WEBVTT 00:08.778 --> 00:14.902 [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome back to feeding them out of the bite tube, a weekly podcast guide on parenting teens and launching them into the world. 00:15.442 --> 00:20.605 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm Cynthia Gannon, and as always, I'm joined by psychologists and author Dr. Ken Wilgus. 00:21.065 --> 00:24.708 [SPEAKER_00]: Dr. Ken, since we're talking on anxiety today, I'm sure nobody will be listening. 00:24.808 --> 00:28.610 [SPEAKER_00]: Nobody's dealing with that in their own lives or their kids, so maybe just you and me today. 00:29.012 --> 00:38.997 [SPEAKER_01]: to the small audience, since the 100% of the families in this podcast of the podcasters have had issues with anxiety, then maybe it's just the two of us talking. 00:39.037 --> 00:43.199 [SPEAKER_01]: And if you've never known any one of the anxiety, then please feel free to tune out. 00:43.500 --> 00:44.720 [SPEAKER_00]: Skip to the next one, right? 00:45.501 --> 00:47.662 [SPEAKER_00]: Let's talk about anxiety today. 00:47.962 --> 00:50.383 [SPEAKER_00]: And we're gonna start with ourselves and we'll get to our kids. 00:50.683 --> 00:55.346 [SPEAKER_00]: Would you classify yourself now or historically as an anxious person? 00:57.196 --> 00:58.298 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah. 00:58.478 --> 01:09.172 [SPEAKER_01]: I would not say I have an anxiety disorder, but I think as things go, yeah, I mean, my family has always been someone anxious. 01:09.313 --> 01:09.533 [SPEAKER_01]: Sure. 01:09.813 --> 01:10.715 [SPEAKER_01]: How about you? 01:11.313 --> 01:27.319 [SPEAKER_00]: So, I think the same, and I think this is a good little delineation, I think that I probably have run a little hot, a little anxious most of my life, but I didn't know it to be that, and that's my regulated normal, and not that there's anything wrong with getting medication doing all those things. 01:27.559 --> 01:30.700 [SPEAKER_00]: I just have not historically, and so that's my normal. 01:31.120 --> 01:34.642 [SPEAKER_00]: So I would say I don't know that I would say it's like a 01:35.789 --> 01:46.057 [SPEAKER_00]: clinically anxious but I think I run a little hot and I wonder that with our kids too because we know it's genetic and you and I both have kids that have had some anxiety over the years. 01:46.898 --> 01:48.039 [SPEAKER_00]: Let's just talk about that. 01:48.099 --> 01:53.083 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you can have a little anxiety in your life without having something that's clinical, right? 01:53.183 --> 01:55.685 [SPEAKER_00]: Like there's a difference in there and how do we know it's possible? 01:56.285 --> 02:08.391 [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, the only people that don't have any anxiety or kind of sociopathic, you're supposed to have anxiety, a part of the question that's come up a lot in my field is why the rise of anxiety so much. 02:09.552 --> 02:14.595 [SPEAKER_01]: And that was part of the anxious generation that Book Witch is really about. 02:15.255 --> 02:18.799 [SPEAKER_01]: social media and smartphones and so forth. 02:18.879 --> 02:23.524 [SPEAKER_01]: But it does contribute a great deal to arise in anxiety. 02:24.004 --> 02:30.891 [SPEAKER_01]: Isolation, our children don't have a public square to go out and play together and study lots of things have increased that. 02:31.632 --> 02:41.755 [SPEAKER_01]: But one of the things I wanted to talk about today was work by a doctor named Judd Brewer who wrote a pretty impactful article. 02:42.035 --> 02:48.757 [SPEAKER_01]: I think it was not that long ago that I think it was kind of what if anxiety is a habit and not a disorder. 02:49.337 --> 03:00.700 [SPEAKER_01]: So this was not changing our understanding of anxiety at some huge fundamental level, but it definitely looked at, uh, number one, are we getting somewhere that we medicalize everything? 03:01.141 --> 03:01.661 [SPEAKER_01]: And we do. 03:01.721 --> 03:04.402 [SPEAKER_01]: We, we've talked to on this program all the time. 03:04.442 --> 03:05.302 [SPEAKER_01]: We love to say, 03:05.962 --> 03:09.383 [SPEAKER_01]: someone's brain is wired this way which is false. 03:09.503 --> 03:17.425 [SPEAKER_01]: Your brain does not have wires, but we tend to think of it as a and everything is an underlying medical, medically determined condition. 