Are the kids alright? Part 2

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Do you feel that way? Ideas worth spreading from TED and npr. I'm Minouche Zumarodi. On a hot summer day on the National MALL In Washington, D.C. we asked teenagers from all over the U.S. miami.

Florida, Illinois, Texas, New Orleans, Louisiana, what.

Is stressing them out these days. Their worries ran the gamut from school stuff.

I have friends that are taking AP classes and I'm just barely making buy in honors when I have a ton of homework and a test the next day I don't get very much sleep.

To climate change.

Sea level's gonna keep rising and it's gonna keep getting hotter.

Their financial future bills re.

Insurance.

I'm afraid of all those things. Plus just trying to fit in online and off.

Like how many people look at my post, comment on my post, or if other people repost me.

If you play sports, you have to worry about sports.

That's what I have to worry about most of the time.

But the teens also told us about how they're coping with all these concerns, new discoveries that they've made, and what they're looking forward to.

I mean, personally, I like to go outside. I mean, I love riding my bike with my dad. You know, I love going fishing. One time in school they just had us get on a coding website and I loved it and I did amazing at it.

Now that I'm older, I'm kind of really not really on social media a lot.

I'm also excited to see what I can accomplish after, like graduating college and like seeing where life can take me and how I can find like joy in my job.

Because yes, being a teenager today is as wonderful and as confusing as it's ever been.

My favorite part about being 13 is like, I'm finally like a teen now and so I have more responsibilities. But my least favorite part is I have more responsibilities.

So like you just heard from Timothy McNamas Azita Vizale, Kayden Sims, Michelle Munoz, Malaya Williams, John Del Martin, Avery Naylor and Olivia Elnian. So what is different for teens today?

Today's teenagers are so much more aware of the world around them. What's happening politically, what's happening socially.

This is adolescent psychologist Lisa d'. Amore.

They are ready to push back. They make great arguments, I think sometimes far more than adults wish they were doing. And so, you know, I think that the key here is that always, always teenagers live up to expectations and down to them. And so if we talk about teenagers as a group as fragile or lazy or, you know, totally at the mercy of their phones, well, then we're going to not do them justice and we're probably going to see more of that.

So how do we do teens justice? How do we help them navigate modern day dilemmas and still just be kids? We hear so much about a teen mental health crisis. The latest government report says 15% of teens had a major depressive episode last year. That's a troubling number, but it's also down from pandemic highs. So are the kids all right for part two of our series? That is what we're asking. And today we're spending the hour with psychologist and teen expert Lisa Damore. She is out with an updated edition of her mega bestselling guide to teens Untangled. And she has sharp, hopeful insights on supporting young people. Whether you're a parent, have a teen in your life, or you're a teen yourself, you are an icon in many of the groups that I run with people who are trying to do a decent job raising their kids without driving each other crazy. You've written multiple bestselling books on teen psychology. How did this become your area of expertise?

Well, I like teenagers and I find them fascinating. And not everybody likes teenagers, so I think that was the first thing that happened. Another thing, Minouche. I got my degree relatively young and so I had my PhD at age 27. This is actually almost 30 years ago now. And I started practicing and frankly, I looked really young. And I started getting calls almost always from moms saying, I have a teenager and I understand you look young, so I think she will talk to you. And so I ended up getting a lot of teenagers in my practice. I think in part because parents assumed they were going to be more forthcoming with me.

Huh.

Were they right?

I don't know. I think frankly, if you love teenagers, they can smell that at a thousand yards and you could be 80 years old and they will open up to you. Teenagers can readily detect who loves and respects them. And that is actually what makes for a good working clinical relationship, or frankly, a good working relationship with teenagers.

So you've been talking to teenagers for a heck of a long time now, as you said, 30 years. Has your job changed or would you say that the fundamentals have remained the same? Obviously you've changed, you've learned a ton.

And I've raised two teenagers in that process as well. I would say in many ways the fundamentals remain the same. I wrote the book Untangled, which came out originally in 2016, and I would say even though the book centers on girls, it applies to all teenagers. I lay out the seven tasks of being a teenager in that book. These are the seven that I came up with. Kids still need to part with childhood, join a new pack, harness emotions, contend with adult authority, plan for the future, enter the romantic world and come to care for themselves. That hasn't changed. That said, the world around teenagers has changed quite a bit. And teenagers have gone through things that previous generations had not, like a global pandemic. And teenagers parents are more anxious than I have ever seen them. So those forces shape adolescence. Though I do remain convinced that adolescence as a phase doesn't change that much over time.

