← Talkaboutable with Dr. Susan Swick
Talkaboutable with Dr. Susan Swick
Dating, Drugs, and Digital Detox: Your Parenting Questions Answered
00:41:14
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Lemonade. I'm Dr. Susan Swick, and this is Talk About Able. Today we have some listener questions and I'm going to take some time with a few of them to talk about some principles that can help us through some common challenges. And we have a lot to get to, so let's jump right in. So our first question. Dr. Swick, my child's in high school and I found a bag of weed in his room just sitting on his bed, like, staring me in the face. He didn't even try to hide it. What should I do? I want to talk to him about it, but I also don't want to freak him out and punish him to the point where he won't open up to me about things like this in the future. Okay, this is a great question and such a common concern for parents. And I would say first, when our children are experimenting and exploring in ways that create risk, that's normal development and it's a marker for us that we need to show up. And you're right, you do want to find a way to communicate about this important matter, about drugs and alcohol, all kinds of substances, but in a way that's going to improve communication with each other, right? Make it easier for your son to be open with you and honest with you in the future. And we want to eventually equip our kids with really good information. But let's recognize that adolescents are actually wired to explore the world. They're wired to tolerate higher levels of risk than we as adults find comfort, pursuit of new experiences. And they're wired to tolerate especially high levels of risk if it's pro social. So if their friends are doing it or they're doing it with friends, it's going to be extra rewarding. So experimentation is the rule, exploration is the rule. Independence is the rule in adolescents. So they're doing a lot more without you around or without your awareness. I think handling it directly is critical. And you do want to make sure that you're calm enough to be clear and curious and not fearful of being clear and saying, I found this in your room. And if you have a rule about it, you can say, what were you thinking? We have a rule about this. What's going on? Are your friends using it? Where did you get it? You could be totally curious. You want him to know that you actually want to know not just what he was thinking, but what's going on in his community, in his world, in his friend group. But I will put on my child psychiatrist hat here and say there's actually pretty Good evidence that moderate to heavy use of marijuana is pretty perilous for the developing brain. So up until about the age of 25, using marijuana regularly creates specific risks, some of them as serious as developing a psychotic disorder. More predictable risks makes kids more vulnerable to depression, to anxiety and panic attacks. It also causes some cognitive decline that's permanent. So that developing brain, and we know adolescent brains are actually busily getting renovated. Marijuana actually is not great for those developing brains. So in adulthood, marijuana is safer than alcohol, we think. But in adolescents, neither are very good. And marijuana poses specific risks. So it's important that you know that to be able to make sure your son knows that you want to be educating your child to be a critical consumer, whether it's something that's legal and if it's illegal, you get to talk about that, right? Where you say, look, we're always here for you. But using stuff that's illegal could put you in trouble, can expose you to risk. You need to be able to chat about that. Now I'm going to say I think most parents especially dread the question of, like, well, did you smoke pot in high school or did you drink alcohol when you were in high school? And you should not let your own adolescent experience keep you from having a frank and thoughtful conversation with your child. And you really shouldn't let it keep you from still having rules, routines, and expectations with your child. So if you don't have rules yet around drugs and alcohol at home, you can then say, we're not going to reinforce a rule we didn't have, or we're not going to have a consequence for a rule we didn't have. But going forward, here's the rule and here's why. Because we want to make sure you're safe. I say, whatever rules you're going to have at home, always have a get out of jail free card where you tell your child, if you're ever out in the world at a party, with a friend, in a car especially, and someone's been drinking, including yourself, or using drugs, and you feel like it's not safe, call us. We will come anywhere and we will get you. We will get you an Uber. We will figure it out. Because safety comes first. So you really want to make sure your child knows they're not going to be in trouble first if they call you for help. Finally, once you're past a point of saying, here's the rules, here are the consequences, you get to be really curious of, like, who's using marijuana, who else is using it, or cannabis it's my kids tell me we have to call it cannabis or weed. But find out what they're calling it and use their language and find out who else is using it, how did they get it? Find out a little bit more. Use this as a chance to get to know more about the landscape that they're operating in and then find out how it makes them feel. A lot of people, especially teenagers, try drugs and alcohol because they're curious and because that is, like I said, how they're wired. But some kids are using drugs or alcohol not to feel good or to explore, but to feel better. So find out if there's anything going on that they're trying to treat or make better. Whether it's anxiety, insomnia, sadness, feeling socially isolated or lonely. Get them talking about that if that's part of the issue, especially if drugs or alcohol have helped have treated the problem. Then you get to say, well, look, you deserve to have this feel better in a way that doesn't require you to break the law. It doesn't require you to spend your hard earned money or mine out of pocket to do something that's illegal. So let's figure out how to help you feel better so that when you're exploring