Loading summary
Transcript53 lines
- [00:02]
A
Hey, welcome to allprodad Podcast. I'm Ted Lowe and this is our big question to start us off. Why are so many teens struggling with anxiety and depression? In this episode, we'll talk about what's driving anxiety for teens today, why boys and girls experience it differently, and what our kids actually need from us when they're feeling overwhelmed. I'm joined today by BJ Foster and Bobby Lewis. And this is a really practical conversation for any dad raising a teen or getting close to it. Let's get into it. Got a question for you guys. When you were in high school, middle school, did you struggle with anxiety at times?
- [00:41]
B
I mean, you know, you're always going to have a little bit of anxiety. At least for me, it was grades and relational tension whenever I was experiencing difficulty in that. When I was a junior in high school, I had a horrific kind of year academically. I played soccer. I broke my foot early. Like I think it was the second game of the season and was, I think down depressed, you know, because it, there's, there's something about playing athletics that was, that would give me motivation in kind of every other area of my life. And so my grades dropped, two letter grades, what they're used to, and, and all of a sudden I was in a hole that I couldn't get out of academically. So there was a lot of anxiety that year, particularly junior year is supposed to be the year that you have to crush it in order to get into college and that kind of thing. And to have my grades plummet that year was. Had me very anxious.
- [01:41]
C
Yeah, you broke your foot. I just broke a bunch of hearts. That's all I did. No, actually I didn't. But that is kind of connection to what I would feel anxiety. Right? It was just girls, you know, I just didn't want to look like a fool in front of girls in school. And so I spent a lot of time, like carefully picking out the words I was going to say, not doing something potentially embarrassing in front of them. So it was all girls related. When I was in school, I was
- [02:08]
A
thinking about this question as we were prepping the episode. I think there was part of me just naturally wired, lots of energy, a little bit high strung. But I know that it turned to anxiety after my mom passed and, and just again, it's the adhd. Both those things I think made me an anxious kid or it made me a very active one or when it got in trouble a lot for that.
- [02:28]
B
But your mom's death made you anxious, Anxious boy, I want to pull Back.
- [02:33]
C
Yeah, I had no anxiety at all.
- [02:37]
A
I just feel like I have to pull that card all the time. Well, there's some research out that you guys won't be surprised from Pew research, and that is anxiety and depression is ranked as top problems for both boys and girls. Little bit more for girls. PJ what are you guys thoughts on that?
- [02:55]
B
I mean, it's. It doesn't shock me. From everything that I've heard about this generation, it doesn't shock me. That's a little bit higher for girl. I mean, you know, it's a little bit like, oh, interesting. Girls struggle a little bit more. Which. Everything that I hear about boys and girls academic performance today, I feel like girls are thriving a lot more, and boys are lagging behind in that. So I would think that. I would think that the boys would probably be a little bit more anxious today than. Than the girls. But then, you know, when I think about all of the things, all of the different unique pressures that girls have, it kind of. Then I was like, okay, I guess this does make sense. But I. I sort of expect maybe a little bit more from boys because they're not. They're lagging. They're. They're lagging behind in academic performance.
- [03:48]
C
Yeah. If. If you were to tell me this and I had to guess the numbers, I would say, oh, yeah. Girls, eight out of ten. Anxiety. Boys, two out of ten. Like, that was my. My thought about it. And it's only due to the fact that girls face a lot of pressure to act a certain way, to sound a certain way to look a certain way to wear the right clothes, to do, you know, all pressures. There's a lot of beauty standards tied to young girls that just don't apply to boys. I mean, there's boys that want to look good and they work out or whatever, that's fine. It's not the same. Girls face a totally different set of pressure. And so I can see why there's more anxiety with girls than boys.
- [04:22]
A
Well, that leads us to our big question of the week is why are boys and girls struggling with anxiety so much? You know, my kids have allowed me to be honest about this, but I've had, you know, one of my kids, you know, girl really struggles with anxiety, still does. Done a lot of work. And my son, who struggled with anxiety and depression. The difference was my daughter would tell us everything, bring us into everything. My son, we had to find out from a family friend. I could not have been more surprised in my life. And we're like, when it broke my Heart. He didn't think he could tell us, too. It was like, whoa, they're really dealing with this in a different way. So it's making me wonder when I see the stats, maybe boys are not sharing as much, but I do definitely know that, that my girls. There's so much anxiety of how they're comparing themselves with other people. You think about, we walked around school, girls walked around school. They only had to compare themselves with the girls in school or guys in school. Now they're comparing themselves with Photoshop versions of everybody in the world.