I'm curious about these anxious parents. I mean, that's me you're talking about, to be honest. And I think back to, you know, when I was a teenager in the 90s, and it just feels like it was so easy. Is that what nostalgia looks like, you know, looking back with rose colored glasses, or was it so much easier?

I think it was easier. And I'll tell you what has come on the scene in a generation. You know, first of all, achievement pressures, what I did to get into college versus what I watched my older daughter do. Two completely different processes. Then there are things like worries about climate change, which teenagers tell us they think about, they're anxious about. There are concerns that teenagers talk very openly about, about gun violence, political polarization. And then of course, we have digital technology and social media and the ways in which those can really wear on kids or interfere with healthy development, interfere with things like sleep and hanging out with their friends, just having more downtime. Those forces come together to make being a teenager harder and to make raising a teenager harder.

So let's dive in a little bit more. Your first book, Untangled, became sort of a bible for people. It came out in 2016. I mean, it gets passed around to this day. Is that why you decided to update it? Tell me about that decision to put out a new edition with more information. What happened in that last decade?

Well, in 2016, we didn't have algorithmically driven social media. That's a big change.

I mean, we had Facebook and we had Twitter, but we did.

But they were much more of a faithful record of what the people you followed had just put up.

As opposed to now, where the algorithm gets to know you and starts to serve you things that it thinks will keep you glued to the screen.

Absolutely. And in fact, for all of us, a pretty small percentage of what we're looking at is by people we follow. So that's a big factor. Another thing that changed quite significantly is that we had the emergence of an adolescent mental health crisis and a lot of headlines about an adolescent mental health crisis. So we want to understand that better. We want to have ways to help families support their kids. And then there are things like the legalization of marijuana in many, many states. Teenagers are very aware of the laws around this. And so that changed. And, and then there were subtler things. When I first published the book, we took it as a given that if a girl was wearing a crop top, she was objectifying herself. And the conversations and the teenagers have really changed around this. A lot of girls will tell you, heck no. This is how I claim my power. Right. And we need to have more awareness of where kids are coming from on this and that the old conversations we used to have aren't going to work the way they used to.

So the first one you mentioned was the idea of social media being algorithmic. What are some of the things you're finding that the algorithm is surfacing for teens that is good or bad?

The algorithm is so good at knowing what we like that it can serve us image after image, reel after reel, video after video, and make it really hard to pull away. One way that I worry about the impact of the algorithm is even if what is being looked at is entirely delightful or neutral or benign, kids lose time. They don't mean to. They get frustrated with themselves sometimes or it keeps them up at night. So that's one factor. The other factor is that we know that the algorithm will put in front of kids content that is alarming or toxic or violent or hate based, whether or not that child has gone looking for it. And so without even looking for it, we have to be aware that kids will encounter content that we really would rather they not. And then if the algorithm senses any interest, if the kid lingers on it, likes it, you know, comments on it, then a huge amount of that content will come that young person's way. And that is, of course, very concerning because teenagers, more than little kids and more than adults, are vulnerable to shifts in norms, shifts in what they think everybody else is doing. And so when you and I are growing up, you know, we might see a magazine with a thin woman in it, you know, occasionally that's very different from seeing image after image after image of ultra thin or ultra fit. I would say, you know, this is not just girls. We have a lot of boys who are now aware are struggling with eating disorders from ultra fit imagery being put in front of them. If you see thousands of those, it's very easy for that to start to change your sense of how you're supposed to look, how you're supposed to treat your body.

In a minute, teen mental health and helping them understand the difference between a mental health diagnosis and regular good old fashioned feelings. More with teen psychologist Lisa d' Amore in part two of our series are the Kids all right? It's the TED RADIO Hour from npr. I'm Anoushe Zumarodi. And we'll be right back.

