"Ask A Therapist": Screen Time, Lies, and Motivation. Expert Q&A with Dr. Skinner

Foreign. Welcome to Finding Noble, a podcast where we climb into the world of young people's mental health and where we provide support for the adults who support them. I'm your host, Carly Redd. Hi, and welcome to another episode of Finding Noble. Today it is me and Dr. Skinner and we're gonna try something maybe a little bit new in the format of Ask a Therapist Question and Answer. We have questions that we've received from parents all over and we thought we would try to tackle some of those questions today. Not we. Dr. Skinner is going to try to tackle some of those questions today. I'm going to ask and you will answer. So let's just jump right in. Dr. Skinner.

Sounds good.

First few questions, they kind of go together, so I'll read them together. I'm a single mother and my kids ages 14 and 12 won't get off the Xbox and Netflix. When I have important work calls and I'm about to lose my cool. What can I do to make them respect me and my job that keeps a roof over their heads and food on the table? Another parent said, our son feels we are way too controlling. We have rules, time limits and expectations regarding technology that he becomes very angry about. We have made compromises in the past, but he sees others that are allowed to do things that he is not and he finds us too strict. How can we repair our relationship and still maintain that we feel is a safe environment surrounding technology use? We are not perfect parents, but at this point he believes his depression is all our fault and we feel he won't take any ownership over his own life. And then lastly, another parent said, how do I address a 15 year old's screen time? She is suffering from depression and I don't know how to address it. So can you pick up on the common theme here?

Yeah, happens to do a screen time, which is a common issue that as our society has evolved over the last, probably realistically, the last two decades, we've seen more and more consumption. But in particular in the last, really, when the iPhone came out, we've seen a significant increase in screen time. And so we see on average, I think the average high schooler is on a screen time somewhere between seven to nine hours a day.

That is crazy.

Well, and what's crazy about it is it's taken over our lives. I mean, again, when I was a boy, obviously we were using landlines and a phone wasn't a dictionary and a phone wasn't a camera and a phone wasn't my ipod or radio or record player. I mean, you take it and it's all now combined.

Good point. Yeah.

What's interesting there is now we start looking at apps and we start looking at how we're using these devices and the games, right? I mean, that first single parent mother, they won't get off the Xbox or Netflix. So what's happening is we're basically, I'm going to use this word, we're numbing out. And the idea of numbing out is I'm not staying present with this present moment, right? So Netflix is just continually coming at me or the Xbox. I'm playing these games. Now, again, there's nothing inherently wrong with watching a show or playing games. So let's go to that first question, right? She says she's a single parent mother and she can't get her children off Xbox or Netflix. But here's what's interesting. She says when I have important work calls, I'm about to lose my cool. So I'm going to go specifically into that one for a second, right? There's something about work calls and there's something about the energy of that. So is it because the Internet's slower if they're on Xbox or watching, is it because they're noisy? So what I want to understand here in this type of a question is I'm about to lose my cool. Why is it that I'm about to lose my cool? Because the energy that we send in those moments matters. If you want to get anybody defensive or our tone of voice, our pitch matters. So if I'm elevated and I'm angry, well, what's my child supposed to. Oh, oh, sorry, Mom. Sorry, Mom. Because they're teenagers, they're going to fight back. And especially if it's something that they love doing, they're going to resist. So my answer to her question is, okay, what are you trying to get across? So as a parent, you want to pause there and say, what is the message I'm really trying to say to my child? What am I really trying to say? Now, let's try a role play here for a second, Carly. And if I'm. If you're the child and I'm you, and let's say I'm the mom here. And I said, I have a really important work meeting coming up and it's going to start in about 20 minutes. I need your help. Could you help me? The work meeting is going to take about 15 to 20 minutes, or it might take half an hour. Would you guys do me a favor? And in that 15 to 20 minutes, whether it's sound or whether it's bandwidth or whether it's something else. Would you guys do me a favor and just if we could have you quiet during that time, it would be so helpful for me because this is an important meeting and truly my job. This is one of the, one of the more important things. I need your help. Could you guys help me with that?

Am I supposed to respond?

Yeah, you respond. You're the teenager here.

