Hey, everybody. I am very excited to welcome or re -welcome I should say my very favorite expert on all things parenting, the teen whisperer herself the great Lisa Damore.
Lisa is a graduate of Yale University.
She received her PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Michigan, and she is a three time, New York Times bestselling author.
Her books include Untangled, Under Pressure, and The Emotional Lives of Teenagers.
And this is basically the tripartite of parenting must reads, I gotta say.
Lisa is also the host of Ask Lisa, which is the essential podcast for parents seeking guidance on raising kids, particularly tweens and teens, which I'm very proud to announce This also happens to be the newest addition to our new, but quickly growing repertoire of best in class podcasts here at voicing change media.
And the purpose of today's show is to reacquaint you with Lisa or introduce her to you if you're new to the show, we're gonna share an episode of Ask Lisa.
We're gonna append it after our brief conversation here.
And that's it. I mean, personally, I guess what I wanna say is is I can't overestimate how helpful Lisa has been in my own parenting journey.
You're sort of my decoder ring, this beacon of light that has helped counsel me through the roller coaster ride of raising our children and the young adults.
And it's delightful to have you here today.
Thank you Lisa, how are you doing?
I am great and I'm really happy to be with you.
And Rina, my co -host and I are so, so happy to be joining you.
Well, we're really proud to have you.
Yeah. This is very exciting and you do such a great job and we're here to amplify your important voice.
Well, thank you. So, thanks for coming out today.
I can't remember how long it's been since the last time we got together, a couple of years, at least. It's like right around two years.
Two years, yeah. Right around two years, yeah.
A lot has happened since then.
One, very interesting particular event has transpired since we last sat down.
Can you share a little bit about that?
I think you're talking about my involvement with Inside Out too.
I'm indeed talking about it.
Okay. Yeah. Yeah, so in May of 2020, I got a call from Pixar saying that Kelsey Mann, the director, and Meg Lofoff, one of the writers, wanted to meet with me.
So it was an early pandemic.
We hopped on a Zoom, and they were holding Untangled and Under Pressure, the two books of mine that had come out at that point.
And they talked about what they were up to with this film they were thinking about, and those books are about adolescent girls and about stress and anxiety.
And so if you've seen the film right down the middle of what they were working on.
And that launched us into a four -year conversation that was as much fun as anything I have done professionally.
So I went back and forth to Pixar.
I edited or looked at drafts of the film and gave feedback.
I worked with an extraordinary colleague, Dakar Keltner, who's a Berkeley, who was on the first film, and somebody I've long respected, so it was really fun to be alongside him as another consultant on this film.
And, you know, what they generated in the end, And I think is an incredible contribution.
What is it that's so special about Pixar?
Not that you've been working with all kinds of other movie studios, but we did have the opportunity to have Ed Catmull join the podcast. He was a co -founder of Pixar and wrote this wonderful book about team building and creativity and management.
He's no longer there, but obviously the DNA of his kind of leadership style, I'm sure still persists.
So, in terms of my contact with them, I was blown away by their devotion to the precision of the science.
They really wanted to get it right and made changes on really what are very minor points.
But when I said, you know, this is not quite exactly it, they fixed it up.
They had me meet with the entire crew working on the film to do a presentation around adolescent mental health and how we think about development.
and so from soup to nuts in the work on that film.
They had me and Dacher thinking with them about getting the science and the kind of academic underpinnings of that, correct?
And given the reach they have, this is the highest -grossing animated film of all time.
It's the eighth -highest -grossing film of all time.
I didn't know that, I knew it was popular and successful.
I didn't realize that that magnitude.
It's done incredibly well and so, You have back end of course.
Oh yeah. We'll return to that in another day.
Boy, I wish I did. But what is important is that it will reach families who no one can reach in that kind of way and that they got it right and that they made it entertaining and engaging and yet told a true story about teenagers and the ways in which they become very intense with their emotions and told a true story about emotions and that uncomfortable and unwanted emotions are actually really important and valuable.
Those are the messages that a lot of my work is trying to get across and so to get to partner with such a huge megaphone on those messages was a huge, huge benefit.
There's also a personal parallel here as well, correct?
Because the protagonist in the movie happens to be the same age as your daughter.
Well, it is kind of amazing.
So when the first film came out in 2015, my older daughter was 12 or 11 turning 12 that year.
And now my younger daughter is 13.
I see. And now my younger daughter is 13.
So it was 13 when the film came out and it turned 14 cents.
So it was the exact same age as the protagonist. And so very fun.
I actually got to take her to Pixar with me for some of it and get to tour around in the back.
So we had a great time.
Did you get the good job?
You're a cool mom, like certification badge, or is it the age where nothing you can do is cool?
I don't think they think anything I do is cool, right?
I mean, I think that they're sort of like, that's great mom, but like what's for dinner?
And that's their job, to be focused on, Of course.
What's for dinner. Yeah.
That's an amazing experience.
I didn't realize the movie was that big, and I haven't seen the second one, but I did see the first one.
And I just remember being very impacted by how what a incredibly creative way into kind of the mind and the inner experience of what it's like to have complicated emotions.
It's so smart and they did such a good job.
And there's things in the film that are so quick that I was so glad to see included.
So if you remember in the first film, there are all these mental islands that are important to Riley's life.
And so in the intro to the second film, early in the second film, they're surveying the islands and somebody says, well, where's family Island?
