Adolescence Isn’t What We Think: The Real Reason Your Teen Isn’t Listening to You, Why They Push Back, and More w/ New York Times Journalist Matt Richtel

Summary

Raising Good Humans | "Adolescence Isn’t What We Think: The Real Reason Your Teen Isn’t Listening to You, Why They Push Back, and More" Host: Dr. Aliza Pressman | Guest: Matt Richtel (NYT Journalist) | Air date: November 21, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the misunderstood realities of adolescence, drawing insights from New York Times journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Matt Richtel’s latest book, How We Grow: Understanding Adolescence. Dr. Aliza Pressman and Richtel challenge traditional thinking about teens, reframing adolescence as a critical period of “information processing and integration” rather than just a tumultuous hormonal phase. They offer practical, compassionate guidance for parents navigating the emotionally charged, rapidly evolving landscape their kids are growing up in—emphasizing empathy, curiosity, and self-regulation over panic or control.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Redefining Adolescence: Not Just “Teen” Years

• Adolescence is broader and longer than typically assumed—starting around age 9 and extending to 28 when it comes to brain development, not just the high school years. (00:10)
• Richtel asserts: “125 years of scholarship about adolescence have been fundamentally wrong.” (03:35)
  • His new framework: Adolescence is “the integration of the known and the unknown with a highly sensitized brain.” (03:40)
  • The "known": what parents/society teach; the "unknown": what’s actually needed to adapt to a rapidly changing world.

2. The Purpose of Teen Pushback: Integration & Conflict

• Adolescence is a necessary handoff between generations; both internal (self) and external (parent/child) conflicts arise as teens sort out which values and knowledge to hold onto or adapt. (04:19)
• Parental attempts to “just take away the phone” or enforce old rules often miss the wider developmental process at play. Richtel points out: “It doesn’t actually address this underlying question of what adolescence is… and why it’s vital.” (05:27)

3. Information Processing: Survival and Pushback

• Ditching age-based assumptions, Richtel encourages seeing teens as organisms processing information—not just “kids who don’t know better.” (10:40)
  • Some rules (“never drink and drive”) remain vital, but many others are in flux.
  • Example: Parent panic over Elvis parallels today’s social media fears; history repeats in every new generation. (11:52)

4. Entitlement & Self-Regulation: Why Saying “No” Matters

• Overabundance and instant gratification (e.g., always-available soda versus a weekly treat) fuel entitlement. (15:00)
• Teaching restraint and self-regulation is key: “Just declaring their desire… does not make it so.” (15:59)
• Reading is used as an analogy—parents are certain it’s good because it worked for them, but new forms of learning (like podcasts) may serve similar developmental needs. (17:41)

5. The Experience of Adolescence: Emotional Overload & Self-Regulation Tools

• Richtel offers a relatable exercise: Imagine simultaneous overload at work/home, leading to an outburst at a stranger—“that is a moment of adolescence. Teens feel that way all the time.” (19:00)
• Parental rationalizing or overloading “frozen” teens with more info only worsens matters.
  • “It’s like hitting the enter key on the blue screen of your computer.” – Richtel (20:58)
• Real tools: physical “reboots” (cold water, exercise), DBT/CBT skills—not just talk. (22:14)

6. Adolescent Behavior Is Not Personal

• Stanford “puidish” study: Teens biologically shift towards novel (stranger) voices around puberty as a survival adaptation—parents shouldn’t take their kids’ inattentiveness personally. (32:54)
  • “There are like 6 billion people more compelling to the adolescent brain than their parent… It is for their survival.” (33:56)
• “Love, lead, and let go”: Safety via unconditional love; clear survival rules; then release attachment to achievement as self-worth. (37:06)

7. Parents Are Also Experiencing ‘Adolescence’

• Our rapidly changing world places everyone—adults included—in a continued state of reconciling known and unknown, often resulting in overload and “adult versions of adolescent road rage.” (27:13)
• Practicing emotional regulation starts with the parent: “It’s not just modeling… it’s understanding what it means to reboot yourself so you can teach your kid to reboot.” (28:00)

8. Competition & Co-Existence Across Generations

• As life expectancy increases, parents/kids are now “in competition” for opportunity, attention, and adaptation to new paradigms (e.g., TikTok as new economics/social order). (38:04)
• Teens’ push to diversify and create “new management” is both genetic and sociological. (39:25)

9. Curiosity: The Most Important Lifelong Skill

• Adolescence is a period of intense learning and plasticity, followed by “pruning” in the brain—what endures is curiosity, which equips for ongoing adaptation. (43:04)
  • “Maybe the single most important thing you could teach your kids… is curiosity.” (43:37)

10. Generation Rumination: The Double-Edged Sword of Connection

• Today’s teens, when overloaded and without coping strategies, often “ruminate” or co-ruminate as a means of connection.
  • “You’re putting a name to emotional explosions that is not correct and then reinforcing that name over and over.” (54:32)
• This generation absorbs parental panic—parents as “the original form of social media,” amplifying anxiety at home. (57:00)

11. Living With Ambiguity & Emphasizing “You’ll Be Okay”

• Top skills for adolescence (and adulthood):

  1. Curiosity
  2. Living with ambiguity
  3. Coping mechanisms
  4. The sense that “things will be okay” (58:40)

• “If I was going to have young people walk away with two things, it’d be curiosity and the sense that everything will be okay.” (56:55)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Adolescence is the integration of the known and the unknown with a highly sensitized brain.” – Matt Richtel (03:35)
• “What you know better is how the world has worked to this point… But for your kid, survival depends on learning what works now.” – Richtel (11:10)
• “If you’re hitting the enter key—if you’re trying to rationalize with them when they’re overloaded—it’s like entering ones and zeros into this thing that is just exploding.” – Richtel (21:10)
• “Unconditional love is how you create safety; lead is how you let them know what’s vital; and let go—it ain’t about you.” – Richtel (37:12)
• “Parent panic is a version of road rage—a struggle to reconcile the known and unknown in a fast-changing world… we deal with it by declaring things.” – Richtel (57:56)
• “Things are going to be okay, and it’s hard to believe that with all the voices out there.” – Pressman (62:45)
• “Maybe someday we’ll learn that screens all day is fine, but in the meantime, we know that sleep, exercise, and in-person connection are crucial.” – Richtel (61:04)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:10 — Redefining adolescence (ages 9–28), why it lasts longer than parents think
• 03:35 — Richtel’s “integration of known and unknown” framework for adolescence
• 15:00 — Entitlement, instant gratification, and what it teaches teens
• 19:00 — Emotional overload exercise; why adolescence feels so overwhelming
• 20:58 — How parental rationalizing “freezes” emotionally overloaded teens
• 32:54 — The “puidish” study: Why teens tune out parents
• 37:12 — “Love, lead, and let go”: Roadmap for parenting teens
• 43:04 — Brain “pruning” and why curiosity is crucial
• 54:32 — Rumination and co-rumination among teens today
• 56:55/58:40 — Top takeaways needed to thrive: curiosity, ambiguity, coping, hope
• 61:04 — Healthy habits in a digital world: sleep, exercise, in-person time

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Summary Takeaways

• Adolescence is a vital, purpose-driven stage—teens aren’t difficult just to be oppositional, but because their brains are wired to test, learn, and adapt.
• Much of what parents fear (phones, disinterest, rebellion) is actually adaptive, not pathological—provided kids get firm guidance on true “survival” rules and opportunities to build emotional coping skills.
• Instead of over-pathologizing or micromanaging, focus on modeling reboot strategies, teaching curiosity, and letting go of control.
• Living with ambiguity and maintaining optimism (“things will be okay”) are essential—both for kids and for ourselves.

