True or false question number one.
This is kind of a gimme.
Parents always know better.
False.
Okay.
False.
True.
False.
And number five.
False.
You can be both emotional and strong.
True.
True.
And what if all those moments of distress that keep you up at night worrying about your kid were actually signs that everything is working exactly as it should?
These aren't just theoretical questions.
They're part of a radical rethinking of reality how we understand emotional health, perfectionism and the parent-child relationship.
That emerged during one of the most revealing conversations we had on the show in a while.
My guest today is Dr Lisa DeMoor, author of the New York Times bestseller The Emotional Lives of Teenagers Raising Connected, Capable and Compassionate Adolescents.
She's a clinical psychologist thought leader recognized by the American Psychological Association and co-host of the Ask Lisa podcast.
Her work with UNICEF and as a consultant for Pixar's Inside Out 2 has helped shape how we understand adolescent development and emotional health.
But this episode offers something extra special too.
I am joined by two thoughtful parents and dear friends, Cindy Lewis and Karen Walron.
And we're bringing our real world questions and challenges to the conversation with Dr. Lisa.
Together we explore a range of questions, from surprising truths about perfectionism, discovering why some forms of distress might, and uncovering new ways to feel like we're staying connected with teenagers and young adult kids who seem to be pulling away.
You'll hear some pretty fascinating insights and provocative and maybe counterintuitive ideas about why the common wisdom around emotional regulation might be missing the mark.
And learn practical approaches to supporting young adults as they navigate major life decisions.
So excited to share this conversation with you.
I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project.
Let's dive into these a little bit here before we open it up for the round table.
Parents always know better.
You answered that with like a question mark at the end of your answer.
Take me into this.
I'm thinking better than who?
There's a relative term there.
So I wasn't sure who we were comparing them to.
Yeah.
And I think probably the answer to that would be for a lot of parents, their kids.
And they might even answer that if a parent is 70 and they have a 50-year-old kid and they're like parents, still always know better.
I'm going to stick with my false.
If the comparison is with a kid, I'm sticking with my false.
Why do we think that though?
Why do so many parents feel like that is the truth?
I think because we've been there, right?
Or we feel like we've been there and we adore our kids and we don't want them to make mistakes that we've made.
We'd like for them to learn from our mistakes.
We'd like for them to trust our judgment.
And I think it's just a really natural loving instinct to think like listen, I've been around a long time.
I'm 55.
I can help you here.
I think it comes from a loving place.
I don't think it's always true.
And it definitely doesn't always go down well.
Yeah, I think we probably all experienced that.
Number two, emotion is the enemy of reason.
You said false.
Take me into that.
Yeah, this is actually something I dealt with as a topic when I was working on my book The Emotional Lives of Teenagers and explored these sort of varying views of emotion and emotions.
This goes back to ancient philosophers were raising this question about the interaction between emotion and reason, some putting them in opposition, others putting it as informing.
As a psychologist, I come down on the side that emotions are data and we need to pay attention to them.
And they tell us a lot about how our lives are going.
They should not run the show, but they definitely get to weigh in on the decisions we make.
I remember reading a study.
I want to say it was on someone designated as patient H maybe.
I can't remember if that was the one where the person effectively lost the ability to feel emotion.
And in the research they realized that that person – so now you think okay – here is the most rational person on the planet now.
They should be amazing at decision-making.
Every decision should be fantastic.
In fact, it was the exact opposite.
Mm-hmm.
It's true.
And it's interesting.
There's really good science, and it's summarized beautifully by Annie Murphy Paul in her book The Extended Mind about gut feelings.
Yeah.
And the argument that the data make, and that Annie summarizes, is that gut feelings are all of the information we've collected over our whole lives.
Like we collect more data than we know what to do with and we can't always even put our finger on exactly what it is.
But a gut feeling, the way she writes about it is, it's like...
You know, our unconscious tugging at our sleeves saying you've been here before.
And ever since I read that a couple of years ago, I've gotten so much more responsive to my gut, feeling like I can't tell you why, but I'm gonna say no.
Because I can feel it.
And I'm just going to trust that that is on the back of a lifetime of data, that a lot of it is probably emotionally driven.
Yeah.
So that claim that we sometimes hear and maybe we've actually audited ourselves when you're sort of like trying to have a quote, rational conversation with another person maybe a kid also.
You're so emotional.
Can't we just sit down and have a rational conversation?
That's not actually grounded in the reality of how we have conversations that lead to constructive outcomes.
I don't think it is.
And there's an analogy I share in the emotional lives of teenagers.
And it comes from a colleague of mine, a wonderful clinician named Terry Tobias, who talks about like we should think about our emotions as being one member of our personal board of directors.
And if we think about this board of directors helping us run our lives, there are several members of it.
It's logistical concerns, rational concerns, financial concerns morals interests, all of that and emotions.
And the way my colleague talks about it, she's like they have a chair seat on the board.
They are not the chair of the board and they very rarely get a deciding vote.
But welcoming emotions as sort of part of a number of forces that help us move forward and make choices, I think is the way to go about it.
I love that analogy.
Perfectionism isn't always bad.
We are told now that perfectionism is the worst thing on the planet, that it is something to be vanished from your experience, that it is wildly destructive to your state of mind and also to your state of life.
