Mastering Relationship Skills for Teens

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to LCU's presentation. Today we're going to be discussing Relationship Skills 101 for teens using DBT to deal with intense emotions. During this presentation, we're going to help teens look at how to look at themselves. Because a lot of times teens and adolescents and even some adults tend to be very critical when they're looking at themselves. So we're going to want to look at examining that, because the way they look at themselves and the way they perceive themselves is going to directly impact how they interface with other people. We'll encourage them to examine their relationships and we'll talk about why it's important for teens, but adults as well. I mean, a lot of what we're going to talk about today is very germane to any population you work with. But why is it important to examine relationships? We'll look at how up and down emotions fuel the relationship roller coaster. And we know with teens, they're still developing a lot of their coping skills and they don't have the experiences under their belt that we do. So they can't say, oh, that's not a big deal. In the life of many teenagers, everything's a really big deal. Then we'll look at how to help teens stop letting their emotions control them. Help them reduce their judgments to improve their attitude. And, you know, if you have teenagers at home or if you work with teens, you know that judgmentalism is high on their list. My daughter found a meme the other day that said her eyes are the strongest muscle in her body because she does at least 350 eye rolls a day. And she sent it to me and we both laughed because we both know how true it is. But stop fighting reality and deal with it. Helping teens and others accept reality and not try to argue about what should be or what they want to be. It is what it is. Then we'll move on to not letting your urges control you, especially as teenagers, when they are still developing their coping skills, when they're still dealing with life, when everything still seems to be a crisis, sometimes when they feel a feeling. Because remember, feelings have emotions, thoughts and physical sensations as well as urges. So what does angry look like to you in terms of your physical sensations, your thoughts and your urges? And those urges we want to control. We don't want them lashing out, we don't want them lashing in. And then we'll end with improving your relationship with yourself, which of course, before you can have a good relationship with anyone else, you have to have a good relationship with yourself. And in this day and age, I never thought I'd say that phrase. But anyway, in this day and age, it's really hard for a lot of teens to have a very accurate relationship of themselves because they're constantly bombarded with external stimulus. When I was younger, you know, before the Internet, when. When you went home, you had quiet time and you could reflect on things. Now people have stimulus and input and judgments and all kinds of stuff. 24, 7, 365, if they stay awake that much. So starting out, looking at yourself. When teenagers start having problems in relationships, we want to know, what are the problems in your relationships? What I may deem as a problem in someone's relationship, they may not think is a problem. So we want to talk about what is it that you see as the problem in your relationship? What is it that you want in this relationship that you're not getting? What are some of the behaviors you are engaging in that are causing these problems? And this is kind of a hard one. So I don't jump right into this question when I'm working with teenagers, especially because they can get defensive. They're like, well, I'm not doing anything. Okay, so we'll talk about some of the relationships and what's going on, what prompts it, and then we'll ease into this question about. Well, you told me that when you and your friend were having this argument, instead of calling each other up on the phone or meeting together to discuss it, you decided to get into. You decided to start posting stuff on Instagram. So in what way could that have instigated or stoked the fire of some of these problems? Become mindful and live in the present, Encouraging people to be conscious and be cognizant of people, because what they've done in the past, they could do in the future. It doesn't mean they will. Some people make a mistake in the past, and guess what? Oh, my gosh, they learn from it. So, so we want to say, remember the good things from the past and then learn from things that happen in your relationship with this person in the past and let go of the bad. But likewise, and teens, as well as adults are guilty of saying, well, if it happened in this relationship with Joe, then I'm going to generalize it to all relationships. So this could happen in all of my relationships. And that can be very devastating in terms of wanting to form new and healthier relationships, because you're taking something one person did one time, and you're expecting you start looking for that in future relationships. So remember the good from past relationships and learn from. And let go of the bad. If somebody wants to talk about stuff from the past, we might say, okay, let's talk about what happened now. Has anything changed? What are some things this person's doing now to show you that it might not happen again? And then help them look at the future, identify their dreams and their goals and what they want, and avoid creating catastrophes that happened yet, you know, maybe they get into a relationship with somebody and, you know, they hope they're going to be best friends forever. Well, that's awesome. What is it going to look like? What could it look like? What do you. You want it to look