them very
Speaker 1: sort of technically as different. You know, in psychology we
Speaker 1: like to make these like very fine grain distinctions, So
Speaker 1: we say, anxiety is more in the neighborhood of fear.
Speaker 1: Stress is more in the neighborhood of pressure. But in
Speaker 1: real life they get all tangled up with each other.
Speaker 1: You know that if I live under chronic stress conditions
Speaker 1: and they're going to make I feel anxious. If I'm
Speaker 1: anxious all the time, that's stressful. So it doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that much to try to distinguish them in terms of
Speaker 1: their actual functioning in our day to day lives. They're
Speaker 1: both exhausting, they both can have useful forms, and they
Speaker 1: both can cross the line from healthy to unhealthy. Because
Speaker 1: this is putting us in sort of a state of
Speaker 1: chronic stress. Should we all medicate? I mean, should I
Speaker 1: medicate my teenage girl? I don't know what to do.
Speaker 1: I can't tell the difference between what would be normal
Speaker 1: stress and what is you know, them worrying about every
Speaker 1: aspect of the globe, right, And at this point it's
Speaker 1: almost impossible not to um medications and option I wouldn't
Speaker 1: go with it as the first choice. I think we
Speaker 1: get stuff before we get there. I'm good, good, Yes,
Speaker 1: So there are things, you know, when we look at
Speaker 1: like what does it mean to manage chronic stress? What
Speaker 1: that takes us into is the department of coping, right
Speaker 1: that it's all about coping and how we're coping and
Speaker 1: what's been happening. I mean, since the minute this came
Speaker 1: down on us, everybody started coping. It's a very intuitive thing.
Speaker 1: We all start doing it. What we want to watch
Speaker 1: out for is how are people coping? Because there's bad
Speaker 1: coping and there's good coping. Son, give me an example
Speaker 1: of that, you want to Yes, So bad coping is
Speaker 1: stuff that works really well in the short term, but
Speaker 1: not well in the long term. So it's stuff like
Speaker 1: misusing substances highly effective in the short term helps you
Speaker 1: feel better, not a good long term strategy. Um, taking
Speaker 1: bad care of oneself, you know, using what I call
Speaker 1: junk habits. You know, so taking your phone to bed
Speaker 1: and scrolling and scrolling instead of sleeping, or only watching
Speaker 1: you know, TV all the time, or only eating comfort foods.
Speaker 1: Those feel good, but they don't hold up. So in
Speaker 1: their place, what we want for everyone, grown ups and
Speaker 1: kids alike, is good coping. So that means good solid
Speaker 1: social relationships and staying connected in ways that are sustaining,
Speaker 1: and instead of abusing substances, using happy distractions, finding things
Speaker 1: that let us take a mental vacation from the pandemic
Speaker 1: and then come back to it having gotten some restoration
Speaker 1: and a break. Are you saying like a walk or
Speaker 1: I want to just be so For some people, the
Speaker 1: mental vacation is I'm going to go lose myself in
Speaker 1: a book. You know, I'm just gonna go get lost
Speaker 1: in sixteenth century England. I'm gonna take a vacation there.
Speaker 1: For some people, they're like, I'm going to go being
Speaker 1: to watch a TV show just for you know, the afternoon.
Speaker 1: For some people it's like going out in nature. They
Speaker 1: can just let everything fall away. And so when it
Speaker 1: comes to mental vacations, I think the goal is to
Speaker 1: make sure that you have what yours. You know what
Speaker 1: works for you, we know it works for our kids.
Speaker 1: We help make those happen because we need these vacations.
Speaker 1: We don't get other vacations right now, and so that
Speaker 1: and then incredibly good self care at this point is
Speaker 1: a non negotiable. When New York was really bad during
Speaker 1: the pandemic. I mean I I just made bad parenting choices,
Speaker 1: and one of them was because I don't I don't
Speaker 1: drink or do drugs or smoke, but I ate a
Speaker 1: lot of ice cream because um, that was my comfort.
