Improving teen mental health with Lisa Damour

Summary

Podcast Summary: Worklife with Adam Grant – "Improving Teen Mental Health with Lisa Damour"
Release Date: January 21, 2025

In this enlightening episode of "Worklife with Adam Grant," organizational psychologist Adam Grant engages in a deep and insightful conversation with clinical psychologist Dr. Lisa Damour about the intricacies of adolescent mental health. Drawing from her extensive research and professional experience, Damour provides a nuanced perspective on the current mental health landscape for teenagers, dispelling common myths and offering practical strategies for parents, educators, and communities to better support youth during this pivotal stage of life.

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1. Understanding the Adolescent Mental Health Crisis

Lisa Damour opens the discussion by addressing the prevalent narrative surrounding the adolescent mental health crisis. She emphasizes that while there is indeed a genuine increase in anxiety and depression among teenagers, media portrayals often focus excessively on their suffering, overshadowing the full spectrum of their emotional experiences.

• Gallup Poll Insights [02:40]:
  "I think teenagers have ups and they have downs, as they always have. They have a lot of highs and lows, and the media tends to fixate on the negatives, which isn't the whole story."

Damour highlights that pre-pandemic trends already showed rising rates of mental health concerns, which the pandemic further exacerbated by disrupting teenagers' crucial social and developmental activities. Additionally, she points out the significant shortage of clinicians specialized in adolescent mental health, a gap that has not been adequately addressed post-pandemic.

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2. Redefining Mental Health in Adolescents

A central theme of the conversation revolves around redefining what it means to be mentally healthy. Damour argues against the oversimplified notion that mental health equates to always feeling good.

• Defining Mental Health [08:05]:
  "It's about having feelings that fit what is happening, even if those are uncomfortable and unwanted feelings, and managing those feelings well."

She elaborates that mental health involves experiencing emotions appropriately relative to one's circumstances and effectively managing those emotions without causing harm. This perspective aligns with traditional psychological definitions but contrasts sharply with contemporary discourse that often prioritizes constant positivity.

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3. Emotional Intelligence and Regulation

Exploring emotional regulation, Damour discusses the importance of both expressing and taming emotions. She references her collaboration on "Inside Out 2," highlighting how the film portrays emotions as valuable and manageable rather than overwhelming forces.

• Inside Out 2 Collaboration [09:06]:
  "They really show both sides of anxiety, that it gets out of control and needs to be modulated, which is exactly what we recommend in clinical settings."

Damour praises the film for depicting practical strategies like grounding techniques to handle panic attacks, demonstrating that teenagers can and should engage actively with their emotions rather than being passive recipients.

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4. Coping Mechanisms: Expression vs. Taming

The conversation delves into various coping strategies that teenagers employ to manage their emotions. Damour categorizes these into expression (e.g., talking about feelings, listening to music) and taming (e.g., comforting oneself with a pet).

• Coping with Emotions [13:01]:
  "Expressing emotions can be cathartic if it doesn't turn into rumination. Distraction can be just as effective when discussing feelings isn't helpful."

She underscores that both methods are valuable, provided they lead to genuine relief without negative consequences. Music, for instance, serves as a powerful tool for emotional expression, allowing teenagers to process their feelings constructively.

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5. The Critical Role of Sleep in Mental Health

Damour underscores the pivotal role of sleep in adolescent mental health, revealing alarming data on decreasing sleep hours correlating with worsening mental health issues.

• Importance of Sleep [15:35]:
  "Sleep is the glue that holds human beings together. Teenagers need about nine hours of sleep for optimal mental health, yet many are getting significantly less."

She advocates for systemic changes such as delaying school start times, which research shows can substantially improve sleep patterns and, consequently, mental well-being and academic performance.

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6. Navigating Digital Technologies and Social Media

Addressing the complex relationship between teenagers and digital technologies, Damour offers a balanced approach to managing social media use.

• Digital Parenting Strategies [21:41]:
  "Set rules that make sense to the kids themselves and maintain a strong, trusting relationship. Start with limited phone functionalities and gradually introduce more as they demonstrate responsibility."

She recommends staged access to technology, beginning with basic texting capabilities and progressively allowing more features as teenagers prove their ability to manage digital interactions responsibly. This approach mirrors strategies used to manage other adolescent risks, such as substance use, by establishing clear, logical boundaries and maintaining open communication.

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7. The Power of Adult Relationships Over Peer Friendships

Contrary to the common belief that peer friendships are the cornerstone of teen mental health, Damour emphasizes the paramount importance of strong, caring relationships with adults.

• Adult Relationships [26:25]:
  "The single most powerful force for adolescent mental health is strong relationships with caring adults, whether those are parents, teachers, coaches, or mentors."

She explains that while peer relationships are significant, the support and stability provided by adults are crucial for teenagers' emotional resilience and overall well-being. This insight challenges the often peer-centric focus in discussions about teen mental health, highlighting the need for a more adult-inclusive support system.

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8. Effective Parenting Strategies for Teens

The dialogue transitions into practical advice for parents navigating the challenges of raising teenagers. Damour offers strategies for balancing support and independence, emphasizing the importance of self-care for parents to remain steady and available for their children.