like? And most importantly, what are you going to do to make it happen? It's not just going to poof, magically happen. Relationships take work, and there's going to be ups, there's going to be downs, there's going to be fights, there's going to be tears. It happens. And helping teenagers really understand this early on will prepare them for later in life when things do get rough. So the first time they hit a rough patch in a relationship, they don't go, well, I'm out. And then avoiding creating catastrophes that haven't happened yet. You know, expecting someone's going to let you down, expecting someone's going to cheat on you. Expecting. And I would say, do you know that's going to happen? And if there's a prior history with this person where it has happened, then we can say, all right, what is the evidence that things have changed and it might not happen again? If there's no evidence of that, if the person, you know, betrayed them before and they're still in a relationship for whatever reason, you know, maybe they've decided that, okay, there's that happened, and I can deal with it and I can accept it. For what? For whatever reason, because the relationship as a whole is more important to me. All right, that's fine. What are you going to do to protect yourself so you're not dwelling and, and anticipating and constantly fretting about, waiting for the other shoe to drop? Mindfulness exercises. Paying attention throughout the day. If you're focusing at hand or dwelling on the past or fretting about the possibilities. In the book that I use to create this presentation, she talks about having people think about, you know, when you're doing your homework, are you focused on doing your homework? Or are you thinking about when you dropped your books in the middle of the hall today? Or what's going to happen at cheerleading practice? Next tomorrow or, you know, your mind's just all over the place. Are you focused or are you out here dwelling on the past? We're going to talk about, okay, it happened, why are you still focusing on it, what's meaningful about it, and what do you need to do to resolve it? You dropped your books in the hallway. Okay, so tell me about what that experience was like and what is it that you're afraid is going to happen because of it? Because generally when something keeps coming back, it's the mind saying there's some sort of threat here. So we're going to talk about what do you think may happen because of it, and then we can talk about the likelihood of it. Are you anticipating something that is probable or improbable? I mean, it could be very possible. But how probable is it that six months from now everybody's going to remember that and then fretting about the possibilities, anything can happen, you know, and even things you haven't thought of can happen. So how much energy are you going to want to give to all of that versus just do the next right thing and focus on the present so you don't make mistakes in the now. Practicing acceptance. When emotions are triggered, identify them and let them go instead of feeding them. And this is a really hard skill for a lot of people sometimes, and maybe especially teenagers, they're still very new to trying to deal with all the input. I mean, it's not just happy, mad, sad, glad it's all of this stuff. Plus trying to fit in psychosocially, they're trying to figure out where do they belong, who do they belong with, whose approval do they need, how can they approve of themselves? And a lot of times with teenagers, they are very external, validation focused. They're more concerned about what everybody else thinks than what they think. And that's developmentally, that's where they are. And I'm not going to tell them that's wrong. We will try to build up the self esteem and the self approval in addition to looking at, you know, what they're concerned about, what their peers think, what their parents think, what their coach thinks. But when emotions are triggered, they get angry. What do they do with it? A lot of times teenagers will act out, they'll be like, oh no you didn't. Uh huh. And the first thing they do is jump on Instagram and start flaming somebody or get into a fight or do something. So we want to say, what can you do when you feel angry? Okay, that's your brain saying, there's a Potential threat, emphasis on potential. Something happened. Now the next step is to say, I am angry because. And let it go. It isn't good, it isn't bad, it just is. It's how you feel. What comes next is figuring out what to do with that information and emotion you have. What can I do to stop being angry? And then choosing from behaviors that get you to where you want to go. If you can take that time out, if we can help them identify the feeling and let it go, they'll have enough time to take a time out, to go, all right, now I have some options here. And which one is going to get me closer to my ultimate goals of graduation, happy life, etc. Versus, you know, getting kicked out of school, being incarcerated, yada yada. And then encourage them to try not to judge. And I say, let's start first with not judging yourself. You know, it's. There's so much judging that goes on through the media, through each other, through. And just judging ourselves about what's good, what's bad, what we did well, what we did poor, what we should feel, what we shouldn't feel. Stop judging. Tell them to. Or encourage them to take an hour. You know, a day is usually too long to start out with, unless it's maybe like a Saturday where there's not a whole lot going on. But take an hour and try not to judge yourself for anything. If you don't feel like doing something, okay, you don't. May not mean you can avoid doing it, but you don't feel like doing it. You know, if you don't feel like doing your chores, acknowledge it. And then