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Parenting a Rose in a Garden of Tulips: Intense, High-Risk Teen Behaviors with Katie May
43 Plays13 days ago
What should parents do when a highly sensitive teenager exhibits intense, high-risk emotional behaviors?
In this episode of The Positively Healthy Mom, we sit down with Katie May, a licensed therapist, author, speaker, and the founder of Creative Healing—a multi-location teen support center in the Philadelphia area to discuss strategies for parenting teens with self-destructive behaviors.
This episode is a must-listen for moms of deeply feeling, highly sensitive teenagers who experience extreme emotional dysregulation and high-risk behaviors, offering practical strategies to move your household from a state of constant crisis into a place of calm and connection.
Key Conversations in This Episode:
- Understanding why some teenagers are genetically hardwired to experience the world with raw, intense emotions, and why traditional parenting advice fails them.
- A clear breakdown of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), how it differs from traditional CBT, and why it is the gold standard for treating severe emotional reactivity and self-harm in teenagers.
- How a teen's emotional baseline can get trapped in an ongoing cycle of stress, and how parents can use environmental changes to help them "zero out" and calm down.
- Concrete advice on how parents can navigate the emotional grief of letting go of the parenting journey they expected so they can show up for the teen they have.
Episode 111 Q&A: Why does my teenager explode over seemingly minor issues that shouldn't be a big deal?
Highly sensitive teens often experience an accumulation of nervous system stress that never fully returns to baseline. Because they are easily triggered, they get re-activated before they can fully calm down, making minor incidents feel like major crises.
Meet Our Expert:
Katie May is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC), author, speaker, and group practice owner who founded Creative Healing, a specialized center dedicated to supporting teenagers and their families. She specializes in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and is passionate about giving parents the practical toolkits they need to understand their teen's intense inner world and foster long-term resilience.Connect With Katie May
- Katiekmay.com
- @katiekmay on IG
- Purchase Katie’s Book - You’re On Fire, It’s Fine
Resources From Your Host, Laura Ollinger
- Instagram: @positivelyhealthycoaching
- Emotional College Prep for Teen Girls on July 14th, 2026: Register for Positively Healthy University
- Support the Show: Rate the Positively Healthy Mom podcast here!
Recommended
Transcript
Impact of Nervous System Stress
00:00:00
Speaker
And then because their emotions are so activated, it takes them a very long time to calm down. But because they're easily triggered before they get back down to that place of centered baseline, they're triggered again. So their nervous system is in a constantly activated state and they're never regulated. And that's why you're seeing them. It almost feels like that's not a big deal. Why are why are you getting so upset about this? It's because there's this accumulation of nervous system stress that that is ongoing that has never actually zeroed out.
Introduction to the Podcast and Guest
00:00:30
Speaker
you
00:00:32
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Positively Healthy Mom podcast. I'm your host, Laura Olinger, teen and young adult wellbeing coach and founder Positively Healthy Coaching. Today, I'm very excited to introduce Katie May, who is a licensed therapist, author, speaker, and group practice owner. She founded Creative Healing, a multi-location teen support center in the Philadelphia area. um So Katie, welcome to the show.
00:00:56
Speaker
Thanks, Laura. I'm excited to be here and talk all things teens and parenting them. Yes, and I know um initially we made contact and I started out by reading your book. It was so nice. if Somebody on your team sent me a copy, so I got to really learn about how you work, like how you, um I know DBT is kind of your main modality. So can you explain just a little bit, just for the average human who, um you know, a lot of people know CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy, not everybody is familiar
What is Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)?
00:01:24
Speaker
with DBT. So can you share a little bit about what that means? Yes, I wish I had like a very succinct way to talk about DBT. So I'm going to try and boil it down to the things that feel most important.
00:01:34
Speaker
DBT stands for dialectical behavior therapy. It was actually created from CBT, which my general overview of CBT is like check and change your thoughts, change how you feel, change the outcome. DBT is more emotionally and behaviorally focused. And while we still do consider what you're thinking, we bring in more of the body, more of the nervous system, more how am I feeling and how does this impact the urges and behaviors that I have? So there are four main components of DBT. There's the individual therapy. There's the skills training. There is the group for therapists that are delivering the DBT. They get support and consultation together. And then there's also for adolescents, there's a family component. So we're bringing in parents. We're making sure parents and family have the same skills because what we learned over time was teaching a teen as many skills as possible was great, but putting them back into a family or a home where those skills weren't being reinforced or modeled, things were kind of
DBT's Role in Treating Teens
00:02:28
Speaker
falling apart there. So including the family system became a very important part of the process.