This episode is a must-listen for any parent (or teacher, or mentor) who feels overwhelmed, confused, or anxious about the adolescent years and wants to approach them with more wisdom, empathy, and hope.

Transcript

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

The following podcast is a Dear Media production.

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

Welcome to Raising good humans. I'm Dr. Liza Pressman. Happy Thanksgiving, anybody who's celebrating, and I hope you get a little time with your family this week. I have a great episode to share with you with Matt Richtel, who's an American writer and journalist for the New York Times. He's a Pulitzer Prize winner and he wrote an amazing book called How We Grow Understanding Adolescence. Remember, adolescence is starts younger and goes longer than anybody really thinks. It's more like a 9 to 28 year old kind of thing when it comes to brain development. And I think when you start to see your emerging adolescence around 9 or 10, you start to get surprised, like, wait, what's going on? And then of course, teenagers, that's kind of more traditional. Adolescents are a big part of this conversation as well. And if you're up for it, please definitely write a nice review on Apple Podcasts and give a good five star rating. Sometimes people feel inclined to write negative reviews and less inclined to write positive ones. And the positive ones are much more helpful in getting the word out by day.

[Matt Richtel]

I'm a New York Times reporter. It's been 25 years.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

You've been awarded some things if you want to show up, if you have.

[Matt Richtel]

A mug that says Least favorite dad, here's the backdrop. In my role as New York Times reporter, I write long projects about particular issues. And I delved into one a few years ago about the adolescent mental health crisis. And I finished that and I learned a lot and also was left with a bunch of questions. And the chief question for me was, what is adolescence in the first place? And it turns out that absent knowing the answer to that question, you can't actually really know what's going on with adolescent mental health now or in prior generations or in future generations. And I think this book represents the first, if not a very rare slice of answering that question.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

And. And a little more backdrop about this. Yes, you have adolescence lo stos, right?

[Matt Richtel]

16 and 14.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

And I have, in case you're wondering, everybody listening, I think, has heard this.

[Matt Richtel]

I am wondering. But I, you know what? People are dying to be reminded.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

I'm gonna remind everybody.

[Matt Richtel]

Do it.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

I have 14, 15, 17, and 18. Yes, two of them are step chickens, but they are my, you know, like we're all. They're four adolescents.

[Matt Richtel]

But just to be clear, all human.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Human. Human, yes. I just call them that. Yeah, but they're humans. And so I could I. I love adolescence so much. This whole period, which is not just this teenage Period. Which you are going to talk about. I assume I'm going to do that.

[Matt Richtel]

In fact, want to. May I be brazen and bold?

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Yes.

[Matt Richtel]

I propose that in the next few minutes I'm going to give you a framework and a construct for adolescence that will be entirely new. And if I fail, will.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

I'll tell you.

[Matt Richtel]

I'm going to propose this. That 125 years of scholarship about adolescence have been fundamentally wrong. This is what adolescence is. To me, adolescence is a period with a profound purpose. It is the integration of the known and the unknown with a highly sensitized brain. The known is what your parents teach you and what conventional wisdom instructs you. The unknown is what actually works in a fast moving world. And until you've reconciled the known and the unknown, you can't be sure what to trust. The sw. Can I stop or should I Keep going. Keep going.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Keep going. I love it.

[Matt Richtel]

Look, here's the source of conflict. It was. I mean, if you go back 125 years ago, people thought Neanderthals. And then you go back to Erickson and Freud and people had ideas about forming individual identity. But I think this era and deep science has shown us that what's really going on is this is the most profound period of information processing and reconciling that you will ever do. And there's two sources of conflict as a result. One source of conflict is inside of you where you say, but my parents told me that I was supposed to read books and nobody's reading books. And so I feel conflicted about that. And the second source of conflict is that this is a handoff of power and ideas between one generation and the next. And that feels threatening to the adolescent and it feels threatening to the parent.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Yes. I love this, by the way. I don't think it's.

[Matt Richtel]

You're looking me in the eye with sincerity.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

I mean, it's. I think it's a beautiful way of describing adolescence.

[Matt Richtel]

The other reason I feel so strongly about this is I believe there's a narrative today that says that cell phones are destroying young people, rewiring their brains. And I don't doubt and I address that there are some problems associated with it. The bigger issue for me is that if you simply say, take the phone away, it doesn't actually address this underlying question of what adolescence is, why they go through what they go through, why it's vital that they go through it, and how we can actually help them. Can I just drop one?

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

I completely agree with you so far. This is so boring. Because, I mean, for other people. Because there's not going to be. Your eyes were closed because I think what you're saying is so critical right now as there's mass panic that's taking us away from what we could actually be doing.

[Matt Richtel]

Yeah. And to put, to really put this in context, we belonged to a generation. I'm a bit older than you, but we belong to a generation when binge drinking was through the roof and early experimentation with sex was through the roof, and cigarette smoking was through the roof and drunk driving injury and death was through the roof, and all those things have come down. So if you're into moral panics, like do you say things have gotten better or things are gotten worse? And the only way to understand that evolution is to ground it in who adolescents actually are.

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

And now for a quick break. I know there's a lot of cooking going on right now and maybe you're feeling overwhelmed. I'm going to tell you about suvi because this is a way you can feed your family at home without any planning, any prepping or exhausting cleanup. I know that sounds too good to be true, but sous vide is wild. It's like a Jetsons universe of a smart countertop oven with flexible meal delivery. And it saves you hours each week, not just in actual prepping and cooking, but also just the mental load of what to make. So anyway, Suvi kitchen robot is awesome. It has a built in refrigeration, so that means you can set up dinner in the morning, drop your kids off at school, and it keeps it cold until it's time to cook.

[Matt Richtel]

What?

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

Okay, so if you don't want to be home when it starts cooking, that's okay because this technology allows you to just load the meals into the sous vide cooking pan, tap the card to your appliance and set what time you want the food to be ready. I am blown away by this. And also they have chef crafted meals that are delivered right to your door. So you can choose from over 50 meals with new options added each week.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

I am like very into salmon a.