03:17.705 --> 03:23.086 [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm always looking for, there's lots now more and more of my field that that's not a great way to look at things. 03:23.446 --> 03:30.168 [SPEAKER_01]: An anxiety is the same way that there are certain ways that can be effective in helping 03:31.688 --> 03:55.044 [SPEAKER_01]: children teenagers and adults with anxiety that almost fits the model of you know really this is a kind of bad thinking habit rather than it's some chemical like chemical and balances not a thing anymore but we used to talk like that like don't they have the anxiety chemical and balance now there's no such thing never was such a thing. 03:55.848 --> 04:00.102 [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, you've, you've, I, I now have 33 questions related to all of it. 04:00.122 --> 04:01.667 [SPEAKER_01]: I can see that I can see something lit up. 04:02.008 --> 04:02.850 [SPEAKER_01]: You're like, wait, but. 04:03.229 --> 04:05.411 [SPEAKER_00]: I really did think we still had a chemical imbalance. 04:05.912 --> 04:06.913 [SPEAKER_00]: We don't have a chemical imbalance. 04:06.933 --> 04:09.215 [SPEAKER_01]: That was always a way of talking, but no. 04:10.537 --> 04:25.993 [SPEAKER_01]: That always implied and parents used to say this to me, like, well, he seems to press, but we think it's a chemical imbalance, which always implied that you could go to your doctor and then come out of the lab with some sort of a vile in their hand and look up at the light and go, oh, look. 04:26.533 --> 04:28.054 [SPEAKER_01]: you know, they've got a chemical imbalance. 04:28.154 --> 04:29.875 [SPEAKER_01]: That's, it was a reverse. 04:30.115 --> 04:42.101 [SPEAKER_01]: It's a way of thinking because several of the medicines that we've had that were effective, many of them we stumbled on accidentally, and in reverse we're thinking, you know, maybe this is fixing this thing chemically. 04:42.581 --> 04:44.963 [SPEAKER_01]: So maybe what caused it was a chemical imbalance. 04:44.983 --> 04:46.103 [SPEAKER_01]: That was never proven. 04:46.163 --> 04:49.565 [SPEAKER_01]: It's just a way of medicalizing our internal experience. 04:50.132 --> 04:52.033 [SPEAKER_00]: But we're also not saying this has learned. 04:52.213 --> 04:53.854 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, there is something different. 04:53.874 --> 04:57.655 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, some people clearly have anxiety. 04:57.675 --> 04:58.656 [SPEAKER_00]: It's passed down. 04:58.856 --> 05:01.437 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it can be its genetic in a lot of families. 05:01.457 --> 05:05.198 [SPEAKER_00]: Like you said, your family has historically had anxiety. 05:05.378 --> 05:08.700 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, so it's obviously something that can be in the DNA, right? 05:09.440 --> 05:21.208 [SPEAKER_01]: To a degree, there can be no doubt that temperaments, you know, inherited temperaments toward anxiety as opposed to, for example, toward depression or toward aggression. 05:21.609 --> 05:23.050 [SPEAKER_01]: That's definitely at play. 05:23.350 --> 05:32.816 [SPEAKER_01]: And anything we talk about, it's very severe levels of anxiety, that especially the ones that are hard to see because anxious people never want to tell you. 05:33.337 --> 05:36.018 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, and that kind of thing, 05:37.239 --> 06:03.261 [SPEAKER_01]: isn't by any means just some sort of bad habit so I want to be real clear about that but I know very few parents that are under estimating whether their child is anxious I know a lot that are way overestimating because she is anxiety we can't expect her to go to a regular high school or ever graduate from college or way way way way what it's you know they're not she's you know she's not um 06:05.063 --> 06:06.084 [SPEAKER_01]: super disordered. 06:06.125 --> 06:07.547 [SPEAKER_01]: It's like overprotecting. 06:08.027 --> 06:15.338 [SPEAKER_01]: So this was a very effective way of rethinking kind of unlearning that whole over medicalized version of things. 06:15.998 --> 06:21.362 [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, and so based on what you were saying earlier, my other follow-up question is, is it a habit? 06:21.702 --> 06:26.726 [SPEAKER_00]: That leads me to think, is that something like, what does that mean that maybe we're coddling in that or we just encourage that? 06:27.086 --> 06:31.569 [SPEAKER_00]: I think about this good friend of my kids when they were younger. 