• Parenting Teens [39:14]:
  "Take good care of yourself so that you can be the steady presence your child needs. Parenting a teenager is a workout, and you need to be in good shape to manage it."

She also advocates for fostering open communication by treating teenagers as equal partners in conversations about their lives and emotions, thereby empowering them and strengthening the parent-child relationship.

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9. Reassessing Teen Behavior and Generation Comparisons

Damour presents a reassuring perspective by highlighting data that suggest today's teenagers are better behaved than previous generations, engaging in less risky behaviors such as drinking and smoking.

• Teen Behavior Statistics [41:56]:
  "Teenagers today are the best-behaved generation on record. They drink less, have less sex, and are more cautious overall."

This counter-narrative serves to alleviate some societal anxieties surrounding youth, emphasizing that while challenges exist, many teenagers are thriving better than anticipated.

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10. Final Thoughts and Future Directions

In concluding the episode, Damour shares her ongoing work and insights supporting teenagers' mental health, urging society to adopt more comprehensive and empathetic approaches to youth development.

• Final Advice [39:14]:
  "Be a transparent and honest presence. Ask your teenagers for advice and involve them in conversations about their needs. This fosters trust and mutual respect."

She reaffirms the importance of recognizing the strengths and capabilities of teenagers, encouraging adults to engage with them constructively to nurture their growth and resilience.

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Notable Quotes:

• Lisa Damour [08:05]:
  "It's about having feelings that fit what is happening, even if those are uncomfortable and unwanted feelings, and managing those feelings well."

• Lisa Damour [15:35]:
  "Sleep is the glue that holds human beings together. Teenagers need about nine hours of sleep for optimal mental health, yet many are getting significantly less."

• Lisa Damour [26:25]:
  "The single most powerful force for adolescent mental health is strong relationships with caring adults, whether those are parents, teachers, coaches, or mentors."

• Lisa Damour [41:56]:
  "Teenagers today are the best-behaved generation on record. They drink less, have less sex, and are more cautious overall."

• Lisa Damour [39:14]:
  "Take good care of yourself so that you can be the steady presence your child needs. Parenting a teenager is a workout, and you need to be in good shape to manage it."

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Conclusion:

This episode serves as a comprehensive guide to understanding and improving teen mental health. By challenging prevailing narratives, emphasizing the importance of adult relationships, advocating for essential changes like better sleep, and providing actionable parenting strategies, Lisa Damour equips listeners with the knowledge and tools to foster a healthier, more supportive environment for teenagers. Adam Grant's thoughtful questioning and Damour's expert insights make this conversation a valuable resource for anyone involved in the lives of young people.

Transcript

[Lisa Damour]

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[Lisa Damour]

For me, adolescence feels like when my life went from being in black and white to being in color. And so I think that's part of why I like caring for teenagers and working with them. For me, it is such a rich and full and pivotal time of life and one that I really enjoyed.

[Adam Grant]

Hey everyone, it's Adam Grant. Welcome back to Rethinking my podcast on the science of what Makes us Tick with the TED Audio Collective. I'm an organizational psychologist and I'M taking you inside the minds of fascinating people to explore new thoughts and new ways of thinking. My guest today is clinical psychologist Dr. Lisa Damore. She's my favorite expert on teenagers, from understanding their mental health to figuring out how to parent them, which of course includes sage advice on emotion regulation, friend drama, sleep, and, yep, social media.

[Lisa Damour]

It's not an all or nothing. Like all of parenting, it is a gradual. Gonna give you a little room, see how you handle it.

[Adam Grant]

Lisa consulted on the Pixar film Inside Out 2. She's the author of the New York Times bestselling books Untangled Under Pressure and the Emotional Lives of Teenagers. And she co hosts the podcast Ask Lisa. So today I'm bringing her on this podcast to chat all about the colorful world of adolescence and how we can make it better. Hey, Lisa, I'm hoping that you're gonna untangle all of us in this conversation.

[Lisa Damour]

I'll do my darndest.

[Adam Grant]

Good. Well, Lisa, welcome to Rethinking.

[Lisa Damour]

Thank you for having me. I'm really glad to be here.

[Adam Grant]

I have a lot of questions for you about teenagers. As a parent of two teenagers and soon to be three, but I'm curious about how you got interested in this phase of life.

[Lisa Damour]

Well, there's probably a couple of reasons. One is, personally, my adolescence was a really wonderful time in my life. My family had had a lot of disruption. I am an only child. I stayed pretty close to home because there was just so much going on. And then suddenly when I became a teenager and I worked as a bus girl and bought myself a $900 Volkswagen Rabbit, I had a car, I suddenly had autonomy and freedom, and I had wonderful friends.

[Adam Grant]

That is starkly different from what a lot of teenagers are experiencing right now.

[Lisa Damour]

That is true. That is true. Except I will say as much as we do have an adolescent mental health crisis and we want to take it very seriously and unpack where it came from and what we're going to do about it. One thing that I got to do in 2024 was conduct a Gallup poll and ask teenagers about a whole bunch of things. I had a panel of 10 to 18 year olds, and one of the things I asked them about is what mood did you feel a lot of yesterday? And the data were 23% said sadness, 39% said anxiety, 45% said stress, 91% said enjoyment, and 94% said happiness. I think those are important data because what they tell me is teenagers have ups and they have downs, as they always have. They have a lot of ops and I think the tension we sit in now is the ongoing need to take very good care of teenagers and take seriously the causes and consequences of the adolescent mental health crisis and also recognize that the media can get trapped in certain narratives around any number of topics. But around teenagers, this one is a lot about their suffering and distress, which is real. But. But that doesn't mean it's the whole story.