- [05:28]
C
Yeah.
- [05:28]
A
So it's a huge pressure. It breaks my heart, actually.
- [05:31]
C
Yeah. I can't imagine, like, I've never been a teenage girl. I have no idea what that pressure's like. And when I would have been a teenager was a totally different digital landscape. Like you said, we just didn't have the same way to compare ourselves. And so, you know, I'd be surprised if there were zero anxious feelings among, you know, any young teenage girl. Everyone's gonna have some kind of baseline feeling. It's just, how high does it go?
- [05:57]
A
It's good.
- [05:59]
B
Well, just. I think a quick note to just everybody listening today that a couple things with today's conversation. Number one, we're going to be speaking in generalities. So these things are not true of everybody. And also when we're talking about anxiety today and depression today, we're not talking about clinically diagnosed anxiety and depression. We're talking about just kind of sort of the daily anxieties and, you know, maybe feeling down and that kind of thing that. That teens are dealing with. So when we think about that and we think about, you know, kind of thinking about what you're saying with girls, I think one of the things that. That may be an indicator of these numbers, girls, I think our society, I think, puts a lot of pressure on them to be agreeable, like you said, to look a certain way. I think they put a lot of pressure on themselves academically. I think one of the reasons might be for that is they tend to mature faster than boys, and so they tend to get more serious about their academic performance. There might even be some feelings of, well, we have to excel because there need to be a certain way and look to be agreeable. They might put pressure on themselves to feel like they. They need to perform at a higher level in order to be taken seriously. So those could be a lot of the pressures that I think some of the girls face.
- [07:31]
A
Yeah.
- [07:31]
C
So if girls feel like they're not enough, I've seen that Play out a little bit in my house. I've got a son, I've got two daughters and the daughters do music and they do feel anxiety over performing in front of people they don't want to screw up. It's very nervous, nerve wracking for them to possibly make a mistake. My son plays sports, no anxiety over that at all. He's like, I'm the greatest athlete that's ever been an athlete. I'm like, okay, well maybe not cool down a little, buddy. But he also does have anxious moments away from his comfort zone, which is sports. So I do think it's interesting. The girls are very open about it. My son, not so much. Very similar to the situation you had in your house, Ted. And so it's part of the dad process. Like each kid's different, each kid's dealing with a similar thing, but just not to the same degree. You gotta know your kids really well to help them in different areas of anxiety.
- [08:20]
A
Well, the more we talk about this, I'm like, I'm glad we're talking about this because Pew research shows there's a survey that 55% of girls feel pressure to look good compared to 39% of boys in social media as this non stop comparison game that they're going through. And I think it needs to be said to Daz where it's their son, if we reward toughness over honesty, we should not be surprised that they're struggling more. We should not that we need to allow them and invite them and let them know I'm safe. You can come to me. I'm not going to fix you, I'm not going to judge you. I'm not going to tell you to cowboy up. I'm not going to tell you to
- [09:05]
C
just blow it off.
- [09:06]
A
I'm going to tell you that I'm right here, it's safe. And if you're struggling, of course you are. Look at the world you're living in.
- [09:11]
C
Yeah. And I think it's worth noting that you look at those numbers. Well, the boys percentage is much lower than the girls, but it's still the number one struggle for boys. So you by comparison you're like, oh, well, the boys aren't struggling. Struggling as much. Yeah. But this is a big struggle for them. So we can't just pretend that boys are all good. We don't have to worry about them in this area. We do, because this is their number one problem.
- [09:30]
B
So we've kind of talked a little about this. But I think another kind of angle of this that Brings anxiety to both boys and girls. Is, is. Is social pressures just kind of amongst their peers to kind of keep up. Sometimes it's even just, you've got. Some of your peers are developing faster, some of them are developing too slow. You're kind of in that. Girls, I think we've talked about a little bit. It's what I look like that kind of is my value. But for boys, some of that anxiety could be just sort of sexual pressure and keeping up with their peers and what they've experienced and what they haven't. Then you've got bullying that is a prominent feature in the lives of teens. With boys, it tends to be physical, physical intimidation, getting beat up. With girls, the number one thing is rumors being passed around about them by, you know, different girls. So bullying, all of those things kind of factor into their anxiety.