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It'S the TED Radio Hour from npr. I'm Minouche Zamorodi. Are the kids all right? That is what we are asking psychologist and teen expert Lisa Damore this hour. Lisa agrees that alongside higher rates of mental health problems, more teens are also talking more about their struggles and seeking out help. Like Hadley, a ninth grader from Illinois. We're just using her first name because she's talking about therapy. I would like to be a children's.

Therapist, help children deal with like, anxiety because I have struggled that ever since I started therapy myself. I just decided that's something I wanted to do.

But there are also some teens who are quick to put a label on their emotions. Let's talk about generational trauma or self diagnose.

Five signs that you could be neurodivergent.

Especially on social media.

Put a finger down. ADHD Edition. Put a finger down. We are in an era of what I would call the very elastic use of diagnostic terminology in full disclosure. Sometimes it makes me a little bit grumpy, right? You know, the heavy use of the word trauma. I'm like, okay, there's trauma, but there's also trauma, right? And we want to be really mindful that there are real meanings for these words. That said, any kid who's using that terminology is trying to tell us something. And so we should be curious.

Uh huh. As a parent of an 18 year old and a 15 year old, as you said before, there are so many things that could make both us adults and teens feel scared, feel worried, feel sad, and that it's almost like adults have overcorrected in some way.

And where we're getting hung up is that too many people of all ages are working with the assumption that being mentally healthy means feeling good and that then not feeling good means that you're not mentally healthy. Okay, that's not true. The way we think about this as psychologists is that being mentally healthy comes down to two things. First, having feelings that fit what is happening, right? So if you get dumped, you should feel really sad and you should feel hurt. And then second, and this is actually the critical measure, managing those feelings well, coping with them in a way that brings relief and does no harm. My work all the time is trying to help kids and their families actually be more accepting of distress. Right? They're going to have bad days. That's a done deal. Not to get too worried, that that's a sign that something's really wrong, and instead to ask the question, okay, but what does the kid do next? Do they have a good cry? Do they go for a run? Do they cuddle the dog? Right, like the long list of healthy coping? Or do they do one of the very few things that we worry about? Do they turn to substances? Do they take it out on other people? Do they take it out on themselves? Do they decide to avoid everything that has caused discomfort and narrow their lives? As long as we're not doing one of those four things, we're looking at health, even if the child is quite distressed.

Some people are advocating for taking away technology that if you remove the phones, that is going to remove some of the source of this distress because of constant peer pressure to perform on social media, the constant texting that takes kids away from homework and being outside and all of those things. Do you agree with that perspective? Can we blame the tech for an epidemic?

I would say that on balance, the consensus is that we don't have the data yet to make exactly that claim. That said, we have every reason to take it very seriously that social media and digital technology pose a risk to kids. And the reason I'm not saying we have to banish it is it's also how kids connect. It's also how they're part of their social groups. And taking it away, especially if they're at an age where most of their peers are on it, is not a costless decision. So when I think about the guardrails we need around digital technology and social media, one is it shouldn't get in the way of things that we know are good for healthy development. And I will put sleep at the top of that list. Kids having more mental health concerns around the time that phones came out. One question that many of us share on the clinical and research side is whether that's driven actually by sleep deprivation or sleep loss as a result of the technology. There's a different solution to that than saying, no technology at all. Don't have technology interfere with sleep, so sleep should not be undermined. The ability to focus on one schoolwork, which you mentioned, should not be undermined by technology. In person interactions should not be entirely displaced by technology or even largely displaced by technology. Helping out around the community, helping out around the house, like those things should very much be in place. So we don't want technology to interfere with what we know is good for kids. The other thing then that we want to keep an eye on is the content they engage. There's content online that is not developmentally appropriate. And we want them to be old enough to be skeptical, careful to put in front of adults anything that has made them uncomfortable and ask for help. So my view on it is it is absolutely a risk, and there are plenty of things parents can do to minimize that risk, while if they want to, continuing to make digital technology available to their kids in ways that have meaningful boundaries around it.

I think, as we've just demonstrated, it's a can of worms. You start talking about, you know, my daughter's on her phone too much. That turns into, and what is she looking at? And how is that, you know, disrupting her schoolwork and making her feel bad about herself. And wait, does she have adhd? Like, it just, you know, people spiral pretty fast in this conversation. What are those conversations like? And what do you tell parents and what do you tell teens?