[Adam Grant]

I think that when we talk about the adolescent or teen mental health crisis, a lot of people have questions about have things really gotten worse or have we just destigmatized admitting our struggles? What do you think is actually going on there?

[Lisa Damour]

I think we do have a true crisis, but I think the causes of it are not the ones that are maybe as headline grabbing as the reality of it. Prior to the pandemic, anxiety and depression was rising in teenagers and we were controlling for the kinds of questions that you raised. You know, is it just that it's less stigmatized? Is it that there's misunderstanding? Even really good studies that were working hard to control for those possibilities were finding rising rates of depression and anxiety. Okay, then along comes the pandemic. Horrible. And especially horrible for teenagers. Right? Teenagers have two jobs, which is to become increasingly independent and hang out with your friends as absolutely much as possible. And the pandemic hamstrung both of those. So things got worse for many teenagers. The other force at work in the adolescent mental health crisis that gets no coverage is that prior to the pandemic, we did not have the workforce to care for teenagers. Caring for teenagers is highly specialized. Not a lot of us do it. Not everybody loves teenagers. Not everybody loves their own adolescents and wants to become a clinician. It's not like you can then magically produce 100,000 new clinicians to meet the need. And so as I work on the policy side and the philanthropic side, advising people who are thinking about this, my efforts are often around building workforce of clinicians who care for teenagers, more clinicians of color who care for teenagers. Because we'll always need people who are good at caring for teenagers. We didn't have it before the pandemic and we still don't have it.

[Adam Grant]

I want to talk about how you think about mental health and how you help parents and teens think about their mental health. Because your definition, I think, is more compelling than any I've ever heard.

[Lisa Damour]

That means a lot coming from you. Okay, so my definition is very old. I'm basically translating the science that has existed for a long time. It just doesn't match a lot of what the discourse is now, the discourse now wrongly suggests that being mentally healthy is about feeling good. That you know you're mentally healthy if you feel at ease or calm or relaxed or your kid feels that way. The way I have been defining it, and this is, again, just distilling, what we know as a field is that it's about two things. It's about having feelings that fit what is happening, even if those are uncomfortable and unwanted feelings. And then really, where the rubber hits the road is managing those feelings well, managing them in a way that brings relief and does no harm versus managing them in a way that brings relief but comes with a cost associated.

[Adam Grant]

The first part really struck a chord with me, the idea of having feelings that fit the context because it normalizes unpleasant emotions as opposed to creating this unrealistic expectation that I should be happy all the time.

[Lisa Damour]

Absolutely. One of the most fun things I've ever gotten to do is I spent the last four years working on Inside Out 2. And part of why I was so honored to get to work with them is that's their message. Right? Riley now has nothing. Emotions. One is a pleasant emotion, joy alone. The other eight are treated as natural and also helpful to Riley. And that's how we regard emotion. It is data. It helps us understand what to avoid, what to not do. Again, you know, how to not violate social codes. So not only are uncomfortable emotions normal, they're actually valuable, protective, useful to us. And that's a place, back to the headlines, where the popular discourse has gone off the rails. Because as we see ongoing headlines about adolescent mental health crisis, too often psychological distress is equated with having a mental health concern. And that couldn't be farther from how we think about it as psychologists.

[Adam Grant]

You mentioned your work on Inside out two. I think that if I were gonna write an Inside out three, the thing that's always bothered me about the positioning of emotions in both of the films is that they just. They happen and they're completely outside of the control of, like, of the protagonist. Right. And I'm like, this is great when it comes to recognizing feelings, but when it comes to regulating them, like, why is the kid in the passenger seat as opposed to the driver's seat? And why is she not actually in dialogue with her emotions and telling them that some of them are not welcome right now and others are not. Not being, you know, being handled? Okay, what does it look like to teach, like, the regulation part of emotional intelligence through a film?

[Lisa Damour]

So I think you're right. I mean, I think that they are Trying to establish many things at once, including uncomfortable emotions are friendly and also in their world, color coded, which is hugely valuable in terms of helping kids develop a language for talking about them that's good all to itself. I think that the film actually does start to do, especially this most recent one, some of what you're looking for. One quite remarkable thing that happens in the film is that Riley has a panic attack, full blown. It's really spectacular to see. It's incredibly beautifully depicted and aptly so, and it's subtle, but she actually uses the grounding techniques that we recommend as clinicians to get herself through and out of the panic attack. And they depict it on the big screen. And then the movie ends with Anxiety being given a comfy chair and a mug of tea and in dialogue with Joy. And anxiety is spouting off all of these wild concerns. And Joy's like, that's not gonna happen right now and we don't need to worry about that. So she's doing what you're suggesting. And then there is a place where anxiety goes, oh, we have that Spanish test tomorrow. And Joy says, you're right. You're absolutely right. And this is why I love this movie so much. They really show both sides of anxiety, that it gets out of control and needs to be modulated. Which Joy is the stand in for Riley to do that and that it's valuable and when it is identifying meaningful threats, we want to pay attention to it.