Okay. I'm thinking about what my teenagers would say. I do think the tone has everything to do with it. So in the way that you said it, I, every single one of my children would definitely look at me in compassion. So, yes, yes, mother. Yes, father. I will do what you ask because I do care about what happens to all of us, and I do care about you, and I care that you are willing to work. So that would be my response. I don't think my kids would say it in so many words, but.

Right, but there's a core point here. My tone of voice matters, but also the energy between me and my children. See, I want, I want, I want to have a relationship with them where they feel heard, they feel understood, and I want them to have time where they're able to enjoy Xbox or Netflix. But I also want to understand that we need other interactions. Now, I want to speak specifically to this single. Being a single parent is hard. Mother or father, right? Yes, because. And you're trying to provide for your children. So let me just give kudos to the mom in the first place. Right, Right. She's, she is doing the best she can. The energy and the frustration actually is probably in me, how hard it is. I'm worn out, I'm exhausted, and in my 12 and 14 year old. Right. Do they appreciate me? Am I dealing with my own depression? Am I dealing with my own loneliness? I just look at that and I'm like, oh, man, this poor mother. And yet in this situation, if she could come with, again, there's a concept, Relationships first.

Right.

I'm focusing on this relationship. I, I, it matters. And to me that Carly is where I would want this mom to start. Right. The question, what can I do to make them respect me and my job? It keeps the roof over the heads. I can just hear it. You guys don't appreciate what I'm doing. I can hear. That's what it feels like. I can hear her saying that you guys don't appreciate me.

Right.

Contrast that. You know, I love you guys so much, I'm anxious or I'm worried about my job. And during this time, whether it's a 20 minute, 30 minute meeting, I really need you to whatever. Whether it's to be quiet or I need the bandwidth or whatever the reason is, I need your help. Now. What I'm doing there is I'm inviting them to help me. And most people, when they're invited in to help people, they don't reject it.

I hear so many things when you're talking about this, but I think the thing that jumps out the most is when we have so much on our plate as a parent, it is much easier to be reactive to every situation that is coming our way. Almost. I picture a tennis racket with balls coming and we're just hitting him, hitting him, hitting him, hitting him, swinging him back, returning the shot. And maybe when we stop for a minute, I think when we pause, when we have moments of rest and really understand, why am I doing this? Why am I trying to do all of this? It's out of love for this family. And why is that a disconnect with my kids? Why can't they see that? And that form of communication, the loud, the reactive form, the. The modem's broken. We need to reconnect and fine tune it so that they can actually hear what I'm trying to communicate with them, what I'm trying to show them what kind of love I have for them. And I just, I think that's so wise because it's not that hard. It honestly isn't that hard to just change, you know, take a breath, change our tone of voice, change the language just a tiny bit, fine tune it, but it makes the biggest difference and the dividends are incalculable.

Especially when it's done with love, right? I mean, when it's done with love. There's one other thing here that I'm going to bring up, and I may be wrong, but I'm working my tail off and you guys are playing games and watching tv. I'm out of energy and I still have to work. And there is this possibility of a feeling of resentment. Right. I'd like to be watching some Netflix right now.

Right?

And again. So I want to just admire this mom for taking care of her kiddos and doing her very best. So I think it's really important that we just honor that part. But also to be honest with yourself, like, am I out of energy? Make sure to, in this situation, take some of those Calgon moments and do some self care. Because I think self care is especially important when you're a single parent. You need some downtime. You need some time just to relax. Otherwise you get burned out, worn out, and that's overwhelming.

Yes. Oh, that's good advice. Okay. One other part to this that I want to pull out from. The second question.

Yeah.

This parent says, how can we repair our relationship and still maintain what we feel is a safe environment surrounding technology use? I find I like what you said, that the teenagers will always butt up against the limits that you've created in your home. But how can we can. Yeah. Repair that relationship or continue a good relationship and still maintain the boundaries?