the world, it's actually just born of curiosity and not of pain or difficulty. Okay, our next question. Dr. Swick, I need your help. My daughter is a freshman in high school and she already has a serious boyfriend. He seems nice enough, but my sweet, innocent girl is in love and I suspect they are having sex. Fifteen years old, seems so young to be this committed to a boyfriend. How do I talk to her about it all? About love, about sex, about the ups and downs of dating and all that comes with that. I would always start with a reminder that you as a parent are the expert on your child and the situation. Some kids are 15 going on 12 and other kids are 15 going on 30. So you know who your child is and what they might be ready for physically, developmentally, psychologically and emotionally. But as always, it's hard to start with talking and telling and instead we might want to start with listening. So you got to show up when your daughter is most likely to talk. Because while things are delirious and happy, a whirlwind of love. She may not be seeking you out for comfort or counsel, and instead you want to keep showing up when she's likely to talk, whether that's while you're prepping dinner and she doing homework at the counter or if you can drive her to practice or play rehearsal or band rehearsal, whatever it might be. And then be curious. Ask how it's going. Ask how it's going with her boyfriend or with other things. And listen. Listen for all of those clues. Of course, you also want to be thinking about what your daughter needs to know, right? Beyond the big life lessons of what's going to matter in her important relationships and what it's like to fall in love, to lose love and to recover and find it again. She does need to know about her safety and her physical health. So being clear with your child that she needs to be thinking about how to protect herself against STDs, pregnancy, and maybe being pushed into things that she doesn't want to do. So you do get to be curious with her about whether they're having sex and that it's going to be uncomfortable to talk about and that you care about her enough to talk about uncomfortable things and say, look, if you're going to be old enough for sex, you're old enough to have this chat with me and you get to invite in your clinical team, right? So it might be time to have a check in with the pediatrician or make an appointment with the gynecologist so that she makes sure she's taking really good care of her physical health. She's old enough for sex. She's probably old enough for a pelvic exam. Not fun, but that's just part of growing up. And when she trusts you to be able to bear a little bit of discomfort with her, to be here for the deliriously wonderful and the uncomfortable, it's going to be a lot easier to come to you when she's worried or sad, right? So if she should, you know, God forbid, actually feel unsafe in this relationship, we want her to come to you and talk about it. If she's worried that she's developed an STD or she's pregnant, she needs you on her side. She needs to be able to come to you early and often. And we know statistically, in all likelihood, her first love is probably not going to be her last one. It's probably not going to be her forever partner. So at some point the relationship will end. And we want her to know that you are all ears and broad shoulders and ready to help her manage the deep heartbreak that is the first breakup and offer the perspective of time that although she doesn't feel it yet, she will feel better a little bit every day, a lot, every week, and will meet the just right person. Foreign.
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Okay, next question. One thing that seems to be coming up a lot these days is cell phones, social media, and tech in general and how it's used by teenagers and tweens. We want to give kids more independence, let them go places by themselves, stay at home more, but in a way that's safe. I would like to delay cell phones as long as possible, but I also want to make sure I give my child autonomy and independence. One thing we've done at home is have only landlines, which seems like a step in the right direction, but can you offer us some guidance? Well, this is indeed a very hot topic, a common topic, and it's because we are all on the cutting edge of this matter together next to each other, right? It feels like it's been a century that we've had smartphones and social media, but it really has barely even been two decades. And most of it has barely even been a decade. But I think we all can agree on a few things, which is that social media is designed to be addictive. Right? That's the business model. And what we've learned about that little tiny bit of dopamine that gets released when you feel connected to another person because they give you a thumbs up or a like is that teenagers are super responsive to that reward. Right? Teenagers are wired to be exploring the world, practicing independence, building relationships outside of the home, especially friendships, but also romantic relationships and relationships with other adults besides their parents. And they are wired to be exploring their own identity. They are always trying to figure out, what do I like? Do I like this or do I like that? They don't get to open an envelope and discover who they are and what they like. They figure it out by trying things on income screens, where we can experience the world virtually. And it makes exploration almost frictionless, which is extraordinary. The problem is that frictionlessness means it's a lot easier than drumming up the courage to try out for an actual sports team or an actual play, or to sit down and try to learn the drums or the piano, or to maybe sit down and do your really hard math homework. So what we want to do as parents is think about our screens helping our kids development or interfering with it very often. And again, let's remember our teenagers in particular, are trying to develop independence, learn about their identity, and build deeper, more meaningful relationships with friends and with other adults. Screens can help with those things, but kids need to have physical friendships, actual friendships, friendships where if they say something and it hurts