06:32.570 --> 06:37.993 [SPEAKER_00]: And whenever there would be a storm alert in the spring, like she would just come undone. 06:38.134 --> 06:39.354 [SPEAKER_00]: And you know, can you call my parents? 06:39.374 --> 06:40.035 [SPEAKER_00]: I need to go home there. 06:40.335 --> 06:42.877 [SPEAKER_01]: whatever, and it was my daughter exactly. 06:43.177 --> 06:52.622 [SPEAKER_00]: It was like Pavlov a little bit in it like we were in the car one time and that came on for a storm alert and I just knew I was like, oh gosh, why was my radio on she's that is exactly my kid. 06:52.662 --> 06:52.902 [SPEAKER_01]: Yes. 06:52.962 --> 06:55.724 [SPEAKER_00]: Is that what we're talking about like it's becomes a habit? 06:56.785 --> 07:03.349 [SPEAKER_01]: Is that what you're saying or what is probably it's better to not to not think so much of what's causing it as much as 07:04.209 --> 07:05.510 [SPEAKER_01]: what's a helpful treatment. 07:05.610 --> 07:17.617 [SPEAKER_01]: So, for example, I don't know if your daughter was mine was, like many kids, if you prescribe an SSRI, which would be for anxiety, so loft, maybe, you know, prosak, whatever. 07:19.025 --> 07:22.788 [SPEAKER_01]: they are effective against anxiety in about 20% of the cases. 07:23.369 --> 07:34.357 [SPEAKER_01]: So it's not a huge help, however, if you can involve a teenager, children much tougher, but in a teenager and adult, in therapy, 07:35.118 --> 07:36.499 [SPEAKER_01]: And see if you can follow what I'm talking about. 07:36.519 --> 07:39.620 [SPEAKER_01]: A whole bunch of therapies under the category of metacognition. 07:40.120 --> 07:44.882 [SPEAKER_01]: Metagess means, so if you're metacognating, you're thinking about your thinking. 07:45.442 --> 07:48.684 [SPEAKER_01]: If we're metaccommunicating, we're communicating about our communication. 07:49.244 --> 07:51.805 [SPEAKER_01]: So therapy is thinking about your thinking. 07:52.025 --> 07:55.666 [SPEAKER_01]: And one of the things that is very effective, more than 20% effective. 07:57.287 --> 08:19.273 [SPEAKER_01]: is if you can engage the person who really struggles with real worry, anticipatory, you know, that rolling almost obsessively worrying about the, I'm not talking about obsessions that are a little bit loony, you know, like, like, what if I run over someone with my car and I have to circle the block over, but I'm talking about obsessions, like, if I fail this test, 08:19.773 --> 08:20.994 [SPEAKER_01]: that really catastrophizes. 08:21.034 --> 08:21.815 [SPEAKER_01]: I pay this test. 08:21.875 --> 08:24.017 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not going to graduate high school and never be anything. 08:24.037 --> 08:24.598 [SPEAKER_01]: I'll be a loser. 08:24.998 --> 08:25.779 [SPEAKER_01]: These sort of things. 08:26.379 --> 08:41.473 [SPEAKER_01]: It turns out that you can really teach a pretty standard kind of metacognition way of understanding that, you know, the way you're thinking, number one, you're focusing on the thing that you fear. 08:42.314 --> 08:47.781 [SPEAKER_01]: the number two, you're rehearsing a future that you do not know is going to happen. 08:48.442 --> 08:53.067 [SPEAKER_01]: And number three, that gives you, believe it or not, a temporary kind of satisfaction. 08:53.468 --> 08:57.072 [SPEAKER_01]: Like I've already thought that through and I've kind of already been there. 08:57.172 --> 08:59.054 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, that last step is false. 08:59.655 --> 09:08.517 [SPEAKER_01]: thinking it through, basically worrying about it, you do not have the control, it doesn't change what's happened, it's almost made it worse. 09:09.037 --> 09:17.999 [SPEAKER_01]: So if you can teach patients to kind of, first of all, it's always about identifying, what does it feel like when you're worrying, what do you think, and what's the word we would say that is? 09:18.039 --> 09:23.180 [SPEAKER_01]: So it's, okay, you're talking about that, that circling the drain feeling, okay, okay. 09:23.700 --> 09:26.381 [SPEAKER_01]: Secondly, let's look at a different thing you can 09:28.001 --> 09:39.007 [SPEAKER_01]: like very commonly it's know that you're doing it step back, do that breathing thing we talked about, you know, and then thirdly and don't go down what we call it. 09:39.048 --> 09:46.212 [SPEAKER_01]: We call that you're stinking thinking, you're catastrophizing, whatever, and you can break that habit. 