Talking To Teens: Expert Tips for Parenting Teenagers

Introduction to Talking to Teens
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Andy Earle: You're listening to Talking to Teens, where we speak with leading experts from a variety of disciplines about the art and science of parenting teenagers. I'm your host, Andy Earle.

We're talking today about bad habits that our teenagers get into, that we get into, patterns of behavior that play out in our family, in our communication with our children.

And we're going to look at how to stop those patterns and put ourselves on a better track.

We're going to talk about how to help our teenagers stop bad habits that they might have and adopt better behaviors. We are going to talk about some very relatable games that you might not even realize you play with your teenager all the time. And how to stop that.

Meet Dr. Sophie Mort
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Andy Earle: Our guest today is Dr. Sophie Mort.

She is a clinical psychologist. She is the mental health expert at Headspace, and she's the author of two books. A Manual for Being Human and Unstuck.

Sophie, I'm so glad to have you on the podcast. Thank you for coming on Talking to Teens.

Sophie Mort: Thank you for having me.

Andy Earle: Really excited to speak with you about a lot of topics today. Your new book is Unstuck, and you're talking about habits. Breaking bad habits. And really interested in where the idea for that came from.

Your previous one was this Manual for Being Human. So why the focus on habits now?

Understanding Habits and Therapy
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Sophie Mort: So Unstuck was one of those books that came out of my work. The first book, A Manual for Being Human, was taking people from their first breath to wherever they are in life, helping them understand everything that affects their mental health.

And then the second book maps onto what happens when people come to therapy. Because often people come to therapy struggling maybe with anxiety, low self esteem, maybe something's going on in their relationships. And then this really wonderful thing happens. You'll see people feel better and suddenly they think, Oh my goodness, I've got this new lease of life.

But what am I going to do with that energy? People often look around them. And now that they're not just surviving, they realize that the environment they're in isn't what they really want. So I will often see people in therapy. They'll go away. They're feeling great. They're like, I'm going to live this life.

Then they come back and they're like, I tried to make all these changes. And now I feel like I'm back at square one. And I think all of us can resonate with this, right? Often we start the new year saying, I'm going to change my exercise habits. I'm going to build this new business. I'm going to learn to speak Spanish.

And maybe by the end of January, most of those things have been forgotten. And there are some really excellent books that already exist in the world about habits. Atomic Habits, just excellent. The Power of Habit, another really incredible book. But those two books focus solely on the science of habit and don't explain the other four major things that keep us stuck.

So, once you understand habits, the next thing is your brain doesn't work in the way that you think it does. It will always choose immediate gratification over long term goals. Why? Because our ancestors, they weren't thinking about surviving in two years. They were thinking, I need to eat that food now, right?

I need that berry now before it becomes a bush later. Cause I might not survive till later. So that's one of the things. Another one is sabotage, right? We constantly get in the way of our own better judgment because we're actually scared about what might happen if we try. So we retreat to the comfort of what we know.

Another thing is that we engage in games in our lives and the drama triangle that keeps us stuck in our relationships, this kind of habit that no one ever talks about. And then the final thing is actually across society, we're stuck in habits and we rarely learn from history and change our behaviors.

So this final book came out of a need to help people understand how to change their lives. But talk about the fact that you're getting stuck in your habits, not just because of the way habits work, but because there's all these other factors in life and in society and across history that once we know about, we can actually use to make the changes we want.

Andy Earle: The cover of the book is about breaking free from bad habits.

Good vs. Bad Habits
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Andy Earle: But what does that even mean? You talk in the book about good versus bad habits and how maybe this isn't even a good way to think about it. It's maybe more about things that align us or don't align us with ourself.

What is a good habit versus a bad habit and how do we figure that out?

Sophie Mort: I would have liked to have you written the whole book without either of the words good or bad, but my editor was absolutely right in the sense of, no, you're going to have to label these things. People need shorthands so that we can make sense of our own behaviors.

A good habit is anything that takes you towards the person that you wish to be. So it's in line with your values. It's making you closer to the person you'd hope to be in five years. And a bad habit is essentially anything that takes you away from that.

For example, in society we often assume that drinking alcohol would be a bad habit. But, if you're having a glass of wine each day, and it's not actually getting in the way of who you wish to become, That's a pretty neutral habit. Whereas, if you're procrastinating, even for five or ten minutes a day, that adds up every day to being thousands of minutes, to hours, to weeks of your life.

That's actually a worse habit than drinking the wine. There's a fine line between what's good and bad, and it's not always the thing that you assume that's going to be getting in the way of you living the life you want.