And family Island has receded way to the back And it's like gray and sort of sad, and it's like the parents and then Riley standing apart for them.
And it's totally crowded out by Friendship Island, which looks like this giant amusement park.
And it's this quick little joke, and I was like, holy moly, when I saw that I thought, for them to put up on the screen, that this is exactly what happens in adolescence, that it's not your kid dumping you, you haven't done anything wrong.
This is the natural course of events.
I thought it was so amazing.
to watch them do that.
So just as healing for the parents as for the children, like everybody can kind of identify.
Absolutely. And, you know, it's very clever and very funny.
And the kind of thing that a lot of adults are gonna wanna see as well.
And it's interesting, we actually have a long research science on programming for kids and what makes it effective.
And what makes it effective is if adults wanna watch it too.
Because we did all this research on Sesame Street a million years ago.
And what makes it effective is if after the show, the parent is then later talking about, so what would the count say?
And so same with this film, the fact that it's done in a way that adults are going to enjoy watching it also means that the adults get the benefit and the kids get the benefit of the adults getting the benefit.
The kids get the benefit of the adults not taking it so personally that their kid wants to hang out with their friends all the time.
or there's even a very funny place where, you know, suddenly Riley's emotions become very, very powerful as a function of puberty setting in.
And to have that normalized and put on the big screen is a huge gift of families.
Are the Hollywood studios now calling you all the time?
If they wanna talk to me, I'm happy to help.
And it really is because that's a lot of where the messaging comes across about teenagers, family life, what to expect.
But, I love getting to do my work in the public space, but I'm aware that there are much, much bigger voices out there.
And so if I can help shape how they talk and think about young people, I'm ready to do that.
All right, Hollywood, give her a call.
I've been in the parenting game for quite a while at this point.
Our youngest is 17.
Our oldest is 29, two boys, two girls.
I've seen kind of every permutation, you know, of this.
The peaks, the valleys, you know, kind of how to how to handle, you know, the challenges that come your way with some level of grace and equanimity and, you know, it's still confusing.
What's the right thing to say or do?
Like, you know, should I not say that?
Should I say this? When to be supportive?
When to put up the boundaries?
As soon as you think you've kind of developed some level of mastery.
You get a curve ball and you're like, how about this?
How are you gonna handle this one?
And when I think about 2025, being here in Los Angeles, I think about uncertainty and impermanence.
You know, obviously a very turbulent political time that is driving a lot of anxiety and uncertainty and layering on top of that here, like the devastating fires we were evacuated and like, you know, it's a lot for young kids.
I found myself the other day thinking about a young person and who's maybe 14 or 15, who weathered the pandemic, had to endure puberty at home in their room, got through that, things start to normalize, but all kinds of like craziness with social media kind of enters the picture and that gets heightened.
And once you feel like, okay, well, I'm developing adaptive strategies for this, you have the fire and there's people's homes burning down.
And like, it's just like what is going on in the mind of that child, I can't help but think they're developing this sense of A, like the world is a very unsafe place and B, like maybe the adults don't know anything, you know what I mean?
And like what is that doing to hundreds of thousands if not millions of young developing minds at this point?
Well, we don't really know but in some ways we've been here before, right?
I mean, I wasn't alive when World War II was happening but like you think about other times in history where things were completely upside down and felt like they were coming apart and the world that you knew it didn't feel familiar at all and it felt really scary where everything could head.
So I think every generation has its own version of this and we're in this, we don't know where this will go.
We don't know what it means down the line.
My world, my training is about the power of the relationship between adult and child, between parent, caregiver and the child.
And what I know is that the best thing we can do under these conditions is to try to be a steady presence for our kid.
We have been around longer.
We have seen things be very bad and correct.
We can offer some perspective that kids cannot have. I think what is hard is that the adults feel pretty undone right now too.
And so being a steady presence isn't so easy.
We can feel pretty over -rod ourselves.
And, and I think then, if you can't be a steady presence, then the next step is to remember that being emotional is not necessarily the same thing as being fragile.
Tell me more. Yeah, as a culture we've become very, very uneasy about any emotional discomfort.
We have come to equate being mentally healthy with feeling good.
And, and we've talked about this before, right?
You know, that's not how we think about this, as psychologists.
And so one thing that we can give our kids is the understanding that you're supposed to be upset in upsetting conditions.
It's actually strange.
I mean, if you went through everything that you just described and you're like, yeah, no, we're great, it's cool.
That's actually pretty weird. And so allowing for sadness, allowing for worry, allowing for some anxiety, without quickly slipping into the idea that that means that everything's awful or that we have mental health concerns or that we're never gonna be okay again.
I think that's actually where the adults can be most useful to kids, which is to allow for distress but to not equate it with a mental health crisis.
Well, that kind of perfectly sets up the episode that we're gonna share, which is all about answering this question, like how much of my mental health challenges should I actually share with my children?
And I'm of two minds on this and, you know, it kind of fits into exactly what you just said.
Like I'm of the generation that has learned over time that transparency is better.
you don't wanna just put on the strong face and pretend like everything's fine when it isn't because then you're breathing distrust, and it's better to like let the kids in and like this is what we're going through.
But at the same time, you don't wanna kind of overshare to the point where the child feels unsafe or like that you don't got this, like, they need to feel like even, yeah, okay I recognize you're having a hard time but I'm gonna go to sleep tonight, confident that you have a handle on whatever it is that's going on.
Is that like kind of fairly accurate description of?