Yeah. So in this question, my response is there's so much complexity here. I mean, we could spend the rest of the time just on this one. So let me just give a couple of core things here. We are not perfect parents. But at this point, he believes. Now, this is what we know. He believes his depression is all our fault. Now, what that tells us is that teenager has aligned with another perception. You are the problem. You're why I'm feeling what I'm feeling. You are the reason. Now, what that in essence is telling me is there is a lot of conflict between parents and child. The child feels controlled. His friends are doing other things. They have different rules. We have time limits. We have structure. And my friends don't have structure. And so I'm depressed because you won't, I promise you, if that continues, your child's resentment will turn them against you. Absolutely turn them against you. And the reason why is because the resentment's already there. The writing is on the wall. I'm depressed. It's your fault. So if I could do a reboot in this situation, I would want to talk with my son or in this way. And if I'm role playing, this would be how I would role play. You know, I've been observing our relationship lately, and the truth is, I've been really having a hard time in just knowing how to interact with you. And I know that you don't like the way that we parent. I know that. Again, just listening to the way you've said when you said that you're feeling depression and it's our fault. I'd like to really like to hear more about that. But I. I don't know if you trust me enough to tell me what you're feeling. And the truth is, I don't even know if you like us as your parents right now. And I hear myself say that, and that is such a hard thing to say. But as a parent, I'm concerned because I love you. I care about you. And I feel like I've lost. We've lost that connection. And I don't know what happened, but I feel like we've lost it.

I feel like we have these different identities we take as parents with our children. Sometimes we're too friendly and, and we're two. We're in the friend zone. And other times we're almost a warden. And I probably. I probably lean more toward the warden side of things. Getting back to that loving bond, that filament, that strand of connection that first linked you in the first place, comes down to humility and vulnerability on a parent's part. Yeah, it really does.

I. I feel like we've lost the connection and I miss it. Right. It's honesty and it's love. And I want that connection. I want that bond. And in this situation, you know, he says that he is. We've made compromises in the past, but he sees others using and are allowed to do these things that he's not. So let's talk about that. And if I was role playing that. Let's talk about this. Okay, so we've had this conversation. What would you like it to look like? Right? I mean, if we really were to talk about device use, I mean, what would your preference be? What does this even look like?

That is such a good question to ask a kid.

Well, because you're putting the. Giving them the opportunity. Right again. Self governance should be our goal as parents. Yes, Right. I mean, I don't want to be a parent into their 20s and 30s, for goodness sake.

Right.

I want them to spread their wings and fly. Right. So. So that question is designed. I don't know, what do you want to look like? Because I'm not going to be here forever. And my question is to you, like, what do you want your life to look like? What are your goals? What are your dreams? What are your aspirations? And what I'm. And what I'm in essence saying is, here's the monkey, it's yours. You get to take some responsibility here. Now, if the child says, which I can hear them saying, well, just let me do whatever I want, Right? Why do you even care? Right? And my response to that is, because I love you too much. Because what I do know is that these things can control your life. You think it's me. I promise you, the more time we're on those. Listen, in fact, if you'll play a game with me, let's go look at the research on how much we're using it and what it's doing. To our mental health. And I'm just sharing this with you because I care too much about you. I wouldn't want you to go to a party and drink. I wouldn't want you to go to a party and do drugs. I wouldn't. Right. I wouldn't. But the reality is these things are playing with your mental health in profound ways. When you're a parent, you'll realize that there has to be guideposts, guidelines. And I'm trying to figure that out. And maybe we've been too controlling with these guideposts. Maybe we have, but we're learning, too. So I'm willing to adapt, but I want to do it in a way where our relationship is the most important thing, where we feel connected and bonded. So if you're playing these games again, I don't want you to be depressed because of feeling controlled. I'd like to spend time with you. Let's go for some walks. Let's go hiking. Let's go boating. Let's do something. Because I want a connection with you that's so good.

I think pointing out to our kids that maybe this is just a modern world that we haven't fully understood how to walk through yet. That, and that this has now become a known, ubiquitous malady, that we have used technology to take over living, that we are using it instead of living. We're hiding behind it. We're hiding our lives behind it. And I think exposing our own kids to that is difficult. They don't always want to see it or hear what we have to say. But it does help that there's Surgeon General Vivek Murthy saying it. You know, it helps that there's so much research out there that there are laws trying to be passed against social media use and intense algorithms that create more addiction in our own children. So I think it does help to show them, hey, this is an actual problem, and I don't want you to get caught up in this problem because it will not reward you by the end of it. And you will ask me, why did you do that? Why didn't you stop me? And I don't want to have that conversation in 10, 20 years from now.

Right. Very well said. Right. Because there are the warning signs. Right? I mean, we've seen enough warning signs. We've seen the research. We know we're more depressed than we've ever been. We. We know it. If we ignore that, then shame on us. Right? We need to do our best to educate, to protect, but not in a way that's absolutely controlling. And that's the battle. Right. How do I do this? In a way, And I think it's education, I think it's helping them understand and we have to be informed ourselves.