figure out what you're going to do next. If you're upset about something, if you're worried about something, acknowledge it. And instead of fighting it with it, saying, I shouldn't be worried about it, let it go and go, okay, I'm worried about this, so what can I do to make the worry go away? Once they start developing an understanding of themselves, what they feel, what they think, what their triggers are, what their vulnerabilities are, start having them look at their relationships. And part of this, which isn't really taught in schools, and I don't think we as a society do a really good job of teaching it. What does a healthy relationship look like? What does communication look like in American society? In large part, not everybody, but in large part, we're very guilty of trying to formulate our response before the other person's even finished speaking. So we're not hearing what they say. We hear Some of their words. And then we want to jump on the defensive, we want to assume we want to do this stuff. So healthy relationships. The first step is teaching people how to communicate. How do you listen with the intent to hear what's being said? How can what. And what's the difference between just hearing the words versus actually hearing the message? Practicing that. Have them work on acceptance, accepting themselves for who they are, you know, step one. And then accepting others for their faults. Interestingly, I find it's often a lot easier for people that I work with to accept faults in others than to accept their own faults. So if it's easier, let them start with accepting other people, false foibles and all. And then have them start looking back at themselves and going, okay, now you have the standard for everybody else in the world here. Why do you have the standard for yourself up here? What, what's the difference? Why are you unwilling to accept that you may be imperfect? Talk about healthy boundaries and limit setting. There's a lot of peer pressure with teenagers and because they want to be accepted, because they want to feel like they fit in, because they are seeking that external validation, partly because they don't know how to self validate. Healthy boundaries and limit setting are really challenging. So what do healthy boundaries look like for this particular adolescent? And talk about some situations that they felt uncomfortable in and you know, what the boundary they wanted to keep was and what the boundary they actually kept was. And how do you set limits with regard to sexuality, with regard to drinking, with regard to drug use, with regard to drinking and driving, or if you're in a car with somebody who's speeding. You know, there's a lot of times when, where people may feel uncomfortable. So rehearsing with the clients and helping them learn how to assert what their boundaries are, what they feel safe with is really important. And then developing compassion for themselves and for other people. You know, if somebody else is having a really bad day, their first reaction may be one that's very judgmental and be like, well, Susie's being a so and so today. The reaction of compassion and non judgmentalism would be, Susie is really irritable today, she must be having a bad day. So encouraging compassion again for other people, but also for themselves. So when they're having a bad day, they don't beat themselves up and say, you know, I had a really crappy day at practice and just go on this litany of beating themself up. Encourage them to identify what they think they could have done better and how to do Better the next time, but then have compassion for themselves for when you were out there, did you give it 100%? If you did, were you able to do any better today and help them understand that based on a whole host of things, you know, we're not going to have, we're not going to be 100% every day. You can be 100% most days, but you're not going to be 100% every day. Thinking, like football games. Sometimes a quarterback will go out and he will just make a really not good move. And we could criticize him for that and be like, well, how stupid was that? And it was probably an unfortunate move, but having compassion for him, that he was doing the best he could, you know, he didn't think in his head, well, how can I really throw this game? How can I screw this up? And, you know, how must he feel now that, you know, maybe he made some mistake that cost the team the game? I'm a Florida Gator, so, you know, I've experienced that a lot lately. Anyhow, what do you want from your relationships? Encourage people to look at, what is it that they want from relationship? You know, if you are best friends forever, what does that look like? What behaviors would that other person do that would make you know that you mattered to them? This is one of those times that if it feels appropriate with the adolescent, sometimes I will kind of veer into the love languages and talking about, not everybody expresses their feelings the same way. Not everybody is effusive with compliments. Not everybody gives hugs. Some people give presents. Some people do nice things for the other person. Some people will give hugs. So encouraging them to say, in what way does this person express how they feel about me? A lot of times I'll try to avoid the term love languages because it freaks a lot of teenagers out. They're like, oh, Lord. But if you can help them understand that we all communicate a little bit differently, it can help and then go back to, with that in mind, what is it that you want from this particular relationship? There are things that are common to most relationships, like loyalty, honesty, fidelity, all those things we have in our ethical code. But then there are specific things people want from specific friends. And it's important for them to understand