09:46.892 --> 09:50.693 [SPEAKER_01]: that it feels like just, well, it's just worry. 09:50.753 --> 10:04.798 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, there's a kind of worry, there's a kind of obsessing that is almost like a bad habit of way of thinking it through that actually makes your anxiety worse. 10:04.998 --> 10:10.600 [SPEAKER_01]: Anxiety disorder, one of the symptoms, is overthinking about things over and over again. 10:10.720 --> 10:14.921 [SPEAKER_01]: So obviously, if you can engage a teenager or an adult, 10:15.461 --> 10:37.948 [SPEAKER_01]: in stepping back and saying, if you ever thought about how you're thinking and engage in which is cognitive behavioral therapy that most all good therapy is, is then they've developed their own way of talking to themselves and realizing, wait a minute, this is unrealistic and unhelpful and really just a bad habit, and I will stop doing that. 10:38.148 --> 10:43.510 [SPEAKER_01]: There's a main thing to know is there's a huge effect with that, it can help a lot. 10:44.290 --> 10:46.092 [SPEAKER_01]: And again, we tend to medicalize everything. 10:46.112 --> 10:47.434 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, shouldn't they need medicine? 10:47.494 --> 10:50.037 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, you look at it at 20% help. 10:50.477 --> 10:52.079 [SPEAKER_01]: It might, maybe not. 10:52.760 --> 10:57.245 [SPEAKER_01]: This is, if you can engage a teenager into this, it's much more effective. 10:57.786 --> 11:02.611 [SPEAKER_01]: And so it's important to think about, again, I'm not saying that anxiety is a bad habit. 11:03.652 --> 11:11.114 [SPEAKER_01]: But if you do think about it as a bad habit and can kind of engage in Controlling the way you think about it. 11:11.494 --> 11:14.615 [SPEAKER_01]: It's hugely effective and one of the things you and I talked about. 11:14.715 --> 11:20.277 [SPEAKER_01]: I worry that in parents Learning all of this sort of semi-medical. 11:20.377 --> 11:22.918 [SPEAKER_01]: I know about my kids neurodiversity and all this 11:23.438 --> 11:28.602 [SPEAKER_01]: that you can end up accidentally thinking this is an inevitable thing my kids can struggle with. 11:29.263 --> 11:31.945 [SPEAKER_01]: Nothing can be done about it and I'll try to protect them from it. 11:32.265 --> 11:34.647 [SPEAKER_01]: And that actually makes anxiety worse. 11:35.625 --> 11:35.825 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. 11:36.265 --> 11:51.148 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, and I think it has biblically speaking, because that's the perspective I come from and you do too, but that idea of taking captive every thought is what I keep hearing when you're saying that and just that reminder to ourselves but to our kids too, like take captive those thoughts. 11:51.168 --> 11:51.768 [SPEAKER_00]: Are they true? 11:52.228 --> 11:53.168 [SPEAKER_00]: That's right. 11:53.188 --> 12:02.070 [SPEAKER_00]: You know, going through and taking captive those thoughts versus letting them continually spiral and circle without any accountability around the way they're thinking. 12:02.628 --> 12:10.471 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, for Christians, particularly, that thought has to be captured with what we know is a different reality. 12:11.151 --> 12:20.115 [SPEAKER_01]: And that reality is that this potential catastrophe will not happen outside of the control of our very good God. 12:20.955 --> 12:41.139 [SPEAKER_01]: That's a problem in itself, it's not always what we want, but it is being realistic, quote unquote, as a Christian, that you know, you can get worried and forget that the Holy Spirit is right here running this show, and yeah, that captive is important. 12:41.259 --> 12:48.380 [SPEAKER_01]: What kind of captive, and for Christians, yeah, it's a specific thing of forgetting the Jesus's standing right here. 12:48.967 --> 12:52.169 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you and I both, I think, can relate to this. 12:52.269 --> 13:00.114 [SPEAKER_00]: We had a child that has dealt with anxiety, probably, maybe clinically speaking for both. 13:00.454 --> 13:09.180 [SPEAKER_00]: But I can look at my child, and I can say, I realized it much when they were much older, but I can look back and be like, oh, there was a total pattern. 