So here's the really good news. We are not new to teenagers and risk. We've dealt with teenagers in drinking for years, teenagers in driving for years, teenagers in going to parties for years. Like, we know a lot about what makes a difference in terms of helping them stay safe and healthy. The first is rules that make sense to the kid, right? If they understand the rationale for the rule, we know from the research, they're much more likely to follow it. When I'm putting age limits for my kids around social media, I will say, look, just like you can't see every movie because of the content that's in some movies that are too mature for you or not appropriate at your age, Social media has content that isn't good for you. So we're going to wait until you're older because I don't want you to be exposed to that. So that's the first guardrail. The second guardrail is having a good working relationship with you. Because they might go to another kid's house and see something on social media that's alarming. And what you want is that they can come home and be like, I gotta talk to you about what I saw. So we never want to do anything that will fundamentally compromise our working relationship with our kid, because that's actually an important safety guardrail. And we can map this on to risks that we all grew up with and that, interestingly, like, we're much more comfortable with, like, drinking at parties because we remember doing it ourselves. You could say to a kid, look, I don't want you drinking at the party because there are a lot of variables at a party with a bunch of teenagers and a bunch of booze. And you're going to be much more safe if you have not been drinking. So it's a rule that you know with a rationale that makes sense to the kid. And then you also say, but if you feel unsafe either because you made a bad choice or your ride isn't sober or something is wrong, call me. I will take care of you and I will never make you sorry that you asked for my help.

In addition to the new risks that have come their way, seems to me to be a different relationship between kids and their parents. That, you know, the sort of top down, don't do it because I said don't do it just doesn't fly for a lot of families anymore.

You know, maybe past generations got away with saying, do it because I said so.

Mm.

But we don't even have to do that. We can say, do it because it's the right thing or do it because it's gonna keep you safe.

I'm allowed to get Instagram, I think, when I'm 16, and then, like, the rest of the stuff after I'm an adult.

Back at the National Mall, we heard some of these rules echoed by teens themselves. This is azita Vazail. She's 15 years old and from Connecticut.

Yeah, some of my friends, like, like, you know, got tick tock and then they found they were super, super addicted and they decided, like, to, you know, stay off, like, stay off of it because they found, like, their mental health was just not there. But I also think as I get older, I'm going to become more mature and be able to restrict myself in ways that I can't as a minor.

I'm not going to talk about her too much, but because I want to respect her privacy. But this, what seems to be inevitable tension between teenage girls and their moms. Some of the things that have been said to me, I really just wanna ground her. But you have said to me, actually what she's doing is normal and there's a way of maintaining being a civil human without turning it into World War iii.

Sure. Okay, so let's start with the premise. First of all, it's actually very hard to be a teenager. Their days are long and they spend a lot of their days with a lot of, I would say, both kids and adults whom they find annoying.

It's so true.

Like, we could not probably do their school days. And then they walk in the house and we say something that was completely reasonable and they say something back that is completely unreasonable or rude or nasty. And we just need to think about it. That they have exerted so much willpower all day to be totally upright citizens and they have come to the end of that and we get the brunt of it. Okay, now this does not make the behavior okay. And what I will tell you is I would say almost without exception, as soon as the words are out of the kid's mouth, they wish they hadn't said it, they regret it. So I think it's an important part of a parenting repertoire, especially with a teenager who is being spicy, to have a number of phrases at your disposal. And those can be like, hey, I don't think that came out the way you wanted it to, or hey, you know, we don't speak that way to each other in this house. Or I'm gonna pretend I didn't hear that.

Oh, I like that one.

Oh, teenagers love that.

I'm gonna pretend I didn't hear that. Like the one where she's like, what are you wearing?

Exactly.

That one.

I'm gonna pretend I didn't hear that. Exactly.

Okay.

And what is so beautiful about that one is that basically you're saying you and I both know you just crossed the line and I'm giving you.

Uh huh.

Teenagers have two sides. And what I will tell you is the side you speak to is the side that shows up.

If anyone deserves a pass, it's your kid. At least as long as it's not putting anybody's safety in jeopardy, is what you're saying.