You say maybe not so fast.
Not so fast.
Here's what the science tells us.
Perfectionism has a dark side and a light side.
So let's start with the light side.
It's striving for excellence, right?
When we are being perfectionistic, we're.
There is huge value in holding oneself to very high standards, whether it's in something you're writing, whether it's being someone who's raising a child right.
There is a lot to be said for like, I want to do the best job I can do.
The dark side is when we fall short and we will fall short, right?
Because none of us can be the best all the time at everything we try to do.
The dark side is when we berate ourselves.
I'm no good.
What I've done is no good.
That's where perfectionism gets people in trouble.
But it's not the aspiring to be perfect that actually harms people.
It's the self-flagellation when they're not perfect that does the damage.
So, perfectionism, it has a place in our lives.
It can be of value.
We just have to watch it.
Yeah, I mean teasing out that difference is really helpful for me, both on a personal level and also as a parent, because I think there's so much pressure and Cindy and Karen, I'm sure you've seen this in your kids also to perform to a certain level.
And we've seen this, and we're like, this actually isn't coming from us.
And we're kind of like, where is this coming from?
Is it internalized?
Is it pure?
Is it just cultural expectation that you'll achieve a certain thing or check a certain box?
Where do you think this is coming from these days?
So when we see it in kids, and the data show us that it's more likely to be girls than boys, but there's plenty of boys who are plenty perfectionistic.
There's a few things at work.
One is it's working for them.
That they are very, very conscientious, and it's often around school, very conscientious students.
They're turning in beautiful work.
The teachers are like, this is amazing.
You're amazing.
Their parents are like, I love your grades.
This is fantastic.
And so we can't be too shocked when kids are like, well, this seems to be keeping everybody happy.
Like I'm going to do more of it.
Right.
So I think some of it we unwittingly cultivate.
I think some of it is that we've gotten really high stakes about things.
You know, kids can feel like there's not enough. spots at the schools they want to go to.
They are worried about their future.
Their parents are worried about their future.
And so that can kind of cause this grinding perfectionism.
Those are the main culprits.
What I will say as someone who has cared for young people for 30 years, and a lot of teenage girls and a lot of perfectionistic teenage girls, the solution I have found and this works quite well is not to tell them to back off right, to take it down a few notches.
This makes them bananas.
Because what happens is they're like, are you kidding me?
Like I have been doing this all these years and you're telling me it's great, and now you're telling me to like reverse course.
Like, what is this?
Instead, once a kid has a great work ethic which perfectionists quickly get a great work ethic then you can say super.
The next step in your development as a student is to become strategic in the deployment of your efforts, to look across the work you have for a given evening, how much time you have to do it, how much sleep you deserve to get and think where can I phone it in, coast a little bit and keep the grades?
I want the mastery, I want the learning I want.
And where do I need to actually bring my A game and all my effort?
Do not deploy it indiscriminately.
Make choices.
I have two daughters, one who's about to be 22, one who's about to be 15.
I was practicing for a long time before they hit adolescence.
And so I started this early.
And it worked.
And I have to tell you I'm ambivalent about it, like sometimes, because I remember when my older daughter was a senior in high school she was like Mom, check it out.
I can get a 79 on my next physics test and still keep an A in the class.
And part of me was like, fantastic.
And part of me was like, are you kidding me?
Like, That's terrible.
But first of all, she wasn't going to become a physicist.
Second of all, she did keep her grade.
And third of all, that kid got decent sleep.
So I've turned around and done it with my second kid.
So it can be done, but you need to sort of bring about this idea earlier than we usually do that efficiency is a value unto itself.
Yeah, I love that.
Karen and Cindy, do you have questions about this particular one or thoughts?
I love what you're saying.
And I think you're absolutely right.
But it feels like that they may not have that.
Kids may not have the ability to be the strategic that you're saying right.
So they look at, oh, okay, what your daughter said, that's great.
You can still keep your A. But sometimes...
In my experience and I'm probably talking more about me than my child really, but I will be like you know, that just seems hard.
So I'm not going to, I'm going to be less than perfect in that thing that's hard.
And how do you get kids to really understand that?
Sometimes you have to rise to a challenge because that's where growth is and that's where everything is, as opposed to giving up too early and using perfectionism kind of as the excuse, right.
I don't want to be a perfectionist.
How do you help kids navigate that?
Okay, there's so much to say here.
I'm so glad we're all talking together.
First of all, there's a metaphor I bring across in the emotional lives of teenagers about school.
I love metaphors.
And to me, school is like a buffet where kids are required to eat everything on the buffet.
You know how as adults, like we go get what we like and we bring it back and we eat that.
With kids, we're like, you got to try all of it.
You got to eat all of it.
They do not like all of it any more than anybody else likes all of it.
And so I think there is value in saying okay.
So let's say that like, beets are a highly polarizing vegetable.
So let's go with beets, right?
Like some people love them.
Some people hate them.
Okay, let's say your kid hates beets.
And let's say that to them, like math is like beets. right?
There's no problem with saying to them, look, I get it.
You would not put this on your plate left to your own devices.
You have to put it on your plate.
