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What is the Best Way for Parents to Teach Teens Resilience?
45 Plays4 days ago
How can parents teach teenagers mental resilience against anxiety and stress?
In this episode of The Positively Healthy Mom, we sit down with Dr. Jerry Weichman, a clinical psychologist, adolescent specialist, and parenting expert with nearly three decades of experience.
If you are a mom feeling like you are constantly overthinking things and just not being present with your kids, or if you are watching your teenager struggle with future anxiety and just not being in control of their reactions, this episode is just what you need. Dr. Jerry Weichman shares actionable mental health tools and frameworks designed to help parents effectively model resilience and quiet confidence for their kids.
Key Conversations in This Episode:
- Life is the "Guy in the Van": Utilizing Dr. Jerry's powerful visual analogy to instill an unshakeable fighting spirit and resilience in your teen.
- Thoughts Create Problems, Actions Fix Them: Breaking the vicious cycle of teen and parent overthinking and learning how to pivot to actionable solutions.
- The Here and Now Protective Bubble: Practical grounding tools to pull anxious teens out of future-based fear-mongering (like AI and career stress) and back into the present moment.
- The Weichman Clinic Team Approach: Why treating a teenager in isolation fails, and how evaluating the entire holistic family system creates lasting mental wellness.
Questions And Answers For Moms Of Teens About Resilience Building:
- How do I help my teen handle future anxiety about college and careers?
- Answer: Help them shift focus away from variables they cannot control (like shifting job markets or AI technology) and anchor them in their actions, reactions, and the tangible characteristics they bring to the table right now.
- Answer: Help them shift focus away from variables they cannot control (like shifting job markets or AI technology) and anchor them in their actions, reactions, and the tangible characteristics they bring to the table right now.
- What is the true definition of bullying, and how should my teen respond?
- Answer: Bullying is a repeated, power-imbalanced event meant to degrade. Dr. Jerry notes that “mean” kids act out of unresolved pain. Teaching your teen to recognize this lets them rise above the situation with pity rather than matching the anger.
Meet Our Expert: Dr. Jerry Weichman, Ph.D., is the founder of The Weichman Clinic and its Teen Brain Program in Costa Mesa, CA, as well as the creator of the Raising Families podcast and resource hub.
- Website: raisingfamiliespodcast.com & theweichmanclinic.com
- Instagram: @drjerryweichman
- YouTube: @RaisingFamilieswithDrJW
Resources From Your Host, Laura Ollinger
- Instagram: @positivelyhealthycoaching
- Emotional College Prep for Teen Girls: Register for Positively Healthy University
- Support the Show: Rate the Positively Healthy Mom podcast here!
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Transcript
Introduction to Resilience
00:00:00
Speaker
A guy in a van pulls up and tries to grab you that's unarmed, tries to throw you in the back, what would you do? And every 6,500 kids have said I'd fight, kicks, you know punch. And I always say, look, if that guy shows up once a day, every day, is there going to be a day where you just throw your hands up in the air and say, okay, just take me and whatever you want with me? No kid has ever said yes.
00:00:20
Speaker
i said, look, there's not that big of a stretch between that situation when life is hard. Life is the guy in the van. We have to have that fire in our belly. and why this is so important is because of suicide and suicidal thoughts is because
00:00:38
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Positively Healthy Mom podcast. I'm your host, Laura Olinger, teen and young adult wellbeing coach and founder of Positively Healthy Coaching.
Guest Introduction: Dr. Jerry Weichman
00:00:47
Speaker
Today, I'm very excited to introduce you to a new guest of mine, Dr. Jerry Weichman, who is a clinical psychologist, adolescent specialist, and parenting expert with nearly three decades of experience He's also the author of How to Deal, which is a teen survival guide and founder of the Weichmann Clinic in Costa Mesa, California.
00:01:08
Speaker
It's teen brain brain program, which I can't wait to hear more about, and one of the most comprehensive cognitive and psychological evaluations for kids and adolescents. So um do we go do we call you Dr. Jared? What do we call you, Dr. Weichmann? You can call me whatever you want. I never did this for the title or for Ego.