Andy Earle: And as parents we think we know what's the bad habits of our teenagers, and oh, you need to cut that out, that's not serving you. Or that's not good.

But maybe also we're Not really understanding what their values are, who they want to be. Or that it might not be a good habit for us, but...

Sophie Mort: Yes.

Andy Earle: It could be for them.

Sophie Mort: Yeah.

Parenting and Value Systems
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Sophie Mort: And I think as well, being a parent, we're all using our value system and our moral system and what we were taught growing up.

The fifth chapter of this book is about patterns across history. But patterns that move from family member to family member, from parent to child. We are constantly trying to make up for the mistakes that we think our parents made. My parent was too strict, so now I'm going to be lenient.

My parent wasn't very emotional, so now I'm going to talk openly about my emotions at all time. We're constantly making judgements on how we raise children and understand our children based on our own world view, rather than saying, who do you want to be in the future? And also, how can I help you think about becoming that person?

And what can I add to that and shape that, and then what habits actually now need to change? Maybe your sleeping in for however long in the morning is irritating to me because I need to get you to school. But in terms of who I want you to be in the future and who you want to be in the future, maybe there's another habit that actually needs tackling and I can live with that first one.

Does that make sense?

Andy Earle: It becomes so much more of a conversation instead of you just telling them, Hey, this is not okay. You need to change this. This is getting in your way. But working with them to understand where do they want to go in their life and what do they think needs to change?

Sophie Mort: And that's so much more motivating. If someone tells me what to do, my automatic response is, oh yeah? That kind of make me attitude.

Once you engage a teen in, what would you like, firstly you're putting them on your level so they don't feel like you're patronizing them. And it gives them this motivation to really think and to step into their resource system.

In the morning when they're thinking, Oh, I'm going to do this new thing. And their brain goes, take the path of least resistance. They're like, hang on. I actually want this thing to change. My life will be better rather than mom, parent, caregiver, whoever you are, I'm not going to do this because you told me to.

Andy Earle: It instantly becomes less attractive as soon as someone tells you that you're supposed to do it.

Sophie Mort: Immediately. Like every snack that's in my house, if someone's like, Oh, do you want this thing? I'm like, Thank you. The moment that you can't have this thing, I'm definitely taking it.

Gut Instincts vs. Rational Decisions
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Andy Earle: Something interesting you talk about in the book is about going with your gut versus really making careful decisions and thinking through things. And you talk about situations where it's okay to go with your gut versus situations where it's not okay to do that. How do you think that plays into parenting or how can we help our teens to know when to trust their gut and go with what feels right to them versus when they might need to slow down on a decision and make it more thoughtfully.

Sophie Mort: We're told often to go with our gut. I've seen many slogans even in the last week telling me this and I'm not sure about that. So firstly, if someone is experiencing a lot of anxiety, has any kind of panic disorder OCD, or just a generally quite nervous disposition, I'm one of those people.

So no judgment, if people are listening to this. Then actually going with your gut is not really a great idea. Because your alarm system, right? Your kind of internal smoke alarm that says there's something bad happening here, it's very sensitive, right? It's going off all the time, saying, that person just pulled a face at me.

They probably hate me. Rather than, maybe that person's just feeling really uncomfortable. They're having a bad day. Trusting your gut is going to be difficult if you struggle with anxiety or worry. So that's the same, whether you're a parent or a child. Going with your gut is really important in situations where you don't have time to get the information you need to make a good decision, right? For a parent walking into a bar, and then you know that feeling when you're like, this is not safe, that kind of shady, seedy feeling when you want to escape.

Now for a teenager, it might be just walking into a shop, just walking into a normal place. But when you have that sense of, I have to get out of here, listen to it, right? In terms of making snap decisions on meeting a new person where you don't like them, based on a very small piece of information.

Making decisions about your future work, based on a small piece of information that you heard. These are situations where you have more time to make a decision, and you can gather more information. You want to say, hang on. My brain might trick me into making a wrong decision here.

The reason is, our brain works on two systems. This quick and dirty way of thinking, which is a stereotype but we will look at other people. This is called the halo effect. We will take the smallest amount of information about them and within less than a second, make a snap judgment.

So, for example, they're wearing very expensive yoga clothes. They looked very toned and maybe have a smoothie in their hands. Because the way that we've been socialized the halo effect will say that person is likely a good person. A smart person. They're the kind of people we want to associate with our children.

So it's almost like one piece of information shines as a halo across the person. This happens without you knowing it's happening. Likewise, the halo effect could be, you take something that you think is negative and suddenly that person is someone you don't want your children to be around.