Speaker 1: And I just went to the doctor and my cholesterols
Speaker 1: three hundred. And the interesting thing is that it was
Speaker 1: my two teenage girls that said, Mom, that's really bad,
Speaker 1: like you, you know, they sorted sort of parenting me,
Speaker 1: and I felt like there was a moment where I
Speaker 1: let I let go of the reins. And that's not
Speaker 1: always the right thing to do well And in the
Speaker 1: short term maybe a little, but in the 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 hunkering
Speaker 1: down for two or three weeks and then can just
Speaker 1: you know, go back to normal. You know, one of
Speaker 1: my colleagues that I thought it was so beautiful. She's like,
Speaker 1: we have to move from coping to adaptation, you know,
Speaker 1: to really start to think, all, right, how do we
Speaker 1: live in a healthy way, given the conditions we're in, 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 bytem Yeah, I can, profitely.
Speaker 1: Somebody could absolutely. Um So. The first is, meltdowns are
Speaker 1: at an all time high. You know, I think everybody's
Speaker 1: reserves are spent. Um. I think there's so little that
Speaker 1: is filling young people up. So everything that doesn't go
Speaker 1: well in my experience, things are going to meltdown pretty quickly,
Speaker 1: more than usual. I've never gotten the finger more than
Speaker 1: I have my whole life. I have the past few months. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's a it's a hair trigger finger right now
Speaker 1: and people have no resources. Um So, the first thing
Speaker 1: you have to do to manage the meltdown is you
Speaker 1: actually have to be in kind of be some shape yourself,
Speaker 1: because meltdowns are so upsetting and so exhausting. Is apparent
Speaker 1: that triggering. So if you can get yourself a good
Speaker 1: night's sleep and go out for a walk before you
Speaker 1: hit that meltdown, you're gonna be in better shape. Okay,
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, saying
Speaker 1: other things are in stink. 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
Speaker 1: out 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 is,
Speaker 1: and none of it is fun and it just stinks
Speaker 1: and there's ofen to look forward to. And if you
Speaker 1: say with full tenderness, it's like school is all vegetables
Speaker 1: and no dessert, usually you're done. Usually they could be like,
Speaker 1: thank you, and it's over. If you start making suggestions,
Speaker 1: usually you exasperate, and 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 the meltdown. And and
Speaker 1: you know, eventually you might get the problem solving, but
Speaker 1: only if you offer to help. You don't throw solutions
Speaker 1: at kids, But think of meltdowns more as an invitation
Speaker 1: to show what's happening inside to someone who can stand
Speaker 1: to hear it. That that's what is being asked, even
Speaker 1: if it doesn't always come across that way. And nuclear
Speaker 1: like I can stand it, you can sit with the discomfort,
Speaker 1: which is what we're really having to do. A lot
Speaker 1: is just sitting with the discomfort. I'm saying dick kidos
Speaker 1: all the time. Look, you've got a few crumby options.
Speaker 1: There's no good option here. Which crumby option would you like?
Speaker 1: I hate that? This is where we are. This is
Speaker 1: where we are. Um. Do you think there's a difference
Speaker 1: between how girls and boys are reacting to the pandemic
Speaker 1: and the stress and anxiety that comes with it. Um,
Speaker 1: In the most sort of broad strokes, No, I think
Speaker 1: they all hate it. I think it stinks for all
Speaker 1: of them. I think you know, the disruption of school
Speaker 1: that's so um so kind of predominant in the landscape,
Speaker 1: and that applies to all of them equally. Um. The
Speaker 1: only really gendered difference I've noticed in this is that
Speaker 1: the sort of nine to fifteen sixteen year old boys
Speaker 1: whose social lives were heavily on gaming before this, they're
Speaker 1: doing better than anyone else. Like their social lives have
Speaker 1: been undisrupted by this. They're as happy as it can
Speaker 1: be socially. So that's the only gender difference from like, Okay,
Speaker 1: those guys had it figured out, we were giving them
Speaker 1: a hard time. They're now happier than anyone. The rest
Speaker 1: of us are trying to figure out how to have
Speaker 1: a social life. They're just doing what they were doing.