00:01:25
Speaker
Oh, okay. Okay. Well, um we're just going
Parental Challenges and Mental Health
00:01:27
Speaker
to call you Dr. Jerry for today, if that's okay. so That works. Man, I'm so excited to just dive in because I know you're really passionate about helping parents reclaim their drive, focus and on energy so they can be the best versions of themselves to be able to parent kids. So tell us what, just to get started, like what are some ideas that you have for that and how can that help promote resilience within the family?
00:01:51
Speaker
Yeah, so you know as you said, I've been doing this 26, 27 years now. And starting a couple of years ago, I started watching parents really kind of fall off the map. They were just really struggling. It looks different out there. It feels different out there when you're crossing other adults.
00:02:08
Speaker
You don't see a lot of eye contact. You don't see a lot of smiles. You don't see a lot of energy out. And people look 10% zombied, basically. And I think that for anybody who's a parent today, we haven't had a 10-year period like this in our life where we've had so much instability and stress. And there's a lot of factors to that, but I don't think that as adults, we realize the toll that all of this is taken on us. And so what prompted me to create this national platform was the fact that I started seeing parents not be proactive anymore, not just with their their own kids and their kids' mental health. It was with themselves. And as soon as that starts to happen, the whole family starts falling apart. So I really wanted to get on a greater stage to try to make a difference for families. And so we rolled out on the on the Raising Families podcast, we rolled out the the mental health tools that we utilize here that work all day, every day. And we wanted to be able to create something for parents where,
00:03:07
Speaker
It's so for you to listen to make sure you're putting the air mask on yourself first and then teach it to your kids. And by doing that one-two punch, that's what benefits the family. And some of those examples of tools would be resilience, like teaching your family how to be mental fighters where things get tough, we get tougher.
00:03:26
Speaker
Pushing back against the chaos and stresses of life rather than giving into it. It would be things like taking action. we have we have had since the pandemic a huge uptick in overthinking with kids and parents where negative things happen that they can't control. And they put the what I call the mental magnifying glass on their problem and intensify the problem and the duration of the problem. There's a multitude of tools that parents, especially today, need to be aware of and to teach their kids. And one of the bigger ones is the concept of control, which is
00:04:00
Speaker
The only control we have is how we react and respond. And as a parent, there's so much. This is such a faster and busier and rapid pace of life than it was for our parents raising us.
00:04:12
Speaker
And our kids are the closest ones to us and they can really get to us too. So one of the biggest things that parents need to be aware of constantly is being mindful of what you can and can't control. Because the only thing you can control is how you react and respond to what happens and the effort you're putting the things that you do.
00:04:29
Speaker
And one of the concepts that really helps me as a parent with struggling with this is the statement of this person or this situation does not control how I think or feel. I do.
00:04:41
Speaker
And once you can get back into that silo of where you have control, you can do a lot with that. You can stay balanced for your family. You can provide that stability. You can actually utilize mental health tools from that point and they'll actually work.
00:04:54
Speaker
So there's a lot of tools out there that i i want families to be aware of.
Maintaining Awareness Without Overwhelm
00:04:59
Speaker
Yeah, that's really bringing to mind some individuals that I know that red get very emotional about what they see in the news. And it's very much kind of like seeping into their everyday life. And um i mean, these are not my clients of mine. These are just personal people I know. And I try to help them understand that concept that like,
00:05:19
Speaker
Those things are happening whether you know about them or not. But like, how is this affecting you? And are you even able to do anything about that? I'm not like thinking people need to put on blinders and being completely oblivious to what's happening in the world. Like there's got to be this balance.
00:05:34
Speaker
So how can you encourage, like, I understand like those things are out of our control, but how can you have a balance with like wanting some awareness with what's happening, but then feeling stuck and emotional about being powerless about those things?
00:05:46
Speaker
Yeah. Well, you know, the the big thing for us as parents, most of us grew up with, like we knew life prior to the internet. So we're in a completely different ballgame now where everybody's opinions, all the information that is streaming through us, the kids' sports schedules, people's texts, I mean, we're just getting bombarded. And to be honest with you, we're not meant to be this close together.
