Reading The Signs: Is My Child Well? Part 2

Ever wish there were a clearer line between typical teen chaos and true cause for concern? We dive into the messy middle with a brain-based roadmap parents can actually use, breaking down how impulse control, temperament, and empathy shape risk long before a crisis knocks on the door. 


Online and offline risks collide in today’s world, so we take a hard look at obsessive content, self-harm communities, and extremist echo chambers that prey on isolation. 

You don’t need to be perfect to raise a resilient kid.  Subscribe, leave a review, and tell us: what sign do you watch for first?

Transcript

Setting The Stage: What “Well” Means

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Legit Parenting, where we ditch the social media perfect parent advice and talk about what really happens and matters in the trenches of parenthood and family life. I'm Craig Nippenberg, father of four, grandfather of two, best-selling author, keynote speaker, and family therapist with over 40 years of experience helping parents understand how their kids' brains work. Through my books, private practice, and consulting work, I've developed practical strategies that help real parents navigate the tough stuff and build resilient kids. With me is Sidney Moreau, producer and your tell it-like is mom friend, who's living proof that Hot Mess Mom isn't a stereotype. It's a survival strategy and proof that it's okay. No judgment, no pretending, just real talk from a mom who gets it. Whether you're struggling with school drop-offs, navigating social media drama, trying to hold your marriage together, dealing with a divorce, or raising a kid who doesn't fit the bowl, you're in the right place. This is Legit Parenting, where we keep it real and remind you, just relax. You only need to be this side of good enough. Welcome to Legit Parenting. I'm your host, Craig Nippenberg, along with our producer Sidney Moreau. Today we're going on our second episode of a series, basically titled, How is My Child? And that question we addressed in the first episode, and it would make sense to listen to that one first before this one. And today we'll be talking about the second question is for parents, is how do I know my child is well? Or something wrong is about to happen or something's going on with them. So we're going to address that. Now, before I do, I have a big shout out and thank you to the country of Australia. They banned social media for under-16-year-olds. Yesterday, it was two days ago their time, I think. I get really confused with their date, their the dateline or whatever that goes through there. But they passed a nationwide ban on under 16 using social media, including Facebook, Instagram, Kik, Reddit, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok, Twitch, X, and YouTube. Thank you, Australia. And what the article points out, the age cutoff of 16 is roughly in line with Australian teenagers when they can drive and apply to join the military. They can legally drink when they're turned 18, and I believe their gun laws are 21. They have some of the s strictest gun laws in the world after they had a mass shooting years ago, and they did something about it. And now they're doing something about this, and it makes sense. We, by law, you have to put your child in a car seat to protect them. We have all sorts of laws to protect children. We don't allow under 16-year-olds to drive. Their brains aren't ready for it. We don't let them drink until they're 21. Australia's 18. But that's a standard child protection strategy as have laws to protect our children. And I couldn't agree with it more. What's really interesting about this, they're not going to hold parents accountable. I believe they do that in some Asian countries, have bans on it too. This, they hold the companies accountable with fines. So if they allow someone, and the kids have to get on it, you have to do a verification with an ID or what are those face scan things now where they scan your face and it tells you who you are. So that's the companies have to, they're required to have that. And any company that violates that then gets fined. I think it's$50 a day and it goes up and up and up. And so far, the companies are compliant. According to the article, several are already deactivating accounts and making it happen. So congratulations to Australia leading the charge to protect our children. Couldn't be more happy about that. Okay, for our question. Oh, and by the way, for our listeners, our family is going to Australia for the holidays. We'll have summer again. I'm really looking forward to that. So the question: how do I know my child is well? That is the million-dollar question. And to be honest, there are many times you won't know and you don't know and you won't. Maybe 40 years from now, they'll tell you about something. That's pretty standard. So I'm going to run through a list of signs to look for. But first, I want to emphasize these are just general signs. Some of these you're going to see in all teenagers, middle schoolers, once puberty hits, because that's what their brains are going through. We talked about that on the first episode. So you don't want to freak out if you see some of these