[Adam Grant]

Yeah, I thought that was so elegantly done and I agree with you. I think the part that was left hanging for me is the emotions are in dialogue with each other. Riley is not in charge of her emotions. She's a victim of it.

[Lisa Damour]

She's alone for the most part.

[Adam Grant]

And that is, I think, how a lot of teenagers experience their emotions. But I also think part of teaching emotion regulation skills is doing the cognitive reappraisal of why am I feeling this emotion? Is it appropriate for the context? Is there a different way that I could look at it? Is there a different action I could take that would potentially change how I feel?

[Lisa Damour]

One of the ways we as psychologists think about coping with emotion, and this is how I organize it in the Emotional Lives of Teenagers, which is the most recent book I wrote, is that sometimes kids are coping with emotions by expressing them. Actually, kids and people of all ages, and sometimes they're coping by taming their emotions. Importantly, we see these as equally valuable. The culture right now is super into expressing, but we are all for taming. So cognitive reappraisal is in the category of, like, getting it back in the box, right? Not actually ruminating, spending a lot of time on it. Other things kids do. In the taming category, kids will just comfort themselves until they feel better. They'll go find the family pet. And one girl said to me, I force cuddle my cat until I feel better, right? Like, okay, that's fantastic. I mean, maybe not poor cat. Poor cat. But on balance, does, you know, brings relief and does no harm. Expression can work, right? Talking about feelings can work, so long as it doesn't turn into rumination. In my survey, that one I mentioned, I got to ask kids, you know, how do you help yourself feel better when you're upset? The number one response was listening to music. Kids go to music, and we've got lab studies that actually support what they're doing. All teenagers have playlists. Many of them have playlists with feelings names attached. One of my favorite ones was a kid who had a sad and peaceful playlist. A sad kid will go listen to their sad playlist. We have lab studies showing it has a cathartic catalytic quality. So it's expression, but it's them getting on a playlist, and it works.

[Adam Grant]

As you comment on what's popular in the culture right now, expression, a lot of people think that if you don't express, that means that you're suppressing.

[Lisa Damour]

That's right.

[Adam Grant]

And it's just.

[Lisa Damour]

You're right about that and they are wrong. Yes.

[Adam Grant]

Very wrong. Like, not all emotions need to be expressed.

[Lisa Damour]

No, no.

[Adam Grant]

Some can be reframed and others just. The best thing to do is to.

[Lisa Damour]

Distract distraction, especially if there's nothing you can do. The way we think about it as clinicians is expression works until it doesn't. And so if talking about feelings and thinking about the problem does bring relief, fantastic. But if it turns the corner into rumination, the best analogy for it is kind of gross, but really helpful, which is basically picking at an emotional wound that the more you work at it, the worse it feels, it doesn't heal up, then more expression is not a good idea. You know, hit the gym, go watch a compelling movie until the feeling dies down a little bit, come back to it, see if it looks the same. Is often a better way to do it.

[Adam Grant]

I think that you're one of the only people who has said anything useful on sleep. Talk to me about sleep for mental health versus sleep for success in school.

[Lisa Damour]

Oof. I hate this answer. I hate what I'm gonna tell you. Let's just start with the fact that sleep Is the glue that holds human beings together. And in all of the questions about what accounts for the adolescent mental health crisis or rising rates of mental health concern in teenagers, I think the least controversial and also the least sexy so it gets no headlines is te teenagers sleep much less than they used to. Decreasing hours of sleep is like ridiculously correlated with worsening mental health problems. There's nothing about this that we're like, really? Wow. I mean like that is just completely obvious. And I think one of the places to start is people think teenagers need much less sleep than they do. So the biological requirement for high schoolers is nine hours a night. So sleep is a problem. Sleep is a problem for a lot of teenagers. And what we see is optimal mental health happens somewhere between eight and three quarter and nine hours of sleep a night. Optimal grades happen closer to seven and a half hours a night. So this isn't great. This isn't great. And so we have to find solutions to this.

[Adam Grant]

Okay, so you're the expert. Okay, how do we solve it?

[Lisa Damour]

I think there are a lot of kids, not across the board. This is a problem of privilege, I would say for sure who are going to college over prepared, who are doing more work in high school than they need to do for college success. And that work in high school is being driven by the college process and admission questions, not how much mastery do you need to thrive in college. There are many, many kids in this country who could have a much better high school experience if they weren't trained entirely on a very, very narrow band of schools. So that's one place to start.

[Adam Grant]

You've also made a case, and I think the evidence could not be more overwhelming on this, that we need to delay school start times.

[Lisa Damour]

Well, that is a wonderful thing we can do. And again, this is data driven. We have seen this in schools where they are pulling it off. And it often requires legislation at the state level that when schools delay start times, teenagers get more sleep and mental health improves.

[Adam Grant]

This seems like such a no brainer because if you start the school day later, you're also ending it later, which tracks with the more traditional 9 to 5 workday and allows parents to not have that two hour gap between 3:00 at the end of school and 5:00 when they might be free. Why are we not there yet?

[Lisa Damour]

Sports. I'm in Ohio. I will tell you, that's where this goes to die. Question of sports and athletics and after school, I mean, I think this is ridiculous. I don't like this. But to answer your Question. That's where this falls apart.