The second system, slower processing, doesn't use these rules of thumb to make decisions. It's like, what information do I need? We'll look at the pros and cons, and then make a decision. The first one is the one that gets firefighters walking into a building saying, even though we can't see smoke, everybody get out, and moments later the building collapses.

We need that gut instinct, cause it keeps us safe. We don't want to be making snap decisions all the time because we might write off the wrong people. We might make poor life choices. And what's hilarious is we have all of these rules of thumb that help us make decisions, but they trick us into thinking that we aren't the ones affected by it.

So we're like no, this happens to other people. It makes us think that we are better drivers, right? 95 percent of the population think they're above average drivers. That's statistically impossible. So we have all these rules of thumb that keep us alive.

They're very helpful when you don't have time or could be in danger. But if you have time to find out information, make a decision in a more rational way. It's better to wait and use the second system. And the way that you do that is simply through mindfulness, recognizing your gut instinct, and then deciding to write down a list of everything that you could decide to do, looking at the pros and cons and choosing from there.

So, I realized that was convoluted. Don't use your gut instinct. If you have anxiety, OCD or another highly anxious disposition, try not to use it for big decisions where you have time to gather more information.

Decision Making and Anxiety
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Andy Earle: It's really interesting thinking about decision making in terms of anxiety, and I think so often we are so worried about making the right decision or making the wrong decision and then afterwards we're second guessing, did we make the right decision or did we not?

And then we're beating ourselves up and you talk in the book about a client who's trying to decide whether he's going to leave his job or not leave his job and he's really worried about this decision. And agonizing over it. And then finally he decides, okay, I'm going to leave my job.

And he goes to this new job and then he hates the new job. Oh my gosh. I totally made the wrong decision. And beating himself up about that. And I thought it was really interesting. How could we help our teenager if they're going through something like that or beating themselves up about a decision that they made when they feel like maybe they made the wrong decision or they shouldn't have done something like that?

How could you reframe that?

Sophie Mort: So I think, and I wish I'd been taught this as a child. This is the idea that apart from decisions around death, almost every decision is reversible. The example that you're talking about in the book is this young man who agonized over leaving work.

We did the decision tree, what are all of your options? What are the pros and cons? What information do you need to gather to make a decision?

A Story of Decision Making
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Sophie Mort: He decided to leave. He hated it. It was like, I told you the worst thing would happen. It's a really lovely story.

Cause I was like, okay, if you hate it, what do you want to do now? What's the next decision? So he ended up contacting his old company, and he went back to his job and worked for them. And now he's really happy there. Cause he's not constantly asking if the grass is greener. The best learning curve about this is not that he made the wrong decision, it's the fact that he learned you can make a decision based on the best information you have at that time, then discover it's not exactly what you wanted, and make another decision to rectify that one.

And if you break up with someone, unless you've done it in a really catastrophic way, you can almost always go and make amends. And rebuild that relationship. If you make a decision in school and do something that ends up being embarrassing, the next day you can often make amends and go back to that thing.

So, I think as a parent teaching children how to make a good decision, the decision tree, writing down all of your options. Pros and cons of each. Deciding what you'll do first, then deciding what you'll do second if that doesn't work out. Teaching them that there's no perfect decision.

You are going to make the best decision you can for now. You can go back on it if you don't like it. And the world will keep turning. And the more decisions you make that don't work out for you, the better your problem solving skills will become, right? Because the next time you're like, I can make a bad decision.

It actually doesn't matter because I'll just make another decision that will be better. And it will be better because I'll have new information.

Andy Earle: That's what I love about that story so much is that it works out nice for him because he's able to go back to the old job. But even if he wasn't that doesn't mean that it was wrong or bad to make that decision because like you were saying, if he hadn't done that, then he's going to be dissatisfied all the time.

Should I leave my job or should I not leave my job now? He's done it. And he now knows what he wants in his life, what's right for him, what's not right for him. Maybe it didn't work out the way you were hoping it would in terms of this new job being great, but it wasn't necessarily a bad decision because it's bringing you closer to finding something that is authentic for you.

Sophie Mort: If you think about it, it's almost like nothing's changed, right? He's back in the same job, but he's now like the grass is not greener on the other side. Look at me go. It's really nice.

Understanding Stereotype Embodiment
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Andy Earle: You talk about stereotypes in the book. And you talk about something called stereotype embodiment.

Sophie Mort: Yes.

Andy Earle: What is stereotype embodiment?