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

Couple times a week. And so we have sous vide salmon and the kitchen robot basically just fits on the counter, has 15 cooking modes including air fryer and slow cook. So check out SUV's Black Friday sale for extra savings while it lasts. Go to SUV.com humans to get $150 off plus 16 free meals when you order suvi during their sale. That's S u v I e.com humans to get $150 off plus 16 free meals. So save time and eat better with SUV. All right, it's officially holiday season, like it's happening. And so between travel and gift giving and hosting and entertaining, it's very easy to lose sight of your money and financial responsibilities and just say, who cares? Now that's where Monarch comes in. So if you want to keep your finances under control this holiday season, use Monarch. It's rated Wall Street Journal's best budgeting app of 2025. Monarch, as in the all in one personal finance tool that brings your entire financial life together in one clean interface on your laptop or phone. And it's now just for our listeners, offering 50% off your first year. So if the holiday spending makes you just think, like, I'm getting to January and I'm not going to have any clue what I just did, this is a really good time to start with Monarch. And they do all the heavy lifting. They link all your accounts in minutes. They get rid of the sort of confusing data visuals and they have smart categorization of your spending. And it really does help you figure out what in the world you're doing with your money and make good decisions. Don't let financial opportunities slip through the cracks. Use the code [e-mail] in your browser for half off your first year. That's 50% off your first [e-mail] with the code humans.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

So let's talk about who adolescents actually are with the. With the spins the wrong word but approach of. It's mostly adults who care for adolescents listening, I'm assuming.

[Matt Richtel]

Yes.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

And it has this conversation, this book, this conversation I think will have a profound effect on how adults navigate what is just so anxiety provoking right now and always.

[Matt Richtel]

Let's throw out at this idea. I want you to throw out the idea of age for the moment. And the reason I want to throw that idea out is it creates a kind of almost bigotry where there's an idea that you know better if you're older.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Yeah.

[Matt Richtel]

Now, I don't dispute that you know better, but I do. You do dispute.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

I don't.

[Matt Richtel]

You don't. Okay.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

I was saying I do know better, but I do.

[Matt Richtel]

You do know better.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

You do know better. I was 100% kidding. It's something that, you know, I'm fighting with kids.

[Matt Richtel]

What you know better is how the world has worked to this point. And you know some very, very important things. But the reason I toss age out just for the moment is I would urge you to everybody just strip aside how you See your kiddo, and I want you to see your kiddo as an organism that is processing information. And there's some information that is really vital for their survival, and there's some information you think is vital for their survival, but kind of you're not sure. There's a lot of examples I can give, but let's just go back to Elvis.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Okay. Wow.

[Matt Richtel]

When Elvis came out, there were a whole bunch of parents that said at the time, be careful using that gun and don't run across the street, which they were sure about. And then they said, listening to Elvis will turn you into the devil.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Right.

[Matt Richtel]

And make you a sexualized freak. I. I don't think if that was to blame. It's not exclusively so.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Yeah.

[Matt Richtel]

But the reason I say that is when you think about this information processing entity that is your adolescent, there are some things that we can tell them that are absolutely certain. I'll give you an example from my life. You will never drink and drive. You will never get in a car with someone who is drunk at the wheel. And you can think of a bunch of examples that are so concrete that absent following them, your adolescent won't survive the information processing period.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Right.

[Matt Richtel]

But there's a whole bunch of other things that either we're not sure about or currently are changing.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Right.

[Matt Richtel]

And the example I may have started earlier, and forgive me if I've said this, but my wife and I are like, hey, why aren't you reading books?

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Yeah, you did.

[Matt Richtel]

Okay, I said that. Right. Looks like this one. Yes.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

How we grow up. There's a chapter for adolescence.

[Matt Richtel]

There is a chapter for adolescents. There's a reason we are in indebted to that and hued to that piece of information and weighing doing and way of doing things. And that is because we are economically and socially wedded to the. That the world working that way.

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

Yeah.

[Matt Richtel]

Does that resonate?

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Totally resonates.

[Matt Richtel]

Is there something. Can you think of an example in your world life?

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

I actually. I think reading is a huge one. I think reading is a huge one because there's so many moments. I was just talking to my husband about how he was remembering he went to live with a family that had six kids and somewhere in Europe. I already forgot. And he told me this story yesterday. He said he.

[Matt Richtel]

Are you validating all the things I think about when I try to tell my wife a story? Yes.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Yes.

[Matt Richtel]

You really don't remember where it was in Europe?

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

I can't remember where it was.

[Matt Richtel]

You remember your husband's name?

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Colin. I remember his name. And He.

[Matt Richtel]

You're making progress. Same time next week.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Thank you. I do. This is what I remember. Six kids and the ma and six boys. He went to join this family for a semester and they had a Coke, Coca Cola, once a week. And it was a big deal. And they, you know, portioned it out for everybody. And everyone was so excited about it. This wasn't like in a billion years ago.

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

He's. He.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

He's 51. It's not just. Just to say that soda was accessible.

[Matt Richtel]

Yeah. But also exciting.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

But it was still exciting.

[Matt Richtel]

Yeah.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

And also you knew it wasn't good for you. And so it was like portioned out as. And it was so exciting. And he came from Boston where he had soda all the time. And we were talking about it. Cause we're like, everything is accessible so quickly now.

[Matt Richtel]

Yes.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Which is my version. I guess if I'm trying to think of something else between reading and like waiting. Just waiting and looking forward to something.

[Matt Richtel]

Okay. You've hit on. You've actually hit on another of those issues that I would call ironclad in this conversation. And that is being a little more rigid about not entitling your kids.

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

Right.

[Matt Richtel]

That's ex. That's really what that is underneath that. And the reason that's so important is, is because when they get in the real world, this organism processing information, it must be trained that you don't get to put up your hand and say, I want the big lollipop.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Right. And it's your give it to you.

[Matt Richtel]

Because there's a thousand other information processing organisms saying, I also want the big lollipop. And so when I think about the things that are worth hammering home, that is absolutely under the heading, the information processing machine doesn't necessarily need to know that this particular thing is good or this particular thing is bad. But they must understand that just declaring their desire for something does not make it so.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Right. No, you're right. That's a huge.

[Matt Richtel]

That was the point of your story.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

That was the point of my story. And thank you. Because you are a journalist who was really able to take all of this information in and then.

[Matt Richtel]

Was it Italy?

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Wasn't Italy France maybe? I don't know.

[Matt Richtel]

Colin, I'm here for you.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

I'm gonna let you know, find out.

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

He doesn't listen to this.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

I'm just kidding. I don't know if I'm kidding, Colin. I'll figure it out. But the other thing that that makes me think of, because reading your example.

[Matt Richtel]

Yes.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

One ex. Mine sort of feels more like entitlement working on self regulation and impulse control and things like that. And also just kind of knowing you're not the center of the universe as a person. Forget about an entity, information processing entity. But the reading may very well be that we are certain that this is from all the information we have in the past.