00:06:09
Speaker
There's a reason when you go into an eight-person elevator with seven other people, you feel uncomfortable. Right. You smell them, you hear one chewing, one sniffling. And it's kind of ah what it's like for me on, you know, with with technology today. And so we have to be aware of the fact that most often when we open up any of these apps, any of these news feeds,
00:06:31
Speaker
we're never gonna rarely ever, if ever, are we gonna come out the other side feeling better. We always feel worse. And with all the things that are going on today and how stressful and hard it is to be a parent, this is one of the few things that both you and your kids can control is whether you choose to open that and to look at that.
00:06:49
Speaker
Maybe you give yourself a time period. You know, I really want to know what's going on. I'm going to give myself five minutes or three minutes. but You got to set a timer because everything in that thing's been designed to be addictive and to trap you there so that you don't even aren't aware of what time it is and how much time goes by.
00:07:06
Speaker
But once you're seeing things like that, it's really about action, right? It's thoughts create problems, actions fix problems. So what you have to deduce besides can I control this or not is, is there an action I can take to make this better? Is there an action I can take if this is a cause that I'm concerned about to do something?
00:07:27
Speaker
and And that's what you have to start thinking about is the action that you take not the problem. This again goes back to the overthinking thing for me. It's like we're just sitting here focusing and ruminating on problems. And all we're doing is kicking our own butts. And as adults with kids, our kids are learning how to do this as well. And we've got to change this up so that we're more balanced, we're in a better place. We're teaching our kids how to do this because you know we're the immigrants to technology. Our kids are the natives. They were born into bondage in this. And so they don't know any different. And it's our job as parents to not just try to be as stable for our kids as possible, but to teach them not just how to navigate technology and what it's really about, but how to navigate life.
Focusing on the Present for Emotional Well-being
00:08:10
Speaker
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah, I love that idea because that does then give control back to the listener. If they do see something that they feel outraged by, then they have the choice. Like, what can I do about this? Can I do anything about it?
00:08:25
Speaker
And if I can't, then maybe I don't listen to that stuff so much. Maybe I focus on what's the most important to me, which for parents is their kids that are right in front of them that live with them. And maybe that thing, people just need to kind of reprioritize what's important to them. So maybe some food for thought. Well, there's that for sure. 100%. But there's also an underlying factor that goes with that. It's where our mind is in time, right? So what you're talking about is being present with your kids, which is what we definitely don't do enough of today as parents. And neither of our kids do that with us, but they will only do what they're allowed to do by us and how we handle them. But what you're talking about is something comes in that we see that's negative and it's a tendency to, people have tendency to hold onto it, right? So now it goes into the past, but we're still holding, bringing our past to our present and we're not gonna be as effective in the present when we're holding onto stuff that we're still bothered by and thinking about.
00:09:22
Speaker
And so one of the episodes we talk about is where our mind is in time, it's so important for us to learn how to not hold on and collect stuff in the past. These are the people that hold grudges or replay situations or news feeds that they saw or problems.
00:09:39
Speaker
That doesn't do anything except make things worse. Because if you're in the past in your mind, you're gonna have much higher likelihoods of being depressed or angry or both. And that's where a lot of people are today is they're just collecting the things that go by. They're not in the moment.
00:09:54
Speaker
And our kids have a lot more anxiety. They're in the future. They're making assumptions about how things are going to go. What, what, who might be there, what might happen. And they're trying to tell the future and that's a square pay ground hole. So that's where stress and anxiety live. So. Right. What we're talking about is you have to get back into the here and now by identifying your five senses, what you see, what you smell, what you taste, what you hear, what you physically feel on your body, not in your body. On your body is the the chair on your butt and your back or the cold air on your exposed skin.
00:10:25
Speaker
But when we can get back to the moment, to the here and now, the present becomes a warm, protective little bubble that will keep us safe from anything that just happened or may happen
Teenagers Facing Future Concerns
00:10:34
Speaker
in the future. And it's where we really need to practice to be as parents and then teach our kids how to do that.
00:10:39
Speaker
Hmm. Well, I have an interesting question for you then, because something just came up with my, I mentioned I have four teenagers and one is, you know, planning for his future. He's thinking ahead. My oldest is about to graduate. So she's kind of in the same boat where we're thinking about careers, majors, colleges, things like that.