- [10:33]
C
Yeah. Social pressure rises because fitting in really matters to, you know, young adults, middle school, high school kids. I mean, I know this was the case for me because I. I would struggle a little bit over what am I supposed to wear. I don't want to look like a weirdo not wearing the right clothes, you know, so I would change my, you know, baggy clothes so I would have, like, the right kind of jeans, or I would wear the Jordan shoes, because that's what the cool kids were doing. So I have to have the right shoes. Right. And then there was some tension there because mom's like, I'm not paying 150 for shoes. So you got to figure it out. So if I really wanted to fit in now, I had to figure out how to make the money to fit in. There was just all this stuff going on. So social pressure is real. And just because they're. They're not saying it out loud doesn't mean they're not feeling it.
- [11:14]
A
We're talking about. For kids, it's all boils down to their anxiety is about, do I belong? Is it safe for me to be myself? And they're looking for that belonging and they're looking for that approval.
- [11:26]
C
Yeah. I think another really important part of this equation for dads is to understand the effects of doom scrolling. And we've talked about that before. You want to go back and listen to episode 93? We had a whole conversation about doom scrolling and the problems that come up in your home because of that. But Harvard Health says that girls tend to be hit much harder by doom scrolling than boys. And that's mainly because the people that you're seeing in a lot of these videos when you're Doom scrolling over and over again who end up being harmed tend to be women and children. And so that hits differently for a young woman when she sees, oh, this person looks like me. And they're the ones that are being harmed or spoken disparagingly about or just, you know, not fitting in, that's going to hit. Because who I see, they kind of look like me. And so doom scrolling really hurts young girls more than it hurts young boys.
- [12:10]
B
A little bit more vulnerable, for sure. I, I think also you kind of with that this is kind of sort of a more subtle sort of a thing with doom scrolling. Because part of doom scrolling is there's the part where it's like looking at negative images, but then there's another part where it's just you get caught in
- [12:26]
C
a. Sucks you in.
- [12:27]
B
It sucks you in. And then you've spent hours doing that and not being productive. And anytime we do that, there's always anxiety and guilt that follows.
- [12:35]
A
It's designed that way, right? It's dopamine. Dopamine. Dopamine, yeah.
- [12:39]
C
You'll notice the scroll never stops, right? It just keeps going. There's never a bottom to that pit. And when you get stuck in there, that's a tough spot.
- [12:47]
A
Well, the research shows that for girls, they start doom scrolling through comparison content, which we, we've talked about. Boys tend to doom scroll, you know, disasters and fights. But either way, it puts kids nervous system on the edge. And that's what we're talking about. No wonder they're anxious. You know, their nervous system is sitting on edge going, am I safe? Do I belong? And all this is saying, not really. Not really. At least putting it in question for sure.
- [13:18]
B
I came across as I was researching this, that researchers think that it might be chemical, you know, at least for, for girls on the anxiety thing. So the, the Child Mind Institute says girls enter puberty and become twice as likely as boys to suffer from a mood disorder, which involve more intense and persistent fluctuations in moods and often also depression. They go on to say, girls are more hardwired for emotional sensitivity. Their emotions compound and they can become anxious about being anxious and, and depressed. So it just sort of builds on itself. They feel themselves getting anxious and they get more anxious about that.
- [14:04]
A
You just described the situation with my daughter.
- [14:07]
B
Yeah, it kind of builds. It builds. But here's the good news for girls and this is bad news for boys. And this is where as dads, we really kind of comes back to, I think, what you were talking about, Ted. Girls tend to have strong relational ties so they are more apt to be vulnerable and to share the things going on. They've got the structures around them, friends that they can, that they can unload and talk about their anxiety and depression and get it out there and have a support system, including with. With par. Boys don't do that as much. Boys just shut it in and they don't have a group of friends that they can share this stuff with. So it stays bottled up and they tend to walk through this alone. So it comes back to, I think what you're talking about, Ted. Like, we have got to be a place where boys feel like they can.
- [15:04]
A
Right? Well, I think it's true. We've said it several times, both boys and girls near support. So how do we do that? Let's make this super practical for dads are going, okay, I get it, guys, it's tough out there, you know, what do we need to do about it? We've said this already, but one great action step is just to listen and to empathize. When we're thinking about this episode. My grandmother used to say this thing. She goes, puppy love is real to puppies. And it's cheesy, but it does make sense that, that what's going on in their world may seem little and trivial to us. And we're going, I can't believe you're worried about that. I'm trying to pay the mortgage. Bottom line, you guys, this. We've got to be there for them in the middle of their anxiety.