[Matt Richtel]

We're certain that it worked for us very well. That's what we're certain of.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

But that's it.

[Matt Richtel]

Right, but witness this. You and I are currently on a podcast, right? And my son. And this is amazing when we learned it because, you know, we did wonder Neanderthal, but he tells us that he listens to the daily no way. Every day.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Okay.

[Matt Richtel]

And who is to tell him that that is not reading the New York Times, Right.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

The version.

[Matt Richtel]

But you. You've also now, in your own brilliant way, brought up a really, like, maybe the most important segue.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Great.

[Matt Richtel]

No, you really did. You brought up the idea of self regulation. I was listening.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

That's amazing. Okay, so segue into that.

[Matt Richtel]

Was it Greece?

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

No.

[Matt Richtel]

Okay.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

But let's keep doing that until I fig it'll hit something will sound familiar.

[Matt Richtel]

This is where the framework leads. First, I'd like to have you, all of us contemplate what it feels to feel like an adolescent. And I'm going to give you an exercise to do it. You had a challenging problem in your relationship at the same time that you had a challenging problem at your job, and you got next to a stoplight with someone and you screamed at them. Now, I want to tell you that that is a moment of adolescence. Why you are reconciling what you thought you knew about your relationship, but what but with what you thought you needed to know or learning something new. Something at your job had changed, so you had to reconcile that. And then what happened is in a period of, in effect, information or processing overload, you diverted yourself and dealt with that emotional explosion by yelling at the person in the car next to you. Every single person listening to this podcast knows what it feels like to be an adolescent. With this exception. Adolescents feel like that all the time in many facets of their lives because of the biology that we're talking about. At the heart of this and the biology is a brain highly sensitized to take in the world around them in order to adapt from the known to the unknown. In their social lives, in their work lives, in their school lives, with their parents, they are persistently in a state of potential overload. And that's what brings me. Can I segue to or, of course, self Regulation.

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

Yes, please.

[Matt Richtel]

Okay. Because. Yeah, because I think this is, like, the heart of the matter in my mind. And that is when a kid comes home and says, everyone in ninth grade hates me. And you know, that is patently false. That is an analogy to yelling at the person in the car next to you. Your kiddo, your adolescent in a state of information or processing overload has effectively come undone. And when we sit down and say, honey, of course everyone in 9th grade doesn't hate you. It's like hitting the enter key on the frozen blue screen of your computer.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Or it's like, that will not help.

[Matt Richtel]

You're like.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

But you're gonna do it anyway.

[Matt Richtel]

Yes, you're gonna do it anyway. In fact, it. It may hurt because you're, like, entering ones and zeros into this thing that is just exploding.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Yeah, that's a really good. That is a really good way of explaining it.

[Matt Richtel]

So what the. What the coping mechanisms are moving to, and this is all stuff you and your audience know, but I'd like to put a fine point on it, is ways of helping people through that intense emotional period until you can have the conversation that says. And then they go, oh, yeah, Doug likes me in ninth grade. That's right. Not everyone hates me. If you're hitting the enter key.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

The enter key.

[Matt Richtel]

If you're trying to rationalize with them. But even worse than that would be like, you're not listening to yourself, son, daughter. You sound crazy. Listen, it's like you're pouring old known into this processing period that's already become and basically broken down.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Yeah.

[Matt Richtel]

And I think where we're at in understanding adolescence is that we're understanding that there's a reboot period to keep the tortured metaphor going.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

I like this metaphor.

[Matt Richtel]

And there's a lot of ways to do it. The poor man's version. And hand to God, I've done this myself because I live in Colorado. You put your face in the snow.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Great for your nervous system just goes like this.

[Matt Richtel]

And it may. And so you're saying to yourself, well, if I think everyone in ninth grade hates me, why would putting my face in the snow make a difference? But the answer is, if you put your face in the snow when you were about to have road rage, you may never experience that need to explode because your neurochemistry's been shifted.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

That's right.

[Matt Richtel]

You could take a cold shower. You can exercise, you can meditate. You could do yoga. And if you can afford it, you can go to DBT or cbt, which teaches you how to See what's happening in that moment.

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

And now for a quick break. Now Kiwico is of course a fabulous gift giving opportunity because it's the gift that friends are going to be excited about and kids are going to be excited about. And it's a perfect holiday gift because it's hands on fun, it's educational, it is off screens and it requires zero thought because Kiwico has done all the thinking and finding really cool hands on activities that kids can build and play over and over again. And the crates encourage creativity, curiosity and persistence, but not like you have to go collect all of the materials and come up with the ideas. And so I think of Kiwi crate gifts as a gift for the adults and the kids because it's like when you're, you've just got that urge to turn on screens but you feel like you're just like depleted from coming up with things to do. And free play ends up being more work for you than you have in you. Kiwico has you covered. Plus Kiwico hits every age from the first few years through, you know the maker crates that are for ages 12 to a hundred. So I highly recommend Tinker create and celebrate this holiday season with Kiwico. Get up to 50% off your first crate at kiwico.com promo code RGH. That's up to 50% off your first Crate with K-I W I C O.com promo code RGH. As a Kendra Scott partner, I'm sharing with you how I make this holiday season special. Okay, so on the topic of just the gazillions of presents that everybody's getting, I want to tell you about Kendra Scott because I'm a Kendra Scott partner. So I'm sharing with you how to make this holiday season special with these really affordable, beautiful pieces of jewelry. They have demi fine and fine jewelry so you can pick the range that works for you. So for example, if you're getting holiday gifts for kids, you might say to yourself, I'm going to get demi. Fine, because we're going to save the fine jewelry for me. But they have already designed stuff like I have a pair of little gold hoops that have pink hearts attached to them. But you can also design your very own custom jewelry pieces through their color bar. They have it in store and online. It's super fun, it's super cute and you make the season. So visit Kendra Scott.com Gifts and use the code RGH20 at checkout for 20% off one full price. Jewelry item exclusions do apply this expires December 31, 2025. It's definitely set up for the holidays. That's K-E N D R A S C-O-T T.com Gifts and use the code rgh20 for 20% off.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

We need to practice these tools. We can't just like. I know you're saying that. I know you will say that. I don't know. But I'm thinking rather like, I wouldn't want anybody to think that you then sit your kid down and you're like, here's what.

[Matt Richtel]

And I'll go even further.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Yeah.

[Matt Richtel]

The reason this book is called How We Grow up is because it starts with us.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Yes.

[Matt Richtel]

And if I'm really frank.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Be frank.

[Matt Richtel]

Colin.

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

Wales.

[Matt Richtel]

Wales. Let's go.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

I'm so excited. Okay, go on.

[Matt Richtel]

I was listening.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Colin, be frank.