[Adam Grant]

But I mean, that's an easy, that's such an easily solvable problem. We put our, we just put our activities in the last, you know, hour and a half block of the day. And if you're not doing a sport, you're doing another activity and you're still at school until 5.

[Lisa Damour]

Adam, you know this, right? We do it this way because we've always done it this way is very powerful for people.

[Adam Grant]

It drives me crazy. Especially when you see, you see the data on standardized tests.

[Lisa Damour]

Yes.

[Adam Grant]

If kids could take the SAT and the ACT a couple hours later.

[Lisa Damour]

Yes.

[Adam Grant]

Like even that is a dramatic improvement in their performance.

[Lisa Damour]

The way you change these things is you get the headlines to be about what really moves the needle. And you work with the media. I work with the media. I am amazed by sometimes how hard it is to bring in a new narrative, especially if it's not as gripping as the narrative that exists. And like, sleep is not sexy. And I think that, you know, there's so many things that people are much more likely to click on. And I think that, that unfortunately, you know, comes at the expense of kids.

[Adam Grant]

Watching what John Haidt has been doing, getting middle schools to be phone free and making the case that I think in part helped Australia ban social media for under 16. Like, this is the next movement. We start the school day later. We also eliminate daylight savings time 100%. This all goes hand in hand. Better for sleep, better for mental health, better for avoiding errors and accidents. Yes, not, not complicated.

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[Lisa Damour]

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[Lisa Damour]

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[Lisa Damour]

So the tension we're sitting with, and we can do this as parents, is that kids need to be connected to their peers. And that is really true during adolescence. I mean, it is vitally true for teenagers. And tweens and digital technologies come with risks. So we're working with these two things side by side. As much as it is daunting to try to parent in a digital world, especially for those of us. I'm 54, right. I didn't have this growing up. It's very hard to parent through something you did not have. The good news is we have done teenagers and risk for decades. And what we know about teenagers and risk around all the other risks that teenagers are navigating, whether it's drinking, driving, drugs, sex. I mean, all of that also applies around digital technologies. And the way I like to think about it is the guardrail for managing risks with teenagers. One, rules that make sense to the kids themselves and two, your good working relationship with that kid. Think about drinking, right? So I think saying to kids, we don't want you drinking at parties because there are too many variables at parties and things can go sideways and go very, very badly. And that's our rationale. And so we're asking you not to drink. We have data showing that works, that reduces how often kids are going to drink and recognizing they are impulsive and good kids make mistakes and saying, but if you find yourself in a jam, call us. We will never make you sorry that you have asked for our help. Okay? That's how we handle risk with teenagers. Okay? So if we take that back to digital technologies, what we want are rules that make sense to kids. We can say we get it. You need to be connected to your friends. We're going to start with texting alone. And when friends are suddenly on texting, I think it actually can work to give a kid either a flip phone, which no teenager worth their salt will accept, or a very dumbed down smartphone, which is what I did as a parent. So use an old us too. Great. I mean, it works. It's not that hard. I mean, you take it to the Apple store, they configure it just right. So we gave our kids old smartphones that had no browser, no apps for social media, no ability to add apps without our permission, and the understanding it never went in their bedroom ever, ever, ever, ever, ever. They start on texting. Okay, here's what we do in all of parenting. You see how it goes. If your kid texts like a 40 year old librarian, which plenty of kids do, great. And they can stay connected to their friends, you probably don't have to monitor that much. If your kid gets involved in the meanest text thread ever right out of the gate. Okay, they are definitely not ready for social media and they're probably not ready for texting. Right. So we do things in stages. And then what I said to my kids, people can take this for what it's worth. I said, you're on texting for as long as that will do the job to keep you meaningfully connected to your peers. I trust the day will come when you say to me it's all on snap. I am hoping you are 15 or 16 before we are having that conversation. I will have had all this Runway to see how you handle texting, how much I can trust you. Texting to me is like JV social media. And then we'll have the snap conversation based on how you've handled it up till now. You're teaching me about what you can handle. I am learning. Along the way, I have as a clinician made different recommendations to different kids in the same family. That kid, you don't need to monitor that much. That kid, no digital technology for that kid for a while. That's how I like to think about it. Because there are risks with social media. There's no question. It is incredibly absorbing, hard to pull away and there is so much garbage that kids are going to encounter. So you want him older. Does that fit with how you think about it? What do you think?

[Adam Grant]

Yeah, it's very wise. We were the holdout parents that said we're not even doing a phone. We don't think this is necessary. And then starting high school, we realize our Oldest is the only kid in her class without a phone, so she gets it. She's been texting Right. By computer before that. But I think, you know, pretty quickly everything's on snap and she wants to use it. And we say, okay, we'll start with five minutes a day. And your phone's never allowed in your room at night. So very aligned.

[Lisa Damour]

There is so much conversation about social media and the ways in which kids are spending a ton of time on there. Kids will be the first to agree to that and say that that's true. I am hearing about more and more teenagers, and it's not just older teenagers who are themselves putting screen time controls on. And I think that's brilliant because the algorithms are too powerful. Right. It's like a 15 year old versus all of Silicon Valley. So screen time controls hopefully let them get the upsides of being connected digitally without the downsides of lost time.