00:02:32
Speaker
Awesome. Yeah, I'm so glad you said that. That's um the way I work as well. It's very important for me when I'm teaching skills to teens that the parents are familiar with them so they can support them or they can learn them themselves and then it can become a whole family practice of whatever it is. So I think that is um super valuable that you're providing that. um And so, you know, I am aware that DBT is kind of for high risk behaviors, and suicidal ideation, how You know, self-harm, but also kind of like some personality and challenges, disorders. I don't know if you want to call it that. um So who are you primarily focused on? I know it's mostly high risk, but and please let us and kind of expand from there if you want.
00:03:14
Speaker
Absolutely. So DBT in 1993 was developed for folks with borderline personality disorder and has since become the gold standard treatment for self-harm and suicidal ideation. However, it is also a very practical and skills-based treatment, which translates well to the teen population when they're looking for something that is, what are the coping skills? What can I do to not feel the way that I feel? how can I overcome this challenge? And so we have found in the 12 plus years of doing intensive DBT at my center that any teenager who's experiencing their emotions as big behaviors, right? So they have these big overwhelming emotions inside, which because of that, the way that they're regulating or coping is with some kind of bigger self-destructive behavior. DBT is a really perfect treatment for them. So it could be self-harm or suicidal ideation. It could also be
00:04:05
Speaker
binging. It could also be running away. It could also be
Gaining Teen Commitment to Therapy
00:04:08
Speaker
school avoidance. So a lot of these, I call them like self-destructive behaviors or things, really big behaviors that get in the way of a quality life worth living. That's what DBT treats well.
00:04:19
Speaker
Hmm. I'm curious, how do you get the buy-in for teens when a parent ah brings their teenager to your center? and i imagine um they might not be either, either A, not thrilled to be there or B, um they know they need help, but um having, you know, challenges opening up. So how do you address that? Yeah. kind of like at least two separate challenges within that question and that I can speak to, if not more. But I would say one are a lot of the teens that we work with have been in and out of the hospital. They've seen six to 10 other therapists like this is not their first rodeo at mental health. and They really want to do something differently. So that investment and being willing to open up and engage in treatment is there because they're like,
00:05:06
Speaker
This is kind of my last stop on the road. Like, I'm going to give it what I'm going to give it because I really do want this to change. And i would say the other part of that is like, how do we get teens to commit to trying new things and not engaging in the behaviors that are self-destructive or harmful for them So that's a different part of that motivational process, because what we really need to understand first is that any self-destructive behavior, any behavior is the solution to an underlying emotional problem. That's the way we look at it. And so if I have a teenager who's coming in and let's say they are self-harming or let's say they are thinking about, you know, suicide or or some other
00:05:42
Speaker
Bigger scary thought for them. My starting point is always things must be really hard for you if this is your brain solution. and If this is what your brain is up with, then things must be really painful under the surface. So before we even get to that, let's look at how we're going to change this. I want to understand so clearly, like I'm walking a mile in their shoes that I can be able to say to them, oh I get it. I get why this is coming up for you because this is so hard hard for you.
Parental Roles: The River Metaphor
00:06:05
Speaker
So that's how we get the buy-in because we're understanding why it's happening, not just trying to change it off the bat.
00:06:11
Speaker
Right, right. Oh, my gosh, that's awesome. i I see that that's where the gap is with the parents is kind of where I'm going with this, where they see the behavior, they're freaking out about the behavior. Yes, the behavior is very dangerous, very risky, very unhealthy, all these things. And it sets up all these kind of like alarm bells and kind of, let's say,
00:06:29
Speaker
quote unquote, freaking out if the parents and I, and this is my opinion, and and I wonder kind of what your thoughts are that the parents really struggle to put themselves in their child's shoes or really struggle, or maybe they try, but the teen doesn't feel understood, doesn't feel heard, doesn't feel um seen in in a certain way. What do you think? Yeah, well, I think like, of course, of course, they don't want their child to hurt themselves, even if they can conceptually understand it. Of course. And I know you know that, too. But that's always my my empathy as a starting point for parents. So the way I look at it and the way that I describe it when I'm working with families is
00:07:06
Speaker
We use something called the river metaphor, and I think it really crystallizes what a parent's role is, but also how a parent's emotions might get in the way. So we're all standing on one side of the river, therapist, teen, caregivers, looking at the other side of the river. And so my job as a therapist is to help the teen build the stepping stones, which are the tools, the interventions, the skills that they're going to need to cross the river.