00:10:58
Speaker
And it's just so interesting because what is happening with just not my own kids, but my clients and just other people's kids are what does the future hold? And everybody's talking about AI and will a job exist for me? And how will I, you know, now there's going to be two classes of people and instead of three. and And it's like, whoa, like that is not happening yet.
00:11:19
Speaker
That is in the future. and and And what good does it do us if we're kind of just like fear mongering all this whole AI situation? So What would be like advice that you would give to a teenager who does, you know, I'm happy and feeling proud that my kids are being responsible, thinking of their future, planning ahead without like we want to encourage that, but we also don't want to like feed into the fear. So how could you like hold both of those at the same time?
00:11:46
Speaker
Yeah, well look, I mean, to their credit, this is a very tough time launching out of high school, launching into college, launching from college into the real world. And part of that is because they have had every step laid out through high school, which is if you do this, this is gonna happen. If you do this, this is gonna happen. And there's predictability there.
00:12:07
Speaker
And so when it's time to launch out, even to go to college, if ah the kids have an opportunity, It's scary. There is so much of the unknown.
00:12:17
Speaker
There are no steps. It's kind of like they climb to the top of this mountain peak and everybody celebrates it and they spend the summer up there together. And then all of a sudden, one kid jumps one way, another kid jumps another way. And then it's our kids turn to jump and the person goes, okay, jump. They're like looking down. All I see is clouds. What's down there? like Don't worry, everybody lands on their feet. That's scary, right? So I first and foremost get that. But the other piece of that is You know, it's really so much about not what's out there, but about your action and reaction to it.
00:12:49
Speaker
And what our kids need is they need good self-esteem. They need good self-concept. They didn't know who they are. And they base their self-concept, unfortunately, so of these kids off of things outside of them, like how well they do in school, how many likes, followers, how well they play sports, what they look like, you know.
00:13:06
Speaker
Most of these variables are variables that constantly change. So when one of those goes down, you go down with it. And that's not real self-esteem. Self-esteem is knowing the characteristics that you're bringing to the table and that make you the whole package, but you never have to brag or talk about it. You know, it's just, I am caring. I'm loving. I'm a hard worker. I'm a good friend. I'm loyal. You know, you can put attractive in there. You can put a good student in there. But there's so much more to you than how you look or perform in life. And those are the key concepts that kids need in order to be able to withstand going out into the unknown combined with resilience, which is I'm never going to give up. The more that pushes down, the more I'm going to push back. You know, I'm not going to get sad and down too frequently. I'm going to get mad and use it as a vehicle to push myself through. you know, you can put those things together
00:13:57
Speaker
And helping those kids to be in the moment, knowing that they're bringing a quality product to the table, they're strong, they're mentally strong, and they just have to keep going and they'll figure it out. Most kids do figure it out when they've got those concepts and tools down pat.
00:14:13
Speaker
Hmm. Okay. I love that. It's very encouraging. Kind of exactly what a teen and parent might want to have in their tool belt to be able to share with their teenagers. so there's There's one more that goes with that. Sorry. it's okay it's it's my My belief is there's a process and flow almost to life, right? Like you have an idea of what you're supposed to do or where you're supposed to go, what job you're supposed to get, what school you're supposed to go to.
00:14:38
Speaker
And you think you're supposed to be on this track. And life has a way of putting these 45 degree angles in front of you. And it really looks like it's screwing you, but it's really banging you to where you're supposed to be. i mean, you look back on your life and so many, ah let's let's take marriage and spouses. You think of all, a lot of people met in college, right?
00:14:58
Speaker
And you think about all the different things that had to happen in order to put those two people together. And so there's something. So we if we can help our kids with a concept that is, hey, look, you can go, you're going down the river, but it's carrying you and it's carrying you where you're supposed to be. You can swim to different places.
00:15:15
Speaker
that's ah That's a stress reliever for those kids other than versus thinking I have 100%. I have to control this whole thing when they really don't have much. Yes. I love that.
00:15:26
Speaker
Because then it's like, yeah, you're not working so hard. You're just allowing things to work for you. Kind of just there's this energy, this connection with life. will lead everything Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's beautiful. That's a lot easier. ah Pill or swallow. No um pun intended to anything else in your life.