a friend's feeling, they see that on their friend's face in real time, and they have to reckon with it. They have conflict and then forgiveness. Right? Where they actually get to practice those critical skills of how do we really communicate with each other when sometimes we have different needs, or sometimes we are clumsy or we can be a little thoughtless. You don't get that immediate feedback in social media. And in fact, there's algorithms that are prompting us to mostly be shocked, outraged, or enraged, which can lead to bullying, to ostracizing certain kids, to behaviors that kids may really regret later. So it is our job as parents to be aware of that and to be as protective of our kids as we can, recognizing that our job is to equip our kids to manage the world as it is often what really matters are ground rules. Right? So with littler kids, I would say they really don't need smartphones. And when they're on screens, they should be serving their development or they should be helping the family get through something difficult. Travel days, all bets are off if you have a long day of travel. I think kids being on their iPads or on screens is a. Okay, okay. Even little, little kids, as they become tweens and teenagers, you want to find out what's going on with their friends, do all their Friends stay connected with each other by phone. Are they texting each other? Are they all on Instagram? Just be curious, find out what they're using. Here's where you might actually talk with your child about wanting them to have a phone so they can stay connected to their friends. You don't want them to feel like an outcast or like they don't have way to keep up with the people that are their actual close friends. But you also want to make good use of an adolescent's natural skepticism of authority. So sometimes that's your authority, sometimes it's school authority figures. But you get to put tech companies into that bucket also and remind them that for every hour they spend on a screen, someone is making a lot of money. So they're trying to keep them on their screens instead of doing things that they might actually really want to do. So you think with them together about how can we create some healthy limits so that you're the boss of your screen instead of it being the boss of you. These rules can be rules like no screens in bedrooms, definitely not phones overnight, which can buzz and wake them up. Sleep is sacred and so important. Maybe you have a no screen Saturday where everybody gets the experience of having more analog experiences one day a week. Going for walks, playing board games, doing crossword puzzles, being on the phone with their friend, but an actual phone. Or having a friend over or going to the beach or run the list. There's so many amazing things to do and explore. It can feel painful to step away from what has been an addictive companion. Can feel painful to us as adults. Acknowledge that part too if there's a heavy screen use in your home, but say, look, we're going to be in it together and see how it feels to actually have things in balance and feel like we're the boss of that screen. One other thought about screens and our tweens and teenagers. They are cognitively adults in many ways, but experientially they are very young. They may feel like they can put things online, whether it's photographs or it's writing that feel intimate and funny, but they don't yet recognize that it can leave a permanent trace. So help your kids recognize that anything they put out there is going to be accessible to lots of people. One rule we have in our house is if you don't want your grandmother seeing it, don't put it online either. As a post, even as a text or a chat, it's not private. It feels private, but it's not. And that is one area where it's really helpful for parents to have rules and be investing in having their children think about their own digital safety. Similarly, being skeptical, other people online who claim to be a fan or a friend, they might wonder, who could this actually be? Might this be who they say they are? A 13 year old in another state who shares my incredible interest in NASA or somebody else who maybe is trying to scam me for money or potentially get something else from me? Parents have to help their children cultivate healthy skepticism. And they, especially when kids are younger, they should have rules that make it safe as possible for kids to be present online. Okay, next question. Hi, Dr. Swick. I don't love talking about this, but my husband and I have been keeping a secret from our son, which is that he was conceived with a sperm donor. And his dad, this is in quotes, isn't his biological dad. I think I'm taking in too much input from friends and the Internet because at first I thought I was doing the right thing by not bringing it up, because who wants to know that? But now I'm worried that there are downsides to keeping it a secret, just like there are probably downsides to telling him. And I don't know what to do. For reference, our son is 12. Oh, this is a beautiful question. And I'd start by saying that parenthood is not about genetics. Right. Parenthood is about time, energy, attention, and love. And that that may be a piece of what underpins this discussion. So start with that and honoring that. Your husband, his dad is not his dad in quotes. It's his dad. It's absolutely his dad. I will say, though, that generally speaking, with our kids, honesty is going to be the best policy over time. And this is especially true with our adolescents, with our teenagers. And 12 is right on the edge about to become a teenager. I like to think about how we want not just to tell our teens that if you're ever in trouble, you should come to us first. But we have to show them. We have to show them that we're willing to talk about things that are uncomfortable, difficult. And so in doing so, we're modeling for them this good baseline rule, especially as they enter into adolescence. And one of the other reasons honesty is a useful policy is that the worst way for a young person to learn something, something important about themselves and their family, is to overhear it or to discover it inadvertently. And of course, we all hear stories about how this is happening a lot, whether