Exactly. And I truly mean it without question. We're raising the best behaved generation of teenagers on record. They wear seatbelts, they wear helmets, they do way fewer drugs than we did. They have sex much later and less often than we did. I mean there's. It's a very, very well behaved bunch of teenagers.

On that note, I mean, I know a lot of people, they know where their kid is at all times. They can look at their phone and see where their kid is. We, like, I used to play in the street till whenever. That is definitely not the case. Do you think that this is having a detrimental effect not only in not letting them experience things independently, but they thinking that they need to fear the world?

I think on balance it probably is. We maybe have overcorrected a bit. You know, the kinds of things we like to see teenagers doing are sort of exciting. Boundary pushing, that is relatively safe. You know, going hiking, going camping, Outdoor sports, you know, even skateboarding. Right. Those kinds of things are what I want teenagers to be doing more. That kind of pretty safe risk taking. And I worry that we've lost that middle.

Yeah, I mean you just described kids who are doing all their homework and not going out and that actually sounds a little boring. Dare I say, like, aren't you supposed to be a little naughty as a teenager?

I'll put it to you this way. Years ago I saw a 17 year old who in our first session, she said to me, I tell my mom everything. And I think she meant it as like evidence of, you know, a good thing. And I said, you do. And I think it's that like the teenagers deserve a margin where they have privacy and they're doing something that feels exciting and novel and maybe not entirely what they're folks would be approving. And in fact, I would take it as a sign of your health if you actually had things that were private from your family.

So there are, however, there's a reason why vaping has become such a blockbuster industry. Cannabis legalized in a lot of states and weed is way stronger than it was just 10, 20 years ago. Where does drug use and alcohol fit into the conversation about kids these days?

Absolutely, vaping is happening and kids still drink and kids are messing around with weed and all these forms that we didn't have. So we need to be in conversation about these things. We need to be talking with kids. And so my guidance usually is to say to them, what do you know about vaping? And see where they are.

Uh huh.

What I've often thought is when an adult rolls up on a teenager on something like vaping and is like, don't vape, I'm telling you not to vape. I've often thought it would be like our kids coming to us and being like, we need to talk about your mortgage. So I've thought like, how could I have a successful conversation with my kid if they want to do about the mortgage? Well, it would start by them saying, do we have a mortgage? And how does it work? And da da da da, like asking a lot of questions. Only after a very long conversation would I be the least bit interested in their guidance. And so I think we have to flip that back around and say, what do you know about vaping and see where kids are and what do you think about vaping and who's doing it and what are they doing and where are they doing it and do you have worries about it? You may get to the end of that and Realize your kid has already decided they don't like it and they think it's, you know, not a good idea. Or you might say, listen, I'll tell you why I'm worried about this.

Do they hear it, Lisa? If they're like, oh, my God, mom, stop. What? Why are you asking me this?

Okay, well, so here's what's interesting. That's not a failed conversation because there's no teenager worth their salt who's gonna say, I'm really glad you asked me all these questions about vaping. Right. I've been wondering where you are with it, and I wanted to tell you what I knew. Right. Then your kid is definitely up to something. Right. That's when you need to really get worse. It is a sign of health in the kid if they're like, I know, I know. All right, all right. What they are doing is basically taking the information in while also establishing themselves as an independent state. Like, that is as much as we could possibly hope for. As long as they are doing what we ask, they don't have to also be a goody two shoes about it.

Right. Fentanyl was a word I hadn't heard. And now kids are growing up knowing that there is a substance that is incredibly dangerous, and they may not even know if it's around them. Tell me what you're hearing.

You know, fentanyl has changed everything in terms of the total loss of room for error. And the first thing I'll say out of the gate, Minouche, is that it's important when talking with kids about risks, and let's focus here on substances, that we not talk about everything as though it's at the same level. Right. Vaping and fentanyl are not equally dangerous, and teenagers know that. And if we talk about everything like it's an 11, we quickly lose them because they know that's not true. And the thing that is really important for kids to understand is that it shows up in places they may not expect. So while kids can understand, I think and expect that, of course there's a possibility that they could come across fentanyl if they're using illicit drugs. What we also need to talk with them about is often it shows up in fake prescription pills that are sold online that they thought was legit. So what we need to say to kids is, you only take prescriptions that you picked up from the pharmacy or I picked up from the pharmacy for you. Right. You never mess with things that you don't know the origin of it. When my daughter went off to college. A few years ago, we watched a video on how to use Narcan, which is a drug that can reverse an opioid overdose. And then I sent her to college with Narcan. And I said, you need to have this with you and people need to know it's with you because fentanyl could pop up anywhere.