that and articulate that, because guess what? Teenagers are no better at mind reading than we are. And they think they're pretty good at mind reading, but they're not. Finally, encourage them to examine their relationships that they have. What is this relationship providing for you? Because if you're in it There's a reward. If you're putting energy into it, it's because you're getting something out of it. So what are you getting out of it? Also, if it is not a perfect relationship, which most aren't, have them look at what is lacking. What would you like to see improved? And how can you do that? You know, maybe they're in a relationship with somebody that goes to a different school, so they don't talk as much and they don't see each other very often, and they wish that there was more like real face to face interaction. All right, well, you can't just expect that person to know that's what you want and make it happen. So what can you do to start improving the amount of contact that the two of you have? And then have them write a My Best Friend essay, creating this picture of what their best friend would look like. You know, are they compassionate? Are they caring? Are they smart? Are they just anything they want to put in there? Don't tell them why, because I want to know what they want in their best friend. And then I take that and I say, okay, now do this for yourself. If you want loyalty, then be loyal to yourself, which means you need to be true to yourself. If you want honesty, then you need to be honest with yourself. You know, sometimes it's gonna really not be pleasant, but you can handle it. But also look for these qualities in other people and look for these qualities in your current friends about how they're honest and loyal and truthful. I want them to focus on the positives. Like I said, every relationship has negatives. Every person will make mistakes. Teenagers especially tend to be very, very good at focusing on mistakes. So I want to encourage them to start looking at some of the positives with the people that they're interacting with. Benefits of healthy relationships. So why should we as clinicians work on this in counseling? Because adolescents, I mean, everybody needs belonging and validation and acceptance and all that kind of stuff. But adolescents especially are in that phase where they're feeling very vulnerable because they're trying to figure out where they belong. They're getting ready to finish high school, then they've got to choose a career and then start adulting. And it's overwhelming. I mean, putting yourself back in that position, you know, retrospectively we can be like, oh, you don't even know what you had to deal with. But when you were in that position, you had so much less knowledge and so many less skills. And all of these things were exciting, but they were also very scary at the Same time. So during this period, adolescents need people who can provide validation and acceptance, a sense of belonging, whether it's in their church, whether it's in their school, whether it's in their extracurricular activities or all of the above. They need a place where they feel like other people get them. So often I work with adolescents who are just like, nobody gets me. I mean, I'm just, I'm weird. And talking about what that means to them, why they perceive that other people think they're weird and where they might find a sense of belonging because sometimes they're trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. So we might talk about, well, okay, so you have interests in creative arts and drawing. Where can we find people your age who might be interested in that self confidence? When people are in relationships with others, not only is it giving them a certain amount of validation, but they develop a sense of self confidence because those people are there even when they make a mistake and they go, you know what, come on, get up, let's do this again. It's not the end of the world or whatever they're telling them, but they've got somebody there that's a cheering section which takes us to that social support. As much as we would love to be all the social support our kids need, they need social support from peers, their own age, their own, of their, with their own interests and all that. So. And why is this? Because it provides them a sense of belonging and it allows them to differentiate from us. It allows them to say, you know, I've gotten a lot of great skills growing up in your household, yada yada. However, I am actually able to be an independent person and survive, which again, when people are starting to take sats and think about what they're going to do, where they're going to go to college and all the changes and living on their own, it can get really overwhelming really fast. So the relationship roller coaster interpretations of events are based on your current state, your prior experiences, and the event itself. This is true whether you're 2 or 62. A lot of adolescents don't think about this. So when something happens, they may interpret it automatically as negative. It may not be that way. Their current state, if they're looking for the negative, if they're in a bad mood, are they going to likely look for the most positive interpretation of something that happens? No, you know, they're probably going to look for a self fulfilling prophecy. You know, I'm having a really bad day and we're going to have this Quiz on Friday that I'm totally not ready for the teacher's out to get me. If they were in a different state, a more positive state, a more well rested state, they may not perceive it as much as the end of the world. Your prior experiences. So, you know, sometimes if people keep with the same analogy, if the person has had difficulty on exams, then when they hear about an exam, if they're already