No, I think you describe the tension really well, right?
We wanna be honest with our kids, but we also don't want them to feel like there's not a grown up in the room, right?
That's, they want both.
You know, and in this episode, what we think through is, you know, when does it make sense to talk with kids about what you yourself have been through?
How do you do it in a way that is gonna work?
What should drive it, what should it be about?
And when should you do it if you're gonna do it?
We talk about some mental health concerns that can have a biological underpinning that at some point kids may wanna know about just by way of being aware of some genetic vulnerability that may be at play.
But we really, I love talking and thinking with Rena Because she does such a good job of really sitting in the role of the parent who's like, but what about this?
And what about that?
And through that process, I think we tease apart really, really complex questions and get to big principles.
That's actually my favorite thing about our conversations is that we are always asking a question from a listener.
But in answering, or we're always answering a question from a listener.
But in answering that question, we always try to like pull back the lens a little bit and think like, what's the big parenting principle at play here?
And she sort of inhabits the perspective of the parent who's gonna be asking the typical questions to make sure that the audience is getting the takeaways that they need.
Yeah, she's a journalist by training and just does an incredible job of, but what about this and what about that?
And pushes my thinking, and hopefully above all just puts it all into practical every day in your kitchen terms as opposed to, here's theoretically how we think about these things, that's not really what people need, people need to like, what do I say to my kid?
And we work really hard to get to that.
Where do our parenting intuitions lead us astray?
Like what are common examples of situations you've seen where, where we feel like the right thing to do is X when actually it's Y.
And I guess I'm just imagining, you know, in the context of sharing your mental health stuff.
It's like, oh, we should be transparent and like not knowing where the boundary of that is or what are some kind of principles that you could kind of quickly share before we turn to the episode itself?
Well, so one thing that I think is...
Jermaine did this topic, but stretches across others is there's so many important conversations we wanna have with our kids before they leave home and they weigh on us and they feel big and important.
And sometimes they're about our own mental health concerns, but sometimes they're just about other things in the world that we want to talk about, and there are moments in parenting where we're like, okay, I'm ready to have the conversation, and we find our teenager and we're like, we need to talk about, you know, and then fill in the blank, and what we forget is that kid did not see it coming, has 400 other things going on, doesn't know why you are bringing this up now, almost always assumes like, what did I do that you have, you know, felt compelled to have this conversation?
And so what I would say, just on a very easy X to Y for all parents everywhere is, if you have something big and heavy, the time has come that you feel you need to talk about it, give your kid some warning and see if they're open to it at that time or make a plan to talk about it.
But I think the, not very sophisticated, but I think kind of direct way I would say this is like, no sneak attacks on teenagers, it never goes well.
If you have something big and heavy, say to them, you know, you're headed off to college and we've never really talked about, you know, x, sex, drugs, drinking, whatever.
There's some things I want you to know, when's a good time for us to have this conversation?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You'll get much further in that way.
I find that even when I do that, it's still challenging.
And like what I'm actually trying to communicate by dent of that type of conversation is kind of more effectively transmitted when I'm in a casual environment and I'm like, we're in a car in a long drive we're on a trip and we're on a plane, they're like, hey, tell me when I'm curious about them.
And then it moves into a place where it feels natural to kind of share, well, you know, this thing happened.
And then it percolates up out of something organic as opposed to like, you come in with an agenda and here's what's gonna happen.
And here's how we're gonna, here's how you're gonna come out on the other side of that.
I agree with everything you said.
I think it's true. I think rolling up on a teenager with an agenda pre -planned, rarely has the outcome we're hoping for.
The other thing I will say, and I've seen this consistently, kids open the door to these conversations.
Kids will say, you know there's ninth graders using weed gummies at school, right?
Or they will say, oh so -and -so they're like having sex with a lot of different partners, right?
They will throw the door wide open to conversations that we mean to be having.
And in my experience, that's actually when you're most likely to get some ground ground in that conversation to say like, well, what do you know?
And what do you think?
And what are you hearing?
And what do you make of that?
Right asking them their thoughts.
And then you'll learn a lot based on their response when you ask questions about what do you think about that?
And then you may be able to get your two cents in, but I will say in all of parenting, I don't ever think you have very long to say very much. I think these are conversations that we dip in and out of.
I think kids can only tolerate so much at a given time.
I think car rides, plane rides, walks when they don't have to look at us are invaluable, but there's no such thing in my world as the talk, it's an ongoing conversation cause kids change, and actually, how you think about it yourself as a parent changes.
The slow drip, as opposed to the fire hose, the monumental talk where we're gonna solve all of these problems. I think that's really, that's really good advice.
And when the child kind of lobs it's sort of like like lobbing a grenade and it's a litmus test, like, what are you going to do?
Are you going to shame me and say, well you better not do that, you know, like a more kind of like typical response.
Can you resist that and instead like approach it with curiosity?
It's really hard sometimes, right?
I mean, if kids are like, ah, there's weed gummies going around school.
I mean, a lot of adults would be like, whoa, don't let me catch you.
But even with that, you can come back and say, you know I had a really strong reaction.
And tell me more about why that came up, that I think it's okay for us to apologize and return to it because I think sometimes when kids are putting those things on the table, they are seeing like, if I had an issue, how would you react?
So let me start by testing the waters with that kid over there.
You get a crazy reaction, okay, it's not safe for me to share that thing.
Never bringing this up again.
The door is shut and like, I'll go to somebody else.