13:09.640 --> 13:10.561 [SPEAKER_00]: I just didn't catch it. 13:10.881 --> 13:18.408 [SPEAKER_00]: The things that like I look back and this particular kid always threw up at the sleepover and I just thought there was like a cheese allergy from the pizza. 13:18.428 --> 13:19.909 [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't know it was like what's happening? 13:20.270 --> 13:24.753 [SPEAKER_00]: And then this kid would freak out before sporting events like what if I make an error? 13:25.274 --> 13:27.996 [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, oh, simmer down now. 13:28.156 --> 13:28.577 [SPEAKER_00]: Who cares? 13:28.617 --> 13:29.438 [SPEAKER_00]: Everybody makes it. 13:29.558 --> 13:30.839 [SPEAKER_00]: And I look back at this pattern. 13:32.360 --> 13:36.303 [SPEAKER_00]: I kind of beat myself up at times and think I should have caught on there something more. 13:36.463 --> 13:36.663 [SPEAKER_00]: Sure. 13:36.704 --> 13:45.150 [SPEAKER_00]: Talk to us a little bit about that and just looking at the longevity of it, yes, but also maybe we shouldn't just be jumping that. 13:45.170 --> 13:51.455 [SPEAKER_00]: Like you're saying, our first thing to say, oh, I should have known their anxious and gone or immediately in and gone to medications, like how do we deal with that? 13:51.515 --> 13:53.336 [SPEAKER_00]: Just the guilt and all that goes along with that. 13:53.717 --> 13:56.579 [SPEAKER_01]: I think anxiety is a particularly difficult one for two reasons. 13:56.759 --> 14:00.122 [SPEAKER_01]: One, if your kid is born with a very anxious temperament, 14:01.226 --> 14:02.928 [SPEAKER_01]: They don't know their anxious. 14:02.968 --> 14:04.169 [SPEAKER_01]: They've always been this way. 14:04.189 --> 14:08.554 [SPEAKER_01]: It's like keeping your shoulders up high and you never knew you could actually relax them and let go. 14:08.634 --> 14:18.545 [SPEAKER_01]: It's one of the things I love so much about working with teenagers with real anxiety disorders because by that age, they are first realizing it for themselves. 14:19.025 --> 14:27.232 [SPEAKER_01]: that, wait a minute, I don't think everybody else thinks this way, and it's always great fun to help them work on their own insight into it. 14:27.652 --> 14:37.200 [SPEAKER_01]: Because one of the insights, this is the second part of what you say, one of the insights is that anxious kids rarely realize that it'll help if you'll talk to someone about it. 14:37.581 --> 14:46.068 [SPEAKER_01]: It's almost instinctive for anxious kids to be very secretive about that, and just to assume that nobody would understand. 14:46.708 --> 15:10.768 [SPEAKER_01]: and that's helped a lot of teenagers as well but to your point it is also why it's very common to not realize at least not realize the severity of your teenagers disorder because she never told me that could come from either she never knew it or then number two she did know it but there's an instinct that this is my problem and I really can't share with anyone that's very common. 15:11.321 --> 15:11.501 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. 15:12.222 --> 15:19.729 [SPEAKER_00]: And when you say that they typically will never tell you their anxious, is some of that just the reality of acknowledging it. 15:19.749 --> 15:21.530 [SPEAKER_00]: If you say I'm anxious, that makes it real. 15:21.831 --> 15:23.612 [SPEAKER_00]: Versus I'm just going to hold the center. 15:23.652 --> 15:25.354 [SPEAKER_00]: What's the psychology behind that? 15:25.434 --> 15:28.597 [SPEAKER_00]: And the follow-up to that is, should we be calling it out? 15:28.657 --> 15:29.938 [SPEAKER_00]: Saying, hey, you see anxious. 15:30.178 --> 15:31.379 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that feels scary to me. 15:31.399 --> 15:32.961 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to plant anything on them. 15:33.321 --> 15:36.084 [SPEAKER_00]: But if we're watching them and they're not willing to say it, 15:37.665 --> 15:41.627 [SPEAKER_00]: anxious type behaviors, do we call that out as what it is and ask if they're okay? 15:42.187 --> 15:44.268 [SPEAKER_01]: See, those are all questions about insight. 