School Gets the Best of Them, We Get the Rest of Them with Dr. Lisa Damour

0:00The following podcast is a Dear Media Production.

0:08Welcome to Raising Good Humans podcast. I'm Dr. Lisa Pressman. And today I have one of my favorites, Dr. Lisa DeMoor, a repeat guest on the podcast, Teen Whisperer, New York Times bestselling author of The Brilliant Untangled Under Pressure and the Emotional Lives of Teenagers. and she also joined me and we did the masterclass called the science of parenting. It's awesome. It's a three-part series. You can check it out wherever you get your masterclasses. I think just masterclass.com. Today we're talking about when adolescents use you as their sort of emotional dumping ground, how to respond, what it means, when to worry, when to relax.

0:56And she's just the most brilliant at translating adolescence. So I love sharing her work with you. If you enjoy this episode, go ahead and give it a five-star rating and write a little review and, and tell me what you want to hear about. So I can keep giving you more episodes that you're looking for. Something I think we hear all the time is that our teenagers are being really bristly or prickly or whatever you want to call it, or complaining or dumping, or just seeming like if you just looked at that, you would think things are not okay. And so I wanted to talk to about like the kinds of conversations that we might have with our kids where it's like normal dumping and the kind where you're like, this is, this feels like it's getting out of hand.

1:56And then generally speaking, like responding to that because they live in the real world and we don't want them to get too comfortable just like treating somebody like an actual trash can. Garbage can. But like, we want to be received, you know, like receive something. So it's all just garbled, but you make everything untangled. Oh, thank you very much. Well done. Well done. I see what you did there. Very good. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Well, it's always so good to be in conversation with you. It's like one of my favorite places to be. Elisa, I don't know if you have this happen, but sometimes like when I'm speaking to an audience, like it accesses a different part of my brain and I come up with stuff that I don't come up with and I'm just like hammering away at my computer or, you know, thinking on my own.

2:41And a few years ago, I was in Toronto, and it was the end of a long day at a wonderful school, and I was speaking with the parents, and the parent raised a question a little bit like this, like, oh my gosh, my kid comes home, and they're just so grumpy and so grousy. And I said, you know, school gets the best of them, we get the rest of them. It was like one of the better things I've ever come up with, and it just sort of happened. And I think that's a great way to start this conversation. So here's how I think we are most helpful is if we picture being our kid. Okay. The school day, I don't think any of us at this point would make it past third period.

3:23Okay. So you're like trying to find your classroom. You are with a bunch of kids who you did not choose. And we have to bear this in mind all the time, right? And within that pack in any given class, there may be one or two kids you like, one or two kids who make you really annoyed, and then a whole bunch of kids who sort of fill in the middle, right? That's going to be a sort of a standard fare. And then you have the adult running the class who, you know, under best conditions, kids will have a couple of teachers they think are fantastic, a couple of teachers who make them bananas, and then everybody else.

4:00And it's so many people, and it's so much stuff and it's moving around. And there's all of these dynamics going on that are nothing to do with school, right? The weird social who sat there, who looked at whom, you know, who said what, what, you know, did I say something? And our kids hold it together all day. They very rarely throw themselves on the ground at school. They very rarely haul off and punch somebody at school, right? And they go from injustice to injustice or frustration to frustration and they just manage. They're actually great at school. And it's work to be that good at school. And I know, and I've had kids tell me, part of how they can do it is they're like, oh, wait till I get home and tell everybody what happened today, right?

4:49That part of the grace that they are able to display is hinges on, I am holding this until I can tell somebody what happened or how I felt. Now, the dynamic it creates, this is not great from the family side, but this is the reality. You haven't seen your kid all day. You're super excited to see them. You yourself may be exhausted. I'm always invariably exhausted. You finally connect at the end of the day and you're like, how was school? And they're like, right? And they just dump. They just dump a whole bunch of misery. And honestly, Elisa, it's really unpleasant. Like, I will just say that as a mom.

5:29Like, I don't enjoy it at all. I concur. And I think we don't talk about how unpleasant it is enough. Like, there's the piece about, like, how worried should we be about our kid, which is very real. But also, like, this is just not fun. Yeah. And it's annoying. Yeah, it's annoying. Yeah. And you're like, I'm tired. Really? Yeah. Can I just watch TV? Yeah. I think that's a really good point. And we don't talk about it enough. And also... To that point, I wonder if you could address like when, because I think this is another thing that social media does sometimes. Yay. We're having conversations about things, but like people will call that masking and they'll be like, when you say school gets the best of them, we get the rest of them, which by the way, is obviously going to be the title of this episode.