- [15:49]
C
Yeah. Empathy in my home, I've had a lot of opportunities to show it and maybe haven't done it perfectly every time. Both my daughters play music. The younger one plays violin, the older one plays piano. They both had opportunities to do recitals. And so we kind of coached the six year old into the opportunity to do it. But right before, she got very intrigu nervous and I was like, oh gosh, how can we help this? So I went over to her, I was like, hey, you know, daddy, I played baseball when I was in high school and I got really nervous because sometimes there's a big game or you didn't want to strike out. And I was like, and sometimes I did, but that's okay because I tried and I want you to try. You know, you might be terrible at this. And you know, we'll, we'll talk about it afterwards. Maybe you're going to be great. We don't know. Get out there and try. And that worked for her. She's like, okay. And she went out there and she did it. And she was good, you know, but my older daughter, that did not work. And so I tried to help her out, and she was so nervous about messing up. And I said, listen, you cannot let other people's thoughts about you steal your joy. You love to play piano. You love music. That's enough. You don't need to prove yourself to anybody else. You don't need to worry about what they're thinking. And maybe that's not the best thing to say in the moment, because she does still care what they think. But I was trying my best to kind of feel it with her, and ultimately it was a different outcome for her. But we're still trying to work through that. And as a dad, I learn every time I fail in those little empathy conversations, I get better for the next one. And so I'd encourage dads who just haven't gotten this right yet or trying to figure out how to help their kids through this struggle. Keep helping them through it. You're getting better every time you try.
- [17:21]
B
I think another action step is that we have to teach our kids that anxiety is a part of life. Like, every single day, we're gonna have struggle, we're gonna have pain, we're gonna have difficulty, we're gonna have obstacles that we need to overcome. We're gonna need. And we're going to have problems to. To solve. And all of that is not necessarily a bad thing. All of that teaches us, builds our character. It makes us stronger, it makes us more. It builds our perseverance. And so, you know, if our. If our kids, particularly if they have anxiety, building over anxiety, you know, teaching them that, hey, you're going to have anxiety. And the thing is that we need the coping mechanisms and the resolve to kind of press through when things get difficult.
- [18:14]
A
One of the greatest lines I've heard lately is saying to our kids, you feel anxious. Of course you do. You're about to be in front of people. Of course you feel anxious. I'd feel anxious, too. Just the whole thing of, of course you do. Oh, I'm so frustrated today. Kids were so mean to me today. I'm just so anxious. Of course you are. That made you anxious. That would make anybody anxious, I think just normalizing it and not trying to fix it. You know, I wish I had that line in my back pocket starting off with, of course you do.
- [18:45]
C
Yeah.
- [18:46]
B
And again, we're not talking about anxiety disorder.
- [18:48]
A
No.
- [18:48]
C
Yeah.
- [18:49]
B
We're not talking about the clinical day, because that has a whole different set of.
- [18:52]
A
But I still use it.
- [18:53]
B
Yeah.
- [18:54]
A
But with my daughter who goes through that baby, you're feeling anxious right now because that can be. Of course you do, because you have an anxiety disorder. You know, this is an anxious, you know, situation.
- [19:05]
C
Yeah.
- [19:05]
A
You know, you struggle with anxiety more than. Of course you do.
- [19:08]
C
Yeah, I get it. On a general sense, if you're trying to help your kid through just day to day anxieties, there are some coping mechanisms. That's an action step you can take as a dad just to help them through it. First thing is go touch grass, turn off cell phone, turn off tv, turn off the computer, go outside and like do something that fresh air is really good for you. You're not doom scrolling when you're walking the dog. So, you know, get out there and do something outdoors. See life. That's a really good first step to encourage them to do that. But also there's breathing exercises you can do. You can just make sure they're sleeping enough. That's a really big deal. Kids aren't sleeping enough, quite honestly. They're staying up too late. Exercise positive thinking, eating right. There's many, many things you can encourage in them that will help ease those anxious feelings.
- [19:52]
A
Guys, this great conversation. What's our pro move? Our pro move of the week is to ask your kid what makes you feel anxious. This invites them in and then practice it. Don't fix it stuff. It's just to listen and empathize.
- [20:07]
C
Yeah.
- [20:08]
A
Well, thanks to Bobby and BJ for this conversation and we want to say to you if you would send this to a friend, we think that it could help them out as well. But we most of all want to say thank you for joining us. We know that you and your kids will be glad that you did.
- [20:24]
B
Thanks again for listening to the All Pro dad podcast. Behind every episode is our amazing team producer, Haley Mwat, audio and video editor Buck Buchanan, and production coordinator Corey Wolfe. Allprodad is the fatherhood program of the non profit Family first along with our motherhood program imom. We exist to help you love your family well. So remember, if you have more questions than answers, then you're probably in the right place. See you next time.