it's with young adults who are doing 23andMe and learning that they have a different genetic lineage than they thought or overhearing. Parents having a phone call or a conversation amongst themselves when they think their child is out of earshot. We want them to know that when they learn something, they can talk to us about it. If they have questions, if they overhear it, they're going to start to make assumptions. Now, that sounds simple, but of course it's not so easy. And using your expertise in your child to think about what might they be wondering about, what might they have noticed or heard, you could start with that maybe a situation where they haven't noticed or heard anything yet, and you've just started to really think that it would be better to be honest, in which case this may be one of those situations where it's going to be better to sit down together at a quiet and comfortable time. And it'll be important that both of you, both of you parents are together in this, where you get to have this frank, awkward conversation. And I agree, any conversation with our children about sperm is never easy, and it will be okay. So sitting down and talking about what it means to become a parent and what your child doesn't know, that you two wanted a child for so long, you worked so hard and all that that means, and that it didn't work, and that you learned that you needed to actually have a sperm donor to be able to have a baby and raise that baby together. There is so much clinical in that story that your child will probably be closing their eyes and scrunching their nose about. And that is okay. Acknowledge that. Be like, I know this is weird. It is hard to talk about sperm with your parents, but there is nothing that is too hard, awkward, strange or bizarre for us to talk about together and for you to be able to say you want them to know because one, you want to be honest with them. Two, it's sometimes really helpful for kids and especially adults to. To know their genetic background as they go into adulthood and are paying attention to their health and their health risks. So that you can say yours may be a little different. Doctors will say, did your mom or dad have a history of diabetes or heart disease or cancer? And they'll get to know about their history, but in a slightly different way so that you can say, here's what we know about the donor and their history. And I would suggest once you talk about it, you have to leave space open for questions, all kinds of questions. They may have questions about whether they can reach out and be in touch with this sperm donor, meet them, and what I would Caution you is when you welcome all questions, you get to slow down a little and and don't rush to answer. Don't feel like you have to have answers right away. You want to make it all talk about able where you say that's a great question. What's got you thinking about that? If they want to know if they could meet the sperm donor, you get to say so. Tell us more. What do you wonder? Do you wonder what they look like or what they're interested in? Would you like to have a relationship with them and to sort of let them play you the movie of their thoughts? You don't have to make any big decisions. You don't have to act on it. You just want to be right alongside them as they take in what will be big news and integrate it into all the things they are already know to be true, which is that you guys are a family and you are your child's number one fan, number one advocate. And you're going to be beside them as they figure out how to move through the world and make sense of things that sometimes are difficult or unexpected. Even things that happen right at home. Okay, last question. I never thought I'd be this type of dad, but I'm really struggling to relate to my kids interests. My older daughter is 11 and for a while now she's been really into extreme sports. Like she wants to go mountain biking or take her rollerblades to the skate park and go on the ramps. I don't know where she gets her nerve from because it's definitely not her parents. And then our other daughter is nine and she is all K pop all day. I have no idea what the appeal is. They both seem to care a lot about these things though, and it's hard to figure out how to support them when these aren't traditional organized sports or hobbies where you can at least go and watch them to show support. I love this question. On the one hand, we want to be delighted by our children's authentic interests, actual interests out in the world. And we are humans too and sometimes their interests are boring, scary, repellent or weird to us. I have many of those in my family. There are a lot of D and D players in my family. You know who you are if you are listening. And I have zero interest in Dungeons and Dragons. But here's what I'll say. Time with our children is precious. Our younger kids often want our attention, our full presence. They want us to watch them do things, try things if at all possible. They want us applauding and cheering them on, or even better, they want us to do it with them. Sometimes that's possible, sometimes it's not. But as they get older and they enter adolescence, they're going to want less of that. They're going to want to do more and more of it on their own or with their friends, or with some new adults that are coaches or trainers or teachers who are expert and interested in these special, peculiar, wonderful niche areas. So when your kids are younger, protecting time for joy and play is so important. And it doesn't mean you have to love what they love, but set a frame around it. Be curious, Let them be your teacher. So if they're obsessed with mountain biking or rollerblading or break dancing, that's probably not an extreme sport, but something that maybe would be very hard for me to do if one of my children loved it. Be curious about it. Let them tell you about it. Go and watch if you can. Let them show you videos. This is one great use of screen time where they can show you their heroes, the superstars in the world that they're interested in, and explain it to you. Even half an hour of attention to their area of interest is being invited into their inner world, their wonderful experience, and you get to be really curious