Speaker 1: That's the big gender difference I've seen. And didn't girls
Speaker 1: do that with social media a little bit? Weren't they
Speaker 1: trying to throw a lot a larger net when it
Speaker 1: came to followers and following and all that stuff I
Speaker 1: love to hate. Yeah, they were. But what we see
Speaker 1: in the data is that social media went up for kids,
Speaker 1: but they by and large also reported more loneliness. So
Speaker 1: those two things went up side by side. This summer,
Speaker 1: so upping the social media has not, for kids in general,
Speaker 1: staved off feelings of loneliness for those who really were
Speaker 1: accustomed to getting to be together in person. Um. I
Speaker 1: think at this point all kids will tell you a
Speaker 1: hands down that is their preference, and if they weren't
Speaker 1: conscious of it before, now they really are. We're going
Speaker 1: to take a short break and we'll be right back.
Speaker 1: Welcome back with more. Go ask Alley, all right, let's
Speaker 1: talk about school, because everybody's on back to school, and
Speaker 1: you know, I have so many feelings about it as
Speaker 1: a parent. You know, I have feelings about kids, certainly, um,
Speaker 1: underserved kids that are even struggling with getting a computer
Speaker 1: to be able to be remote and everything. And I
Speaker 1: just can't imagine that remote schooling in the long term
Speaker 1: is going to be helpful. And I feel like there
Speaker 1: are so many other aspects, certainly for teens in high school,
Speaker 1: that are going to be stunted and hurt. It's such
Speaker 1: a second choice, you know that that first choice, of course,
Speaker 1: would be normal school. Um. What we're seeing when I'm
Speaker 1: talking to those who are in normal school is that
Speaker 1: even normal school is pretty not normal right now. It's
Speaker 1: pretty rigid, it's pretty removed, it's pretty joyless for all involved. Um.
Speaker 1: Kids don't really get to see their friends in the
Speaker 1: same way. They don't get to enjoy their teachers company
Speaker 1: in the same way. It's pretty stiff and uncomfortable. UM.
Speaker 1: I think kids would often still say they prefer that
Speaker 1: to being home. UM. But one of the things that
Speaker 1: I've been thinking about a lot is I know a
Speaker 1: lot of kids who are really worried about contamination. And
Speaker 1: so I think, well, if you've got a kid who
Speaker 1: is sitting in class so uncomfortable about that kid who's
Speaker 1: got their mass hanging off their ear, and that kid
Speaker 1: who's getting way too close, they're better off at home.
Speaker 1: But what this has given us, it's just like a
Speaker 1: whole menu of horrible choices, Right, would you like the
Speaker 1: horrible choice of doing education from home? Would you like
Speaker 1: the horrible choice of being anxious at school and this
Speaker 1: sort of this rigid environment. Um, we right now have
Speaker 1: nothing to offer kids that really is what they deserve,
Speaker 1: and and that part is heartbreaking to watch. How do
Speaker 1: I how do I help my girls with academic confidence
Speaker 1: in a pandemic? You talk about it a lot in
Speaker 1: your book, but now that they're confined. How do I
Speaker 1: help them with that? Here's where we might have a
Speaker 1: little room to work to try to actually make some
Speaker 1: some headway, especially as if we think about girls in
Speaker 1: academic confidence good, I love, I love a positive and
Speaker 1: let's find us a little lining in here. Let's do it. Um.
Speaker 1: One of the soapboxes that is my favorite is about
Speaker 1: how inefficient girls are about school. That by and large,
Speaker 1: when we look at how girls do school, they are
Speaker 1: really good students, but they often to overdo it a
Speaker 1: little bit. They're not that tactical. They tend to overstudy,
Speaker 1: they tend to go over material they already know. They
Speaker 1: tend not to use their time all that well, even
Speaker 1: when they are really pressed for time. They can kind
Speaker 1: of a polish everything to a really high shine as
Speaker 1: opposed to just getting it done. And um to make
Speaker 1: broad gender strokes. So this will not apply to all girls.
Speaker 1: This will not apply to all boys. That's not my kids.