[Matt Richtel]

Okay. This book, to my mind, applies to all of us right now because I think a lot of the sense of conflict and the way of solving problems we have around us is the equivalent of road rage.

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

Yes.

[Matt Richtel]

When we are, in effect, overloaded, which.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

We are almost all the time now.

[Matt Richtel]

And it's all the time now because things are moving so quickly. So if you return to the framework of unknown and unknown and you say, okay, adolescents are in a particularly heightened state because they're programmed that way. But we understand it because we regularly still have to reconcile the known and unknown. If you go back 300 years, what we had to reconcile was a lot of known and a little bit of unknown.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Now we can't even get the most brilliant minds in our world to be able to talk about what we're expecting.

[Matt Richtel]

In the future or as soon as we get accustomed to something, we see change. So we are collectively in a period of adolescence. It is heightened for actual adolescents. But to go to your point about practicing this gang, parents, people listening, it starts with us. It's not just modeling this. It's understanding what it means to reboot yourself so that you can teach your kid to reboot. And if you don't do it, then what you're modeling is the opposite. And this is perhaps where I get the most frustrated in particular with, like, the criticisms of the cell phone. And all of that is valuable here. But what parents model around coping is oftentimes you do this, how do you do this other thing? And what you're doing there is forcing them even more acutely to try to figure out what the truth is.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

So I love this because I think most books that address us parents are. We're more like, at least interested in taking the time to read because it's for the purposes. It's in the service of serving these humans that we love so much. But the content really is about us.

[Matt Richtel]

It often, instead of seeing it as a continuum, the age, child, adolescent, adult, it tends to draw a distinction between adult and adolescent that's stark. And in this case, a big part of my effort is trying to frame what adolescents experience in a way that adults can not only understand it, but realize that they too, continue to experience moments of that in order to empathize. And you ask, you know, if. If I just imagine if. If my wife was having information overload at work and I went in and told her what to do.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Yeah, I think we can all imagine that. Look how angry I just got.

[Matt Richtel]

Oh, my God. She. On her behalf, she struck me in the studio.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

I think that if. I love the idea that not only are we trying to understand adolescence, but that we experience in real time constantly the experience of an adolescent, a version of it, it's just maybe less amplified.

[Matt Richtel]

And it's less frequent because we. Our brains. This is where you can draw a distinction. We've developed a frontal lobe, but we also don't have the hormones that are intended.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Speak for yourself.

[Matt Richtel]

I'm sorry.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

I am of a certain age, and I believe we are reliving that a lesson period.

[Matt Richtel]

Okay, let's see. I'm totally out of my depth. No.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

But I do think that it gives me, and many women at least like, another layer of.

[Matt Richtel]

Oh, yeah. So when those hormones hit, when the neurochemicals hit, they are, by evolutionary design, intended to make an organism hyper aware of his or her surroundings. And I'll give you a really interesting study out of Stanford that I note in the book the study is named after a nonsense word. So the next thing I'm about to say. If you're saying, does Matt know he's saying a nonsense word? Has he suddenly had a stroke? No, this is a nonsense word. The word is puidish. I had you at hello.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

No, that's just because I saw it in writing and didn't know how it was pronounced.

[Matt Richtel]

I actually, even as I'm saying it, I'm not positive.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

But who's gonna challenge us?

[Matt Richtel]

Probably the Stanford researcher. So what he does is he neuroimages the brains of people at various ages while they're listening to this nonsense word, puidischwald, and other nonsense words spoken by different groups of people. One group is the child's mother, and the other group are strangers in a woman's voice. And the reason they use a nonsense word is so that it can be clear that the adolescent or the child isn't tuning into something they've heard before from their parent. And what they show when they neuroimage the brain is that as you move from child to. To adolescent. Okay, so you're hearing. You with me, you're hearing this nonsense word spoken by your mother or a stranger or over time, during, after puberty, you start to. Your brain lights up at the sound of the stranger's voice.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Because it's novel.

[Matt Richtel]

It's novel. And let's play this out with me. Why else would that be? Because you need to know how to survive in the world filled with people you don't know yet and make sense of what's going around you, on. Around you. So when you're so.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

You're more vigilant, when it's a stranger.

[Matt Richtel]

Saying the word, you're more literally more attuned to a voice not belonging to your parent or mother. We didn't do fathers in this experience.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

We never do, do we, Colin? But whales. But I think that's really. That makes sense. It's how you stay alive.

[Matt Richtel]

It's how you stay alive. Now let me play it out a little further. First. Imagine yourself in your own home with your kids and they're not really listening to you and they're listening to something around you.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

I can easily imagine that.

[Matt Richtel]

You can easily imagine it's never happened to me.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Yeah.

[Matt Richtel]

First of all, think about this. There is one or two parents or a handful of parents whose voices are known. There are like 6 billion people that at that moment are more compelling to the brain of the adolescent than their parent. Now, that doesn't mean their parent doesn't have some voice still, but it is for their survival that they understand what's going on around them. So this is an idea. What I'm about to say next, I would really like people to take home. It's not personal.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Yeah, yeah.

[Matt Richtel]

That's the big daddy O idea of this. And there's another reason. I will connect this to why that's so important in the context of the information thing. When you take it personally, you start to shove more information down their throat. So I know it's hard. And I'm not suggesting you let your kid be rude to you because there's, there's. I can imagine people saying, well, does that mean I'm supposed to ignore obnoxious behavior? I think there's a distinction between correcting and taking personally.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

I totally agree with you. And also taking personally ends up pulling you further away.

[Matt Richtel]

It pulls you further away. But in the construct of this what it does. And sorry, not it.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

I mean you can say, but.

[Matt Richtel]

You could say, but I say and okay, because can we start over? Yeah, the whole thing just script.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

But I.

[Matt Richtel]

Here's the. Here's the.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

And I'm a psychologist and I, I'm like, oh, I just said always. Which we're not. We are not supposed to do.

[Matt Richtel]

I can't believe you did that.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

And I say but.

[Matt Richtel]

And I started weeping.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

So.

[Matt Richtel]

So the. And in this is when you take it personally, it prompts you to react with more information.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Right. Thus overloading.

[Matt Richtel]

Right. Thus contributing to that.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

And then you get.

[Matt Richtel]

But the reason I distinguish correcting behavior in that point is going back to the thing I said about entitlement, that information processing organism that is your kid needs to understand the rules. Or they at least have to have the rules reinforced to them. Like, hey, it's not okay to talk to me that way. But that's a pretty simple direct right point. That's not don't you love me? Right.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Here are the 400 things I've done for you. Why are you like, I will not be disrespected or whatever?

[Matt Richtel]

Because the reason. Yes. Because they're not disrespecting you out of that. They're disrespecting you to try to understand all the other voices they then have to pay attention to.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

And your voice is safe. Hopefully.