grumpy, feeling worn down, they hear about an exam and they know they don't do well on them, then all of a sudden the sky is falling. So we want to help them understand that. Your prior experiences give you some guidance, but they don't write the future. Your prior experiences might tell you that you have to study more for this test or that you need to change the way you study or, you know, talk to the teacher about how to study your current state. If you're already in a negative state, it's you're going to perceive the negative. We're not like magnets where negative attracts positive, negative attracts negative. So help them realize and become cognizant of the fact that when they're tired, sick, depressed, you know, in a funk, it's easier to focus on the negative or get irritable and encourage them to think about a time when they were having a great day and something, you know, unfortunate happened or not the best, did it completely deflate their day? And if they would have been in a bad mood, how would they have interpreted that event and how would it have affected their day? Which takes us to this emotional roller coaster. Emotional roller coasters are caused by immediately reacting to every stimulus without awareness or acceptance. When we are not mindful of our feelings, we just feel and act. Then we're just constantly up and down and up and down. Our brain says there might be a threat. We're like, threat, threat, threat, threat. And we go into all out crisis mode when we help clients learn to be mindful. The brain says there might be a threat and then you say, okay, is there a threat? And then make a decision based from there. So you're not just threat, relax, threat, relax. There's, you know, a little bit of ebb and flow in there and you're not immediately reacting. So everything that comes your way, constantly draining your energy. Acceptance and commitment therapy is great to introduce to teens in addition to DBT because it helps them really look at how their emotions affect them and how they can distance themselves and separate themselves from their emotions when they feel them instead of immediately having to act on them once they Practice this for a little while. A lot of times, they'll find that they make better decisions if they don't immediately act on their emotions. If somebody says something that hurts their feelings or makes them angry and they take a minute or five to identify the feeling and then think about the most appropriate response to get them, help them achieve their goals. You know, will it end up resulting in an Instagram war or a Facebook war? Maybe not. A lot of times, once they've had a chance to get out of that initial adrenaline rush, they make better decisions. Teens have fewer experience and skills against which to assess current experiences. So if it seems like the end of the world, you know, compared to everything they experienced up till now, this may be a crisis. You know, compared to you, this may be a drop in the bucket. But for them, it's a real crisis. Developmentally, teens are trying to figure out where they fit in the world, so they often feel vulnerable. You know, every time they put themselves out there, they're hoping for validation. And if they don't get it and they don't know how to handle it or they don't have other support to rely on, then it really hurts. Teens have often been provided with acceptance and encouragement based on conditions of worth. If you make the cheerleading squad, then you'll be part of this group. If you make the football team, then you'll be part of this group. If you do this, then you'll be accepted by this group. So guess what? They've learned. They've experienced that acceptance is based on what they can do. And what they can't do can also keep them from being accepted. So part of our job as clinicians, parents, adults, is to help teens recognize why they are valuable and why they are acceptable just for being them. You know, even if they can't catch a ball or, you know, do something else. Because they can't do a skill doesn't mean they're unlovable. So exiting the roller coaster, encourage them to keep a journal for a week of what. What upsets them. They may even be surprised at how many different things upset them. Or they may not be there. They'll hand it to you and be like, see, I told you I got a lot of crap to deal with. Okay, at the end of the week, review the journal. And in retrospect, what doesn't seem so bad? This seemed like a crisis at the time. Is it still seeming like it's completely devastating? And then how could you have used that same energy to have addressed the situation? So generally, they're Keeping this journal of things that upset them, and they take whatever upsets them and they dwell on it. Teens are really good for just nurturing grudges and anger and fear because they don't have the skills to know what else to do with it or to realize that this, too shall pass. And if you tell them that, they'll roll their eyes at you and walk out the room. We want to get in their head. We want to experience it as they do and as dramatic as they do, so we can understand kind of where they're coming from, because then we can start gradually guiding them out of that emotional roller coaster. But I'm not going to tell them that their feelings are wrong, because their feelings are their feelings. So if they were angry, and then we'll talk about, okay, what did you do about it? How did you feel? All right, what else could you have done with that energy to address the situation that may have had a more positive outcome? What was going on that made you more vulnerable to getting upset? So we'll go back over each day of the week, and if there was a particularly upsetting day, you know, I might drill down and say, was there something else going on? Did you not