Yes. And I think it takes replacing the dopamine hit that you get from the gaming, from technology, from all the screens. You have to replace it with something. Yes, it may be a slower release form or hit of dopamine, but I think that after time when we start to replace it, it may take a minute, but we will gravitate towards the things that have longer lasting levels of dopamine. That we will be able to ride a longer wave of happiness and joy and pleasure and fulfillment in these other forms of connection. You know, one of my kids made a new friend and this friend loved playing with little action figures, calico critters and dolls and stuff. And she's not much of a kid that likes to imagine and do that. She's always moving, she's always jumping off walls. And this newfound love of little things and imagination has given her hours and hours and hours of playtime. And she's now doing it with all of her friends and they don't need any sort of technology. But I think we have to be patient. It takes some time before we switch over to. Actually, I would rather read my new book from the library that I got at school today or I'd rather go and make this new Lego set or I have this idea to make some sort of cake or whatever, get them excited about things outside of screens. And over time their desire to live a life outside of screens will develop and they'll more easily gravitate towards that. But it just takes time.

Yeah. And that's going to be the challenge is the unlearning because it's so easily and readily adopted. And to parents who have children who are getting ready to go into the stage of tech, heavy tech use, I strongly recommend that you get educated and informed about cell phone usage barriers, time restrictions. There, there's just a benefit in intentional consumption. There's a really good book by Cal Newport. It's called Digital Minimalism. Really good book in just terms of just understanding how to live life in a digitally minimalized world. And I think that's a great concept for all of us to contemplate.

Yes, we want our children to have an abundant life and it takes so much effort. Now that's why I feel so much for this single mother, because it is so much work. We have to be exceptional parents. Exceptional parenting is required at this Stage this age in 20, 24 and beyond because we have to be so involved and it's not easy. It's really not easy. But yes, it just requires a lot of touch point with our children. So many touch points with our children. Whereas before maybe a little bit less.

Let's lean into this last question for a second. Let's look at that for just a second because there's a couple things here. I got a 15 year old, screen time, she's suffering from depression, mom doesn't know how to address it. I would like to go into this for just a second. So I got a 15 year old. What do we know about 15 year old girls going just been through puberty for probably two in second or third year. So there's a natural element there of your body changing. Oftentimes it's a discomfort. Socially we also look at relationships. My child's dealing with some depression. How do I address the screen time? I would actually be interested in looking at this a little bit different here for just a second. Your screen child's screen time is their, probably their coping mechanism. It's what your child is turning to, to deal with emotions that they don't want to feel. And so it's maybe reciprocal. Right. The more screen time I have, maybe I'm more depressed or it may be the other way around. I'm depressed and so I'm turning to the screens as my coping mechanism. I'm not sure which one. It's probably both, one way or the other. So I'm going to say your love and your care as we've been talking about are going to be absolutely important. Educating your child, talking with your child about the concerns and learning together about the impact of this, of these devices. But if we take it away, let's just say we took away the screen time, what's she going to replace it with? Unless there is an other alternative, then I'm going to be bored out of my mind and I'm going to go back to that because it's the only coping mechanism I know. So developing friendships, building connections, doing things together as a family, having more meaningful conversations, playing games together as a family. Right. If you want to address it, it's not just focusing on reducing the depression. Let's go create what would be a solution. Let's spend time, let's go for some walks, let's go to the park, let's go for a swim, let's write, let's do things that create alternative experiences to the screen time. Rather than us as parents harping on. You got to get off the screen. You got to get off the screen. Let's go create experiences. And we aren't even talking about depression. We're creating experiences together.

Oh, that's so good. We can't just keep saying unlearn this behavior. Unlearn this behavior. Unlearn this behavior. It has to be found in discovering and creating beyond it. That's beautiful. I think it's more effective.

I think it's just more effective parenting. Yes.

Okay, thank you. Those were wonderful responses. I'm excited to go back and listen to them. Okay, next set of questions. My son is 18 and a senior in high school. Ever since he was a child, he had issues with lying and making up stories to get what he wants. I don't know how to help him. What can I do? Another parent says, My 19 year old son lies about everything. Ever since he has been in elementary school we have caught him in lies and he is very deceitful. I guess we thought he would grow out of it. What can I do? And they reference different issues with lying about money, work, location, etc.