Let's figure out how much of it you have to eat, to How hard you have for you to get the grade that we all think is a reasonable one, or for you to get the level of mastery you need to go on to the next level.
But to move away from the idea that you have to eat it all, love it all, pretend like you like it all.
Eat as much as you can.
I think that metaphor offers some nice ways of talking with kids.
The other thing I will say, my kids are white.
My kids can get away with phoning it in sometimes without the teacher questioning, are you smart?
Are you serious?
And so, as much as this advice worked well in my home, I am not going to say everyone can use this and get the same outcomes.
They will be discriminated against.
Like, I know that happens.
So what advice would you give based on that?
Because you're right, absolutely right.
Like how do you get a kid who is aware of that, because their parents have made them aware of that right?
And not have them spiral into self recrimination because they're not being perfect all the time.
So, okay, so we've got two, at least two layers operating here.
So one is the kids ambitions for themselves academically and the kids interests, right?
What foods they like, what foods they don't.
And also like the kids, how much time they have a day, right?
I mean, the big limiting factor here is the clock, right?
The problem with being... you know, perfect on everything is like, that's great.
You will never sleep again.
Right.
There really is, you know, this sort of the bully of like the kids need to go to bed.
So, that I think is one factor.
Okay, then 14 factors, right?
Then let's layer over all of the complexity of you know, the rules are not applied evenly to everyone.
And, you know, some kids can get away with stuff in school that other kids cannot.
Now, I know nothing about what it means to raise a child of color.
I do not have that lived experience.
I do believe that families who have that lived experience have a lot of information they can share with their kids about how to be tactical in a discriminatory world.
Like how to sort of think about it.
You know which teachers can you afford to actually say like you know what your class is really not my cup of tea.
So I'm gonna do what I can do, but I'm not gonna, you know, knock myself out.
And teachers will be like, I get it.
Fantastic.
You're so smart.
That's really tactical.
And which teachers do you have to play the game for if you got to play the game, right?
And I don't love the idea that there's a game to be played.
I think there's value with kids and talking openly about that.
Because the alternative is way worse.
And the alternative is to suggest that good earnest, well behaved children fail, love all the work and want to do it all the time for everyone.
And that is not true.
And I don't think it helps kids to operate in that fake environment.
I see the perfectionism thing show up with my younger son, who's now 19.
But it's been a sort of a theme throughout his life that he'll set these really big lofty goals.
And then quickly it turns into overwhelm or urgency.
And then he just can't figure out how to regulate himself within that.
And so he sort of backs off from all of it and then falls into the berating pattern.
So it's almost like he doesn't go too far into I'm going to be perfect.
It doesn't...
He'll set goals to maybe run a marathon, and then for two weeks he'll do the training and then he'll miss it one day and then it's all over.
And then he's like, I'm not good enough.
I don't have the skill set or the executive functioning to do this.
So that's a struggle we've had.
That is a struggle.
There's a really good book.
I'm trying to remember.
James Clear is the author.
It's a huge book.
Oh, Atomic Habits.
Atomic Habits.
Super smart book.
Super smart book.
And it is a great example of where somebody outside of psychology does a way better job of explaining what we know than people within psychology.
And it's a really smart book.
And it talks about how you do things like I want to run a marathon, and how you make that happen and how you deal with it when you don't.
Mm-hmm.
But we do know some things about how to get behaviors to come about.
So that might be a book that he would enjoy and that he would find edifying for himself.
Yeah.
Okay.
Thanks.
And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors.
Let's talk about that number four, true or false.
Distress is always bad.
I think as a parent, we look at our kids and when they experience distress, we look at that as suffering.
And we don't want our kids to suffer.
I think a deeper question often is is it really that we don't want our kids to suffer, or do we not want to suffer vicariously through their suffering?
What is worse?
Tease us out a little bit, right?
Okay.
No, you are dead on, right?
Okay.
Here's the problem.
I think it is the most universal and natural thing.
If your kid is suffering, you want it to stop because it is painful.
It is painful to watch.
And I remember I was acquainting myself with this when my girls were little and they would get those like really like crummy colds.
And I remember looking at them like they're like blowing their nose and they're coughing.
And I remember thinking, I would so much rather have your cold than watch you have your cold, right?
Of course, apparently you do have your cold, but like...
I remember thinking like, that's so interesting.
Like my whole life, I've never looked at another human being and thought I would like to have your illness in your place, right.
Like only my children, only my children, not even my sweet husband.
I'm like, you go sleep in the guest room.
Like I don't want to be anywhere near you, right?
So I think there's something so probably evolutionarily driven and valuable and good and honest and real where, if our kid is suffering, we want it to stop right.
And it makes us suffer to watch it.
So I think you're totally right.
Like we want it to stop so that we don't suffer.
Okay, but that's not helpful.
So here's why it's not helpful.
Distress is good for kids.
And that is such a hard idea to wrap our head around.
And of course, there are limits on this.
But in the day in, day out, distress is actually I know this sounds strange a positive, and I'm going to tell you why.
Okay, number one distress is usually the right feeling at the right time if your kid gets their heart broken and they are not in pain, or if, like their you know person they love dumps them and they're like yeah, whatever.
I don't care.
Okay.
That's weird.