Sophie Mort: Stereotype embodiment is the idea that we're raised hearing stereotypes that don't at that time pertain to us. So you're a child, you maybe hear that at a certain age, people shouldn't be doing certain things.

Beliefs that are often very inaccurate. Then, when you get to that age, that stereotype is triggered inside your mind. Suddenly, you're thinking, this stereotype is now true, and is about me, and belongs to me. And now I'm going to act in ways that confirm that stereotype to be true.

So they're often quite limiting beliefs.

Andy Earle: It makes me think so much about adolescence and how maybe for your whole childhood, you're exposed to all these stereotypes about what a teenager is and what it means to be a teenager. It doesn't apply to you if you're five years old or six years old.

But I love this idea of embodiment, that maybe you are still absorbing those ideas and they're just latent inside of you. And then when you do reach that age, they get activated.

Sophie Mort: Stories about teenagers are often ruthless. You don't really hear, my child turned 13 and became an absolute angel, right?

You don't really hear that kind of story. So, you're growing up around stories that are saying you're basically going to be terrible. Your hormones are going to run wild to the point where you can't control your emotions. They're often very gendered. Boys will be boys, doing x and y, whereas girls... Everyone has their own version, stories that are told about them. And then they hit that age, and suddenly, even if they weren't aware of it before, those stories are like, hang on, is this about me?

There can be stereotype threat, where you feel scared that you're in a scenario where people are going to prove that negative stereotype to be true about you. And that will then make you anxious and then you act in those ways, purely because the anxiety tips you over the edge.

So, if you imagine being a teenager where the stories aren't very positive, there's the fact that it is a reality that when you become an adolescent your hormones are all rushing around your body and you do feel overwhelmed. But this kind of overarching story that you tell about yourself and what's expected of yourself too affects how you show up.

Andy Earle: That is so interesting. I wonder how we can erase the stereotypes or counteract them.

Sophie Mort: A small thing that all parents can do is look for exceptions, right? Really focus on gathering the moments where you either talk about other teenagers where you're like, Oh, it was so great when they did this.

These stories are counter to the typical teenager story. Or of your own adolescent. Really focus on when they're doing things well. The stuff that surprises you. The stuff where they're really emotionally in tune. The stuff where they've managed to really handle something difficult.

Really point out those counter stories. When we have a stereotype, we only start seeing the information that proves it to be true. So look for the exceptions and go to town on, wow, that was really great. Do it in an authentic way. Teenagers can smell when you're lying. But make sure there's as many exception stories so that the child will have this thing of, okay, on the one hand, I'm more likely to be, this insert negative stereotype here, but I actually have the potential to be this other person that's really valued and loved and thought about highly in society.

Building Self Esteem vs. Confidence
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Andy Earle: You talk in the book about self esteem and how sometimes we use confidence to try to be a substitute for self esteem or to boost our self esteem. What is the difference?

Sophie Mort: We substitute these words all the time. Confidence is your belief that you are able to do a specific thing well.

For example, I'm quite confident in my ability as a psychologist. When I was finishing my PhD, when I was finishing studying, I would go to every therapy session with more notes and plans than you could imagine, because I wasn't confident that I would be able to manage whatever came up in session if I hadn't done it before.

Now, because I have enough information and experience to make anything work, I can turn up to my sessions knowing that there's very few things that are going to throw me. I'm confident in my ability to contain that session. Self esteem is your belief in your self worth.

So I can be a very confident psychologist, but I don't believe that all the time I'm good enough as a person that I'm deserving of love, that I am worthy in this world. This is important because often when people are feeling low in self esteem, they try and build themselves up through confidence.

So I'm going to wear a killer outfit, right? I'm going to go out tonight, strutting my stuff. It's like the shoulders are shimmying, like you're feeling good. And they maybe do feel good that night, but the next day almost resets to zero.

That's because It didn't actually tackle your belief in your value, did it? It just made you feel like you had a shiny veneer on the outside that was valuable to others. Self esteem is made up of multiple parts. Confidence is one of them. Your self esteem will go up if you work on an activity that you value to the point where you get good at it.

But it's also about belonging, right? So this is literally being in a community of people, having friends, having family. The person that you can call in the middle of the night should something go wrong. When you look in their eyes, their look in their eyes shows you're a great person.

There's so many posts in social media that say, don't care what other people think, it's only about what you think. The reality is we were built that way. So actually that's impossible. And there's nothing better for our self esteem than seeing someone you love, look back at you saying, I love you too, right?

So we've got confidence, we've got self esteem, we've got identity. This is really understanding the things you value and working on bringing those things into your life. And there's five different parts of this. Often, teenagers don't have great confidence, and they don't have great self esteem.