00:15:42
Speaker
Just a quick word before we get back to the episode. If you have a teen daughter heading off to college and you've quietly wondered what happens when she's there and I'm not, when something goes wrong at 11 p.m. and she can't call me, that worry is exactly why I built Positively Healthy University.
00:16:00
Speaker
It's a three-hour live workshop just with me and a group of 10 girls where she'll get to build the emotional toolkit no college prep class covers. how to sit with
Holistic Family Therapy Approach
00:16:11
Speaker
hard things, how to regulate without reaching for her phone first, how to build a real community when she gets there.
00:16:17
Speaker
I have got two sessions this summer, so head to positivelyhealthycoaching.com slash PHU for dates and to grab her spot. I have tapped at 10 girls on purpose.
00:16:29
Speaker
Okay, back to the show. So, yeah, I actually want to find out more about your clinic and kind of um what you do. And I know you are really well known for and i love brain health. I'm a big fan of brain health. And so important to like have that knowledge, especially for parents to understand that, um you know, there's these biological processes happening inside the brain and to really respect them that that the changes that the teenagers are going through. So tell us more about the Wifeman Clinic.
00:16:57
Speaker
Yeah, the Weichmann Clinic was my answer in probably 2011 to what I saw was my brain's always worked with what's the problem, what's the fix. And so I started just seeing gaping holes in child and adolescent mental health. You had a psychologist here, a psychiatrist over there. They don't communicate. They have different views of what the primary issue is. Families were running around like a chicken without a head. You had You know, we had we got some really poor ah evaluations in where they were templated and somebody forgot to change the name. And that was the gold standard that we were going off of and teachers and in school districts.
00:17:33
Speaker
um And the the whole thing was kind of a mess. You had therapists that were just treating a kid and parents weren't involved in the process. No one's treating the whole family system. So I figured there's got to be a way to better way to do this. And it took two years to complete it. But what we have now is We have someone right... We treat the whole family system. So parents come in, we meet with them, we meet with the kid, we follow back up. We actually talk to parents about things that are going on with their kid and what they need to start working on because they spend so much more time with them than we will. Right. That's exactly my approach as well. Right? So it's like, here's how you start boosting self-esteem. Here's how you start...
00:18:11
Speaker
you know, countering when your kid's really being down and negative. And here's how how often we're going to need to work with you, work with your kid. We also brought in so many services that families would need. So if we spin our tires for four to eight sessions, we might not be with the right provider who has subspecialties in child adolescent, or we might need to do an evaluation to see what's really primary with this. So we're making sure we have the right treatment method and provider in front of somebody.
00:18:38
Speaker
We can bring in psychiatry, neuropsychological evaluations, couples counseling, family therapy. So we can actually put an entire team around a family system to identify what's wrong and get all those pieces fixed up and turned around.
00:18:53
Speaker
Oh, wow. That's awesome. That's amazing. and And that's where I hope the rest of the world kind of catches up to that model because that's what I see is just like, you know, they bring you one puzzle piece and yeah they're like, here, here's this piece, do the puzzle. And you're like, no, no, no. Where are
Instilling Resilience in Children
00:19:08
Speaker
the rest of the piece? And as a parent, look, there's nothing worse than I can tell you as a parent myself, there's nothing worse than seeing your kids struggle and suffer and not being able to help them and let alone not knowing what is wrong in order to help find help for your kid.
00:19:23
Speaker
That is an awful feeling as a parent. Yes. Yes. Well, I'm excited to learn so much about this. And um i assume that people can travel from out of state to come see you. Does it or is it just in state clients or patients?
00:19:38
Speaker
Well, we can do therapy with anybody in California because that's where we are. But for our team brain program and the evaluation team brain program, that's a separate piece. That was that was our my answer to, okay, everybody wants to know what's wrong. And it's hard to tell people what's wrong with fact and validity behind it. So you have you come in, you get these cases where you have these kids with eight different diagnoses or... you If you have complex medical problems combined with psychological problems, it's really hard to sift out what's really driving what. And so a lot of hospitals have trouble with those things. And so I wanted to create ah a program that really I went through, made every possible...