The distress is proof that they work as they should.
If your kid has a giant test coming and they have not started studying, they should be anxious, right?
That is what anxiety is for.
If they are like, whatever, it's cool.
No, something's wrong, right?
So distress is best thought of as like emotional pain in the way we think of physical pain.
Like nobody likes it.
Physical pain has a job to do.
It's like hey hey, something's not right, you need to stop running on this knee or you need to go see a doctor, right?
Like, you know, you need to get your hand off the burner, right?
Like, emotional pain is the same thing.
You know, within limits, it tells us something's wrong, or it's the right reaction.
So that's one reason.
Distress helps kids grow.
Kids...
Kids grow when they're unhappy.
They're like, I hate how I did on that test.
I'm going to study harder.
I hate how this friend treats me.
I'm not going to hang out with them anymore.
There's that value.
It's informational.
Keeps kids from making the same mistakes twice.
There's so much value in distress.
So a huge I think probably the hardest job in all of parenting is to make room for kids to be upset and not overreact, not jump in, not scare them with our own strong response to it.
Focus instead on coping.
It's very funny.
I'll be 55 very soon.
And I was like, I've been a psychologist for like, I got my PhD at 26.
So like, I've like done this, like most of my life for a lot by at this point.
And I've kind of getting to like that kind of mid to late career place where it's like it's all getting simple.
It's all getting clear.
I'm like, it's all coping.
The distress is a done deal.
It's how they cope.
That is all that matters.
Are they going to smoke weed?
Are they going to go for a run?
That's basically all it comes down to.
Can I ask a question about that?
Yeah.
I think what I struggle with, and my daughter's 21 is – and I've been struggling with this probably since she started college right a few years ago – is understanding – how to let her do what she's got to do then not rush into fix right.
Like I think I've always said that college has been the hardest season of parenting for me, because it's been about how do I like?
When do you shut up?
And when is it actually time to say no, I've got to say something.
So, like, let's go with heartbreak or any of those other things.
Like, sometimes if she's telling me that something has happened, I can feel myself...
Wanting to advise, trying to figure out what is the balance between advice and just shutting up and listening, and when is shutting up and listening fair?
Feel like I'm not engaged enough right.
So what kind of advice do you give to parents about what you said, giving them that space, which I think is absolutely important?
I've always said, I'm not here to raise a child, I'm here to raise an adult, right?
So you want to give her that space, but also not let her feel...
Right.
A hundred percent.
But it's like exactly the tension we want to sit in.
Like you want to be present, but you don't want to be too present, but you don't want to be absent.
I think you know when a kid's upset, if they're bringing it to us number one.
Just listen listen, listen.
Make it clear you're listening.
Part of how we make it clear you're listening.
I play this game.
I call it my editor game, where I pretend like I'm an editor and they're my reporter and they're reading me the article of their distress.
And my job is to come up with a headline when they're done telling me about it.
So to say like, it sounds like, you know, fill in the blank.
That is hugely powerful.
They're usually like, okay, thank you.
You are really with me.
So you're engaged, but you're still not doing anything, right?
Then empathy.
Honey, this stinks.
I am so sorry.
Of course you are upset.
Empathy is an incredible level of engagement.
It is wildly powerful. we blow right past it, mostly that's what teenagers want.
Like, okay, I'm not crazy.
Like, I should be this upset.
Like, my heart just got broken, right?
Like, of course.
Then if they still, you know, if you feel like there's more to be done, you can say like what?
How can you help yourself feel better?
What's going to work for you?
Right.
And talk about coping, you know.
Do you want me to send you your favorite cookies from the store down the street?
What's helping you feel better?
You can say, I have some ideas.
Do you want to hear them?
I think that's really important before you jump in with advice.
So there's all of that, you know, you can kind of work your way towards advice giving.
If you want to like a short version of that, when a kid is just like blah, you can say do you want my help?
Or do you just need to vent?
I've done something similar.
Like the most recent one was she was venting to me and I said to her I said do you want me to be your friend or you want me to be your mom?
Right.
Right.
And she was like, I know what you're going to say as mom.
And I'm like, well, you may not, but I'm happy to not be mom here.
Like I can just be your friend and just listen to you.
You know, sometimes I have to come in.
I'm like okay, I gotta be your mom.
Sorry.
But, but most of the time, that's sort of worked.
It's sort of like, what do you need here?
Do you want me to be a friend or your mom?
And I can do either one.
Yeah.
I love that.
And in the same vein, what if it feels like it's going too far?
As a mom, it's been a pattern throughout one of my kids' life where...
I literally am that vessel for his emotional regulation.
And so now that he's at college, this is my one child that will call or text every day.
And it's almost like I need to help fix the discomfort in which he's going through.
So what tools would you say could sort of put him back in his body and let him know that he can trust himself to work through this?
He doesn't always need to vomit it, you know?
Yeah Well, and it's such a tricky thing with cell phones, right?
Because when we were in college, even if you wanted to call your folks, you kind of couldn't, right?
So you were forced to become autonomous in the management of things.
And, you know, I've got a kid in college, like, I miss her.
I love her.
She reaches out.
I want to be there, right?
I mean, it's such an easy slope to go down.
So one thing you could do is you could first, and this is hard, not respond all that fast.