Okay. Okay. So now I ask you a question. Why do people lie?

You really going to ask me that question and think that I have an answer for Dr. Skinner? I'm the one asking you questions.

I'm asking for the hypothetical. Why do you think people lie?

People lie so they can get what they want. I like that they said they he lies to get what he wants.

Okay, but why does he want what he wants?

That's because it feels good. It feels good.

Okay, so is it possible that I get a reward for lying, for tricking, for deceiving?

Oh, interesting.

Okay, maybe, maybe. But I want to have more. I'm going to, I'm going to say positive on this concept of lying. Let's say for a second that I lie because I'm scared to tell the truth. Because I don't like what I've done. And I want you to like me and I want you to love me. So is it possible that I'm lying because I've got these hidden behaviors or these secrets and I just, I don't want your rejection. Is that a possibility?

Yes. And that's painful to hear as a parent.

Okay, so. So again, that's one possibility. And I'm going to throw out multiple possibilities. I don't know the answer to these specific situations. But let's say I've got a 19 year old that's been lying about everything. Well, I would take that back. Everything. Just the language they lie about everything. Did you get dressed today? No. Well, you got. So. So is it also possible that I'm lying because it gives me attention? It's. It's the way I get your attention.

Interesting, right?

So. So it's possible that I'm lying just because it's how I know I can get your attention, your energy, your anger, your frustration. Stop lying to me. Is it possible, right, that it's the way they've learned to get attention? So, one, I don't want to be seen. Two, it's the way I get attention. Let's go a couple other versions here. Is it possible that it was modeled to me by somebody else, another parent? Is that possible? Because if that's a possibility, then it's like, well, everybody's doing that. That's what happens in our families. We just. We. You know, nobody tells the truth. Well, you guys aren't telling the truth. And so the energy there is. That's just what we do. And then there's another group of people that absolutely love it. They love the hit. They love the secrecy. They love the manipulation. And those are individuals who's usually been deeply traumatized, and they actually get a reward from the manipulation and for getting away with things. So. So, yeah, so that's really what I'm trying to say here is, okay, there are multiple reasons why people lie. And so for me to answer the question, I have to understand the story of what's driving a person to not be honest. Because living in deception is a really difficult way to live. Living with secrets, living with hidden behaviors. Living a lie is emotionally draining, and it catches up with people. So let's go to some of the specific parts. Right. Ever since he was a child, he had issues with lying and making up stories. Sometimes that story and that one, it feels like, hey, this person just learned to tell stories, and they became fabricated, and they went on and on. Okay, so let's push pause here. You're a storyteller, son. You like to tell stories. Every once in a while, they get a little bit more like, your fish was this big. Now it's this big.

Yes.

And.

And.

And I understand that, but I do have a. Something I'd invite you to think about. Do you think people trust that?

Ooh. Whoa. That's a good question.

Now, some version of that. Now, notice what I'm doing here. I'm not telling them what to do. I'm asking them to think. A core concept. This was taught to me by a friend of mine. He said to ask is to Teach to tell is to preach. If I tell you, you're lying. If I tell you all these things versus asking the question, how do you think people are going to respond? Right. And I'm asking you to contemplate this because in truth, the best way that we earn respect is through our integrity. And now I'm teaching the principle that I want my child to understand. There is nothing more valuable than your integrity. Your integrity. If you say you do it and you do it. If you lie, hide, manipulate, people will stop trusting you and they won't turn to you and they won't believe you. In life, that's a difficult way to live. So I'm going to invite you, I'm teaching you this concept right now. If you are a person of your word and you're a person of integrity, people will respect you for the rest of your life.

Well, and I think with trust, intimacy is formed. Right. And so when I offer my trust to somebody, I'm offering it as a gift. I'm giving you my trust. I'm giving you this gift. And you get to choose if you will honor that trust, if you will honor what I've given you.

Yes.

And I think creating the delicacy around what trust is and how easily it can be broken and how difficult it is to restore at a young age, I don't know if it always internalizes. We'll find out with my kids. But as they've grown, I've tried really desperately to teach them that trust is one of the most profound ways of connecting with people.

For sure.

Yeah. Most profound factors under girding a strong and healthy relationship, whether it be with a sibling, a parent, a spouse, a friend, whatever.