00:07:29
Speaker
It's the teenager's job to be willing, even in the little tiny steps to cross that river. But it is the caregiver's job to tolerate how they cross the river so that we have some parents who might say, like, watch out, that water's cold. Don't fall in. Our anxious parents who micromanage, right? We might have some parents who say, walk faster across the river. I cannot tolerate you being in the middle of this river. Hurry up and get to the other side.
00:07:54
Speaker
Our parents push for progress faster. could keep going. Another example is like the parent that says, you know I've already crossed this river. Get on my back. I'll bring you across. Enabling accommodating parents. So we use this metaphor with parents and teens present to illustrate for caregivers, know, you actually have some work to do, too. Of course, you're anxious, sad, scared, whatever feelings you have about your teen who is hurting or hurting themselves. And it is still your job to learn to manage your emotions and get your own support.
00:08:24
Speaker
Because if you keep tossing that to your teen while they're crossing the river, they are going to fall in or they're going give up or something else.
Supporting Teen Challenges as Parents
00:08:30
Speaker
So we want to make sure you're getting what you need to. Yeah. So what would you say? Because and as you're describing those things, I was imagining, you know, all the parenting styles where one isn't even looking, at one parent's not even looking at the river. They've got their back turned the river because they're busy doing something else. Then we've got, you know, like we could just keep going on. I love that metaphor. So um what is the ideal, you know, according to research, in your opinion, um way that the parent is acting on their side of the river? What are they doing ideally?
00:08:59
Speaker
It's a little bit of what does the teen need? And it's going to be different depending on the teen. So some teens might need confidant. I need to talk to you about how hard it is to cross the river. Some teens might need a cheerleader, just someone to give them some words of encouragement as they're crossing.
00:09:16
Speaker
Some teens might need them to just say, like, stop watching me cross this river. Go do your own thing. i want to do this. So, yeah, that's a good one. Yeah. you Like meeting the need of the teen that you have is going to be most effective. the The function underlying it is I can't look to you, teenager, to do something differently so that I don't feel my feelings. I have to be responsible for my own feelings. So that's where we want to just make sure that that's not being um that we're not, you know, putting it on the team to do something differently. So the parent isn't feeling anxious, upset, overwhelmed. The parent has to seek their own support.
00:09:49
Speaker
Right, right. And it reminds me of, I almost feel like this starts um when they're toddlers going on a big play skate, you know, climbing gym, whatever, for the first time. You know, there's the moms who are like, ah, they're, you know, don't fall and don't go too high and all these things. And, you know, we could go on and on. But like, that's kind of like...
00:10:07
Speaker
that's where I feel like I first remember feeling that feeling of like, okay, they got to learn somehow, like, or I'm not going to neglect them, but I'm also not going to, you know, hover too much, like kind of finding that I think I call it like scaffolding, where you're like, yeah providing the support that they need, but not overdoing it, not underdoing it, just kind of meeting them where they are, which is exactly kind of what you're saying. So um thank you for kind
Parental Grieving and Acceptance
00:10:29
Speaker
of elaborating that, because I think that's helpful for parents. um I know I'm a visual person. So I love to, to think of it that way. um So let's talk about When a child is um experiencing, you know, some of the things that you talked about, like the self-harm, they do come in they start learning the skills, right?
00:10:48
Speaker
How do, and you're working with the parents, how do you help those parents really, I want to say like almost come to acceptance or come to terms with this is where they're at? Because like back up for one second and, you know, they're seeing their friends' kids doing all these great things. And then they start to get into the comparison of like, why is my kid this way? So how do you like help parents accept acceptance?
00:11:13
Speaker
where they're at and accept their teenager. Yeah. So it is such a process. And so what I'll say is like the different phases of supporting parents include helping them understand their own experience, helping them to regulate their own emotions and know how to express them and cope with them. And then from there, we are helping parents with the acceptance piece. So I want to dig into what this looks like, because what I hear again and again is like,
00:11:36
Speaker
You know, it's hard to this is not an easy conversation to have with a friend. I can't go out to coffee and hear Johnny got accepted to college and my kids barely leaving the house and making it to school. It's a very lonely and isolating place. And within that, we start to uncover these layers to really acknowledge that parenting in of itself, but also parenting a child with mental health concerns is a grieving process.