15:44.788 --> 15:56.753 [SPEAKER_01]: So, like, I, you know, what's helpful is anyone, but a teenager who is very anxious, but then has the insight to know that I'm anxious and be able to communicate that. 15:57.373 --> 16:01.255 [SPEAKER_01]: Your example would be, but what if I plant an idea that isn't there, 16:06.757 --> 16:10.400 [SPEAKER_01]: psychiatric diagnosis of any kind and so you really almost had to push. 16:10.961 --> 16:17.006 [SPEAKER_01]: I think a parent that is maybe sees the anxiety that their teenager has always had. 16:17.486 --> 16:25.112 [SPEAKER_01]: I've had many of them where the teenager's still is denying it, that you know you actually started a little program of pushing, that you know what? 16:25.573 --> 16:34.440 [SPEAKER_01]: Let's just say, hey, I think when this stuff happens to me, it seems that you're anxious and just leave it, you know, giving them that word to maybe pick up on later. 16:34.820 --> 16:36.841 [SPEAKER_01]: that's a way of helping them gain insight. 16:37.321 --> 16:49.266 [SPEAKER_01]: But what's new is that now I have some teenagers that have diagnosed themselves as anxious when actually they have normal human anxiety but they've not hung out with enough humans in their life to realize that. 16:49.846 --> 16:51.547 [SPEAKER_01]: And so you kind of have to be careful 16:52.687 --> 17:04.933 [SPEAKER_01]: about appropriately, you know, kind of gaining insight, not gaining false insight, and kind of all that is to the purpose of helping that teenager to decide how they're going to handle it. 17:05.573 --> 17:09.575 [SPEAKER_01]: And again, one of the things that I want parents to remember is that, 17:11.040 --> 17:16.064 [SPEAKER_01]: an anxiety struggle does not at all mean, well, let's go to the doctor and get a pill. 17:16.785 --> 17:32.577 [SPEAKER_01]: That's not as it's not ineffective, especially in severe cases, but this kind of habitual rethinking how you're thinking if a teenager is smart enough, you have to have a certain amount of insight and intelligence to do it. 17:33.357 --> 17:35.238 [SPEAKER_01]: to do the metacognition work. 17:35.298 --> 17:37.219 [SPEAKER_01]: Have you ever thought about how you're thinking? 17:37.740 --> 17:43.603 [SPEAKER_01]: And you identify the trigger, you identify what the behavior is, the problem is, and the reward it gives you. 17:43.623 --> 17:48.245 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, it seems like when you go on and on with your mom about this thing, you're worried about it. 17:48.265 --> 17:52.868 [SPEAKER_01]: It almost kind of distracts you and rewards you for the thing right now, but it doesn't really help anything. 17:53.208 --> 17:55.109 [SPEAKER_01]: Let's look at another way you can handle that. 17:55.349 --> 18:01.573 [SPEAKER_01]: That's a very effective tool to help a teenager like we said, kind of break that habit. 18:03.210 --> 18:11.734 [SPEAKER_00]: And you said earlier when you love working with teens have real anxiety disorders, can you give us some of what's a litmus test on that? 18:12.054 --> 18:15.476 [SPEAKER_00]: How do we know when that really is a real anxiety disorder? 18:15.920 --> 18:33.257 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, if it's not real obvious in that he'll never leave his room and constantly runs out of any room where people are something that obvious, then you really need a clinical evaluation, someone that can answer that question for you. 18:34.198 --> 18:43.747 [SPEAKER_01]: especially now, like I say, because it used to be that you would have a teenager always denying it and you'd really have to kind of push past that now. 18:44.127 --> 18:53.455 [SPEAKER_01]: You also have to push past teenagers who have a pseudo diagnosis because that's something they're now wearing as a badge of pride, which is very odd. 18:54.216 --> 18:58.540 [SPEAKER_01]: So a clinical diagnosis is really the best to kind of make that differentiation. 18:59.150 --> 18:59.370 [SPEAKER_00]: Okay. 18:59.750 --> 19:11.119 [SPEAKER_00]: And for all the parents that are listening that may have a young adult, um, a teen on some sort of anxiety medication is like, oh my gosh, now, do I have them on it? 19:11.139 --> 19:12.040 [SPEAKER_00]: It's not effective. 19:12.100 --> 19:12.760 [SPEAKER_00]: That kind of thing. 19:12.920 --> 19:14.041 [SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, it's not a cold. 19:14.081 --> 19:18.305 [SPEAKER_00]: I go rip everybody off their medications, yet what is a prudent way to look at that? 19:18.345 --> 19:27.992 [SPEAKER_00]: If there is really only 20% um, success rate, how should we be evaluating that as parents to make sure that we're, they're on it as they need to be, but not if they don't. 19:28.300 --> 19:39.424 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I think that's I would just say to most of the parents that I know who may almost have a bad habit of assuming that well, you know, he really needs to be on medicine because he got anxiety. 