Speaker 1: Dead direct voices a group are much more efficient about school.
Speaker 1: They're much more likely to walk up to something and
Speaker 1: be like, Okay, what is the absolute least to have
Speaker 1: to do to get the job done or to get
Speaker 1: the grown ups off my back in terms of the
Speaker 1: volume of work kids have. We actually need to think
Speaker 1: about a boy's approach and encourage girls to be more
Speaker 1: strategic in the deployment of their efforts. So one maybe
Speaker 1: little benefit of this is that UM make of us
Speaker 1: more immediate contact with how kids are spending their time
Speaker 1: because they're spending their time in front of us, and
Speaker 1: it may give us more room to say to either
Speaker 1: hyperconscientious daughters or sons, you're still studying that like, don't
Speaker 1: let a quiz you. I think you might have it right,
Speaker 1: and to really push them to um to not over
Speaker 1: study and not over exert and not um try to
Speaker 1: shoot the lights out on everything if they don't need to.
Speaker 1: And let's stem from the girls need to please pleasing
Speaker 1: the parents, pleasing their teachers, pleasing the schools. I mean,
Speaker 1: isn't that just we have it ingrained in us and
Speaker 1: so it makes it harder we do. And this is
Speaker 1: our big chance to disrupt that in our daughters are
Speaker 1: big chance. And so I will say to girls, you know,
Speaker 1: what do you mean you turned in an extra credit
Speaker 1: in a class where you have an a right Because
Speaker 1: they will do that and they'll say, well, I didn't
Speaker 1: want to disappoint the teacher. They're very plugged into. If
Speaker 1: they've given the extra credit, they fully expect we're going
Speaker 1: to do it, and so I'm going to do it.
Speaker 1: And that's actually the moment when you can say, all right,
Speaker 1: but is that strategic on your part? Or even better?
Speaker 1: And this is what I really prefer is if the
Speaker 1: teacher says, what are you doing turning the extra credit?
Speaker 1: Because then the teacher says, if you want me to
Speaker 1: be impressed, I want to see you use your time
Speaker 1: more efficiently. But this is something we have not traditionally
Speaker 1: done with girls about school, and I feel like the
Speaker 1: moment is here and we should really help them. If
Speaker 1: one of my daughters doesn't do well in a science exam,
Speaker 1: it's because Mr. So and so doesn't like her. Tell
Speaker 1: me how to get them out of this idea of
Speaker 1: And I'm bringing this back to the pleasing thing because
Speaker 1: I somehow they correlate that with grades. Well, I would
Speaker 1: just really push on that assumption and and I would
Speaker 1: even say, you know, Mr so and so, I think
Speaker 1: he's gonna grade your fairly, and I think he knows
Speaker 1: you've got a lot to do, and I think he'll
Speaker 1: be impressed if you bring in what has to be done.
Speaker 1: But whether he likes who is actually not important here.
Speaker 1: What matters is that you're getting enough sleep that you
Speaker 1: have energy to do the things you want to do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he may still like you, or he may not like you,
Speaker 1: And what would that be like? I mean to actually
Speaker 1: entertain that possibility that it is not the girl's job
Speaker 1: to make sure that all of her teachers feel their
Speaker 1: job has been made easy and she is delightful. I
Speaker 1: mean to even really pick away at that idea, So
Speaker 1: not to say, like, please go be rude to your teacher,
Speaker 1: but to say, if he likes you less because you're
Speaker 1: not turning an extra credit when you don't need to,
Speaker 1: can we examine if that's fair? Is that okay of
Speaker 1: him to do? But this is this is actually the
Speaker 1: other thing again to try to find a little positive
Speaker 1: in all of this place. Um, we have time for
Speaker 1: more conversations than we used to have. I have two daughters.
Speaker 1: We are having longer, more detailed conversations about these kinds
Speaker 1: of things. Then the rush of pre COVID life allowed.
Speaker 1: I think this may be a time when we can
Speaker 1: just talk more about what they're observing and trouble more
Speaker 1: what has been conventional. I'm finding personally that I'm having
Speaker 1: to be much more mindful of my time. My calendar
Speaker 1: has become much busier than it is healthy for me.