When we return, how teens are talking about two other relatively new stressors on gun violence and climate change. More with psychologist Lisa d' Amore on part two of our series are the Kids all right? I'm Anoush Zamorodi, and you're listening to the TED RADIO Hour from npr. Stay with us.

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It's the TED RADIO HOUR from npr. I'm Minouche Zimorodi we're spending the hour with adolescent psychologist Lisa Damore. Lisa has been working with teens and their parents for decades, but there have been some relatively new topics that now come up in therapy sessions with them.

One thing that's changed in my clinical work with teenagers is how often teenagers will come in and talk about fears about gun violence and how often they will talk about, throughout the school day being hyper aware of loud noises in their school building and how when they hear a door slam, how anxious it makes them. This is not something I heard 25 years ago as often as I hear it now. And it's interesting. Again, I don't know that interesting is the fair word, but it's so arresting to me how when we talk about the harms of gun violence, we so often focus, of course, on victims and their families, and we have not always expanded that conversation to talk about the psychological wear and tear on, especially young people in schools in the wake of school shootings and their worries about just the safety of being in their own buildings.

That is heartbreaking. I mean, as an adult, I feel that tension and stress in public spaces all the time. And I cannot imagine growing up and not feeling safe. I did not have that.

Yeah, yeah. And I think there's much more of that than kids tell us about or that we acknowledge.

What do you. Do you have a lot of clients who come in talking about climate anxiety, so sort of problems that are way bigger than them, that aren't about friendships or social media or school.

Well, we do hear teenagers talking about this, and, you know, the way they talk about it is pretty alarming. And I'm not saying they're wrong, but I think we, you know, as adults can be quick to shut it down or avoid it. The kinds of things teenagers will say will be like, well, why should I care? Like the planet's on fire anyway. Right. That they can have this existential question. You know, teenagers have always had existential questions. That's the nature of being a teenager. Now they're asking one that actually is pretty well attached to very real existential, you know, broad existential questions that a lot of people have. And I don't think we've reckoned with this in the way that we should. And in psychology, we're starting to think more about how do we help young people manage what we call climate anxiety? And some of it is around, you know, helping them empower themselves to, you know, try to make change and try to, you know, make choices that can make a difference. The other piece, and I think we're slow to do this is to reckon with how mad they are at the adults for dropping the ball on this.

There's a couple other things that I think loom large for teenagers, particularly girls, which I think a lot of parents really look to you for, which is objectification. Like, there's more need to establish who you are on social media. And that for a lot of girls means looking really happy and cute or like, got it going on sort of thing. Popular. Tell me about this. This, I guess, objectification of girls in particular, how they see themselves and how they feel like they need to show up these days.

Yeah, there's a lot of pressure, and I agree with you also that social media can kind of play to the performative aspect of this. And when we look at the data on ways that there is consensus about how social media can be harmful, you know, if it's a lot of social comparison, you know, looking at other people and feeling like you come up short, unsurprisingly, that's related to kids feeling worse about themselves. And the language I recommend, and I find works pretty well, is to say, you know, okay, that's the container for that person. But what it doesn't tell us much about is the contents. You know, what we're about, what we're good at, what we care about, what we're like to be with. And so I think rather than coming in kind of loud and heavy with teenagers about like, oh, my gosh, that's so superficial, or really another skincare product. Right. I mean, it's easy to do that. I think it's a much more kind and also successful strategy to be like, yeah, yeah, no, you're allowed to take care of your container. It's kind of fun sometimes to do that. And it's nice to dress up and it's nice to feel good about how you look. But don't do that to the exclusion of spending time on your contents, because it's your contents that really matter.