Right.
I mean like you can just give a little room and kind of make it a little more old school and that like well, he's got to go figure something else out because you're not right there immediately available.
Like, I am sure I had I want my mom feelings all the time in college.
I just couldn't do anything about it.
And so I had to do something else.
So there's that.
The other thing I will say is, as psychologists, the way we think about managing discomfort.
It's what I'm saying.
It's all about coping.
It's all about coping.
For us, it's actually a two-category event.
Either you manage discomfort by expressing, talking about sharing, reaching out to a loving person and telling them all about it.
Or you manage distress by taming, bringing it back down to size, quieting the discomfort.
As far as psychologists are concerned, these are both equally important and valuable and useful.
The culture has tipped very heavily towards discussing, right?
If you have a feeling you need to talk about it.
Tell your parent you know the parent needs to ask about it.
No, I can see you're tight.
You're quiet, upset.
What's wrong?
Tell me.
Okay, that's not actually the end all be all.
And sometimes it exacerbates it.
It leads to rumination where you're just going round and round and round.
So the goal is to be like okay, if expressing is helping, if calling and dumping, and then you can carry on and you're in a great place.
Okay, fine.
If the more you talk about it, the worse you feel it's actually time to say okay, what's going to help you bring this down to size.
Do you want to go for a run?
Do you want to play a video game for 20 minutes to get your mind off of this, right?
Distraction is fine if it's a way to actually change a mental channel off of a channel that's not working.
Do you want to go take a long shower?
Do you want to go out with your friends to your favorite fast food that you just love?
Right?
We don't treat comforts and distractions as good coping.
They are totally good coping within limits.
And we think all good coping happens in talking about feelings.
I love that.
Yeah, I mean, that's so interesting also, right?
Because I think we've heard I've probably uttered the words.
You've got to learn how to talk about this.
When hard things happen, you have to learn how to express what's happening.
It's like, huh.
Well, maybe that's helped me.
Okay.
But I also, I go for like a hike in the mountains.
I go do art.
I go do other things.
And maybe, like we're just different, people are wired in different ways where, or even the same person at different moments.
And rather than saying no, like the only the healthiest, like the number one way to deal with this is you've got to learn to talk about it.
Well, maybe that's one option on the menu, but there are other options that are equally useful.
Big menu, big menu.
Yeah.
And I think, so my book, The Emotional Lives of Teenagers has five chapters.
And the last two are coping.
And the fourth chapter is coping by expressing.
And the fifth chapter is coping by taming.
And like the entire chapter are like you can also do this.
You can also do this.
You can also do this.
Ethan Cross has a wonderful book called Shift.
He's a psychologist and he writes about like.
I mean he's entirely in the like.
Stop talking about it.
Stop looking at it, right.
And I reference his work in my book.
He has this great strategy, which you can only use every once in a while, where you say to a kid How do you think you're going to feel about this in a year?
And he has shown in his lab that like as soon as you mentally project yourself forward, you're like oh yeah, it's not gonna be that big a deal.
And you instantly feel better, right?
So that's like, shut it down.
Don't live there.
Yeah, wise words for people of any age.
Yeah, it's great advice.
Let's get back into that fifth true or false here before we just open it up for more questions.
You can be both emotional and strong.
And again, here's one of these tropes where we've heard...
Oh, you're so emotional.
And I wonder if this is gender to a certain extent also, or if gender plays into this.
And that this notion that being a strong person is the opposite is in some way negated by being really emotional too.
You say no.
No.
Okay, so I do think that people equate emotionality and fragility.
And I think that's wrong, right?
I mean, you can be a very emotional person who's not that fragile at all.
And so that's why I'm like, nope, these are not the same things.
Where we've really gotten hung up lately is...
People have come to a place of misunderstanding what mental health is.
And the belief that is widely circulating across all ages and is totally wrong is that you're mentally healthy when you feel good and when you're calm and relaxed and you're unemotional right.
That that's what mental health is.
That is not mental health.
Mental health is having feelings that fit what's happening and then handling those feelings well.
So I think that part of how we got ourselves to this idea that emotionality is bad is we're working with this premise that mental health is ease and calm and being low-key.
And that's a misguided premise.
And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors.
I think already I have so many good ideas and so many answers to questions, but I want to open it up now.
I've shared some questions.
We also have some questions that were submitted in advance by some of our listening community.
Karen and Cindy, I'd love to know.
I know you've been thinking about some things to ask also.
Why don't we tee those up now?
Is either one of you interested in kicking us off with those?
I could start.
Yeah, I'm curious.
I have two boys.
They're both college age now, and they're one year apart in school, just 18 months apart.
And they come home frequently for break you know holiday breaks and then came home over last summer.
And it's interesting, right when the house is so quiet and then it all of a sudden in all due respect it sort of feels disrupted.
Yeah.
When you have this, like...
They really are adult men coming back into the home.
And I'm curious, I didn't really do it that well this last summer.
And looking forward...
I'm wondering if I should set more boundaries.
They go out whenever they want.
They'll sleep till four o'clock if they want.
And there's kind of a lot of triggering things that I observe.
And so I'm sort of struggling with that and also wanting to honor that it's a short period that I get to have with them.