19:39.945 --> 19:44.967 [SPEAKER_01]: I would just say, don't be afraid if you notice that I think this is part of the 80% it's not that helpful. 19:45.007 --> 19:45.587 [SPEAKER_01]: That's okay. 19:46.607 --> 19:51.489 [SPEAKER_01]: And the doctors should, they'll be happy to rethink things. 19:52.010 --> 20:01.354 [SPEAKER_01]: But also, like we say, I just worry that parents forget that exposure to the fear of the thing feared is treatment. 20:01.554 --> 20:06.156 [SPEAKER_01]: Years ago, we did an episode on the movie Inside Out, too. 20:06.796 --> 20:10.958 [SPEAKER_01]: And Inside Out, too, and it was just me and Jessica talking about kind of what, 20:12.478 --> 20:16.563 [SPEAKER_01]: We just talked about was that a good way to think about how teenagers feel and all this stuff. 20:16.964 --> 20:28.597 [SPEAKER_01]: We got a very angry email for a mother who said that she went to see that movie with her and I, if I remember right, senior in high school daughter and that her daughter who has anxiety had a panic attack. 20:29.358 --> 20:53.770 [SPEAKER_01]: watching the children's movie and this mother was very upset with us for not including a warning to parents of teenagers that you need to be careful about taking your teenager to this children's movie and I've always thought of that in many many other parents where that's a parent that has forgotten what anxiety is about and what treatment is and the idea that I wish I had been told 20:54.450 --> 21:13.100 [SPEAKER_01]: so that my 17 year old is daughter wouldn't go to a children's movie that's miss reading how you treat that you that's only a uh... something you go to the doctor going hey she can't even handle a children's movie we need to work harder on what we're doing maybe medicine but also uh... i'd helping that 21:13.920 --> 21:18.181 [SPEAKER_01]: person to think about how they're thinking, like, what's the trigger? 21:18.821 --> 21:19.481 [SPEAKER_01]: What did you do? 21:19.581 --> 21:21.622 [SPEAKER_01]: What what helps and what doesn't help? 21:22.462 --> 21:29.564 [SPEAKER_01]: And it can be very much helped a lot by it like a bad habit that you rethink how you handle things. 21:30.104 --> 21:32.144 [SPEAKER_01]: Panic as an ease is a big one. 21:32.484 --> 21:37.365 [SPEAKER_01]: People often have a whole separate fear than of what if I panic. 21:37.486 --> 21:39.086 [SPEAKER_01]: You can't actually trigger a panic attack. 21:39.146 --> 21:40.166 [SPEAKER_01]: It always 21:44.508 --> 21:53.276 [SPEAKER_01]: So the power of rethinking that habit, I wanted to remind parents of that that's out there. 21:54.017 --> 22:06.249 [SPEAKER_01]: If you find a therapist that knows what they're doing, not the professional best friend kind of therapist, but the kind that really has clinical training and can say and work with your teenager, hopefully engaging in. 22:07.070 --> 22:14.312 [SPEAKER_01]: Let's make a plan so that you, not your parent, you can establish how you're going to handle your anxiety. 22:14.852 --> 22:15.532 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. 22:15.552 --> 22:16.552 [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, last question I have. 22:16.592 --> 22:18.272 [SPEAKER_00]: And that always means it's not the last question. 22:18.292 --> 22:21.053 [SPEAKER_00]: It's probably one more, but I think it's a lot of question. 22:21.193 --> 22:28.975 [SPEAKER_00]: Any advice to parents is saying that they're themselves anxious, and maybe haven't seen it in their kids, but maybe we're concerned that we, 22:29.835 --> 22:33.480 [SPEAKER_00]: that we parent from anxiety versus a healthy place. 22:33.541 --> 22:38.888 [SPEAKER_00]: And he thoughts on that and what to be looking for or just how you've seen that in your practice and how that impacts our kids. 22:38.928 --> 22:45.318 [SPEAKER_00]: Just thoughts on that if you run anxious yourself and you're worried about that impacting your parenting negatively. 22:45.518 --> 22:47.081 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think that's pretty common. 