00:20:21
Speaker
ah factor a sifter to see where does this end up and what's really primary so um the team brain program anybody can come in and fly in and we've done that we've had people come in from out of state we've had people come in from out of the country to be able to find out from a psychological family systems neurological psychiatric on top of having testing where the team meets together after and has their individual conclusions laid on top of one another so we can discuss what's really happening. And then we've got the butt we've got the testing and the data that shows validity that we're all right once we agree on what what this is, what this is not. And so we can sift through all these different problems medically and psychologically and sit with the family at the end of it and say, hey, here's what this is. This is the primary issue.
00:21:08
Speaker
This is what the treatment needs to be for this issue. And it's such a relief, especially for families that have gone through, you know, years of what's wrong to be able to have clarity and data to prove it. um A lot of moms usually break down crying because it's just a relief that they know what's wrong. And because a lot of people out there chase byproduct symptoms.
00:21:28
Speaker
right? The kid's angry. well You know, the kid has oppositional defiant disorder. No, like that's a byproduct issue. Like identify what the core issue is and treat it. And that's what we try to do in the teen brain program and at the Weichmann clinic.
00:21:42
Speaker
That's amazing. And are you able to bring in any and nutritional elements to that? Any kind of modifiable life factors like diet, sleep, exercise, stress management? Is that kind of part of what is being evaluated as well?
00:21:55
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. That's all part of the intake process. That's all part of the recommendations. If there's things that are outside of our scope that we want to refer out to, then we can refer out to those people. and Okay, very cool. Okay, awesome. So moving along, um let's talk about, you know, because you do work with kids of all ages. And so how can a family really raise very resilient kids, but starting in a younger age group, like starting elementary school, you know, before they're really hitting these big pressure time periods that we're taught talking about with our kids?
00:22:27
Speaker
Yeah, well, thank you for that, because that's exactly in line with what one of my missions is, is to get these tools and information. I want to help families across the country with everything I've learned in my career. But my hope and goal in creating this national platform for everybody, and it's for free and in perpetuity, is that the early elementary school parents get a hold of it because there is no guide. And they prep like crazy when they're pregnant. It's like what to expect when they're expecting them. Make sure they have a pediatrician. And then when it comes to mental health, we really it's so convoluted out there.
00:22:59
Speaker
and there's And there's so much misinformation and ineffective tools that they don't know where to start. and What do I need to lay the foundation for to get my kid ready? but My hope is that people access this information in elementary school because there's so many things that your kids should need to know by the time they hit middle school when the adversity starts.
00:23:20
Speaker
And if you can arm your kids with things like resilience, the reduction in mental health problems gonna be profound. Now when it comes to resilience, um To me, it's the literally the foundation of mental health. you know Things get tough. We have to get tougher. I really do believe that yeah God or life or whatever you believe in doesn't give us things that we can't ultimately handle. And what's dropped in our lap is not meant for us to be overwhelmed by or down about things.
00:23:46
Speaker
It's meant for us to overcome, learn and change and grow from. and in doing so, it leads us to who we're supposed to be and where we're supposed to be next in our life. These are just hurdles. And you have to clear a hurdle by a millimeter. And so teaching our kids how to be push back against life, how to be that spring, that the more that comes down on you life, the more you have to push back, will help your kids so tremendously because you know, life's always going to be peaks and valleys for all of us. But when your kids has resilience, you turn those valleys into dips.
00:24:18
Speaker
And it's hard to instill this in your kids. But it kind of the way to do this is, it's just the saying, hey, things get tough in this family, we get tougher. Or when the kids were younger, i coach a lot of teams. And so when the kids were young,
00:24:34
Speaker
You know, they all cry when they're really little for non pain related injuries. And I was trying to instill the whole team with resilience, which is, hey, don't get sad, like get mad, like go out there and do something about it. Yeah. Right.
00:24:46
Speaker
Yeah. But that gives you energy. Yeah. Anger anger
Addressing Bullying with Empathy
00:24:49
Speaker
can be a good vehicle for resilience. or If you use the right way, um it can be effective. And this is a very visual generation.
00:24:59
Speaker
So they need ah they need visuals and um all my brain works visually. So I've got analogies for all this stuff. The the one we use for resilience. I love analogies. Yeah. A guy in a van pulls up and tries to grab you that's unarmed, tries to throw you in the back, what would you do? And every 6,500 kids have said I'd fight, kicks, you know punch.