Speaker 1: And so talking openly in front of my daughter's about
Speaker 1: my strategies for turning things down in a way that
Speaker 1: doesn't damage relationships, or to have my adolescent daughter has
Speaker 1: something she doesn't want to do and actually have spent
Speaker 1: time to think with her. All right, how are you
Speaker 1: going to say no in a way that you feel
Speaker 1: comfortable with that time for more sort of precise and
Speaker 1: deliberate coaching. So often in family life, under normal conditions,
Speaker 1: we're kind of running around and we don't always do that.
Speaker 1: So I would say that we can do that now too.
Speaker 1: Now a quick word from our sponsors, welcome back to
Speaker 1: go ask Allie. Let's get back to the discussion now.
Speaker 1: The other big subject in our house is um social life,
Speaker 1: how to have it, social anxiety? Tell me what you
Speaker 1: mean by social turmoil because you term that in your book.
Speaker 1: What do you mean by social turmoil? So it's the
Speaker 1: nature of middle school especially and then sometimes sort of
Speaker 1: carrying over into high school UM for kids to really
Speaker 1: be anxious about their social connections, to do everything they
Speaker 1: can to make sure they have social connections because they
Speaker 1: have sort of loosened their ties to their family and
Speaker 1: are trying to strengthen their ties to their friends. And
Speaker 1: then I've noticed, and this is particular of one of
Speaker 1: my daughters, that she's actually fine with two friends or
Speaker 1: one friend, but they have to be her best friend.
Speaker 1: So there's a big label about best friends. So I
Speaker 1: find that there's a lot of anxiety with with my
Speaker 1: girls and girls I know, between having too many and
Speaker 1: putting too much pressure on one. Well, so what you're
Speaker 1: describing is very well established in the research. It it's
Speaker 1: actually exhausting to have a big, broad social network when
Speaker 1: we actually look at the data, even if you're getting along,
Speaker 1: that sense of maintaining an obligation or keeping everybody happy
Speaker 1: is actually very taxing. So we do see mostly that
Speaker 1: the least dressed kids have a couple of good friends,
Speaker 1: you know, that really sort of settled into that group.
Speaker 1: The anxiety that arrives with that is my group is small.
Speaker 1: I need to know what's guaranteed. I don't have an
Speaker 1: elaborate backup system, and so then there can be the
Speaker 1: sense of like a tight grip, which you know is
Speaker 1: what you're describing and can be kind of anxiety provoking.
Speaker 1: So one way to think about it is there's no
Speaker 1: perfect solution. Each solution has its downside. So the big
Speaker 1: social group means you've got a broad network and a
Speaker 1: lot of backup. The small group means you don't have
Speaker 1: the stress of a broad network, but you don't have
Speaker 1: the backup. But what I what I like about articulating
Speaker 1: like the ups and downs of these, is that it
Speaker 1: takes the critique away from the kids I think so
Speaker 1: often growing up to like, look at those kids with
Speaker 1: their dumb social configurations, why they made themselves so unhappy?
Speaker 1: There's not really a perfect solution for them. I also
Speaker 1: think during this time, during this pandemic, I have found
Speaker 1: myself that I have let a lot of acquaintances go
Speaker 1: and that that I almost don't have time for the
Speaker 1: bullshit and the chit chat, and I need very few
Speaker 1: but significant, strong bonds. And in a strange way, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm seeing that a little with my teenagers as well,
Speaker 1: because it's all being done on their phone and on
Speaker 1: their computer, and they just they literally can't spend twenty
Speaker 1: four hours on it, so they have to make decisions.
Speaker 1: You know, I need to work on an English paper,
Speaker 1: and I do want to say hi to Timmy or Susie,
Speaker 1: but I can't possibly I can't FaceTime Sarah and Judy
Speaker 1: and Sophie and Lulu. And you know it's too much.
Speaker 1: It's true. I mean, it makes you realize a lot
Speaker 1: of friendships are very much context driven. You know that
Speaker 1: we're friends because that person is in our traffic pattern.