Yeah. Yeah, and that's the last thing you want.
It is. I will tell you in those clutch moments, there is a phrase that parents can use while they're getting their heart rate down, which is just to say to the kid, what do you think about that?
Like, you can't go wrong with that phrase and it will help you collect yourself and help you know where the conversation needs to go.
Yeah, neutrality becomes like a superpower, right?
I'm thinking of a scenario in which there's a conflict between kind of what you say and what you do.
Cause if you're kind of saying like, well you better not, and this is that, and this is bad.
And like, you know, no daughter of mine, note, you know, whatever, but then later you come and say, you know, you can talk to me about anything, like I'm available to you.
Like, you know, you're speaking out of both sides of your mouth at that point, right?
It's true. And, you know, one of my favorite things in the whole world is to get with a bunch of teenagers and ask them questions about things that I've been wondering about.
And so one time I got with them, a bunch of teenagers, and I was like, you know that thing where you're clearly upset, and your folks can tell you're upset and they're asking what's wrong and you won't tell them.
And they're all like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm like, what's the deal?
And they were like, well there's one of four reasons, right?
I mean, they have so much knowledge of us.
And they said, first of all, we know what you're gonna say.
You know, and they do know us.
They know us inside and now, right?
So they were like, you know, maybe it's that that I messed up a test that you asked if I'd studied enough for and I reassured you I had and apparently I hadn't because I got my test back.
And so if I tell you that's what I'm upset about, I know what you're gonna say and I don't wanna hear it, right?
So we think we're so context free, they have us dead to rights, you know?
Another kid said, you're gonna blab.
You're gonna blab. I'm gonna tell you, and it doesn't feel like a big deal to you.
So you'll tell the neighbor, but it feels like a state secret to me.
So I don't wanna do it.
Another kid said, this was so funny.
They're like, well, it's complicated.
It's complicated. This girl said, you know, maybe it's like this.
Maybe the thing I'm having a problem with is that I got into a fight with Susie today.
Susie and I have been going hot and cold for 10 years and I know my family can't stand Susie.
Susie's having a party in two weeks and I really want to go.
So if I tell them today what the issue is in two weeks we're gonna have a problem.
So again, they know us so well.
And then the last one.
And I think this is what parents and caregivers should always assume if they can't get their kid to tell them of what the story is.
This kid said to me, by the time I get home I'm like 90 % of the way past it and rehashing the whole thing for my folks is not gonna help me feel better.
So I mean, there's always a reason for their behavior that what they do make sense.
And I think what I love so much about teenagers is that if you ask them a straight question, if you're asking, asking, they will tell you exactly what is behind behavior that seems confusing on the surface.
The other thing that I found very helpful is always asking myself the question, like, am I trying to help them feel better or solve their problem?
Or am I trying to resolve my own uncomfortable emotions about what's happening?
Like I think there's a lot of transference in there.
And so much of where parents instincts drive them in the wrong direction is when they're really trying to solve their own internal emotional like turmoil over something rather than the child's.
Absolutely, right? And, you know, luckily kids are pretty durable, we can get it wrong, and it doesn't mean that they're gonna come to harm.
But that is something Rina and I think through in this episode, right?
If you feel compelled to talk with your kid about your suffering is in the past, like why, you know, what's behind it?
Who's it serving? What's it for?
And you wanna be really clear in your mind because it's not your kids job to help you work this out.
Right, if you're just gonna vomit all your nonsense onto them, and suddenly it's their responsibility that's an act of violence on your kid.
Versus like, hey, I have a history with alcoholism and I've been sober for a long time.
And like, let me tell you about, like, how all of this happened, and like, kind of how I manage it now, like that can be helpful, especially, you know, with a, you know, a genetic predisposition or what have you, to do it, like, you know, from just a place of calm detachment, you know, as a means of like helping them make sense of how they're gonna navigate those opportunities when they arise about whether they're gonna pick up or indulge or not.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, we have hard earned wisdom.
We want to spare our kids pain.
There are lessons we've learned, we'd rather they don't have to learn them the hard way.
And, teenagers don't like to be told, right?
So we have to sort of sit in that tension of how do we give good guidance, give good advice, share what we need to in a way that makes them receptive.
And not allow our emotions to be regulated by theirs, like this idea, like it's our job to love them, it's not their job to love us.
It's true, it's true.
And there's so much gratification in parenting and so much pleasure, but it's really, we're here to care for them and caring for ourselves well is part of how we do that.
But it's really about creating an environment for kids where they feel safe, where there is warmth, where there is structure, where there's a grownup in the room, and just seeing what unfolds from there.
Hmm, well, I think that's a good place to, kind of end it for today and set up the podcast, which I believe is episode 193 of the show, Should I Share My Mental Health Struggles with My Teen, it is the Ask Lisa podcast, You can find it on all the podcast platforms, our newest and most exciting new addition to the voicing change network.
And we're delighting to have you Lisa.
So thank you for coming and sharing with me today.
And everybody should go and listen and subscribe and do all this stuff, yeah.
Rich, thrilled to be partnering with you in this.
We're very honored and touched.
So exciting times ahead.
Indeed. And you'll come back and we'll do a full blown one.
Sounds great. Cheers.
Peace. Tell me a parenting issue everyone struggles with, with tweens and teens, but no one talks about.
Reena, I think a lot of people feel like they just don't know how to connect to their kid anymore.