6:18I can just, I can hear the pathologizing starting. They get to be authentic at school kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. So So can you like clear that up for us? Yeah. So, okay. First of all, this is actually how it should be. We want our kids to be their best when they're out and about, right? And we want to have home be a place where they can let their emotional hair down, so to speak. Oh, I love that. That doesn't mean they get to be jerks at home, but it does mean they don't have to be holding it together in the same way. And I think there is such a thing as masking. I think there's also such a thing as developing the muscle to be socially appropriate under challenging conditions, which is a very important muscle that everybody needs to develop, right?

6:58You can't go to work as an adult and be like, you're annoying, get away from me. I don't want to deal with you, right? You got to be able to work with others, even if you don't like them. So I'm sure there's some extreme version of this where a kid is covering up stuff they shouldn't have to cover up, but I would say the school gets the best of them, we get the rest of them, is mostly healthy, typical, expectable development. And it gets to something that you do such a beautiful job around, which is healthy development involves things that are hard, things that are uncomfortable for kids, things that, you know, make a request of them, asks them to adapt to new and difficult situations.

7:37Healthy development isn't I get to feel whatever I feel, wherever I feel it, however I want. Exactly. Exactly. How, so I'm, I just feel like we have to keep hearing this from you in different ways because it's soothing and inspiring. And I, I do think like, how, how can we get reminders of that, of distinguishing between uncomfortable and, you know, unmanageable, right? Like that's like, for me, the big divide is the situation uncomfortable. Is it unmanageable? And, you know, school by and large is going to be pretty uncomfortable for kids in the same way that strength training is uncomfortable for people, If you are doing something at the edge of your capacity and building capacity, it doesn't actually feel good.

8:20That's actually a sign that you're growing. So I think the more that we can normalize a degree of stress, actually, not even a degree, normalize stress. School is supposed to be stressful. That's the nature of it. And focus instead on making sure kids are getting good recovery, good sleep, good leisure. We're already doing kids a favor. I think the other thing is, once we put on the table what we are putting on the table, that they come in and they're often not that fun to be around because they're just complaining a lot, I think then it helps us to change our expectations for what that interaction is going to look like.

8:56I've said this a million times a million places, so I'm just going to repeat it. If when we say, how was your day? We picture ourselves opening an emotional garbage bag and just holding it open and letting the kid just dump the injustices and frustrations of the day and just nodding and smiling and knowing they're just unloading all the stuff they've carried. If when they come to the end of it, we just tie it off and set it aside, usually they feel better. We have proven ourselves a very good garbage collector and have done a beautiful service, but we haven't mucked around it and we haven't said, well, why did you bring this garbage home or I'm going to go call the school about this piece of garbage, right?

9:37I mean, we're just collecting and setting aside. And most of the time, the kid feels better at the end of that. And if they do, you're good to go. And now for a quick break. We are all trying to figure out how to get our kids off devices. And one of the best ways is to have something at the ready when you're at your most vulnerable to want to give your kids devices, which is when you're super busy. So KiwiCo has crates that help kids learn with fundamentals through hands-on projects and progressively build their skills with each new project they work on. And it comes all together with all the materials that you could possibly need for the project.

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12:33That's right. It is 55 % off plus free shipping. Once again, that's nurturelife.com slash humans and make sure you use my promo code humans to get the best price. Even if you're not a parent with young kids, you might have a parent friend who's struggling at mealtime, or they just need to mark one more thing off their list. Make sure to share the code so that RGH gets the credit. Remember to put your little ones first with healthy meals from Nurture Life. So let's take an example of you feel like your kid comes home and multiple times a week they are dumping that trash into this bag. And maybe there's something that we can do, like visualize closing the bag and putting the garbage out versus leaving that garbage bag open and thinking about it and letting it stink up the room and all of the things.

13:31Because if we go into that mode of like, oh my God, we have so many problems to solve that I hadn't even worried about and now I have new worries, it sounds like we're misunderstanding what's happening. I think that's right. Or our role. I think that's right. And I think just so we know, I always find it's helpful to say like when to worry, like when do we actually want to worry about this? And I think we want to worry if the kid dumps the garbage and then they're still upset, right? That they're not getting the relief that we would expect to see. I also think that a lot of families may have a trusted person at school that if they're really stressed about it and they can't tell, that they can maybe call the teacher and just say, I'm making a call to the side.

14:13Everything looking good on your end? She's a little grumpy at home, but it could be garden variety grumpy. And checking in in that way. But I think you have to feel like it's a teacher you can trust who's not going to say to the kid the next day, I heard you having a tough time. Exactly. That's not always so great. But you can do a check-in like that if you're really anxious, because it's better to not react if you can, right? The more we can avoid reacting, the better. But I would worry if the kid doesn't feel better. I would worry if the school is saying something. I would worry if you, you know, I hear about this all the time from families at boarding school, right?