What about boys? Are you seeing anything? I mean, there's been sort of a yo, yo back and forth with, you know, deciding which pronouns we want to use and different definitions of masculinity and inclusion. And then now an administration that very much adheres to traditional, more stereotypical gender roles, just sort of laying the groundwork for, like, boys. Wow, confusing. Is it? Or twas ever thus, we are not.

Paying as close attention to what's going on for boys as we need to be. And I'm doing more and more work around boys because we're not Asking the questions that surface their distress and their concern. We are much less accustomed to asking questions about things like body image concerns that boys may have. We know that there's a lot of boys who worry about being very muscular and very lean. We're not as good at asking questions about engagement with hate content or misogynistic content. And we know that that is something that boys are doing far more than we've really talked about publicly. If we were going to focus on one thing out of the gate, it's around the fact that boys are socialized to not feel that they have as much of a right to express what we would call vulnerable emotions. You know, feeling sad or afraid or anxious. And when we don't let boys express vulnerable emotions or we, the conditions don't allow for it, those same feelings come out in another way that's often quite destructive or harmful. By late elementary or early middle school, boys who are consolidating sort of a traditional masculine identity tend to come to the idea that vulnerability doesn't go with that and that frankly feelings are for girls. And if those boys are being raised in a two parent heterosexual home, what the data also tell us is that the person most likely to be talking about feelings is their mom. And so one thing I've become much more attuned to is the possibility that super well meaning moms who are trying to get their boys to talk about their feelings may be actually proving his point that feelings are for girls.

Huh.

So the, the solution in this is that the men around boys need to up their game around talking about feelings, asking about feelings, talking about sadness, talking about worry, talking about longing or loneliness as part of giving permission to boys to do the same.

That might be really hard for some dads who didn't grow up knowing or learning how to talk about feelings.

I think it's true. I also, one of the things I've been thinking about a lot lately are like who are the role models for boys, right? Who's out there? Kevin Love, basketball player, does a great job of talking about his anxiety. Or you know, like the Kelsey brothers, you know, are phenomenal at crying. They're great at it. And so it's out there. And so I just think it just needs to keep being out there.

I want to make sure we talk about some of the things that are coming teenagers way already here, to be honest. And that is artificial intelligence, AI chatbots. That is the big hot topic in my family right now is what's an appropriate use of ChatGPT. Is there any appropriate use of AI. What does this mean? What are kids telling you about all this?

I think the key here is to not blow this like we did with social media, and fail to regulate it out of the gate. And that's the worry that. That I am seeing a lot of experts and colleagues share, which is, here we go again. And of course, there should be regulations on AI, especially around kids. Absent regulation is going to come down to having a good working relationship with your kid. Right. Being there to talk with them about values and beliefs and why we think it's important to learn how to write because that builds your brain and that promotes thinking. Writing is thinking. And to be better at thinking, you have to work at writing. And. And I would really hate to see us miss the opportunity to put regulation.

Around this, that regulation question. I mean, I don't have a ton of confidence in it. And I guess especially how do you regulate something like what I've certainly experienced, which is chatbots that tell you every idea you have is a good one that are affirming constantly, like, oh, good point. You just made a great point. Oh, that's such a good idea. I mean, these bots have been taught to make the user feel good. So how do we parent that?

Well, one thing we can say, okay, so imagine an adult having that interaction. What the adult has is experience and skepticism.

Yes, right.

They can be like, well, this is a chatbot trying to keep me here. Right? So I'm not going to believe it, or I'm going to believe it with a lot of questions in my own mind. What kids need is that level of skepticism, that level of questioning about why is this acting the way it's acting, like, what's behind it? What's the motivation? Now, the really good news is that by the time teenagers are 14 or 15, they are very good at questioning things. Right. This is actually why they sometimes become harder to parent, because you're like, do this. And they're like, why? So teenagers are built for this, but not until they are at least 14 or 15.

Oh, interesting.

It is around age 14 that we get this neurological watershed that makes perspective taking much more available to kids. So minimally, I would say we try to keep kids clear from it, at least until they are old enough to be like, what's behind this? Why is this being put in front of me this way? What's the motivation? Again, this is what regulation is for. To not have families be individually responsible for trying to control something that comes from forces that are far more powerful than they are.