[Adam Grant]

I want to talk about relationships because I read something from you that stopped me in my tracks and made me rethink one of my core assumptions, which is I thought that the most important relationships for teen mental health are friendships. And you say maybe not?

[Lisa Damour]

No. The data give us a pretty strong sense that the single most powerful force for adolescent mental health is strong relationships with caring adults.

[Adam Grant]

This flies in the face of all the like, parents don't matter. Kids pay attention to their peers. Research why with a lot of other outcomes, Pure effects swamp parenting effects. Why is this one different?

[Lisa Damour]

Well, so picture the kid who does not have any strong relationships with caring adults. They're not connected at home. They don't connect to any teachers. They don't have a coach they can go to. They're not part of activities where they feel like there's an adult who is on their side. As soon as you start picturing that teenager, that's a kid in trouble. Healthy teenagers are meaningfully connected to adults. Now. It's great if it's their family, but even if it's not their family, and sometimes that's not the case. There are a lot of kids who are saved by a teacher, people who they work with closely. That's how I think about it. Not what is the magic of the adults who are connected? What is the magic thing they're doing? It's like, picture the kid who doesn't have that. That is not a kid who's doing okay.

[Adam Grant]

Maybe one of the worst inventions in American history is the nuclear family. I think about other periods in history, but also many other cultures around the world where kids are raised by a village of extended family, of friends, of neighbors. And here in the US we're basically rolling the dice with one or two parental figures and just let's hope for the best, as opposed to let's make sure that you're part of a network of 12 or 14 adults where the odds are much higher that one of them is going to be trustworthy and caring and not abusive and supportive. What do you make of that?

[Lisa Damour]

I think I like the nuclear family. I haven't thought about it a lot, but what I will say is teenagers belong to everybody. And one of the things that is as natural as anything that unfolds in adolescence is that kids start to loosen their ties at home a little bit, tell their folks less and less, and start talking to their teachers more, start talking to their coaches more, bosses, mentors, aunts, uncles. So I sort of feel like it doesn't matter if it's not your kid. You are responsible for all the teenagers in your community and having meaningful relationships with them. I've often thought when I was doing my clinical work, I'm basically saying the exact same thing the family is saying to the kid, but I'm not the parent. And so somehow it has traction that the parent's not getting. While the pandemic was still going on, I ended up in a conversation with the superintendent of Chicago Public Schools. And he said something that I thought was so spot on about how much mental health crisis there was coming out of the pandemic. And he said it's not just that the kids were stuck at home, it's that they lost their relationships with their teachers, the home monitor who is talking with them about the game every day, all of those adult relationships that surround kids and become so vital for teenagers. Many kids actually stayed decently connected to their peers through the pandemic, but they lost the adults.

[Adam Grant]

So what do we do about that now that the pandemic is behind us?

[Lisa Damour]

I just want people to realize, like teenagers, like adults, they want to be connected to us. They don't always love our agendas, they don't always love our million questions, but they fundamentally are interested in adults who are interested in them. And I don't think it helps us to have the inaccurate stereotype that teenagers don't care about adults, don't like them, don't want anything to do with them. That's not true. I think what is hard is that teenagers act like teenagers and there is behavior that is entirely typical to adolescents and has always been part of adolescence, that adults are put off by and take personally. And so that ruptures what could be a good relationship. And so I feel like most of my work is organized around what to expect when you're expecting a teenager and to help adults understand that this teenage behavior, right in finger quotes, is not their kid being naughty, their kid trying to stick it to them. It's adolescence unfolding. There's a lot of jobs to be done. Those jobs pull adults in and push adults away in strange ways. But it's not personal, and your kid really needs your connection.

[Adam Grant]

The first time we met, you said something that really stuck with me on this point, which is it's not necessarily a bad thing if your kid gets rave reviews at school and is a bit of a nightmare at home. Talk to me about that.

[Lisa Damour]

Okay, well, it's bad for you. It's not so fun as a parent, but it cracks me up how often the cases, like, I'll hear from parents, they'll go to conferences, and the teachers are like, ah, we would have 20 of him. And you're like, my kid. Right. Okay, let's think about what it means to do a school day. I honestly don't know that any of us can make it past third period as adults. Right? I mean, you are in there with a whole bunch of kids. You did not choose adults. You did not choose shuttling from topic to topic that until very late in high school, you did not choose. I think we would find it tedious and annoying even under really wonderful school conditions. And so the way I think about it is that over the course of the school day, kids are being amazing. They're having people and things and events grate on them all day. I don't think they're being oversensitive. I think it actually is a very demanding scenario with a lot of people and a lot of big feelings because they're all teenagers. And our kids quietly navigate it without, for the most part, punching anybody or throwing themselves on the floor. And they absorb it all. And they. I think about it as almost like emotional garbage they collect over the day and they just jam it in their pocket. And then they come home and we're like, how was school? And they're like. And it all comes out okay. This is very tiring. At 5pm this is not my favorite part of the day, but it's a working system. Schools get the best of our kids. And if what helps them hold it together and be civil under, I would say, extremely challenging conditions that are repeated every single day is that they come home and they just complain a lot or are kind of grumpy, they can't mistreat anybody in the house. But that's kind of this working that's.