sleep well? Were you worried about a test that was coming up? It seems like you were more sensitive that day than other days. And I could be completely wrong. You know, I try to hedge things because maybe that day was just a really horrific day at school. We all have them. Stop letting your emotions control you. Reminding teens or educating teens that emotions are a combination of their feelings, their emotions, whatever they're labeling it, their physical sensations, their thoughts, their urges. One of the things I do in skills group with teens is to put different feelings around the room on poster paper. And I have them go around and identify what their physical sensations are when they are having that feeling, what are their thoughts when they're having that feeling, and what are their urges when they're having that feeling. If they're really happy, what do they want to do? I know for me, when I'm really happy, I kind of get amped up and I want to move around, I want to run, I want to skip, I want to jump. I tend to sing. I can be a little crazy. But helping them understand that this is just part of being happy. Now, what you do in certain circumstances, you know, you're not going to skip down the halls at school, probably, but understanding that this is just normal, this is what you experience. They're natural responses based on what your brain thinks is happening. So if You've got happy. Interestingly, and this is something that I point out to them, anger and fear are kind of flip sides of the same coin. It's a stress response. Your body dumps adrenaline and says, dude, you need to get up and do something. Happiness also has adrenaline. Your brain says, wow, yay, we need to keep doing this because it's really awesome. And dopamine. So that same chemical adrenaline or norepinephrine, that motivates you to fight or flee is also the one that motivates you to jump and skip and holler for joy. Help them understand that, you know, these are natural responses, but their brain is also not always right. If their brain perceives a threat, does it mean there's always a threat? And I encourage them to think about times when they thought something bad was going to happen. Maybe they got called to the principal's office or their parents, said, we need to have a talk. You know, generally that doesn't end in anything good. But sometimes they're gonna have a talk because they need to decide what they're gonna do for the family vacation this week or this year. So the brain is not always right. It just bases its first reaction on prior experiences. So encourage them to feel the feeling, label it, and let it go. Some of the common things that I hear, oh, my gosh, I am going to fail this test. Okay, so what are you feeling? I'm feeling freaked out. I'm feeling afraid. Okay, that's how you're feeling right now. What is it that you need to do next? And you know they're feeling right now is what they're feeling. Figuring out what to do next is the next step. Mark asked Samantha to the prom instead of me. Okay, feel the feeling. How do you feel? You feel devastated? You feel betrayed? All right, now let's just let that go. Now what are you going to do? And she is such a so and so. Okay, so you're feeling angry right now. And I encourage them to come up with their own feeling words, but obviously, I don't have another person sitting here right now. Once they're feeling angry, say, okay, you're feeling angry. What's going on that's causing you to feel angry? They can talk about it or talk about what they need to do next or talk about if continuing to feel angry is going to be useful for them. Reduce your judgments to improve your attitude. Judgments. Compare us to others instead of focusing on ourself. She's thinner than me. He's faster than me. He's smarter than me. Okay, or he's dumber than me, you know, but it's a comparison instead of saying, I am me and am I being the best me I can be. Encouraging adolescents to embrace this is again, difficult because they're seeking external validation. So I do encourage them to realize when they're being judgmental and also focus. Try to focus back more on themselves. And instead of looking at, you know, she's smarter than me, or, you know, okay, what can you do? If being smarter is important, what can you do to improve that? What positive skills do you have? If they're comparing themselves negatively to other people, I want them to identify two positive things for every. Every time they compare themselves negatively to somebody, other times the judgments can tear others down to make us feel better about ourselves. So people that go around criticizing being, she's stupid, she shouldn't have gotten the lead role in that because I'm a much better actress. What good does it do to use that energy to tear her down? What else could you do with that energy? Maybe talk to the director and find out what you could do differently in order to get the lead role next time. But encourage them to realize when they're using energy to tear others down or tear themselves down. And sometimes we tear ourselves down to protect from disappointment. So, you know, you try out for the football team and you're like, well, I'm not gonna get it because I know I'm the slowest person out there, or I tried out for this play and I can't sing nearly as well as so and so and I forgot my lines more times than other people. That's the mind's way. That's our way of protecting ourselves so we don't get our expectations set up too high and get disappointed. But it also prevents us from really reveling in the moment and going, wow, I really did a good job. Okay, you know, maybe I didn't hit that high note, I forgot a couple lines, but. But overall I did a good job. And it took a lot of courage to go out there and do this stuff. We want to encourage them to find