Okay. So let's say it's like, I know you're bored or sad or tired and you're just on your phone. Cause like, that's your default. What do we say to them? There's.

Well, I think first of all, distraction is actually a healthy coping mechanism too. Within limits, right? That sometimes if a kid's really bummed about a test that they blew and there's nothing they can do about it right now, and they need to get down to their homework, if they take 10 to 15 minutes and do something benign that we would consider mindless and it lets them do their homework, that's actually fine. I think what we want to do is to talk with them about. Is that working for them the way they need it to work.

With all the things that we've talked about, it seems to come back to whether it's thinking about a hard situation or feelings that make you uncomfortable, or an essay that is just going to be such a pain to write and you don't want to do it. What seems to be different the most is you don't have to. You can avoid your feelings by looking at your phone. You can get a bot to at least like, you know, give you a decent start on your essay. It almost is like we need to ask kids to develop, I guess, is it self discipline? Is it recognizing that moment when they. Yes, it is hard and that's okay. What is it that key moment?

I think you're right. I mean, I think this is an interesting thread that ties it all together, right? That it's so natural to avoid discomfort, right? I mean, it's such a natural thing to do. And it's probably evolutionarily driven, right? It's better to be comfortable than uncomfortable. And yet what's baked into your question is this understanding. There's a lot of value in discomfort, right? There's a lot of value in working your way through painful emotions. There's a lot of value in. And grappling with. What is the first sentence of this paragraph gonna be, right? That it's in that grappling that we grow. You know, whether it's in terms of emotional capacity, emotional durability, intellectual capacity. So we need to help kids understand that discomfort is not, on its own, problematic. And often it's growth giving. And there are ways that it's easy to do this in that, you know, we can make easy analogies to things like strength training. You know, the only way you build musc is to do stuff that is literally stressful. And so when kids are cautious about stressful things. Whether it's going through something hard personally or dealing with a hard piece of schoolwork, we can cheer them on and say, look, yeah, it's not going to be pleasant, but you're going to get a payoff. You're going to have more capacity on the back end of this. The other thing I would say is our kids do hard things. One thing I have learned in my time caring for teenagers is when I come to the question of, like, how do I get a kid to do X? Right? I want them to do X. I have learned to step back and think, where in their world are they already doing it that I'm not seeing? And then how do I admire that they're doing it over there? And encourage them to use that same skill set over here?

Hmm.

Because that's what they deserve.

I mean, what do you say? Like, in. In the moment, if someone is feeling despairing or like, completely like you said, like, what is the point? Like, the world's on fire. Why should I do my homework or get off social media, whatever. It's the sort of. It's very existential.

It is. It is. I'll tell you what I say. Cause I have teenagers, and I'm not saying this is what everybody should say. I'll just tell you what I say. What I say to my kids is, look, we don't know what's ahead, but we know whatever comes, you're going to suffer far less than many other people. And your job is to reduce suffering. So you organize yourself around taking care of others, and that's going to hold you in good stead. Whatever comes.

Are they like, you want me to save everybody else, mom, how am I gonna do that? That's a lot of responsibility.

It is, but I think mostly there's probably been some eye rolling and some walking away. And if they were to say, you want me to save everyone else? I would say, no, no, no. But your job is to do what you can with where you are.

That was teen psychologist Lisa Damore. Her latest book is a revised version of her best seller, Untangled Guiding Teenage girls through the seven transitions into adulthood. You can see her talk@ted.com thank you so much for listening to part two of Are the Kids all right? If you missed part one from last week, be sure to check it out. We talk about how AI is changing teaching in the classroom. And if you have thoughts on this episode or any others, please leave us a comment on Spotify. We would love to hear from you. This episode was produced by Harsha Nahada and Fiona Guerin. It was edited by Sanaz Meshkinpour, Rachel Faulkner White, and me. Our production staff at NPR also includes Katie Monteleone, James Elahoussi, and Matthew Cloutier. Our executive producer is Irene Noguchi. Our audio engineer was Stacey Abbott. Our theme music was written by Ramtin Arablouei. Our partners at TED are Chris Anderson, Roxanne Hylash, and Daniela Balaurezzo. I'm Minouche Zumarodi, and you have been listening to the TED Radio Hour from npr.

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