22:47.101 --> 22:49.284 [SPEAKER_01]: A lot of parents fear that. 22:49.464 --> 23:00.441 [SPEAKER_01]: And ironically, because they have the impression that how I parent my anxious kid is going to make all the difference and how my anxious kid. 23:01.382 --> 23:14.395 [SPEAKER_01]: Turns out which is anxiety producing in itself that false believe that for all those parents I think it's it's occasionally if you really do have anxiety and you get real worked up Especially by teenage years. 23:14.635 --> 23:17.898 [SPEAKER_01]: Don't be afraid to tell your kid that like get listen yesterday. 23:17.958 --> 23:18.819 [SPEAKER_01]: You're still grounded. 23:18.859 --> 23:19.319 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm sorry 23:20.340 --> 23:37.601 [SPEAKER_01]: you know me i think i what i said that you're now going to end up a loser and all that that's just me getting really anxious and i'm really sorry about that don't be afraid to identify that it should not change uh... the the real things you've you know appropriately given whether it's a consequence or major decision 23:38.242 --> 24:01.178 [SPEAKER_01]: But it can help an anxious teenager to hear an adult identify their own anxiety because like I said very often they don't want to talk about it So hearing you appropriately to not over talk about it, but appropriately saying I don't know if you've noticed but I get pretty anxious as you're as your dad and so I told my kids that a lot I used to say that was a way to kind of give advice I would start with you know me. 24:01.619 --> 24:02.960 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm kind of a nervous nail 24:03.680 --> 24:08.962 [SPEAKER_01]: But I just wanted to suggest, you know, that was the way that I would own it, kind of. 24:09.582 --> 24:25.647 [SPEAKER_01]: But the biggest thing for normal anxious parents is that the majority of parents I see are unrealistically anxious because they think they're being told that everything they do affects everything about their child and that is inaccurate. 24:25.687 --> 24:26.347 [SPEAKER_01]: It is not true. 24:26.367 --> 24:28.687 [SPEAKER_01]: You're not that critical to your kids' life. 24:29.268 --> 24:30.208 [SPEAKER_01]: Sorry, but it's true. 24:30.778 --> 24:31.238 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah. 24:31.679 --> 24:36.342 [SPEAKER_00]: I've told my kids that I am nervous when they're driving like tune from college. 24:36.782 --> 24:44.807 [SPEAKER_00]: I just, there are both, you know, big highways and Texas, not safe ones and so I always say, listen, you have no requirement to answer my phone call. 24:44.827 --> 24:46.388 [SPEAKER_00]: If you're doing stuff, things are going on. 24:46.428 --> 24:47.709 [SPEAKER_00]: I'll text you if it's an emergency. 24:47.729 --> 24:53.253 [SPEAKER_00]: If I can, but if you are driving on a highway going back to school and I call on the phone that I pay for for you to have. 24:53.573 --> 25:15.347 [SPEAKER_00]: you answer that phone and it's kind of funny but I told him that I'm like I know it's just a weird anxious thing about me and you and it's and so I'll tell you what that is the one thing they do if we call when they're on the road they answer every time and so I like it like to your point when the accident report it'll see dryroom says it's her mother's fault because she said I have to answer the phone. 25:15.688 --> 25:18.870 [SPEAKER_00]: No I just say hey kids just text me while you're driving and tell me if you 25:20.289 --> 25:21.210 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm kidding, everyone. 25:21.290 --> 25:22.650 [SPEAKER_01]: Send me a QD emoji. 25:22.690 --> 25:25.992 [SPEAKER_01]: I love those search for a QD emoji and then send that. 25:26.112 --> 25:27.133 [SPEAKER_01]: No, no, no, no. 25:27.193 --> 25:28.514 [SPEAKER_00]: Send your hate mail to Ken. 25:28.594 --> 25:29.554 [SPEAKER_00]: We'll just add that. 25:29.835 --> 25:30.035 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. 25:30.555 --> 25:30.895 [SPEAKER_00]: All right. 25:30.955 --> 25:36.278 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I mean, yeah, obviously talk to our anxiety on this show many times before, but I think it's a good thought. 25:36.298 --> 25:42.942 [SPEAKER_00]: And I appreciate you sharing that with us is just rethinking how we think about things and I try that habit. 25:43.122 --> 25:43.403 [SPEAKER_00]: All right. 25:43.683 --> 25:44.463 [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks, Dr. Ken. 25:44.763 --> 25:45.504 [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks, everyone.