Mm -hmm. I'm Reena Nynan, and welcome to Ask Lisa, the psychology of parenting podcast. And I'm Dr. Lisa Damore.
We bring you science -backed strategies for managing anxiety, discipline, intense emotions, and more.
We decode tough parenting challenges with tips that you can use right now So subscribe to ask Lisa the psychology of parenting podcast and join our YouTube community today We're here to help you untangle family life Episode 193.
Should I talk with my teens about my own mental health challenges?
So, how you doing uh How about you?
You know, I feel like I'm on this hamster wheel.
I never get off, but I keep telling myself, oh, it's just five more minutes and you're going to get a nice, long break and that break never comes.
No, really, the to -do list never ends, Rina.
And I don't know how, I have not figured this out yet.
I keep thinking that somewhere, somewhere, there is an end to the to -do list. And I really am trying to be like I step in and out of it.
I'm just not in it all the time but I kind of feel like I'm in it all the time anyway.
Hmm. Um, I wonder what studies say about this.
Like we always think that we're gonna be done and we're not done.
Well actually it's funny you should mention that because there actually is one of my favorite research studies shows that - Of course you have a study on this.
I have a favorite, of course a favorite, like I like to live for these.
Um, we have a study that shows that like if you ask people about how busy they are now and how busy they'll be in the future They reliably say, oh I'm very, very busy now but I won't be busy in six months.
They think somehow out there is leisure.
And we have to believe that or else we're going to self -combust. Well, it's true but this is also how we do ourselves in because we agree to things in the future because we think, well, I'm busy now but I won't be busy then.
So, yes, let's put it on the calendar.
And that's how we end up with these overflow calendars.
This distorted belief that the future is somehow full of leisure and extra time.
We've got to learn to say no. That's a hard thing.
It's a very hard thing.
I love this letter that came into our inbox about a parent who's dealing with their own history of mental health challenges.
I want to get right to it.
Dear Dr. Lisa, I'm a mom with three teenagers.
As most parents with children of this age my husband and I are having lots of conversations about mental health.
I come from a family with mental health issues including alcoholism, depression, anxiety, and eating disorders.
I myself had anorexia during college.
I I've not shared this part of my story with my children, and I think it is important that I do so so they understand their family history and how important it is for them to build healthy coping skills.
I'm not sure how to start this conversation and how much to share with them at this point in their adolescence.
What do you think is the best way to talk to my children about my past?
Thank you. Do you think a lot of families are dealing with this?
I think more families are dealing with this than not.
I would say that it's probably the rule, not the exception, that families have things in their past, either the parents of their own past or even family history, that they are trying to figure out how and when to bring up with their kids.
I think about in my clinical practice, how not rare it has been that I will sit with families who maybe I'm caring for their teenager, and they will say oh by the way also her grandfather who died, you know, before she was born actually died by suicide.
We've never mentioned it.
But here you know our kid is kind of depressed should we tell her, do we bring this up, do we not.
Um, I would say this is having things that families are trying to figure out how and when to bring up with their teenager is more the rule than the exception.
But I worry if I bring it up And they're going to think, OK, I'm going to have suicidal thoughts.
I'm going to be this person.
I'm going to. So as a parent, I don't want to mention it or bring it up.
I think that's exactly right.
I mean, we all feel so loving and worried about our kids that you don't want to do anything that's going to rock the boat.
And so this letter writer, and I think lots of parents sit in this tension of, it feels like this is important information for my kid to have. But what's going to be the impact of sharing this information and is going to have unintended consequences.
I want to pick up where she talks about it.
I think what really stood out of issues she talked about was the eating disorder, right?
This is your expertise.
I mean, what do you think the mom should do in regard to knowing that she had a history of an eating disorder?
So I think this helps us kind of start to tease apart some principles that can be useful as families were thinking about if and when they're going to say something to their teenager.
And, I would say, as a generic rule, you should have this.
Whatever the issue is, it's probably best if it's pretty well metabolized on your end.
So, I think one thing that would be really, really helpful in these conversations is if any parent who is suffering with something or has suffered with something, so this parent with an eating disorder really feels like it's behind them.
It really feels like it's something that they have worked their way through.
They understand and retrospect what occurred.
They can offer insight into what I would want.
That would be the ideal condition.
And if they're not, Lisa?
Well, exactly. I mean, of course, we have parents who of course suffer while parenting.
So let's come back to that because I think that's a really important question, like what if a parent is actually working their way through depression?
How do we talk with kids about it.
But for something that's in the past, minimally I would want it to be something that the parent feels like they've got their hands around and it doesn't feel uncontrolled to them when it comes up.
So that's one principle.
I think another principle that we really want to bring to bear here is how we bring up delicate conversations about anything with teenagers.
Even if you have no drug history in your family, you're going to need to have a conversation with teenager about fentanyl, right?
I mean so like this is a constant challenge in parenting teenagers is that we have important and delicate things we need to say and it's not always easy to get those across to teenagers.
So one way to think about this is to remember teenagers have a lot going on.
Their minds are very busy.
They're thinking about 40 different things.
We may be of two of them, but there's 38 more happening.
And so when we just suddenly bring up something big and important out of the blue, it tends not to go that well because they didn't see a coming.
They weren't really ready.
They don't know why we're talking about this.
So I think that part of what we want to look for here are openings.
So I think, you know, especially with teenagers, you're going to get these openings, they're going to talk about the classmate who is losing weight rapidly, they're going to talk about the classmate who's getting into way too much booze, right?