Speaker 1: But if our traffic pattern changes, that doesn't necessarily mean
Speaker 1: that there's still the person we're gonna want to talk to.
Speaker 1: And I think kids are finding that also. But then
Speaker 1: the other thing you're saying, and I'm watching this happen
Speaker 1: as the months rack up with COVID is everyone is
Speaker 1: pretty raw, everyone is pretty depleted. And so then, um,
Speaker 1: I'm watching myself and I'm watching others get much more
Speaker 1: um picky about their relational nutrition. I guess is what
Speaker 1: I would say. You know, we're like, You're like, I
Speaker 1: can't do dunk food anymore. Like if this is all
Speaker 1: I've gotten, this is gonna go on for a long time.
Speaker 1: I'm going to bring in what makes me feel good,
Speaker 1: what feels supportive, but that draining relationship or that person
Speaker 1: who's kind of manipulative. Like I can do that under
Speaker 1: normal conditions, I cannot do that right now. And I
Speaker 1: want people to give themselves that permission, Like I really,
Speaker 1: I know some people are like, well I'm a bad friend. No, no,
Speaker 1: you you get to take good care of yourself right now,
Speaker 1: and our kids get take good care of themselves. Can
Speaker 1: we say that to our kids? Can we say, you
Speaker 1: know what you're allowed to You wouldn't say let go
Speaker 1: of your some of your friends, but you're you're allowed
Speaker 1: to focus on a few right now because there's so
Speaker 1: much that you have to deal with. It's okay, you're
Speaker 1: not going to be unpopular, you know, let's say when
Speaker 1: 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 to articulate
Speaker 1: that that space of like, oh no, there's people from
Speaker 1: whom I keep a polite distance when I see them
Speaker 1: in polite but I'm not knocking myself out to be
Speaker 1: close with them. I think that is really useful. And
Speaker 1: I also think if there's really a worry, you say,
Speaker 1: blame me. Say you know, my mom was being really
Speaker 1: you know, rigid about this and she said, I can
Speaker 1: only talk to a few people because I'm you know,
Speaker 1: spending too much time on the phone, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: mamal 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: much it may be the bad guy. It works, It works, Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: it absolutely does work. Um. The other thing I that
Speaker 1: I talked to the girls about is uh, their quote
Speaker 1: unquote romantic relationships, because you know, they're teenagers and there
Speaker 1: they would be kind of interacting with each other and
Speaker 1: whatever 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. You know,
Speaker 1: She's like, I'll never have what Reese Weatherspoon has. So
Speaker 1: there's and I don't know how to address that. You know,
Speaker 1: just wait, you know, wait a few years till you
Speaker 1: know things have cooled down and you can actually go
Speaker 1: meet a boy in a mask, not at a movie
Speaker 1: theater because we might not have movies. I mean, I
Speaker 1: really I don't know what to say. Um, I think
Speaker 1: there's missing out. I mean, there's no getting around that.
Speaker 1: I still think there's flirting at a distance and digitally.
Speaker 1: I also think we don't give enough airtime to how
Speaker 1: much gratification, not entire gratification, but partial gratification. I know
Speaker 1: teenage girls get from um crushes on people they will
Speaker 1: never meet. So I was actually just talking with a
Speaker 1: group of teenage girls about what they were doing that
Speaker 1: they were interested in. And I didn't quite understand this,
Speaker 1: but they're like, you know, the Draco TikTok's and 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 but that's not a tangible that's not
Speaker 1: a awkward that the boy reaches over to hold your
Speaker 1: hand kind of thing. That That's my only concern is
Speaker 1: I wish for teenagers to have those wonderful moments and
Speaker 1: those missteps 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 are 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, right, and it does drive a bit
Speaker 1: of a mismatch in terms of sophistication about thinking about
Speaker 1: relationships and thinking about engaging in relationships. And I think
Speaker 1: that mismatch lasts, 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. It is,
Speaker 1: all right, yeah, no, I yes, 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 romantic
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 know,
Speaker 1: I'd feel like that's Hollywood. This is the you know,
Speaker 1: like in real life, like you'll figure it out or
Speaker 1: his breath will be weird or something like that. So
Speaker 1: we can lower the bar. And then the other is, um,
Speaker 1: those raising suns to be really mindful of the cultural
Speaker 1: messages that boys are sent. You know, that they're supposed
Speaker 1: to be much o, they're supposed to be cool, that
Speaker 1: they're supposed to have as many girls on there, you know, um,
Speaker 1: paying attention to them as possible, and to work against that.