constructive uses of that energy instead of judging people and tearing them down and tearing ourself down. How can we use that energy for self improvement and compassion for others? If you're concerned that somebody else is a faster runner, okay, Dwelling on it's not going to do a lot. But what can you do so you can run faster? And for people who don't run as fast, how can you have compassion for them? Celebrating other strengths. We all have Strengths. We all have weaknesses. So instead of going, you know, he's so much better in math than me and feeling bad about it, think, well, hey, that's a future math tutor. And I'm a lot better in English, so I can be an English tutor. And we can help each other celebrate each other's strengths and work together in order to be more harmonious instead of competitive. Stop fighting reality and deal with it. Sometimes things suck, so you got to accept it, you know? And sometimes when I say this to my groups, they'll kind of look at me and their eyes will get big, and they'll be like, you just said things suck. I'm like, yeah, it's true. Sometimes there things will happen, and it just is unpleasant, it is ugly, it is sucky. There's just not a nice word for it, and there's nothing you can do to really change it. Sometimes you can change it, but sometimes you can't. So what you want to do is say, all right, this happened, you know, after I lived in Florida for a couple of decades, so lots of hurricanes came through. And when the hurricanes came through, sometimes it would really stink because we'd be without power for two or three weeks. And Florida in the summer without power, just not pleasant. So I could dwell on how bad it was and get angry about it, but that wouldn't do any good. I can identify the things that I could change and change them. So I'd pack up the kids every day, and we'd go to the library or go to the mall or go somewhere that actually did have air conditioning in order to kind of get through it. Was it ideal? No, but it was reality. And then identifying the things I can't change and learn how to change my reaction to them. So living without power for two weeks, we actually had a lot of fun pretending what it was like to be back in the 1800s and, you know, reading books by candlelight. And when things happen that you can't change, say, what does this mean about. Or for me? What does it mean for me or to me that I'm not going to have power for a couple of weeks? Well, it means life's going to be a little bit more difficult, but other than that, probably doesn't mean a whole lot that I need to get all upset about. So encourage your clients, encourage the adolescents to state what it is that they're upset about. And I try to be very liberal when I'm allowing them to express themselves. You know, if they use a curse word here and there's, it's not the end of the world. If they're using it aggressively towards someone else, that's a different story. But, you know, I want to know what is it that you're experiencing right now? Let's put it out there and then we can identify what's changeable that you're willing to change and what you can do with the rest of it so you don't stay as angry or as scared. This is also true when adolescents are applying for college acceptance. Maybe they get back three rejections and they only applied to five colleges and they're just like, they feel like they got kicked in the gut. Alright, so all of the results aren't in yet, so you could still get accepted to those two. But if you want to get accepted to one of these others, what can you change? Do you need to get a higher gpa? Do you need to go to community college and then reapply? What are some other steps you could take? And then identify the things you cannot change and learn how to change your reaction. Maybe you're never going to get into a particular school, so what can you learn from it? And what does it mean about you that you can't get into that school? You know, a lot of other schools may accept you, so what in particular importance does that school hold for you? And then, you know, we can talk about that in session. Don't let urges control you, though. Even if you're disappointed, if you're angry, if you're anxious, you don't have to immediately act on whatever you're feeling. Urges are part of feelings. When I get hungry, my urge is to eat. When I get sad, my urge is to cry. The strongest urges are those to fight or flee. So physically, when something is threatening and you want to fight, you want to punch, you want to lash out, you want to scream, you want to do something aggressive, and emotionally, your urges are, you know, to be angry or to be afraid. The urges that go along with those feelings are really hard to just say, you know what, I'm just going to let that go for a moment and then I'll decide what to do. You know, you want to get out of the situation. So teaching clients how to urge surf, teaching them when they feel that rush, and we all know what it feels like when adrenaline just floods over us, they just want to come out swinging. All right, where are you on the wave? Remember that urges come in and go in about 10 to 15 minutes. Same thing with panic attacks. So where are you in terms of coming in and going out? Where Are you on the wave? Are you at the top getting ready to come in? Are you still building? Teach them how to use that imagery in order to urge surf so they don't act out right away. Distract, don't react, focus on something else. And you know, this is my favorite activity. Four, three, two, one. Four things you see, three things you hear, two things you smell, and one thing you feel encourages them to just completely shift. It's kind of like switching the channel in their minds. Watch something really funny. It's hard to be terrified or enraged when you're watching something