[Adam Grant]

I think, reassuring for a lot of parents.

[Lisa Damour]

I have two kids, I have a daughter who's 21 and I have a daughter who's 14. And I can spend my whole professional day saying to parents, okay, when your kids want to talk about feelings, this is fantastic. You know, you want to be a steady presence. You want to really be there for it. If I've had a very long day and I'm very tired and I just like wrap something up and I'm headed, and I know there's a new great British baking show and I'm on my way to watch it. If I get intercepted by a kid who wants to talk about her feelings, if I'm really honest, I'm not like, this is great. I'm usually like, really like now the theory of being a receptive, empathic, steady presence is really easy to espouse. I think at the end of the day. I mean, it's seven or eight or nine o'clock at night when we are worn down. And then the kid who has held it together all day gorgeously, finally kind of comes unglued because they're just so frustrated about that last math problem.

[Adam Grant]

And I guess if they've been collecting emotional garbage, then sometimes we're the landfill.

[Lisa Damour]

In fact, we are the landfill, right? I mean, I think if you actually think about it as garbage, right, like this is just stuff the kid needs to unload. You don't need to say, why did you bring this garbage home? Or why didn't you mention to the teacher that you really don't want to be in that group or whatever, that we just collect it and that we don't rummage around in it, we tie it off and we get rid of it. If your kid feels better after dumping the details of the day, it worked. It worked. You don't have to fix it. They are just trying to get rid of.

[Adam Grant]

Seems like a common challenge for a lot of teens is they don't have a group where they belong anymore or they lost their best friend. What guidance do you have for them and for us as parents in those moments?

[Lisa Damour]

I will just go ahead and say I'm not a huge fan of friendship groups. They don't work very well. And I don't think this is cause kids are somehow different or bad. I think it's because you cannot get a collection of people together who like one another equally. Once you're hitting more than two or three people, right, you can't do this at any age and you sure as heck can't do it in the seventh grade. We have a pretty solid evidence base that the least stressed and thus happiest kids have one or two good friends. And so the job for adults is if that's your kid, let them know, like, you got it figured out, you got it cracked, leave it just like it is. And if your kid is in a large friendship group with a lot of drama, which is basically to be assumed, you can just say, look, it's not your fault. It's too many kids trying to hang out with each other. Are there a couple people in here that you could actually really enjoy and over time have that be really where your energy goes?

[Adam Grant]

You are full of reassuring news. You only need one or two good friends. You really do as a teenager. And also, joy is the dominant emotion that teens are reporting.

[Lisa Damour]

Yes, yes. I'm the anti headline.

[Adam Grant]

I mean, I mean, and it's not a bad thing if kids lose it at home. Wow.

[Lisa Damour]

Yeah, no, we're in better shape than we feel we are. I'm not Pollyanna. You know that. And I'm not just trying to be countercultural. We get the teenagers we deserve. The way we talk about teenagers matters. They are listening. And that's why I was so excited to do this Gallup poll and ask a fuller panel of questions. Because if you only ask teenagers, how miserable do you feel? They will tell you how miserable they feel. If you ask about all of the emotions, we get a much more comprehensive and reassuring picture. Now, does this mean teenagers are all doing great? Absolutely not. We have kids who are in a dark and low place and stay there. We have kids who are harming themselves. We have kids who are engaged in substances. We have all of these things. But the critical thing is if we talk about all teenagers as though they are suffering or vulnerable or fragile, we actually deplete the resources for the kids who need it.

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[Lisa Damour]

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[Adam Grant]

Requires choice package it is time for a lightning round what is the worst advice you hear given to parents about their kids?

[Lisa Damour]

It's really hard for me when I hear people walk up to parents with 8, 9, 10 year olds and be like enjoy this time because wait till they're teenagers. That makes me bananas. Teenagers are wonderful. Also, the kid hears it right? Teenagers are wonderful. They are spicy and fun and the thing that is key, and this is why it's bad advice. Teenagers can smell at a thousand yards who likes them? And so if you decide you don't like teenagers, it's actually not going to go very well with a teenager.

[Adam Grant]

What's your favorite tip that we haven't covered yet on how to be a better parent to teens?

[Lisa Damour]

Take good care of yourself. Being a parent to a teenager is a workout. You never know who's coming out of that room sometimes. And what I want for parents is to be a steady presence. It is really hard to be a steady presence if you feel absolutely like you're held together with scotch tape. So take good care of yourself so that you can be what your kid needs you to be.

[Adam Grant]

You've just released a new anniversary edition of your book Untangled. What's something you rethought in revising it?

[Lisa Damour]

When I went through it, most of it holds up. Teenagers are Teenagers are teenagers. I have rethought how we talk with girls and young women around the presentation of their bodies because that has changed a lot in the culture. I had to add vaping, algorithmic social media, legalized cannabis. There are things that have changed for teenagers and I Actually added some stuff on the social landscape because that has changed.

[Adam Grant]

What did you learn from a body image perspective and then also social landscape?