Navigating Teenage Identity
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Sophie Mort: My first book, A Manual for Being Human, I wrote an entire chapter, it's a long chapter, on adolescence and on parenting adolescents. And the wild biology that's changing all of the time. They don't have great self esteem often because This is the time where their hormones are swinging up and down.

It's the time where they're determined to find their identity, but actually they don't really know what it is that they want, because they haven't tried everything out yet. And then they have all this judgment from society saying that identity is good, that identity is bad. Then they have, family members saying, Oh, I want you to do the same thing as me or do something different.

And they're in this very exciting, but wild time where the insides and the outsides are clashing and they're trying to figure out who they are. So as a parent, when we think about a child who's maybe not seeming as confident as they'd hope, yes, choose an activity they love and work at them with it.

They want to wear that outfit and strut around or have something like the latest iPhone to feel powerful, but think about those other things. Think about belonging. Think about their identity. We don't want school to be the largest part of their identity.

If things aren't going well at school, their whole identity is like a jigsaw puzzle, right? If you imagine your identity as multiple different pieces, you have your podcasting, there'll be other things in your life. For adults, if work becomes the largest part of our identity, imagine a puzzle with only one piece.

That becomes unstable. So think about the child in terms of confidence, belonging, making sure they absolutely know that they are valued. Think about their identity, all of the different aspects, and how you can support them to build all those different things. And you're actually going pretty far to building their actual self esteem rather than this veneer of confidence.

Andy Earle: I love this quote from your book. You are talking about all of those things, the new outfit, getting a big win in your studies or at work or whatever it is. And you say, "as a teenager, I wondered why these experiences didn't make me feel sure of myself or more worthy of love. I also wondered why the moment the glow wore off, my confidence wore off too."

Sophie Mort: Yeah, being a teenager is a ride. They talk about teenagers often having this imaginary audience. Not only has everyone on social media commenting. Everyone in their actual family and friends commenting. They then carry around this imaginary audience. I wouldn't go back to being a teen if you paid me.

But teenagers often on the outside seem like they don't want the support and love and care that others offer, but they need it more than ever. It's a very difficult interplay between parents offering it and being rejected, and being able to keep offering that love and support when it doesn't seem to be wanted.

Final Thoughts and Resources
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Andy Earle: We are coming to the end of our time here. I highly encourage people to pick up both of these books, A Manual for Being Human, Practical Advice for a Happier Life and Unstuck: Five Steps to Break Bad Habits and Get Out of Your Own Way. Sophie, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show today.

It's been an honor and a fascinating conversation.

Sophie Mort: I loved every second. Thank you so much.

Andy Earle: Can you talk about where people can go to learn more about you, follow updates, and stay up to date on what you're doing next?

Sophie Mort: Yeah, perfect. Drsoph.com. D-R-S-O-P-H.com is my website.

My Instagram is at underscore drsoph. I'm not as active on social media right now because I'm the mental health expert for Headspace. So a lot of the work I do is in the media, in magazines and newspapers. If you follow both of those, my updates are often on there and you can find my books through there.

And also, if you have any major questions, you can email me through my website. Kudos to all the parents out there. There is some truth in the stereotypes. It is a difficult time. Often, your best attempts at being supportive and caring aren't necessarily received in the way they were when your child was seven or eight and sweet and grateful for your presence. But they do really want you to be there.

So just keep going because it is landing somewhere, even if you can't see it. And it will get better.

Andy Earle: That's inspiring. A great note to end on. We're here today with Dr. Sophie Mort talking about bad habits of our teenagers and of ourselves. And we're not done yet. Here's a look at what's coming up in the second half of the show.

Sophie Mort: Every conflict in our life tends to follow a pattern.

Someone is the victim. Someone is the persecutor. And someone is the rescuer. Conflicts happen like this all the time and we don't realise that there is a pattern. Talking about how to talk about things when they go wrong is so important. You almost script it as in, what would it take for me to say the washing up hasn't been done and then for you to say, okay, I'll do it. Instead of feeling like conflicts have to go around in the same circle, we can actually change every person's role in the dynamic.

It doesn't really matter how much you argue with someone. What matters is how you make amends afterwards. The best piece of advice i can give you is to say, I'm really sorry to hear that. Do you A, want to vent about it, B, want me to problem solve with you, or C, should I totally distract you and we do something different? You hand them the cape. Here's the cape. You can rescue yourself and I'll be alongside to support you. Getting teenagers engaging in difficult topics is so cool.

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You can now sign up directly through Apple Podcasts. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time.