Yeah. And so there's that invitation I invite you to think about. Right.

That's good.

I invite you to think about this because again, the types of our relationships, because again, there is. There's a consequence of people not trusting us. And so I'm. Again, I can't make you always tell the truth. I can invite you to understand that there are consequences when we don't tell the truth. And usually it's going to influence your relationships and whether people turn to you or not, or whether they respect you or not.

I like that. I really love that. Okay. I have an extra element I want to add to these questions taken from my own experience with my own children, when I have found my children lying over and over again about a certain thing, whether it be about reasons why they can't keep curfew or reasons why they don't come straight home or, you know, staying up late, getting homework done. I don't know. There's a host of issues, but I've started to go inward and see if perhaps we have too tight of a leash and that perhaps we might need to loosen it a little bit. For instance, a son that kept coming home late and then realizing, you know, it was the curfew I had growing up, and I thought, this is appropriate for this age, and then finding out around us that every other friend in a large group of friends had a much later curfew, and that this was so difficult for my son to keep this curfew because he really wanted to stay with his friends. And FOMO is very real at age 15 and 16. And so these really elaborate, horrible things would happen where my phone got thrown into the pool or, you know, all these things. And then finally we're like, okay, I get it. We get it. You want to have a little bit of a later curfew. But if we give you this later curfew, that means we're trusting you to keep it. And just untightening that leash a little bit has worked in some regards. Is that possible that kids are lying and that maybe we can learn something from it as a parent?

Yeah, because it's a conversation. There's a reason why you didn't want to tell me.

Yes.

Right. And what I need you to be able to do is to trust me enough that you can come to me and push back and say, but, mom, here's the situation, or, dad, here's the situation. I want a dialogue because I want them to govern themselves.

That's very different, though, than how most of us were raised.

Yes.

Because I said so. Because that's the rule.

Right.

And we obey the family rules.

And. And we did, and we probably still do. But when our children get to a certain age, we want them to spread their wings and fly. Right. And so we want them to have this conversation. I would rather you have a hard conversation with me than lie to me any day. And if you say mom or dad, I don't agree, then let's talk about this. Let's do it together. Because the outcome is so much better because they are a part of it rather than just being obedient. Now, sometimes obedience is critical, and it is safer because we have the experience as parents. And then there are times where we counsel together and help them learn how to govern themselves.

What do we do if we've already messed up and our kids are a little too old?

They're they're never too old. They're never too old. It's a take two. It's a take two. And it's like, we're going to figure this out. Honestly, I'm telling you, it is. It's never too late. And it's completely okay to say, you know, I've tried this. I want to try a different way. I want to talk with you about this. And that's what I'm talking about.

Yeah. I think we. This goes back to conversations we've had in the past on this podcast where mainly me grappling with the concept of high expectation, high love, and creating an environment at home that's high expectation. And I feel like there's high love. But the fear of failure might be too pronounced. That feeling might be too pronounced in our home. The failure is so negative. We don't want anybody to fail or do anything wrong here because we have such a high expectation for you all. And so underneath all that, creating these conversations of, hey, come to me. I want you to talk to me when you have made a mistake.

Yes.

That. That becomes kind of muddy in my mind. I have a hard time getting there.

Well, and again, there's a time for us to create that environment. Again, we are trying to create this environment where they can come to us and they can openly talk and say, I am feeling, I am thinking, I am worried. I am. Whatever it may be, which it goes.

Back to, your relationship with me matters more than performance, matters more than your behavior.

Yeah. You will always have my permission to say, I don't necessarily want to do this, or I don't agree. You always can do that. You can always say that. There will be times where I will counsel together, and there will be times where I'm saying, this is one. As a parent, I just need to. I have to say no. And let me explain why. And often I'll explain why. These are the reasons. For example, in our home, the truth is, sleepovers are things that we just don't do. And it's, you know, everybody. Everybody. Everybody is. Well, we're not going to be everybody. Right. That's just. That's not what we do. And let me explain why. I'll tell you the why. If you could sit in my chair and I could tell you story after story where people had experiences at sleepovers that didn't end well. And this is a protective dad who loves you so much that I don't ever want you to have experiences that will make you or change the rest of your life.