So I don't want to nag at them either.
Yeah.
No, this is a good one.
And I'm with you.
I have a daughter who's a senior in college, and it's like, yay, she'll be home for a month.
And then you're like, oh, how do we do this?
How do we actually do this?
Yeah.
Um, I think so I'm actually gonna speak more from like just personal experience, like how like sort of trying to navigate this as a parent myself.
I think there's a lot of value in just naturalizing the idea that like, this is hard.
Right, like that we've never done this phase of living together as a family before.
The rules from the past don't actually make the same sense now.
You are adults, you're used to a fair bit of autonomy.
We want you to feel like you can come home, but we also don't really know what this looks like.
We have to figure this out together.
Right.
I think that there's a lot of value in just making it a shared conversation.
I think there are also some things that you can absolutely ask, right?
That when kids are home... they return to being a member of the organization that is the family.
And they need to act like a member of that organization.
I think there's a couple days, maybe after finals, where if they want to eat Doritos and stay up all night, that's fine.
I'm not saying they have to walk in the house and start doing dishes.
I think we all know where that line is.
But then I think you can say, okay, so running a household is a big job.
And now that you're here, it's a bigger job.
And so we have, you know, things that we all need to contribute to make this household run, especially when you're home.
And just that's a matter of fact reality, right?
That we're trying to run an organization and everybody has to be part of it.
I think the other thing are like basic courtesies, right?
So you know, one of the conversations we had to have is like I don't know if I'm supposed to make dinner for you or not.
I don't know if you're joining us for dinner or not and so then just you know coming to some agreement about how that's going to be handled and I said unless you tell me you're joining us for dinner I'm assuming you're not and we did that We ended up giving her a drawer in the fridge for the stuff that she wanted that she didn't want us touching.
And I didn't want her touching all my other stuff.
So it's a little bit like, how do we live together as roommates?
As opposed to parent and child, right?
And that there are courtesies roommates extend to each other.
And we need to establish what those are, now that you are giant adult person who's coming home eating my food and watching my television.
Yes yes, thank you.
Does that work for you?
It's absolutely helpful.
And I'm thinking of just how it will go this summer if one or both of them live at home again this summer.
And I think setting that up in advance and, um, Having their buy-in with it, too.
Like, oh, I get it.
Like, understanding where I'm coming from.
Yeah.
Because when you brought up the dinner example, exactly.
Like, they're like, yeah, I'll be home for dinner.
And then I make dinner for four.
And then...
Nobody's here.
Yeah.
And you're like, what do I do with all this food?
Yeah.
And it's, yeah.
So, but it is helpful.
Yeah.
Thank you.
And I'm thinking through the, like the roommate example.
I could also see, because you said like sleep till four o'clock in the afternoon, right?
Okay.
Well, their roommate would happen.
They really, they have.
And I'm like, Do I impose on his self-care?
He's not working at his job till six o'clock.
So what I wonder is you know, if I had a kid who was doing that, I think I'd be like all right, here are the things I need you to do this week or today, right?
The lawn, the garbage, whatever.
I'm going to leave you the list.
I don't care when you get them done.
I just need to know they're going to get done.
I think that's how we would interact with a roommate.
You have this chore chart.
I have this chore chart.
But roommates don't supervise when the roommate does the thing.
And so I wonder, you know, if he wants to sleep till four and he's got a job that starts at six like okay, but you shouldn't be sitting there thinking okay, but is the lawn going to get mowed or not?
Yeah, exactly.
It creates a little bit of agitation, you know.
And then there's a tension that I don't really necessarily want, because they are great kids all in all, but they're just growing up, they're maturing, they're learning what works and what doesn't.
So yeah, it's a fine line.
Yeah.
I wonder if sometimes, in moments like that too, we get kind of like well, you know, it's just not appropriate for somebody who's now a young adult to sleep away the day.
We create this value judgment about the appropriate...
When we were kids, we weren't allowed to do that.
We got up, we went to our part-time job, we did all this.
And then we're passing these almost moral judgments on the appropriate way for them to spend their time now.
And it's not even connected to like.
Are you doing, are you contributing to the work around the house?
You're like, are you meeting the agreements that we all came to?
It's just, we kind of look at it.
We're like, I just, you're just kind of wasting your time.
Like, is there something?
And I'm not saying you're doing this, Sandy.
I'm just-
Oh, no, I feel that.
Theoretically, right?
And so I wonder if that's part of it.
Right.
Is it okay for you to live like that?
You know.
So one of the things I always try to maintain a really clear grip on as hard as it is is I think it's basically impossible for parents to have an overall understanding of their kids functioning.
Right.
That when kids are at home, they regress.
When we're around our parents, we all regress.
Regress around my parents who are in their 80s, right?
And often kids are more emotional at home and often kids are more self-indulgent at home.
And I think we have to be really careful.
And this is true across all ages, right?
This isn't just college kids.
You know, the second they walk in the door, that doesn't mean they spent the day like that.
It actually means that they held it together all day because they could come home and do that.
And so I think part of what we always have to manage is, okay, this is the slice I see.
How faithfully does it represent my kids' overall functioning?
I think we need to give a little room for that.
Yeah.
Yeah, that lent.