So your chances of having a successful conversation go way up if you're actually stepping into a conversation online the teenager has already started as opposed to being like, Hey, I've got a big thing.
Sit down, let's have this conversation.
So I would wait. I think I would wait until, And it's very high guarantee.
At some point, the teenager is going to bring up something in the vein of what the parent wants to talk about.
And then I think the parent can say something like, actually, I have more experience with eating disorders than I wish I did.
I actually had one in college.
Do you want to hear a little bit more?
I think giving teenagers a little control about how much they hear or how much they hear all at once is probably a third thing I would strongly recommend.
But do you think it could be a little bit jarring if this comes up casually in conversation like whoa whoa whoa what, you had an eating disorder?
I think there were maybe no signs or maybe suffering from alcoholism, maybe there are no signs.
I think it could be very jarring I think I mean there are parents who are sober and their kids you know are you know may be very aware of it because the parent doesn't drink so it may have come up more naturally than something like an eating disorder will.
But I I really do think, Reena, there's value.
When you have to share some pretty heavy stuff about your own history, I think that part of how we signal to teenagers that we have it in hand is to say, I have more experience with this than I wish I did.
How much do you want to hear?
There are things I want to tell you, but you let me know how much you want to hear right now.
I think that that makes it far more bearable.
But I'll tell you, Reena, you are right.
Teenagers want us to be boring.
Kids need us to be boring.
Like, I think that, you know, in many ways, it's ideal for them if we can give them a pretty like, you know, not a lot going on over here, just available to support you as needed.
And so when we bring up truths about the fact that we're whole and real people with long complicated histories, sometimes we have to account for the fact that that that's not exactly what they are we're always counting on our wanting.
Lisa, I want to pause and take a quick break.
We're going to talk a little bit more about this and the aspects of family history, and should you talk about all of the issues that you might've had, how do you approach that?
We'll be right back.
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Welcome back to Ask Lisa, the Psychology of Parenting.
We are talking on today's episode about what do you do if you have your own mental health issues in the past and when do you approach them and talk to them about your children.
Lisa, you were saying a little bit about this will come up organically in a way that you can enter the conversation and discuss it.
But what about I want to go back to eating disorders.
I don't know that just stood out to me in the letter.
We talk about it a lot.
You have flagged so many times that this is not just a white girl problem, that it affects men, it affects boys and girls from all different races.
So talk to me about what about that.
It does. It affects people of all races, ethnicities, sizes, right?
And eating disorders are very equal opportunity and they're very dangerous.
And so, you know, we want to be really thoughtful about how we talk about them.
So for sure, if a teenager brings it up, right?
I think that that creates an opening to start to have a conversation.
It also may be that a teenager brings it up using finger quotes by going on a diet.
You can imagine as a parent who has suffered with an eating disorder and knows how harrowing they are, how scary it would be to see your kid suddenly get weirdly serious about fitness or weirdly restrictive in what they eat.
And I think here again is an opening and opportunity.
And I think if the parent themselves suffered from an eating disorder, they're also maybe a genetic loading that the kid needs to know about.
Well talk to you about that.
Because I was wondering if you have gone through these mental health issues, are your children higher probability that they will be susceptible or will definitely have these?
There's no definite will you will have. Like we we know that for sure.
There's never a one -to -one correspondence.
But is there a vulnerability?
And the answer is, like, yeah.
Like, truly. And we do know that there is a genetic component to eating disorders.
This doesn't mean your kid's going to have an eating disorder, but it does mean that you probably need to flag to them that they need to be careful, that they may be more vulnerable.
And then this is the same as true for alcoholism.
We know that this can run in families not just from what we would call environmental effects of kids seeing adults drinking more, that there can be a biological vulnerability.
And so if there's a family history of alcoholism, I think we need to let kids know.
And I think that it can be very helpful to actually drill down on exactly what it is, getting transmitted genetically.
And this is stuff we pretty much know.
But we're always learning.
So for eating disorders, some of what we know can get shared or can be a biological vulnerability is a very high tolerance for hunger.
Not everybody can tolerate hunger.
I cannot tolerate hunger.
As soon as I'm hungry, I've got to eat.
There are people, though, who can just ignore their hunger and we think this may have a genetic loading and we know that it can make it easier to have an eating disorder if you can just not mind being hungry.
For alcoholism, the way we think about where the genetic loading comes through, there's a few different features.
So fundamentally, you know, alcohol is a biological agent that acts on our biologies, and everybody's biology interacts differently with biological agents, right?
Like some people don't like Advil, some people, you know, like it's just different for different bodies.
So for alcoholism, we think there's a few mechanisms in play.
One is, It's how pleasurable you find alcohol to be, right?
Some people don't really like the feeling of being buzzed.
Other people love the feeling of being buzzed and this can be true for other substances as well.
We think that is genetically conferred in part.
Another thing is how much it takes you to feel an effect.
Some people are born with just a very high talent, like they can drink a lot and it just doesn't really have much impact.
They are at higher risk for alcoholism and substance concerns.
And then the last is how bad the after effects are.
So most people, if they get really drunk, they're going to feel really terrible the next day.
There are people who have a biology where they actually shake it off real fast, and it doesn't have that much of a negative consequence for them, that is also biologically based, and that makes us worried.
So telling kids, it's not just random genetic, just having them know what the risk really looks like is important.