00:11:59
Speaker
And so we think about like when you held your child in your arms when they were younger, you didn't look at them and think, oh, my child's going to harm themselves when they get older. My kid is going to have thoughts that they want to die when they're a teenager. It was just never part of the parenting plan. And so as you're at this point, if you're at this point, and this is what you as a parent are experiencing, there's suffering that comes with that. Suffering because you wish it wasn't this way, because you want your child to not be suffering. You want your child to have that typical developmental experience, but also you imagined having a typical parenting experience. And so in order to come accept to come to acceptance, what we need to do first is grieve. We need to grieve that this is not the life that you imagined.
00:12:42
Speaker
And that is sad and that is hard. And it comes with loss. And we need to hold space for that loss. And then from there, and this is not an easy one, too. It can take some time. But like from there we come to, but this is the life that I have. So how do I accept the life that I have and make meaning and fulfillment and create connection with my child that I do have rather than continuing to wish it was different or that they were different?
Finding Meaning in Teen Challenges
00:13:07
Speaker
Yeah. And then to kind of take it even a step further, if they could get through all those steps that you said, um maybe even find the gift in it or find the beauty or find something. Because when parents are in that state, it's hard to see that. Right. It's hard to imagine that. Like, how could there possibly be like what good could come out of this? and And currently I'm actually. working with a family where it's twins. And so I'm not going to go into their specific situation, but like, let's just say one twin's doing really well and the other one's not. And so it's kind of like a challenge for the whole field family. And, you know, I have seen the parents kind of process through the grieving. And and when I did ask, you know, what could be the gift in this?
00:13:45
Speaker
They did find something. They did find the beauty in um having the one twin be at home longer. You know, kind of we talked about they could spend more time together, get to know them deeper, kind of have life without, right? Like the one twin moves on and the other twins home. And it's like they've never had just that one-on-one time together. And so...
00:14:06
Speaker
I hate to say that when to a parent who might be in this moment where they're not ready to hear that, right? Because like, how annoying is that? Like, I know when I've had
Supporting Teens Through Parental Struggles
00:14:14
Speaker
some considerable grief and loss in my life, when people are like, oh, yeah, it's going be better. It's going fine. Don't worry. You'll be happy and eventually. It's like, you do not want to hear that when when that's happening. I really find it's valuable that for people to just kind of validate where you're at, exactly um which I think kind of goes across the board to whether it's the parent who validates. Validating the parents, validating the teen, just like not trying to change or control or kind of cheer them up. Like people don't want to be cheered.
00:14:41
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, what you're speaking to is the validation piece. And when I think about parents, especially, i mean, in the context of twins, but also in like siblings, I think about a lot of the parents that that I will work with will have this experience almost like the grieving is this work with all my other kids, but it's not working with this kid. Yeah. I'm the right. It's almost like a shame response. I'm the wrong parent for this kid because how I operate as a parent isn't working for this kid. And so we have to go through this process of understanding. I call it like you're parenting rose in a garden of tulips. You and all your family are tulips and this child is a rose. And this might be a difference in their biological sensitivity, a difference in how they process emotions, a different need for a different communication style. So it's not that you're the wrong parent or a bad parent. It's that you have to learn a new language for this kid. What if your kid came out speaking French and you only knew English? You would get Duolingo and you would learn how to speak like French. So it's the same thing. It's a different emotional language.
00:15:40
Speaker
Yes, yes. 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 hard things, how to regulate without reaching for her phone first, how to build a real community when she gets there. 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 um I've read the book. So for the audience, why don't you share a little bit about your book and and why should people buy it?
00:16:40
Speaker
Yeah, so my starting point is always that my dad told me there was no book to parent kids like me. And so I decided that I was going to write one. It is the story of me as a teenager who did self-harm and how I overcame that infused with my professional experience of over 12 years working with teens with self-harm and high-risk behaviors. And it's almost like what I wish my dad did differently. So the practical skills that parents can use to shift the way that things that things play out at home to shorten the struggle for others so that they don't have to go through what I went through to get to where they want to be. And so why should parents buy this book? Well, if you're struggling, if you have a teen with big behaviors, If you're struggling to understand them, if you're having reactions that are not helpful and you want a stronger relationship with your teen, those are all the practical skills that are inside the book. And one of the things I i find myself saying often is like, if you want your child to continue to sustain a relationship with you after they leave the house, the time is now to build that relationship while they are in your house.