Yeah.
Karen.
Yes.
What you got?
Um, she is, she has mentioned law school, potentially.
She has mentioned doing like a Peace Corps time, um, She has mentioned getting a job in her major.
She's a communications major.
And she has mentioned becoming a full-time musician because she's been playing music since she was nine years old.
And she's been a guitarist.
And unlike my parents, which would be like no, you're going to graduate and get into your major and get a job right.
I'm here for it.
I'm here for whatever she chooses to do, right?
What I wonder with myself is...
How I can help her discern.
And, you know, because I truly don't have much of a...
I don't really care that much.
The one thing I will say that my husband's English and she has a British passport, you know, because she's his daughter.
And we split our time in England.
And so the one thing I have said is, if you do pursue...
A full time musicianship, maybe consider doing it in England, just because in America you might be one illness away from complete financial ruin and you can be sick in England, right.
So so that's the only thing and I've you know.
I said if you're here in the US you might want to get a job that has health insurance, but that's it.
But I'm also like, I know she's really kind of struggling with it.
And I know she's feeling a little bit like, why don't I know exactly what I want to do?
Right?
Like, she's putting that on herself.
And I'm wondering how do I help her discern that, while also being very mindful that she may take on what I'm saying and imbue it with a certain meaning?
Oh, mom expects me to do this or anything.
And I don't want to do that.
So what is the best way that you can do that?
So how cool, right, that she's got two countries to think through in terms of options.
I mean, that really is neat.
But it's also, I think, a bit overwhelming for her as well.
Like, I think that adds to some of her overwhelm.
Yeah.
So one thing I think that can help is for her to understand more about most people's first jobs out of college.
I think that there's sort of this view that then you get on this very straight path to whatever you're doing next.
Whereas, if you like, survey your neighbors right and their first jobs out of college.
Not a lot of people can tell you about this like clean path from the first thing they did to what they ultimately did.
You know that it's often sort of meandering and wonderful.
And I think that there's value in kids knowing that it's a particular time of life where you're very untethered.
You've got a lot of options.
You can exercise them.
It doesn't really have to attach to anything or mean anything to take that pressure down a few notches.
The other thing I wonder and it's interesting because she's got so many options she could pursue, which in theory is great, but actually I think probably makes it harder when kids are like I'm going to medical school, right.
Like at least they can just like follow the line.
Even though it's stressful, they know what line they're following.
I do wonder if part of how you could guide her would be to say you've got a lot of irons that could be in the fire.
Why don't you try a bunch of them and see what you like in terms of the options that come back?
None of these are guaranteed.
And so you know, is there a way for you to apply for a little bit of this and apply for a little bit of that?
And then when you get closer to graduation time, like what has come to fruition?
What is appealing to you?
And then you make some choices from the options that have made themselves available to you, as opposed to like you know.
You got to decide and you got to go all in on one.
Doesn't sound like she's there.
Like, it sounds like her interests are still pretty diffuse.
And I think that the way you can be most helpful is to be like oh, you don't have to choose the right one.
There's not a right one.
There's a what are you going to do after college?
And then what are you going to do after that?
Yeah, thank you.
That's helpful.
I've definitely told her to take some of the pressure off herself, right?
And be like you are at an age right now, at 21, without a spouse, without children, without anything.
You have all the freedom in the world, right.
To look at some of that.
What I don't think I've done well which I think this is helpful is like just apply and see what happens, right.
Like, I don't think I've done that with her yet.
And I think that's really, I think that's really, really helpful.
I'll probably get on the phone with her as soon as we get off of this.
Yeah.
I've seen so many people change jobs and have so many people who have gone into a job like they've gotten the golden ring and they do all the things, they check all the boxes, and then they get to that place and they're like I don't feel the way I want to feel.
So I'm raising my hand here also.
So then they're like I think I need to ask the questions around the experiments that maybe it would have been more helpful to run in my twenties.
So I've, Like, to me, I view this as a moment of fertile experimentation.
I'm like, don't try and get a job and don't try and figure out what your career path is.
Just run a whole bunch of experiments to figure out who you are and what makes you come alive.
And once you get a beat on that, then you'll start to see all sorts of different potential outlets for it.
Ways that you can either create something or step into something or participate in something.
But unless and until you actually have any sense of of the intersection between who you are and how you might contribute to the world in a way that feels really nourishing to you.
If you get something that feels really well aligned, it's just kind of luck.
But that feels really, really uncomfortable, also for a young adult, when they're friends, are all tracking in something and it feels like I'm gonna get left behind, because they're all two years into this thing now or they're like building their career now and I'm just running these experiments.
So there's a weird potential to say like oh, and it's kind of hard to say to a kid in their 20s, you know, but you all revisit the same feeling when you're 45.
And see if you still feel behind that.
You know, it's a weird conversation.
What's your take on that, Lisa?
Yeah.
Well, I love your phrasing running an experiment because the nice thing about an experiment is you get data, no matter what.
Whether the experiment works or doesn't, you learn.
And I think part of what we can help young people to realize is any job you take, you're going to learn things that you get to keep.
I think they think like if the job isn't the thing I go into, that's lost time.
That's not true.