I still have to tell you, if I have mental health issues as a parent, I don't feel comfortable discussing them.
It makes me anxious and I just don't want to have, and I know we've got to have these uncomfortable conversations.
But what's your advice when you have that talk?
Even if you're entering it in a natural, organic way?
What should I keep in mind if I have mental health issues?
And I'm talking to my kids about this.
Well, it's funny read, I'm actually going to think about something that Tova said last week in our conversation about like, what's this about for me?
Tova Klein, who was talking to us about building resilience in case?
Yeah. And so, you know that question of like, I feel like I need to talk with my kid about my history of and then fill in the blank, and yet I am coming up against a lot of internal resistance.
I think that is such a good signal to actually unpack that resistance a little bit.
What's my worry? What's my worry in telling my kid?
Because say you smoked a ton of weed in high school.
Say you smoked a ton of weed at high school.
You totally regret it.
You wish you hadn't, and you feel like, okay, I've got this life lesson.
I want to keep my kid from making the same mistakes.
I want to say something to them but also I don't want to say anything to them.
Yeah. So interrogating like what's the worry.
And I've got shame.
I've got shame about it.
I don't want them to know so maybe they'll think it's okay because I did it.
Maybe they have an impression of me that I think will change.
Those are wonderful reasons.
I think you just rattled off a lot of the top concerns, right?
Which is I don't want them to think less than me.
I don't want them to take it as permission, I don't...
what was the last one you said it was so right on?
The shame. I think the shame of it.
Okay. I feel ashamed about this.
So, I think that one of the beautiful things about teenagers is that you can have meta -conversations.
You can have conversations about the conversation you're about to have. And so, just to take one of those concerns...
So, say a parent comes to the place where they are ready to talk with their teenager about having smoked a lot of pot in high school, and yet they are anxious that their kid is going to take this as permission for the kid to do as they please around cannabis.
I think that past age 14, you can say to most teenagers, listen, I want to talk with you about my own pot smoking in high school and what I learned and I want to try to spare you lessons that I learned the hard way, but let me just say at the outset, this is not me giving you permission to do it.
Just tell them. Just say it.
I'm sharing this because I want you to know I'm sparing you.
I love that language, you said I'm sparing you.
Yeah, yeah, I want to spare you.
You know, I learned the hard way.
I'd rather you not have to learn this lesson.
You can do the same.
Say, there's something I feel like I need to share with you about my own struggle with an eating disorder in high school or college, but I got to tell you, I feel kind of ashamed.
Like, there's a part of me that still feel shame about it, and I just want to play my cards face up.
So teenagers are generous and interested and very tender around their adult's vulnerabilities.
I've learned that. They know that...
Well, they know, and they don't know, that we're whole and real people with histories.
They don't like to think about it all the time.
But if we have it under good enough control and can just talk about it in a pretty straightforward way, in my experience, teenagers can take that in stride and leave with whatever message it was that you were hoping that they would take from it.
When you look at healthy coping, Lisa, I'm just curious because I want to also talk about what makes for good healthy coping?
Well, it's interesting when you're reading that letter, Rina, the writer said something about, like, how do I help them move towards healthy coping?
And as soon as those words came out, I was like, oh, this lady has this totally under control.
Because what she has fully metabolized is that her eating disorder, whatever else it was about was about unhealthy coping, right?
That's what all of these behaviors that we worry about fundamentally at bottom have in common. Abusing substances is unhealthy coping.
Eating disorders are unhealthy coping.
Like you're trying to get your hands around something you've landed on an unproductive, self -destructive strategy.
So I think that when we need to talk with teenagers about past events, past history, family life, the all -time opening that's going to come is somehow around coping, right?
Kids have to cope. They have their ups and downs.
They have good days and bad days.
And so we're watching their coping and we're reflecting on their coping.
And so when your kid's like, oh my gosh, I the worst day ever.
I'm going to go for a run," you know, without being too corny about it.
You can be like, you know what?
That is such beautiful coping.
That is exactly how we handle hard things.
It sounds so corny, but you're getting them to be aware that what they're doing is taking the pressure off.
Like, you know, going to go play basketball.
I'm going to go listen to really loud music in my room.
Exactly. And so I think, you know, every relationship between parent and child is its own universe and its own unique thing, and you can't really tell people how to do it.
But I think that the fundamental is if a parent knows they're in a good place with their kid, to say, you know, that is such healthy coping.
And it's not the kind of coping I was using when I was in high school.
And I'm so proud and happy as your parent, that you've already found your way to such healthy strategies.
Or the flip, right?
Say the kid is doing destructive things.
Say, look, you get to be upset, you get to have hard things.
Unhealthy coping is not an option.
The strategy you're using is unhealthy.
I have a lot of sympathy for this.
I chose on healthy strategies when I was in high school, but I love you too much. I'm not letting you do it this way.
Just tell me like what do you see in teens that are like you're like, yes, that's really great coping skills.
Like what is healthy coping that you would love to see in teens?
Well, I'm just like I get such a smile on my face around this question because healthy coping in teens can look so different from healthy coping in adults, right?
Healthy coping in adults, it's like you call a friend, you go out to dinner, you, you know, take a long shower.
Healthy coping in teens, honest to God, can be your super hairy 17 year old son, rereading, Captain Underpants.
Teens sometimes go back to little kids' stuff as part of healthy coping.
Really? I didn't know that.
Teens, they love video games as part of healthy coping.