00:25:17
Speaker
And I always say, look, if that guy shows up once a day, every day, is there going to be a day where you throw your hands up in the air and say, okay, just take me, do whatever you want with me? No kid has ever said yes.
00:25:28
Speaker
i said, look, there's not that big of a stretch between that situation when life is hard. Life is the guy in the van. We have to have that fire in our belly. And why this is so important is because of suicide and suicidal thoughts is because when kids give up, then they start to get flooded with depression, anxiety, stress, and then they get overwhelmed quickly.
00:25:55
Speaker
And when they get overwhelmed, if they don't have tools to navigate themselves, then their first natural default setting is death. It's what we call suicidal ideation. Now, a much smaller percentage of that population actually attempts. But, you know, I can't tell you the increase in the number of kids we see that own that they have been thinking about death.
00:26:15
Speaker
it's it's It's up so much because they're not able to navigate how they're feeling and they're not running their foundation with resilience. As you're speaking, I, of course, you know, things come in and i it's not on our agenda, but would it be okay if you talked about your advice for bullying? um Because, you know, when I think of bullying, I think of and having a resilient kid, have someone being able to either let something, um you know, kind of roll off their back to not really, you
00:26:47
Speaker
take this situation to heart so much. But what I find is a lot of times the parents kind of get like sucked down into it. They become then the victims and then their child's the victim and we're the victim. And and then it's like this big bad bully. and And it's like this, I'm like, oh my gosh, like somebody has to be the leader here. Right. And so What is your advice for the moms who um either have had a child who maybe has experienced some cyberbullying or physical bullying, in-person bullying, or perhaps their child was the one doing that?
Building Self-esteem and Confidence in Children
00:27:20
Speaker
What is just kind of your general stance on that? Yeah. um Well, let's talk about what, by definition, what it is first, because what you see is a percentage of the population that as soon as something happens, they're like, my kid's getting bullied, or the kid's like, I'm getting bullied. um You know, the definition of bullying is it's, number one, it's a repeated event.
00:27:40
Speaker
And number two, it's power imbalanced. Someone's going after somebody smaller, or younger, weaker. And three, the intention is to hurt or degrade somebody. And it's a repeated, repeated event. So that's the depth by definition what it is. Now, let's just talk about whether it's bullying or not. It's mean mean kids, okay?
00:28:01
Speaker
Yeah. The conversation needs to be, look, you know, if you don't deal, the mean kids are not big, intimidating, mean kids, even if they're angry, even if they're physical, okay?
00:28:12
Speaker
they feel really small and inferior. Because if you look at how emotions work, everything comes from unresolved hurt or pain. okay If you don't deal with your emotional hurt and pain in your life, it turns to anger.
00:28:25
Speaker
mean, think about any time you're angry, I guarantee you were hurt first every single time. Even if you're driving in traffic and someone cuts you off for a split second, your thought is, I would never do that to you. Then it's whatever your freak out reaction is.
00:28:35
Speaker
yeah Right. So these are not big, intimidating people. They feel really small inside. They're showing their cards that they're miserable and unhappy and hurting.
00:28:46
Speaker
And what we need to do is have our kids have awareness of that. And they can even think about the things that could be going behind the scenes that we'll never know and about that would happen. contribute to that, whether it's their parents just got divorced, they have a parent that doesn't love them, everything from they could have been molested when they were a kid to um but a brother that beats them up or you know whatever it is. These are all things that play into people being angry. And when your kid can think about that, it can they can rise above the situation more. They can feel pity for this kid that this is how they're going through life rather than anger at what they're taking at face value.
00:29:24
Speaker
Now, We also need to build our kids' self-esteem. And they, even teenagers, they're just kind of really beginning self-concept. So it's important for us as parents. We know who our kids are. I recommend parents write down, who youre spend 10 minutes writing down the qualities of your kid, what they're bringing to the table, things that they've been born into the world with.
00:29:46
Speaker
loving, caring, hardworking, good friend, loyal. like Take one off the list once a week and just drop it on them in passing. Hey, I was just thinking this about you. And your kid, if they're a middle school or high school, is going to go, okay.