about it. So you have lots to talk about when you go for a walk after dinner, or you're cooking together or doing something that might feel a little more mundane or pedestrian. You want to really be delighted by their emerging interests. And remember, these kids are going to be the younger kids. Elementary and middle school age kids are sampling everything. They're going to try K pop, they're going to want to try rollerblading or horseback riding or whatever it might be, especially if their friends are trying it or it's very trendy and they may lose interest the next week. Believe me, I have experienced the purchase of a lot of musical instruments that we then had to sell on ebay. Passionate interests are often not so long lived in the earlier years. And as they enter into adolescence, they're going to start pruning their deeper interests to focus in on a smaller and smaller number of interests. So the ones that make it through elementary school, in middle school, they keep trying lots of things. And by high school they start pruning, they start cutting back. They'll still explore and try new things, but it has more to do with friendship and figuring out what they're gifted at and what they love. So when you get to be curious, especially as an audience member, watching them do this thing that they're really into. You should be a wonderful, thoughtful coach too. Find out how they're doing it, what's hard for them, applaud the effort. Applaud what you notice about their deeper character skills that they're building by trying something new. Pay attention to whether they can persist even when something is hard and savor that complement that. Discipline is a muscle. It takes a lot of practice and the critical ingredient is interest in a difficult activity. And that helps all of us stick with something a little bit difficult and build that discipline muscle. So be there to applaud and acknowledge that all that effort is incredible and amazing. Also help them be compassionate to themselves. If they're trying something and giving themselves a hard time because it's not going so well, because they're not as great as that ace skateboarder on YouTube or the other kid at the skate park, be able to say, well, it takes a lot of practice to get there. I'm proud of you for trying. And no one ever got better at something by beating themselves up. So I'm going to not let you beat yourself up. What do we need to do to stay with it, stick with it? So helping them cultivate that big heartedness for themselves, the discipline to stick with something, maybe even courage to try the next part of it, Maybe you get to model little bit of courage yourself by being willing to try within limits. I don't think I'm going to be trying breakdancing, but you get to decide. And then being able to be curious with them about what it's like to do it, do they enjoy it? Does it fill a need? Does it leave them even more curious wanting to deepen that interest, that exploration or that skill to do it more and more and more. If it does that, you get to stick with it. And lastly, I would say when they're so passionately interested, maybe in a wild array of things that they get to teach you about, it opens the door to you also saying, hey, I kind of am wondering if you'd be willing to try this thing I'm really passionate about. It's called cribbage. That would be mine. I'm sorry it's boring. But something that you think is fun. Fun, challenging, engaging, it should be anything. It can be physical, it can be creative, it can be an intellectual pursuit. You get to show them the thing you're passionate about and interested in. You never know, it might even spark an interest for them. And then you two have that magic thing, a shared interest that you get to do together where you applaud each other for your successes, where you commend each other for your stick to itiveness, for your discipline, for your courage, and for your compassion. All those skills are magic. So when there's joy or curiosity and you get to do things together, take advantage of it. It's a treasure. It's wonderful time. And it doesn't mean you have to do the things that are not so fun for you. But be curious and let them teach you about them. And sometimes you get to tag out. Let the other parent go to the skate park one week so they can learn too. Well, thanks for asking all these incredible questions. I look forward to next week when we get to talk with a live parent about their own wonderful child and the matter that's giving them a little bit of heartburn and how together we can find a way forward. Until then, I hope you're well. If you haven't subscribed to Lemonada Premium yet, now is the perfect time. You can listen to Talk about Able completely ad free. Plus you'll unlock exclusive content like a special meditation from me that'll help you find peace through some of your biggest parenting challenges. Just tap the subscribe button on Apple podcasts, head to lemonadapremium.com to subscribe on any other app, or listen advance free on Amazon Music with your prime membership. That's lemonadapremium.com don't miss out. Talk About Able is produced by Lemonada Media in partnership with the Ohana center for Child and Family Mental Health at Montaj Health and made possible through funding from the Montage Health Foundation. Together, we are committed to helping families talk about the issues that children, teens and young adults are facing today. We believe that when these conversations happen at home, even the most challenging subjects, children build the skills they need to flourish. Because when families are connected, the hard moments become more bearable, the good moments become even better, and it all becomes Talk About Able. This show is produced by Aria Bracci, mixing and sound design by Brian Castillo, Kristin Lepore is Senior Director of New Content and Jackie Danziger is Vice President of Narrative and Production. Maggie Crowshaw is our Managing Director of Partnerships. Executive producers include myself, Jessica Cordova Kramer and Stephanie Whittles Wax and a very special thanks to Kelsey Talley and Maya Smith. You can help others find our show by leaving us a rating and writing a review. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you next week. Sam.