14:46I hear about this all the time where the kid, you know, calls, dumps, like, I hate it here. I don't want to be here. This is the worst place in the world. You know, the parent is awake all night. Like they cannot get together. They call the kid the next day. The kid's like, what's your problem? You seem upset. Like they, And they can't get a read because they actually can't even see the kid. And I say to them all the time, pick up the phone and call the school because they have this going on all over. And I promise you, half the time they can be like, yeah, no, I'm watching your kid skip down the hole right this minute.

15:16And you can know that that was what happened and your kid's all right. That's how I think we want to size it up in terms of when to worry, not assuming it's grounds for concern. And another way to think about it, and then I can move off of this topic, but I'm sort of obsessed with it. We cannot, as parents and caregivers, get a faithful look at our kids' overall functioning. We just cannot. They do and accomplish things away from us that we would never imagine they can handle as beautifully as they do. They bring home to us the ways in which they feel most vulnerable, the ways in which they feel most unsure and insecure.

15:57we should never assume that we are getting a complete picture of our child's functioning. We just can't. I just think that is so relieving because how scary is it if you're only hearing the bad stuff or you're hearing lots of good stuff too, but your antenna is just up for the bad stuff. Is it worth asking at some point in the day? Is it worth asking, not in that moment of dumping, but if anything's going right, or is that just pouring salt on a wound? No, I think you could 100 % do it. And I think the way you would do it is you would say, listen, you hold it together so great all day. And I am totally here to collect whatever junk you need to dump at the end of the day.

16:48I am here for it. you'll let me know if there aren't bright points, right? I'm assuming there are bright points in all of this. You'll let me know if it actually feels like the whole thing is bad. You don't even have to make them produce the bright points, but you can just sort of like sort of a step back like this is the dynamic we're doing with each other, right? Okay. I get it. I also think sometimes later in the evening, kids will be like, oh, and then this funny thing happened. And I also think you can say, and I have a daughter who just started ninth grade and I have a daughter who has started senior year of college.

17:21And, you know, I will sometimes say to my ninth grader, like, what's the funniest thing that happened today? You know, or like, what's the weirdest thing that happened today? And like, you know, and then she'll come up with some hilarious story from the lunch table, you know, that she produces. So you can prompt it, but you can't prompt it as a way to preempt them from just sharing what was hard. And how do you know when you should respond the hard things. If you're like, I have such a good answer or I have such good advice. I'm so brilliant and I've been through this or let's see what else might you think.

17:55And by the way, lest anyone think that we're above this in our interactions with our teenagers. Like, I don't know about you, but I definitely more often than I'm proud of. Yeah. I'm the most annoying. And I'm like, oh my God. I like if Lisa were watching me, she'd be like, what's happening? What are you doing? I am like, I step in it like it's my job. No, I do. I do. Okay. So first of all, like the most valuable line in all of parenting is, do you want my help or do you just need to vent? Right? Like you can't parent without it. Like you have to have that there because what it does is it actually gives you tremendous relief.

18:29Usually the kid's like, no, just listen. And then you're like, okay, that's what's being asked. It also, again, it kind of like creates a framing. Like this is what we're doing, right? You're saving it for me and you're giving it to me. and that's our transaction and it works for you and I'm going to make it work for me too, right? Now, some kids might be like, sure, I'll take your help, right? I would say it's like a 1 % time. And then the nice thing is they actually are more likely to take your help. But I will tell you, and again, like true confessions from my own parenting, it is so hard when a kid's like, you know, you've got like, you know the situation, like you know the answer.

19:08And you said, do you want my help or do you just need to vent? And they're like, I do not want your help. And you're like, but it's here. It's right there. So sometimes maybe I might have slipped it into another conversation, the great advice I wanted to give because I couldn't stand it. But that's a way to handle those moments. I think it works well for all. Ethan Cross has something. So Ethan Cross, a really smart psychologist at the University of Michigan, who's a friend and colleague does all of this good work on managing uncomfortable feelings and shifting away from discomfort. And his most recent book is Shift.

19:43But in the book before it, there was this wonderful, maybe two books before it, wonderful, wonderful thing that he had documented in lab studies that works really, really well, which is if somebody's really struggling with something, asking them, how do you think you're going to feel about this in a year? Or how do you think you're going to feel about this in five years? And I think this, you can't use it very often, right? If you say this to your kid - Yeah, use it wisely. Yeah, very, very judiciously. It is so helpful. It is so helpful because, you know, what feels like a total crisis of my locker jammed today.