00:17:46
Speaker
Yes, that's so valuable. Wow. um So i'm I'm playing kind of devil's advocate here. Like, what do you do when there is a parent that is just struggling to change, struggling to adapt? Like they're just stuck. What do you do with them?
00:18:04
Speaker
For the team or for the parent? Yeah. um Kind of both. Like, I mean, in their relationship with their teenager. I think ah everything for me has at least two parts. I have to give you my complex answers. So I love it. I love it. For the teen, what we're generally working on in therapy, if parent is struggling with the change process, and it doesn't mean that they won't change, but they're struggling right now with change. We are working on acceptance with the teen. It's the flip side of that grieving process of right now, your parent can't meet your needs the way that you would like them to or the way that you would need them to. And that's sad.
00:18:36
Speaker
And there's laws that comes with that. And how do we help you build a chosen family or a natural supports outside of your parents that can meet those needs for you? How do we help you self-validate so that you're not looking to them for what they can't give you right
Cultural and Value-Based Differences
00:18:49
Speaker
now? And so we're helping them to accept what is so that they can stop self-destruction and start coping and start living a life that makes sense for them. And then for parents, a lot of times I find that it's a defense. It's like if we work towards something being different, then I have to feel hope and I've hoped before and it hasn't worked and I've been crushed.
00:19:09
Speaker
Or if I really start to look at this, I have to feel how big and scary it is that my teen is at risk of dying if they act on one of these behaviors. Or i struggle with this age because when I was a teenager, I had a really rough relationship with my parents. So I'm unconsciously replaying some of those same patterns. So with everything for me, it's looking at what what's driving the behavior and how do we help process and shift the function so or meet the function by shifting the the response. So I think there's like, there's not one answer, but my my overarching answer is let's find out what's going on and why the parent is is putting up walls so that we can figure out how to support that parent.
00:19:52
Speaker
Yes, yes. um Kind of where I was going with that a little bit also was, um what about like when cultural values or um something that's important in their life could be religion.
00:20:07
Speaker
um There's probably multiple categories I'm just not thinking of right now that is just so ingrained in the parent. that That's kind of where I was thinking of the stuckness coming from. Yeah, I think that's a tricky situation. so anything that's like a cultural or a value or religion or even a lot of times in my population, it's like they have ah a trans or LGBTQ identity and parents are not affirming of it. So those are all places that become a little stickier. Or again, we are making sure that the teen has the the support that they need, other trusting adults in their life.
00:20:38
Speaker
And I think what I would want is to find a ah middle ground place with the parents to say, like, you absolutely can live in and uphold your values and, um you know, all of these other things that are important to who you are and your identity.
00:20:52
Speaker
And can we create some space for an adolescent whose developmentally typical task is figuring out who they are? and And if we can maintain safety and maintain a relationship, let them figure things out and and have the safe landing to come back to you rather than and rupturing that so they don't come back to you.
Emotional Regulation and Nervous System
00:21:13
Speaker
Yes. Okay. I'm glad you said that. That's it that's a great ah response. There's one thing I do want to go back to that you mentioned several times and throughout the conversation. And it's something I talk about quite a bit, but I would love to hear you talk about emotional regulation and just nervous system, because that's me just like a word. that we use a lot and when we don't always like explain it. So could you talk about that a little bit? Yeah, so I can talk about it through the lens of the population that I work with. And in my book, you'll hear me talk about it as fire feelers. So the way that I see it when we have someone who's biologically sensitive. And what I mean by that is the way i explain it to parents is like some kids are born naturally good at art. Some kids are born naturally good at sports and some kids are born naturally good at emotions, which means they are more attuned to the emotional experience of themselves or of others.
00:22:01
Speaker
They feel things more deeply. They're more reactive. It takes them a longer time just to calm down once they are triggered or activated. So when we have an individual with that biological sensitivity, they often experience emotions as if they are on fire with that emotion. So they're big and they're overwhelming and it's burning them up and inside. And this is the nervous system state of maybe they're in fight, maybe they're in flight, whatever. They're they're flooded with their emotion. They're on fire with their emotion.
00:22:29
Speaker
So when we think about it that way, it helps us to understand how their brain might come up with a solution to make that fire go out or make that fire a little less hot. Now, when we think about this predisposition to biological sensitivity, what we see is that these are individuals who are triggered. So their emotions shoot up quickly. So they're at this high place. And then because their emotions are so activated, it takes them a very long time to
Achieving Emotional Baseline Regulation
00:22:57
Speaker
calm down. But because they're easily triggered before they get back down to that place of centered baseline, they're triggered again. So their nervous system is in a constantly activated state and they're never regulated. And that's why you're seeing them. It almost feels like that's not a big deal. Why are why are you getting so upset about this? It's because there's this accumulation of nervous system stress that that is ongoing that has never actually zeroed out.