I can Testify that as you age, as you become an adult, you'll be so grateful for your annoying dad that never let you out of a sleepover, because that was my dad. I see all the love. It makes me emotional even just thinking about it. How much he must have loved me to protect me and let me be angry with him. Yeah.

So I, again, this is just part of that journey. But I'm just of the opinion, I truly am. I'm of the opinion that hard conversations are things that we can't back away from.

Okay, that's good. Okay, do we have time for one last question?

Yeah, let's go for it.

This one says, hi, I just attended a how to motivate your child seminar. It was excellent. Do you have specific guidance on how to apply these principles for high schoolers? Thank you. Another parent asked, what are age appropriate motivators for elementary aged kids? There's a lot of talk about the importance of positively motivating kids and never any ideas of what that looks like. Lastly, the parent says, how do I help my child become motivated with schoolwork? All about, how do we create motivation in our own children?

My best answer to that is, children who are succeeding generally do the best the way that they succeed. Sometimes we have to do it with them, we have to model it for them, we have to be with them to show them how to. I'll give you a very specific example. Motivation comes on a basketball court when somebody says, you did a really good job. I coached basketball for 15 years, having seven daughters and a son. I coached him one year and. But my girls were the rest. I don't know how many places we traveled. We did so much, we did so, so much basketball. Some of my best memories with my children. But there were girls who had never been coached. In particular, there was a girl, she was the tallest girl I'd ever coached, but she had never been taught. And I always simplify, right? We, we, we do it one thing at a time. And when you see the positive, you reinforce it. You reinforce it. You reinforce it. That was really good. You kept your hands up on the rebound. Great job. Now let's turn and teach you how to pivot. Now let's teach you how to do a right left layup. And you watch and you observe. And now I want you to go home and practice this. And so you teach. And if you look at the best teachers, they're not the critical, demeaning, negative ones. The best teachers are the ones who find and praise and lift up and say, that was good. And now let's see if we can take you to the next level. Let's them the growth mindset versus a fixed mindset. And motivation comes when we teach our children the growth mindset that is work, effort, and consistent practice with healthy habits.

Oh, I love that. That positive feedback is the seed that creates that motivation. And that motivation rewarded with more positivity is the momentum that we're looking for. I'm always trying to get to that flow, that place of momentum.

So. So my answer to the question, you know how to motivate a child? Right. It's sometimes they have to see success. They need to see success. Because a fixed mindset is, if I don't get it in the beginning, and this is the challenge that many of our children have. If I don't get it in the beginning, I'm not as good as others. I'm not like them. They somehow get it. That's the mistake. It's like, look, it's going to be effort, and we're going to practice a very specific example. Recently, my son got behind in reading a Chinese book. And so he's been in a Chinese immersion, and he's behind. And because I speak Chinese, I said, okay, well, we're going to sit down and I'm going to read with you, and we're going to do this. And so I read the first couple of chapters with him, and I was amazed at how much he could read but couldn't understand. But we continued reading, and now he's reading by himself. He doesn't need his dad to help him how to interpret it. He knows how to do it. But in the beginning, it took me sitting down with him and saying, we're going to do this, son. And there was so much this fear of resistance. And I'm like, son, you know these characters. I'm amazed you don't know the meaning of them. That's the next level. And so now let's look into application. When you don't know a word, but you can read it, go look it up. And so again, it's this process of educating patients with. Educating them how to do it. And once they know how to do it and they get their motivation comes from seeing success.

I was not expecting this response, and I thoroughly love it. That is so beautiful. That is so good. Okay, Anything else you want to add to that before we wrap up?

No. I appreciate the conversation. It's been a lot of fun.

It has been so good. I really like this format. I think we might make it a more frequent thing and instead of all of your questions, listeners, I'm just going to pretend like they're from you and I'm going to start asking all the questions that I have for you, Dr. Skinner, because your responses were so helpful and so necessary. I desperately needed them. So thank you. Thank you for being with us today.

It's always good. Thank you.

You've been listening to Finding Noble. I'm Carly Redd. Follow Finding Noble on all available podcast directories and find out more on our website, findingnoble.com that's findingnobeln o b l e.com and if you or anyone close to you are looking for further resources on young adult and adolescent mental health, Dr. Skinner and a host of other leading professionals working in the mental health world share courses and even answer your questions, all on parentguidance.org that is parentguidance.org brought to you by the Cook center for Human Connection.