[Matt Richtel]

Hopefully it is.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

And so there is. I mean if this helps take it less personally or even be flattered by it is that there doesn't have to be a vigilance. If there does, it would be so something's amiss.

[Matt Richtel]

Yeah. And that gives you the latitude to be strong, but it also requires of you to be strong.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Yeah.

[Matt Richtel]

At the beginning of this book I say, I'd say to parents, it's a little glib, but love, lead and let go.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

It's great though.

[Matt Richtel]

Unconditional love is how you create the safety lead is how you let them know what's really vital so they survive and let go. Is it ain't about you. What they do on the baseball field is not you. What they do on the stage is not you. How they do in the classroom is not you. Keep them alive, let them feel safe and tell them the firm rules that will let them excel and survive in a fast changing world. How we grow up.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

The end. Say more.

[Matt Richtel]

Okay, look, if we in the year 1800, we lived till we were 40, right. And there effectively was no period of adolescence. You were a child then, you were at puberty, you worked, you had a baby and then you died.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Yeah. Now, lucky us, life expectancy is quite a bit.

[Matt Richtel]

Doubled. Doubled. Extraordinary. And even though there have been some dropbacks due to probably fentanyl and Covid, on the whole, it's been a mercurial rise over time. But that means we have to make a living at the same time our adolescents have to make a living. And this is a punchline of the book we haven't gotten to yet. So now let me add what it might mean subconsciously if your kid says, we're all moving to TikTok. And, you know, not only is that it's not like Elvis Presley, because Elvis Presley sort of threatened you because you thought this was the good kind of music. And it's all subjective, but this is an economic platform that you have to move to. And if you don't move to it, these people coming up have the energy and aplomb and motivation to move faster than you're ready to move. So that is. I mean, just the thought of it is a little bit mind blowing, that is. And I'm going to take it one step further, which is that the new generation has an economic incentive to diversify things outside the power structure that exists. And they're not doing it consciously, they're doing it to survive, but they're matriculating as a peer group into new ideas. And they have to, because it's like we own the company, they are the new management. And right now. So they are by definition designed to carve out new ground for their own survival. I can actually give you some genetic, some deep genetics to back that up. But just for the moment, if you take me at my word, I do. It stands to reason they've got to diversify a little bit because we've already got that ground covered. Now with us living longer, we are in direct competition with the people we have raised in theory to take on the world next.

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

Yes.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Now where that is. So, okay, so let's say because we're all consciously, like, we're. We're on the same team.

[Matt Richtel]

Yes.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

And because I struggle with. I struggle with this messaging for young people all the time, which is like, we don't know what's going to be needed. We don't know what jobs are going to be available, we don't know what you need to learn. And, and like, I really like some of the classical things that I feel like were a really big part of who I am today.

[Matt Richtel]

But look, these things aren't, these things aren't mutually exclusive.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

You're right. And you're very good at balancing that. But, but let me ask you this. I won't. I. Where, like, I struggle in conversations, I feel a little bit more balanced when it comes to technology and social media. Like, I don't think we, I think you said this. The intuitive stuff is like, of course, sticking your face in a screen for 10 hours a day is just not a great idea. But also you can use it as a tool and blah, blah, blah. We don't want to oversimplify. I think those are all reasonable AI.

[Matt Richtel]

Look, let me go back a step, okay? When I said that there's a known and an unknown, a lot of the known is really wise. It's been honed over centuries. And that could be hygiene. It could be like, in the simplest way, don't get hit by a truck. But it could also be.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Could it also be Shakespeare? Like a couple of lines?

[Matt Richtel]

Well, I'm gonna say that my daughter and I like listening to the Beatles together. Later this week, before this airs, we will get our new puppy, who we've named Sergeant Pepper. So, so she's 14. We could have named the dog Taylor Swift. Right, But I, I mentioned that. It, it's, it's a, it's. I'm not, I'm not trying to be inauthentic because it, it, it. But it's, it's a good example where some things that are known. Maybe it's the Beatles, maybe it's how to drive safely, maybe it's the value of democracy, whatever it is. But these are honed ideas over time, and they're not just going to go away. So even though new things are coming up and there are new ways of combining information that only the next generation will see and have the energy to do, they're not going to throw out the playbook because the playbook works. The Beatles aren't going anywhere. Does that make you feel better?

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

No, that really does make me feel better. Like there are certain paradigms that just make sense and work.

[Matt Richtel]

Yes. And I can explain why that is.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Please look after.

[Matt Richtel]

So you have this period of, like, great plasticity as an adolescent where you're picking up all kinds of things, but toward the end of that, there's a pruning that happens inside the brain. And when that pruning happens inside the brain, certain pathways get laid down. They're not inexorably laid down, but certain things. It's a kind of a Use it or lose it, period of time. What I would argue is maybe the single most important thing you could teach your kids of anything is curiosity.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Yeah.

[Matt Richtel]

Because in a fast changing world, you would like to have the kind of wiring that can learn new things. Will you ever be able to do it at that level and with the incentive structure that happens during that period? I don't think we know the answer to that.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

But exercising that muscle so that you're able to be curious.

[Matt Richtel]

I mean, I owe everything I have to what I think is like, I mean, I have curiosity to the point of pathology.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Yeah. I mean, that's essentially. Well, I don't, I didn't really mean to the point of pathology for you, but obviously you've built a career and maybe relationships, I'm assuming, on this curiosity.

[Matt Richtel]

The other thing it's allowed is, it's allowed me to think about what a changing world. Sorry. It's allowed me to think about how to adapt to a changing world. For instance, I've learned about these coping mechanisms. I came from a generation where we drank a lot of beer.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Right. You didn't splash your face with ice water.

[Matt Richtel]

We did not. I mean, the numbers were terrible. And I still have plenty of friends for whom that is a coping mechanism. And it was wired into them that this works. Now, admittedly, that also has a disease component or a genetic component, but what I'm getting at is that to the extent you remain curious, it avails you over your lifetime of adapting to a whole bunch of new things rather than feeling that intense known and unknown conflict that is a perpetual state of adolescence. Earlier I mentioned that I think some of the challenges we have in society are a result of people in hardened places trying very hard to reconcile the known and the unknown, but without a lot of curiosity or ability to adapt. And that creates this anger, it creates this displacement. It creates a lot of the challenges we see. And I'm not, I am not, I, I, I am decidedly not partisan on this. It's, it's, I'm not making a political statement, but you can see once you get the framework in your head, how this can cause people to displace into all kinds of things and then everything becomes a version of road rage. If you don't find a way to resolve.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

I, I love that. And actually, I think even if we can ourselves lean into curiosity with, just to tie it all together, what's happening in adolescence, yes, that just takes away so much of the personalizing and fighting and wanting to will our young people to become who we Expect them to be amen, so.

[Matt Richtel]

Or see them as a reflection of us, which is which now you can see. Yeah, well, that's by evolutionary biology. That's not supposed to be the case.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

No. And I think we know. I think we just know how that just doesn't end well.