You know, and within limits, like a distracting video game that just, you know, connects them with friends, or changes their, you know, what they're thinking about.
That's healthy coping.
Teens love music. They love listening to music for healthy coping.
Teens will go do physical stuff.
Teens love to eat comfort foods for healthy coping.
And again, within limits, everything in moderation, that's totally fine.
You know, we've talked about this.
The skincare, over the top skincare stuff can be healthy coping.
So I think that when we're trying to see that our kids are engaged in healthy coping, it's really imperative that adults kind of widen the lens and not just look for like a meditation practice as evidence that their kid is using healthy coping.
Yeah. For some people it's like shopping on Amazon or...
Exactly. Clothing stores, department stores...
So, I want to ask you as we're wrapping it up here, what do you want parents to really keep in mind when it comes to dealing with this topic of telling your children, here are my mental health issues that I've struggled with.
Rina, when you ask it that way, it really helps me home in on the key thing, which is it has to be about the teenager.
You're sharing this information because of something that you really care about in your teenager, whether they're starting to exhibit behaviors that you're worried about or they have a friend who they're concerned about, or you're sending them off to college and And somehow, these conversations have never come up, and you know that college can involve a lot of new stresses, and so you want to make sure that they know your worries about biological vulnerabilities to unhealthy coping.
The kid has to be at the center.
I would say, don't bring it up if it's just, let me just tell you about my life and a really upsetting and disturbing to -my -child part of my life.
And that's not really how we want to approach this as parents.
We always want to approach this from the standpoint of, what does my kid need and how can I use my experience to try to help meet those needs?
Not I have this really painful story and the time has come for you to hear it.
Cause that's how I would approach it.
I would be so dramatic and be like, this is just, I'm so embarrassed by this and dah, dah, dah, but you're also saying pay attention to the tone in which you're delivering this.
It's got to be about the kid and what the kid needs.
And Rina, I think what you're describing a lot of parents would feel and warranted.
Like, of course, art pasts can be hard. People go through terrible things.
Everyone deserves support around that.
I keep using the word metabolized.
It needs to be metabolized.
It's not your teenager's job to metabolize it for you or to help you metabolize it.
and I think that that's the distinction we want to make.
So Lisa, tell me, what if you're currently suffering with this issue?
It's not one and done in the sense of, you've put it in the past, it's deep in the closet.
What advice do you have for parents who are still struggling?
Right. There are parents who suffer from clinical depression.
There are parents who have anxiety disorders that are not under control.
It is not by any means a basic expectation that we are somehow parenting in full mental health, right?
I mean, that that is just not what is realistic, it's not what a lot of people's lives are.
I think here there needs to be honesty with kids.
I mean, kids can see it, especially teenagers.
And I think again, this is so hard when a parent themselves is suffering, there has to be a focus on the kid and the kids' needs.
And so I think a parent needs to try to get to a place where they can say, I am suffering from clinical depression.
I am working with my doctors on trying to get it under control and get it to a place where I am really feeling better and able to do more.
I know this cannot be easy for you.
And I want you to know that your needs matter tremendously to me and I'm going to make sure they get met, even as I find my way through this.
I think that anything that a parent is suffering with that stands to interfere with their ability to be the parent they want to be should be addressed from a standpoint like that.
Lots to think about here, but you giving us these tips of what to look out for, how to say it, and to keep the kid really at the focus can help with these conversations.
I think that's right and I really am so grateful for this letter because I think this parent speaks to so many parent's experiences of having lived through something, having a knowledge base that they you know earned the hard way, loving their kid, wanting to spare their kid wanting to use their own experience to spare their kid pain, and running up against the reality that to even try to coordinate with your teenager about pick -up from soccer is next to impossible, so how do you have conversations like this?
I think that that is really, that just comes across so clearly in the letter this parent understanding those tensions of things I want to share and sometimes the extraordinary challenges of having even everyday conversations with teenagers.
It isn't always easy.
In fact, especially at certain age, it becomes really hard, I think.
So Lisa, what do you have for us for parenting to go?
On this topic of needing to have an important conversation with a teenager, if you get an opening, take it.
I think that's my number one advice.
You don't always get those openings.
And I think that there are times in parenting where you feel like, okay, this conversation has to happen.
No opening has arrived.
I think then we need to be thoughtful about how we approach it, and my advice is get on your kids calendar.
Say to your teenager, there's a conversation I need to have with you about and then fill in the blank and make it clearer that it's not because of something the kid did.
This has been on my mind and the opportunity has not arisen.
Are you available for that conversation now?
Is there a time in the next few days where we could sit down?
I don't I don't think it'll take us more than 10 minutes.
But we'll see. Engage them when the conversation happens a little bit about how the conversation happens.
Do not do a sneak attack.
Sneak attacks don't go well.
Great advice. Lisa, thank you.
Thank you for walking us through this.
And thank you to the parent who wrote this letter.
Because it just makes you realize that you can have these conversations in the right way to do it.
I want to thank you so much, Lisa.
You bet. And so next week we're gonna talk about what do you do when the kids at school are spreading ugly rumors about your kid?
We'll have that next week.
I'll see you then. I'll see you next week.
Thanks for joining us.
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The advice provided on this podcast does not constitute or serve as a substitute for professional psychological treatment, therapy or other types of professional advice or intervention.
If you have concerns about your child's well -being, consult a physician or mental health professional.
If you're looking for additional resources, check out Lisa's website at DrLisaDemore .com.
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