[Lisa Damour]

When I first wrote Untangled, it was widely understood that girls bodies were objectified and that was all bad. And when girls wore body conscious clothes or revealing clothes, that was them being objectified by the culture and needed to be prevented. Now what's happened in the time since I wrote that book is that girls have come back and said this is how I exercise my power. And if you have a problem with how I look, that's in the eyes of the beholder. That's not my problem. This is very different from how we used to talk and think about this. And so in rewriting that section, it was really trying to rewrite how we engage these conversations with girls and young women and how we do it in a way that recognizes that they see it quite differently than we have traditionally seen it. And again, the goal is to stay in good working relationship with them socially. I added a section about the tremendous anxiety kids feel when they're not part of a group and all that unfolds as a result of that anxiety. Desperately trying to become part of a group that's not welcoming them. Turning away other options in the name of having set their sights on a particular group and only wanting that group. And really tried to offer guidance about how to talk with kids about when what they want socially isn't happening. How to talk with them about that not probably being as personal as it feels. And in doing so helping them open up some other options. Because kids need friends.

[Adam Grant]

Do you have a hot take on teenage life? An unpopular opinion that you eager to defend?

[Lisa Damour]

They're better than we were. We know this in the data. They're actually the best behaved teenagers on record as a generation. They drink less, they have less sex, they actually don't use drugs more than we do, they don't smoke cigarettes, they do vape, they wear seatbelts. The data are on my side on this one. It's just not the impression people are given.

[Adam Grant]

And what's the question you have for.

[Lisa Damour]

Me as the father of teenagers? What's the hardest thing for you?

[Adam Grant]

For me, the biggest challenge with teenagers is wanting to provide the right level of support. And I feel like it's a tightrope walk because give too much and you become a snowplow parent where you're clearing the path for them instead of preparing them for the path. Give too little and they might really struggle unnecessarily and miss out on the support or guidance that they needed. And I find in hindsight, it's really clear what the right call was. But in the moment, sometimes, I don't know.

[Lisa Damour]

I love that answer. I love that answer. I mean, it just. It tells me is like, you're so in it. You're so in it.

[Adam Grant]

Are you gonna help me with it? Like, help me out of it? I don't want to be in it.

[Lisa Damour]

Want me to help you out? Okay, I'll help you. My favorite, favorite thing is when a kid turns around 14 years old and suddenly gets abstraction, which is the ability to see things from lots of different perspectives. The beautiful opening that becomes available with a kid that age is you can actually go to them and say, I am not sure what to do. I worry that if I intervene, I'm actually robbing you of an opportunity to grow and learn. I worry that if you don't intervene, you and I are both going to regret it. You're going to feel like I'm going to feel like something more should have been done. What do you think you will come out of that conversation feeling much better about what to do next?

[Adam Grant]

I've been encouraging parents for years to do something that I stumbled onto by mistake, which was asking our kids for advice as a way to show them that they could actually have the knowledge and the confidence to tackle some of their own problems. And they have more of that now than they did when they were younger. So why not seek it more often?

[Lisa Damour]

Absolutely. And the thing about teenagers is, if you are asking in earnest, if you are being honest, like, I don't know what to do, they are at their absolute best when an adult is transparent and clear and honestly vulnerable. Teenagers rise to that and are extraordinary. When we treat them like they're not equal partners, when we treat them like they don't know what they're doing, they also can live down to expectations. So it's how we approach them that can actually pull the best out of them.

[Adam Grant]

I think my takeaway is you're telling me to be Jerry Maguire and just go to our daughters and say, help me help you.

[Lisa Damour]

Help me help you. All my work, Adam, is based on me going to teenagers and being like, explain this to me. Explain that to me. And since they can tell I really have no agenda and I'm just trying to ask. I get so much good stuff, and then I just write it up and share it.

[Adam Grant]

If you're involved In Inside Out 3, if it happens, what emotion are you most excited to introduce?

[Lisa Damour]

We could do love. That'd be Fun, right? Maybe a romantic life could come on board. I think that'd be good. I wonder about regret or guilt. Those are powerful. So we'll see. We'll see.

[Adam Grant]

Things to look forward to. It's so great to have a chance to do this one on one. Help me become a better parent session.

[Lisa Damour]

Oh, I am honored to be with you. I am honored to be with you.

[Adam Grant]

One of Lisa's most important messages is that teenagers live in a complex world. We should expect them to have complex emotions and then instead of dictating how they should react, seek their guidance on how to best help them regulate what they're feeling. Rethinking is hosted by me, Adam Grant. The show is part of the TED Audio Collective and this episode was produced and mixed by Cosmic Standard. Our producers are Hannah Kingsley Ma and Asia Simpson. Our editor is Alejandra Salazar. Our fact checker is Paul Durbin. Original music by Hansdale sue and Alison Layton Brown. Our team includes Eliza Smith, Jacob Winick, Samiya Adams, Roxanne hi, Lash Bambang Chang, Julia Dickerson and Whitney Pennington Rogers. The calming voice you have, Lisa.

[Lisa Damour]

It's how I talk.

[Adam Grant]

Is that natural or did you learn that at Michigan?

[Lisa Damour]

It's how I've always talked. Wouldn't it be funny though, Adam? Like we could do a TV show where there's a clinician who gives really good advice, but in such a grating voice that it's like impossible to actually.

[Adam Grant]

Integrate versus versus the therapist who says nonsense in a really compelling way. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try [e-mail] Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states.

[Madison H.]

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[Adam Grant]

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