[Matt Richtel]

It doesn't end well.

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

And now for a quick break. This episode is brought to you in part by Saks Fifth Avenue. All right, there's no question at shopping season we're talking about spending money. We're talking about being careful about not spending too much money, but also be really targeted. So Saks.com is definitely worth it because there's so much for everyone. Especially if you are thinking about new outfits, new jewelry, new decor, they've got everything. It feels really personal. So you can kind of do one stop shopping. I have so many things that I want to get in so many different categories. So you can pretty much get a perfect hostess gift or a fantastic outfit for you. It's Saks. I mean, I don't even need to promote Saks because we all know Saks. It's just a beloved, been around forever, always has beautiful items, brand. And also if you're in New York City or anywhere with an actual Saks, don't you remember those beautiful Christmas windows? So if you are looking for basically anything, head to Saks.com and if you're in a city with a Saks, just go enjoy yourself. Head to saks.com in my insane quest for protein. Because if you are of a certain age, you just hear constantly how much protein we need. But then how you actually get that much protein is a whole other story. So Flave City is on a mission to upgrade your everyday protein intake. They make it so simple and so yummy. You basically just put the powder into a thermos, shake it up, you don't even need a blender. And now you've got 25 grams of protein. So. So they are all about real recognizable ingredients that you can trust. There's nothing hidden or artificial. If it's on a Flave City label, you can read it, you can actually pronounce it, you can feel good about it because yes, you need lots of protein, but also you don't want all the junk and protein powders and so much. So anyway, Flave City's all in one protein smoothies are made with a hundred percent grass fed whey. They make it very easy to get your daily protein because there's 25 grams of protein protein in that one drink serving. And it has every flavor. Like, I just like vanilla and chocolate, but they've got more creative flavors like chocolate peanut butter brownie batter and berries and cream. And Flav City, of course, has a huge Cyber Week plan for our listeners. So get early access to their biggest sale of the year now through December 15th. Treat yourself and use the code VIP Good Humans to snag 20% off today. You don't want to miss this because, you know protein. Okay, so let me tell you about Irestore because, you know, I love anything that helps my hair grow. So here's what Irestore does. Irestore is an LED helmet. Actually, they have other products as well, but it's an LED helmet. Looks like a bike helmet. So maybe you might look a little kooky. However you put it on and then continue about your day. You can put it on for like 20 minutes and it helps restore hair growth. It's like, you know, the face masks that you do, the LED masks for your skin, but for your hair. So I'm so excited to share with you that we have a massive, massive discount for this eye restore. And so, you know, if you want to look your best in your photos and get and feel your hair getting thicker, Irestore is here to help with a huge Black Friday savings happening all month long with the code humans. At irestore.com you can unlock an exclusive discount on the Irestore Elite. That's the one that I have. It literally looks like a bike helmet, but it just makes your hair healthy and stimulates your scalp. So that's humansirestore.com so you can support our show and your hair all at the same time.

[Matt Richtel]

And another thing we have a tendency to do, I think with the pendulum swinging back a little bit, but we have really been pathologizing this information overload, and we've done it to help young people in many cases fit into structures.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

No, I want you to say this. No, it's just this is reminding me that I want you to talk about rumination.

[Matt Richtel]

Oh, so, so. Okay.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

But finish what you were saying, which will lead to it. We've been pathologizing this information overload.

[Matt Richtel]

We've been pathologizing it. There's a lot to reconcile when you think about the known and the unknown in a fast pace, changing world. It can be overwhelming a lot. It can present as all kinds of things. People are predisposed at different levels to anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation. Go down the list. Those things are very real. I'm not suggesting they're all solved through this construct by any stretch. But I do think that some of the presentations that we see are outgrowths of this overload. Too much processing, too much to make sense of with us adding into the problem. This is where rumination comes in. I've tended to think I may withdraw this in future generations, but I've thought of the book. But I've tended to call this generation generation rumination. And the reason I've done that is that over the last two to three decades, we've seen a lot of change in where exploration happens from the outside to the inside. It used to be that there were lots more. There weren't lots more, but there were skin, knees, and broken bones. And that's what emergency rooms saw. Increasingly, they tend to see emotional challenges or disorder. Disorder is not the right word. What's the right word?

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Well, they're. I mean some of it.

[Matt Richtel]

Some of it is.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Some of it is. But I think in general we're seeing emergency rooms are serving as mental health crisis locations.

[Matt Richtel]

Yes. And part of that we can.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Medications come on in today, but I, but you know, coming in pediatric. I work with pediatricians all the time. They're managing mental health way more than physical, way more than.

[Matt Richtel]

And this led us to think for a long time that the cell phone was to blame. I don't, I don't think that's entirely accurate as I've described here today. That amplifies the challenges. But I don't think that's the exclusively the reason. But, but I tend to think of this as generation rumination because when you become overloaded in the way we're describing and when you don't have coping mechanisms, one of the things young people do is they will ruminate. Everyone in ninth grade hates me. Here's one I've gotten. You've never made anything good for dinner ever.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Yeah.

[Matt Richtel]

I mean.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

And, and because connection is such a huge conversation, like being connected, having close relationship with your kids.

[Matt Richtel]

Yes.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

And I'm. It's so important, but I think it's misunderstood. And co. Rumination happens regularly now.

[Matt Richtel]

Oh. Oh, man.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

As like a source of connection.

[Matt Richtel]

Yes.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

And it is a source of connection. But then you get like, now you're. You're getting deeper into rumination.

[Matt Richtel]

And what you're doing in that case is going back to the road rage analogy. You're taking a moment of really emotional explosion that needs to be let go of putting a name to it that is not correct and then reinforcing that name over and over again.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Yeah.

[Matt Richtel]

And, and, and that is where the pathologizing can happen too. It's like, oh, I have this disease again. People have these.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Of course, of course.

[Matt Richtel]

And some of it is a product of the environment we live in. For instance, if you want a kid to learn in a school environment, some kids brains aren't ready for that. And there's a diagnosis that goes along with it. But that might not have happened when people ran around in fields. That's a product of brain and environment.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Our expectation of every brain being able to.

[Matt Richtel]

Yes.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Be in one kind of environment.

[Matt Richtel]

Yes.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

But I think it's important for us to think about if it's generation rumination and that. That it's also like for parents because we've kind of pathologized even parenting.

[Matt Richtel]

Yes.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

That.

[Matt Richtel]

Wait, what do you mean by that? I said yes.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

You're like, I totally agree. I want to be a good listener. I'm not sure what I mean about it, but it feel. I just said it, but. But it feels like my field is like, like if you go to social media and my feed or for you page or whatever that is, has more things that are in my area. It's like five things you can say that will make your kid codependent or five mistakes you make to raise a narcissist or, I don't know, all these things where I'm like, parents are now fed panic that like, their parenting itself is just like in its own pathology. The way we're approaching our kids, which there's some kernel of truth to it.