20:21If you say to a kid, I hear you, that stinks. How do you think you're going to feel about this one in six months? They'll be like, I won't even remember it in six months. And what Ethan was able to document in his lab is there's instant relief. So I think that, you know, like, do you want my help or do you just need to vent? You know, this one, do you think it's going to be staying with you in three months, two months, four months? Like, you know, or do you think you'll be past it? I think there are ways that we can enter the conversation that aren't fixing, that aren't getting too deep in, mucking around in it too much.

20:54I think there are ways that we can stay engaged. And I think maybe that, as we think it through together, I think that's sometimes a challenge is like, you feel like I'm just supposed to listen. Like that's, that doesn't feel like I'm actually being very helpful. So there are some things we can try. Now you said mucking around in it. And I think that's worth spending a little time on, which is like, how long are we like, until what point is this trash can full and we're going to close it up and take it out? That's a great question, right? Because one of the worries we have is rumination, right?

21:28And the way we think, you and I and people with our training, talking about feelings helps until it doesn't. Talking about feelings should bring emotional relief. Expressing feelings, putting them into words should and often does bring those feelings down to size and let people move on. But occasionally it'll take a turn into rumination, which is, this is kind of gross, but it's like a really good metaphor. It's like the equivalent of picking at an emotional wound. You're like going at it, going at it, making it worse. It won't heal up. Can't leave it alone. And so sometimes you start to think like, oh man, like the more the kid talks, the worse they seem to feel.

22:05This isn't working. If that's happening, it's actually important to stop it. And I think the way to do it without seeming dismissive is to say, honey, the more, when we talk about feelings, you should feel better, but I feel like you're spinning your wheels. The more you're talking about it, I'm watching you feel worse. Let's push pause. Let's go rewatch Dairy Girls, my current favorite that I'm rewatching. Have you seen this? I am so excited because I haven't. So I'll write that down. I was going to say Gilmore Girls, Dairy Girls. I have to watch it with the subtitles because the Irish accents are very heavy and I'm not good on that.

22:45It is brilliant. So let's go rewatch Dairy Girls or Gilmore Girls or whatever girls you're watching. And then I'm going to check in with you tomorrow and see where you are with us. That is a very nice way to stop it without seeming like you're just telling the kid to shut it down. And most of the time you come back the next day and they're like, yeah, it's fine. I don't even know why I was so upset about it yesterday. Well, and let's, let's trust that. Like, can we trust that when they say that they're not avoiding talking to you about it now because they and like how you reacted or whatever it is.

23:21Most of the time, it sounds like when we think of the worst case scenarios, like the masking was an example of like, is that possible? Sure. But like most of the time, that's not what's happening. That's not what's happening. And most of the time, it's not avoiding talking to you if you have a good relationship. And so the most of the time is what we're talking about today. Yeah. And I think again, you're looking for patterns, right? Right. If you feel like this keeps happening, that your kid is feeling like you're not engaged in a meaningful way, then you're going to pay attention to that. But I'll tell you, Aliza, for 20 years, I consulted to a girls' school in my community.

24:01I spent a day and a half a week there. So much fun. I learned so much. and it would sometimes happen that a girl would see me in the hall and she'd be like barely holding it together on the verge of tears and we would tuck into my office and she would absolutely lose it and fall entirely apart and then it would sometimes happen that like she or I needed to leave right that I had a meeting I could not miss or another kid coming in that I couldn't or she was like I gotta go to class and I would say to her get your calendar when are you free tomorrow? I'm back here tomorrow. When are you free? And we would put a time for her to come back to me.

24:41Never once in 20 years did the girl come back and say, okay, let's pick up where we were. Every single time she would stick her head in my office and be like, I'm fine. I'm okay now. Wow. That's so good to hear. And it was like, you know, the kid had come to me. So I just want adults to know. I want parents and caregivers to know, most of the time, they just need to get through that moment. And if they can then move on. And one of the things I always try to bear in mind, I've always said teenage years are like dog years. A year in our life is like seven years for them, right? And so for a teenager, the thing that happened on Tuesday and it's now Thursday, I don't even know what you're talking about, right?

25:24And that's an important thing for us to remember. They do move on fast. And now for a quick break. Well, I have to just tell you about Saks because it's that time of year again when I am getting back into online shopping and I've got some occasions coming up. So I'm going to sax.com because I do not like shopping in person. I know that is like a fun pastime for some people, but for me, it is most certainly not. And sax.com makes it super easy for me. Also, now I've got one off to college and sometimes she needs something and voila, sax.com. So here's the deal. If you're like me and you're looking for a special occasion outfit for the holiday season, which yes, we're already there.

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