Speaker 1: I was talking to a bunch of college students is
Speaker 1: about ten years ago, and we were talking about the
Speaker 1: various cultural messages that boys are given. And it was
Speaker 1: a coed room, um, about how they're supposed to be
Speaker 1: about women. And there were two guys in the class
Speaker 1: who were like kind of study like you could tell
Speaker 1: that they maintained you know, very happy weekends, and they
Speaker 1: were talking about how, um, how much boys tease one another.
Speaker 1: If a boy expresses real affection for a girl. You
Speaker 1: know that if a boy sort of is it makes
Speaker 1: it clear that he has a crush on a girl
Speaker 1: that the boys will be like, oh, she's got you
Speaker 1: whipped or that's not cool. You know that there's a
Speaker 1: lot of pressure among the guys to not um express
Speaker 1: feelings of devotion. But then this thing happened, and I
Speaker 1: think it was entirely unconscious. One of these like really
Speaker 1: kind of study like guys had a large water bottle
Speaker 1: in front of him, like um for for sports, and
Speaker 1: he leaned across the desk me cuddled it, and he
Speaker 1: was like, but really everybody just really wants a girlfriend,
Speaker 1: you know. And he's sort of like affectionately cuddled it.
Speaker 1: And I was so um. I was so glad that
Speaker 1: they were willing to be unguarded and sort of dropped
Speaker 1: the cool guy thing for a moment. But I think
Speaker 1: that's the piece we we can work on with boys,
Speaker 1: is to try to find my 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 now is becoming better at understanding that
Speaker 1: 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, and 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 it, 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,
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, which 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 yet beat. I mean we can say today
Speaker 1: it's really hard, I feel really worn down, and I
Speaker 1: feel worried. Um, here's what I'm gonna do to try
Speaker 1: to get myself through it. You know that that that
Speaker 1: sort of open modeling of healthy coping, I think is
Speaker 1: really not You're not keep 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 that, like don't do that. Um,
Speaker 1: I mean that's a that's a great thing. I I
Speaker 1: worry that we get to sceptible 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 mow the lawn. Not that I ever would,
Speaker 1: but let's go outside, you know that kind of thing,
Speaker 1: or to be openly strategic. I UM. I started a
Speaker 1: podcast as a result of the pandemic too, out of
Speaker 1: the sense of like I need a way to operate
Speaker 1: at scale, to plug it right now. I will, I will,
Speaker 1: because they're all gonna want to go there now. I UM.
Speaker 1: I am really worried about family mental health, and so
Speaker 1: I started a podcast called Ask Lisa the Psychology of Parenting,
Speaker 1: and I do it with my colleague Green and nine
Speaker 1: and Who's this incredible journalist. But I was like, I
Speaker 1: need something that is quick and nimble and can address
Speaker 1: the parenting needs immediately because they change so fast right now.
Speaker 1: And for some people who couldn't afford to go see
Speaker 1: you for forty five minutes twice a week, this is
Speaker 1: life saving. 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 am, 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 you,
Speaker 1: and uh, ask Lisa, Ask Lisa. It's a podcast and
Speaker 1: the books are untangled and under pressure. Both of them
Speaker 1: are on my bedstand. I read chapters of it all
Speaker 1: the time. Thank you for your time today, and thank
Speaker 1: you for everything you're doing helping parents get their teens
Speaker 1: through this time. And thank you and thank you for
Speaker 1: this podcast, which I know is also a lifeline for
Speaker 1: 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 Ali is a production of
Speaker 1: Shonda land Audio and partnership with I heart Radio. For
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