If you have a job and you're like okay, I thought I was interested in this career, but it turns out I looked at everybody around and I was like I don't want any of your jobs, but I do that one person's job.
I want their job.
So now I'm shifting gears to get their job.
Right.
Like there's always data to be collected.
And even you know.
It's clear Jonathan, both you and Karen, from what you're indicating, changed gears.
But it's not like you started from scratch.
When you shifted careers, you brought a knowledge base that was useful to you.
And I don't know that young people know that you get to do that.
Yeah, you know, it's funny that you say that.
I actually was talking to her about it.
I said you know, I feel like I'm about to teach you the third big lesson, and maybe the last big lesson that i have to teach you.
I mean, when you were little, the first thing i said was that i need you to work hard right, like you don't have to be the brightest or the smartest or the greatest, you know, have the best grades, but i need you to work hard.
And then the second lesson was be kind right, not just to your friends, but to your teachers, to everybody else, and if you work hard and be kind, that combination will get you almost everywhere.
And so what I did tell her recently.
I said okay, so here's the third lesson is be strategic, right.
That everything that you've done.
You went to art school.
You're now in communications, you're a musician.
Like everything you've done is an arrow in your quiver.
And so whatever you choose to do, Be strategic about it.
So maybe you get a job in communications in the music industry while you're gigging on the weekends, or maybe you go all in on music, but you're going to come to England so that you've got health insurance.
And also maybe you learn about how to use communications as part of your career, your job in, in promoting yourself as a musician.
So that's the other that is one thing that I have said is that you need to be strategic about it.
I think where I was struggling was like, how do I help her be strategic?
Which is I think both you and Jonathan have really said it like run some experiments, right?
Apply for things.
And I think that's, that's exactly right.
I'm learning so much.
This is great.
I love those lessons.
I think I'm going to bring it home for us today with a question from a listener.
So I'll read this for you.
My son isn't a big share of his feelings or what is happening in his life.
I want to be a bigger part of his life and feel more emotionally connected.
When I ask a personal question, I often get a one or two word answer.
Okay, so here's what I think.
I think we have our scripts for what it means to connect with our kids.
And I think the usual script of the middle-aged person is I ask you a heartfelt question about something going on that's important in your life or personal, and you tell me an answer and then ta-da, we have connected.
I don't think that's most kids' script.
What I hear from kids is they can feel profoundly connected to their parent or their caregiver if, when in the car the caregiver turns over, the parent turns over the music and says play for me what you're interested in right now.
I want to hear it.
And then you're interested and you're curious and you're listening.
When the kid is watching a show, you come in and like, can I join you?
And you watch the show and you don't make any annoying commentary, but you just want to be in their presence.
Wait, is that possible?
I was about to say, I'm like, yeah.
Yeah, you're going to strain some muscles, but it can be done.
What kids tell me is the times they feel most.
Not all kids, but a lot of kids going on a walk with a dog, in silence, through the wood with a parent.
Kids love when adults will offer their agenda-less presence.
Kids like to be around us.
They do not always like the agendas.
They do not always like the questions.
Kids love it when they're doing their homework and the adult says you know what?
I got all these nasty emails I gotta deal with not nasty, but like just annoying emails I gotta deal with.
Can I sit here and work on my computer while you work?
I just could use the company.
So I think the challenge is to set aside our vision of what connection looks like and move towards a vision that is more agenda-less presence, quiet company.
I will tell you as a bonus that often is when kids open up, but it's got to be under their own steam.
But do not discount the value to your kid of my parent will spend time with me with no agenda at all.
Wow.
Yeah, I mean, super powerful.
And I think we probably all had those moments where we're just present with our kid and like parallel playing.
And all of a sudden, 20 minutes into that moment, something emerges, you know, because you are just there without expectation, and they feel like oh, I'm ready to share now.
Yeah.
We'll do it on my time.
I'll call the meeting when I'm ready.
I will set the agenda when I'm ready.
That's how teenagers are.
But I also have to tell you I had a girl tell me her favorite favorite, favorite thing in the whole world is that she and her dad both love science podcasts.
And when they are driving somewhere, they have a game where someone gets to choose the podcast and the other person gets to choose the episode of the podcast.
And they listen to the episode together in the car.
And that for her is profound connection.
And she loves it.
Yeah, so it doesn't have to also be like waiting for them to finally say something.
It's just shared activity, shared presence.
Yeah, and stop layering our definition of what connected is onto them and set that as an expectation for them.
I love that.
Lisa, thank you so much.
I have loved this conversation.
Cindy and Karen, thank you so much.
Lisa, we always wrap up with one question here as we come full circle.
And that is in this container of Good Life Project.
If I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up?
Is to be of use.
Thank you.
Thank you for having me.
This has been such a fun conversation.
And I learned so much.
I really did.
This episode of Good Life Project was produced by executive producers Lindsay Fox and me, Jonathan Fields.
Editing help by Alejandro Ramirez and Troy Young.
Christopher Carter crafted our theme music.
And, of course, if you haven't already done so, please go ahead and follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app or on YouTube too.
I'll see you next time.
Then invite them to talk with you about what you've both discovered, to reconnect and explore ideas that really matter, because that's how we all come alive together.
Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields signing off for Good Life Project.