00:23:21
Speaker
Wow. I have never heard it explained that way. And I do spend a lot of time in the space. So um I just that's like kind of a cool way to think of it. And um and so what do you I mean, I know we're we're working on the skills we're working on on that. But I guess my question is, is there a way to really get them back to baseline?
00:23:42
Speaker
It depends on the individual. And so in terms of what we're doing, we are helping them with distress tolerance, which is the idea of let's not act on a big emotion or urge and make the situation worse because then that will have consequences, even if in the short term.
00:23:57
Speaker
running out of your math class might help you feel better. We know in the end you're going to get in trouble. It's going to make it harder. So we try and help them tolerate those high levels of distress with skills. In addition to that, we're helping them to manage their everyday lives. So if you're um physically sick, stay home. We also look at If you have a chronic illness, if you have sensory overstimulation, some of these other like body-based bottom-up processing ways of experiencing life, we need to create accommodations for that to make sure that life makes sense for you and you're in a life that makes sense for you. An example of that might be a kid who's consistently bombarded with senses might not do well in a really large public school setting because
00:24:39
Speaker
lights, the people, the sounds might already be too much. And then on top of that, emotions could could be spilling over. We want to make sure that you're eating, getting exercise, all of the regular things that we do. Yeah. Sleeping enough to make sure that we're we're healthy, taking medication as prescribed.
00:24:55
Speaker
So it it is really kind of like a learning process. and And it's making sure that we're taking care of ourselves physically, making sure that we are building positive relationships and managing the big emotions when they show up. I know that's like a ton of things, but it is a ton of things. It's not like an easy answer.
00:25:11
Speaker
Yeah, I got you. I got you. And I'm glad you said the basics because that's something I work on a lot with my clients. Just I call them modifiable lifestyle factors because they use that term in the sense of health, but it's really um it's emotional regulation. So i I can't tell you how many times I've had clients who are really starting to spiral.
00:25:29
Speaker
and I'm like, how's your sleep? And they're like, oh, I haven't really slept much. I'm like, OK, let's start there. Yeah. You know, um like that is nature's nature's way of um ah regulating your emotions is like you have to get your sleep. So you're you know how to your your nervous system, you know, can be more balanced and really getting that parasympathetic nervous system kind of more online instead of having the sympathetic part being all like, you know, like you call it fire and freaking out and all that stuff.
Modeling Emotional Regulation at Home
00:25:55
Speaker
Is there anything that I have missed in this conversation?
00:25:59
Speaker
I think we touched on it, but I will just drive it home that my stance is typically parents go first. If you want your child to manage their emotions, if you want your child to make good choices, then it has to start with you and your willingness to learn skills, model emotion regulation, make better choices, communicate in a way that's healthy and helpful. full And so just by you doing that, there's so much research about unilateral change that changes can happen at home, even if your teen isn't ready or willing to be in therapy.
00:26:31
Speaker
Right, right. Yes, I'm so glad you said that. So how can people find you? The best place to find me is katiekmay.com.
Resource Hub and Conclusion
00:26:38
Speaker
You'll find links to my counseling center, to my books, to my training site for other therapists. So lots of resources, depending on who you are and what you need, all at katiekmay.com.
00:26:46
Speaker
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time, Katie. I appreciate it Thanks for having me.
00:26:53
Speaker
I just finished my conversation with Katie May, and I found our conversation very valuable. I loved her analogy about the river. You're going to have to listen to hear about that. But um her approach is dialectic behavior therapy, which um is so important for kids with big emotions. She calls them fire feelers. When um kids have really, really big feelings, and a lot of times they do act out in unhealthy coping manners as far as kind of self-harm, suicidal ideation. So that is how people end up coming to her centers and asking for help. um She also focuses on the parenting aspect, which, as we know, um if you listen to my show, you know how important that is for me, that, you know, the family system, that we're all kind of like years working together. And sometimes if your teenager isn't open to change or isn't open open to support, that just the parents making changes by them getting coaching or therapy, um parents can start to make change and then that will trickle to the teenagers as well.
00:27:55
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.
00:28:06
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.