[Matt Richtel]

I'd like to add to. Earlier, I said there's a couple things to tell your kids. Curiosity. The other one, and it relates very strongly to what you're saying, is if I was going to have young people walk away with two things, it'd be curiosity and the sense that everything will be okay.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Ugh. Yes. That's not at all the message that anybody's getting.

[Matt Richtel]

Right. And I tend to think of parents as the original form of social media at the dinner table. They are putting that fear into their kids and they're adding. They're screaming at TikTok and the news, but they're channeling.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

That's it.

[Matt Richtel]

They are the original Instagram.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

I'm so glad you said that because one of the things that I was noticing as we're talking about, when we talk about things like social media, and it's not like, I don't think either of us are like, social media is the greatest thing in the world. Not saying it, it's so just. It's just this, the pendulum is just very extreme right now. But I think the panic. I'm not sure what's worse, the panic or the thing that we're. And this isn't just about social media, it's just whatever we're talking about at the dinner table. I just am in violent agreement with you that there's a possibility that. That amplifies all the stuff.

[Matt Richtel]

I think the panic is a version of the road rage and it's a version of struggling to deal with the ambiguity of reconciling the known and unknown in a fast changing world. And one of the ways we deal with that is by declaring things because.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Then it feels like soothing.

[Matt Richtel]

Right. We have. We have said this is the answer.

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

Yeah.

[Matt Richtel]

Living with ambiguity is very hard. It's another reason adolescents are. Are. We find very threatening.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

That could be your fourth skill.

[Matt Richtel]

Let's do it. How many?

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Living with ambiguity.

[Matt Richtel]

Living with ambiguity.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Curiosity.

[Matt Richtel]

Living with ambiguity.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

I forget the rest.

[Matt Richtel]

Whales.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

No, you had really good points. Things will be okay.

[Matt Richtel]

Listen, I wrote the book. I can't remember anything that's finished.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

I'm sure you turned it in long ago. Curiosity. Living.

[Matt Richtel]

They're going to be okay.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

They're going to be okay.

[Matt Richtel]

Coping mechanisms.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

And I think living with ambiguity.

[Matt Richtel]

We need an afterward. Will you write the afterword?

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

I'll write the afterword because that is why I'm. When I'm miserable. I assure you it's because I am not liking the ambiguity.

[Matt Richtel]

I do want to say, lest we be less people walk away thinking social media. Good. I write extensively about this in the book. While the, While the research is unclear. Yes, you are correct. As I think you quoted the New Yorker or something earlier where I'd said sitting in front of a computer 10 hours.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

10 hours a day. I did quote the wonderful article about you.

[Matt Richtel]

Go on. But the, the. What I want to. I do want to point out is sitting in front of a screen all day. What we do know is it displaces things we know are healthy.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Thank you. Actually say it. I think everybody needs to hear it.

[Matt Richtel]

So this is really. This is really important. They may be young people may be delving off in a different direction, but they're under the heading of things we need to teach them. Exercise in person interaction. Sleep. Sleep. Maybe more than anything else. But again, when we're pointing fingers, the New York Times just did a story where the state of Florida tried to.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Enforce schools banning cell phones.

[Matt Richtel]

No. Letting kids sleep in. And it fell apart. And so owing to a bunch of structural reasons, kids are getting up at 5, 30 and 6. And we're blaming the cell phone. I'm not saying the cell phone. The cell phone should be in the bedroom.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Right?

[Matt Richtel]

Should not be in the bedroom. We have a charging station in our hallway, which sometimes we get the kids to plug their devices into.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

I'm. I'm aggressive about it, so. Yeah, but I. That is one thing I'm strict about. But to the point, it's not a fight in our house. So I don't know that I would. I'm not saying other people that you have to figure out for your own household, but for me, it's very important. Phones out of the room. I just think it's like, to your earlier point, I haven't lived that.

[Matt Richtel]

You haven't lived it. Again, I will reinforce. Despite the fact we haven't lived it, we know that certain things work for healthy development. So even if you want to say this, even if you want to say, maybe someday we'll learn that using cell phones 24 hours a day, it's free. Yeah. I mean, there used to be. There was a Woody Allen movie years and years ago. I think it was sleep or something where he woke up and he's like, and now they've discovered that steak and wine is great for you. Maybe we'll discover that. But in the meantime, we suspect otherwise. And we know that when you exercise, when you sleep full stop, when you eat well, when you interact with other people, you are developing in a way that we understand, permits, allows, encourages thriving and survival in the modern world.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

And if you have a developing brain, it's more sensitive to all of these things. And so I think all that. And you have a chapter in your book about this is like, when we're looking at phones, what is it taking away? It's taking away sleep and exercise and in person interactions and. Wait, what's the fourth thing? Memory.

[Matt Richtel]

I don't remember. I wasn't listening. We've been here like an hour.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

I know. We should wrap up.

[Matt Richtel]

Okay.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

I do think this is a really important book, and I do think people are terrified of adolescence right now in particular, and I get it. But I love. Things are gonna be okay, and it's gonna be hard to. It's hard to believe that with the voices out there.

[Matt Richtel]

Why is it hard to believe that?

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Well, it's not hard for me to believe that. I actually do believe that. But my grandmother once said to me, can it, Mary Sunshine? She was so annoyed with me for being too positive.

[Matt Richtel]

And we also have your grandmother here today.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Yeah. So she. My grandfather had died and we were like sitting around and I said something like, you know, he was so awesome. And like, he would have really been so happy that he lived such a great life. And look how many grandkids he had. I don't know. I was just saying like, how great. And she was so annoyed. And she said, can it, Mary Sunshine. And it was. Cause I was 18 and she had lost her husband. And I was like, I'm sad that he died, but he lived this really long, amazing life. And it was a moment that she taught me that I then learned in graduate school. Turns out she was right. Is like, that's not the time to be like on the bright side. But that's quite different than just landing on things are going to be.

[Matt Richtel]

And it's an example where you were working out how to express what would ultimately be an optimistic part of your personality, but learning to recognize when it worked and when it went to shut out. And that's. That is part of this adolescence thing. You have grains of individuality that will show up and they will surface at conceivably the wrong times in adolescence because you don't know yet what the rules of the road are for larger society. How can you. Like, if the world's changing and your parents tell you these are the rules, you have to test it out or you're gonna die. You're gonna socially die, you're gonna economically die, you're gonna physically. I don't mean it that starkly, but in that instance, that is a perfect moment of adolescence where you know your. And the nickname of your podcast, Mary Sunshine, please stop.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Was can it. Mary Sunshine.

[Matt Richtel]

Mary Sunshine.

[Podcast Host/Announcer]

Please note that this episode may contain.

[Dr. Liza Pressman]

Paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to in this episode.