00:29:59
Speaker
But inside, you're planting the seeds for self-concept, right? one ah One off the list once a week. And when you get down to the down to the bottom of the list, go back to the top. Just do it for years straight. Because what you're doing is you're expediting your kid figured out who they are because look me, my mom told me growing up my whole life, you're going to, you know you're going to help so many millions of people, blah, blah. blah And by high school, it was so so frustrating and annoying because I didn't know what I was going to do or who I was yet. But,
00:30:30
Speaker
I think a big reason why I am where I am is I became what I heard enough of, right? So we can definitely utilize that power of suggestion with our kid, but we weren' it's not suggestion when we're taking their characteristics and showing them and telling them who they are. Plus, what I like about this is so much of our praise for our kids is performance-based.
00:30:50
Speaker
You know, it's how they did in sport, how they did in school. And then the kids, as they start getting older, feel like, i'm only like it's that I'm only playing well enough. I have to play well or do well in order to get affection.
00:31:02
Speaker
right right What I like about this is it's just random praise for them being them, which is what none of us get enough of today. And it helps them to develop their concept. And by that, if they can carry that in the front of their head everywhere they go, again, we're not trying to give kids a big head here. We're The kids that brag about how great they are, the ones that overcompensate for feeling small and inferior, it's what I call quiet confidence, which is no one makes you the whole package and why, but you never have to brag or talk about it. But if you're combining those things and helping your kids see the kid for who they are, not what they're giving them, with resilience, with being in the moment, with being mindful what they can and can't
Holistic Treatment and Resources
00:31:40
Speaker
control, Now you start to see how this, what we've created on this platform actually really works for the majority of the population because there are stages that you need to layer these tools into. But when you can learn to do that, it actually makes you feel a lot better.
00:31:55
Speaker
Yeah. Yes. Okay. Well, thank you for addressing that. um So um how can people find you going forward? Because I know um people are going to want to be able to reach out to you. Yeah, not a problem. um the podcast The platform's created around the podcast, which is Raising Families with Dr. Jerry.
00:32:12
Speaker
um You can get more information on RaisingFamiliesPodcast.com. I also created a robust, ah dedicated YouTube channel that goes along with all this information that'd be great for parents and kids, as well as any and all social media channels, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook. You can find me all over the place at drjerryweichman.com.
00:32:32
Speaker
And if you need any help, we're at theweichmanclinic.com. Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for taking the time today. Thank you so much for having me.
00:32:45
Speaker
Just wanting to share my thoughts about my interview with Dr. Jerry Weichman. He is really just focused, ah focused, focused, focused on resilience. And I find that that to be so true, that that is the buffer against ah mental health challenges. And the more that we can build that in ourselves and our kids, the more we're setting ourselves up for success.
00:33:07
Speaker
I also really love his approach with dealing with the entire family system. I can't tell you how many times parents come and say, you know, here's this problem with my kid. Can you help them? And really, it's about looking at the whole family. We don't even realize how intertwined that we are. It's just the way that families are. we are constantly either triggering each other or giving off some subconscious feelings. And we need to be able to, you know, as parents have the skills and have the tools so that we can kind of either work on ourselves or work with our kids directly, since we're the ones that live with them all the time. And the last part I love about what he does is just how he pulls a whole team together so to be able to help. with any challenge for a teenager or even a younger child.
00:33:53
Speaker
And so that's really important to me to look at that kind of holistic perspective and see, you know, can we get a consensus on what the real problem is? Because I've heard of so many families just kind of on a wild goose chase going around and looking for answers and not always getting things solved. And so this seems to be the way to be able to do it all under one roof. And so I love that. And
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:34:14
Speaker
um Again, he just has a ton of great resources. So I definitely recommend um reaching out if you're just kind of at the end of your rope and you don't know where else to turn, um but you're just looking for some more help.
00:34:27
Speaker
When you get a chance, please go to the show notes and click on the link ratethispodcast.com slash TPHmom to give my podcast a rating and review.
00:34:38
Speaker
And if this episode resonates with you, be sure to share it with your mom friends who are going through the same things. Be sure to tune in for next week's conversation. Until then, keep up the good work.