that you find amusing. You know, for me watching, there's one video of this little baby who just thinks it's hilarious when its caregiver tears paper and it does that little baby belly laugh. And I can only watch it for so long before I have to kind of grin or maybe laugh myself stupid Cat videos. Whatever it is that makes your person laugh or smile or can help get them into a different mind space. Listen to really loud music. Most teenagers will not turn this one down. But interestingly, when you bombard your senses, it can help kind of get you out of that fight or flight mind space. So listening to really loud music can help distract some, some people and then hold on to a piece of ice. I encourage you to try this at home yourself. Just hold on to a piece of ice and see if you can focus on anything after about 20 seconds. Besides, how much longer do I have to hold on to this piece of ice? It really helps get you out of that infinite loop because all of a sudden you're just like, okay, this is unpleasant. I don't like this at all. But you're not thinking about what happened during the day and you're not worrying about whether the kids are destroying the house. You're just worried about whether you can keep hold of this ice for another two minutes. All of these help teens develop skills. So emotions aren't powerful. So they can choose how they use their energy, so they can choose what mind space they're in and choose behaviors that will help them improve their relationships. So you know, something happens. They see their ex boyfriend talking to some other girl down the hall and they just flip out. Okay, so that there lots of feelings associated with that, lots of very normal feelings associated with that. But getting into a physical fight, probably not in their best interest or turning it in on themselves, self harming, using drugs, also not helpful. So what can they do? If you look at a lot of relationships especially, well, not just teen relationships, the people who are the Most emotionally liable tend to have the most chaotic relationships. So if we can help teens get control of their feelings, then they can interact more mindfully. Improving your relationship with yourself. Become aware of your vulnerabilities so you know when you're gonna be kind of grumpy. We all have those days. Develop self compassion. If you're having a bad day, if you didn't sleep well, instead of beating yourself up over every mistake, just say, you know what? I did the best I could do. I'll come back and try again tomorrow. Start by identifying what you need and why in your relationships, but also in your relationship with yourself. What do you need in terms of being your own best friend? Because once you start doing that, then you'll expect the same from other people. Teenage years can be very tumultuous. Teens often feel very vulnerable as they try and find their place in the world. They don't have the same experiences that we do. So their frame of reference for what's a crisis and what's not a big deal is kind of limited. These vulnerabilities and lack of experience can lead to extreme reactions. Our perception of extreme reactions, I mean, it can lead to somebody being enraged, which may be a very normal reaction for their perception and their background, but we want to help them not have these like huge highs and huge rages. Developing skills to deal with extreme reactions improves relationships by reducing angry and aggressive reactions, both physical and on Facebook, Instagram, on the Internet. It also teaches the teen that he or she has the ability to handle distress. You can get angry and not have to act out. And it empowers the teen to use the roller coaster energy for constructive outcomes. Relationship skills 101 for teens is the one that I use to create this PowerPoint. In addition, I DBT Made simple by Sherry Van Dyke. She wrote both of these books. Honestly, I really love DBT Made simple. And I think there's a lot more information that you can use and tailor towards teens in that one. But that's my own personal opinion. Both books are very good. They're at neuharbinger. There are some awesome beginning sites for learning DBT skills. You can get these from your from the classroom. DBT Self Help is almost. It's one of my, you know, go to's. I love DBT is another one. One I found for this presentation is the Bipolar's Juk se. There's a handbook there really helpful. And then this manual that was designed by the Star center at the University of Pittsburgh is awesome for teaching emotional regulation for teens. So those are all resources that all of these links down here are freely available, downloadable, etc. So you have things that you can use today or tomorrow with your clients if you want to. Are there any questions? Okay. Well, I appreciate everybody being here today. If you think of any questions. Oh, 4321. And you can do this however you want. It's not a set thing. I just find it's easier to find four things that you can see, three things that you can hear, two things that you can smell, and then one thing you can feel. You know you can mix and match the senses however you want to, but generally it's hard to find the more than two things that you smell or more than two things that you feel. So I start like that. But I'm also very visually oriented, so that may be my own bias. If you enjoy this podcast, please like and subscribe either in your podcast player or on YouTube. You can attend and participate in our live webinars with Dr. Snipes by subscribing@Allce.com Counselortoolbox this episode has been brought to you in part by allce.com, providing 24. 7 multimedia continuing education and pre certification training to counselors, therapists and nurses since 2006. Use coupon code counselortoolbox to get a 20% discount off your order this month.