signs. It's more if these signs are ongoing and you keep seeing it and progressing over time. So you don't want to freak out on some incident that your kid does that was stupid or below their moral standard, because that's part of that age of life. And kids, all humans, have what are called transitory thoughts that pop in our head, and that you're even horrified by yourself that you had the thought. That's normal. We have all sorts of thoughts in our head. We learn to control those. We don't act on them, they're just transitory. Who knows what they got triggered by? Um, that's just part of being human. Now I will share with you that in high school, I share this with an audience. Back in high school, I had an affection for another student in the choir class. And one day in choir, and I was way out of her league, there was no chance of that ever happening, but I had this thought, I'm wondering if there was a fire. And I went back in to rescue her and I saved her, right? Out of traditional myths and the Hallmark channel things, I was the hero and we fell in love. It was a transitory thought. Now, if I had kept thinking that day after day, and then started thinking about, I wonder how I could set off the fire alarm. Or I wonder if I could start a fire in someone's locker to make it happen, that's a problem. That becomes a real issue. And in mental health, when we have a student who's struggling with some suicide thoughts, there's something called ideation. They have a thought about or an idea about dying by suicide. But the next thing we look for is is that a transitory thought? How long has it been there? Is it still, is it getting worse? Is it growing? And have you started thinking of a plan? Have you thought about how you would do it? Have you actually purchased things on that would allow you to do and carry out your plan? And as you go up those steps, that's how you gauge the severity of it. So it is not uncommon at all for little children to do the thing of, I'm going to hold my breath till I die because they didn't get a candy bar. Or teenagers will say, Why did you ever have me if you were going to treat me like this? as they storm off, thinking, I should have never been born. That's a classic. Teenagers at times will have thoughts about self-harm, but they're often just transitory parts, an expression of the angst they're going through. So again, this is about things that last, that aren't going away too quick. Now, your first starting line, and I touched on this a little bit last time, is really understanding your family tree. What's your family history? What are your genetics? The old saying is the apple didn't fall far from the tree. Or there's another phrase I learned in Roanoke, Virginia, doing a summer internship there. And one of the therapists said, they didn't get it from licking the grass. But then I said, with Roundup, maybe they did get it from looking in the grass, given all the concerns about Roundup. But if the simplest way to think about this would be if, and it I covered in Wire and Connect in my first book, like three key brain areas that determine our social brain, basically, our social functioning. First of all, is impulse control. How's your child's impulse control? I've mentioned it before on the podcast, the marshmallow test, the famous Stanford marshmallow test, and it basically tested little preschoolers about who could resist a marshmallow for 10 minutes in order to get four more. And what they found was a third of the kids ate that marshmallow before the clock even started. They saw it, they picked it up, and they ate it. Then once the ones who didn't, the psychologist should explain that if they could wait for 10 minutes, they could get four more, and then they left the room. And the third of the kids, the second group, on time, and they're the funniest to watch the old videos from the 50s, oh, films, I should say, not videos. On average, they waited seven minutes, but they ate it. And they're funny because they're poking it, they're touching it, they're licking it. One kid takes the chunk off, eats it, and then tries to reshape it into a marshmallow again. But they were obsessed with that marshmallow. And then a third of kids just sat there patiently and waited and got their extra marshmallows. They had great impulse control. And the key to them, they found, is that they distracted themselves. They didn't focus on the marshmallow. They thought about, looked out the windows, looked at the pictures, thought about their playdates after the test, whatever. They were able to get their focus off the marshmallow, and that is the key. Now, what they found for those groups over time, they're all my age now. Um, the kids who ate the marshmallow right away struggled much more in life. They had higher rates of incarceration, drug and alcohol problems, arrest, not much in academics, poor jobs, didn't save for retirement, had at my age had far less healthier lifestyles, obesity, diabetes, all sorts of issues. The second group did better in education, fewer drug and alcohol problems, fewer arrests, pretty good jobs, and a little bit better off at my age now. The third group outshined them all. They had better college education, better careers, far lower rates of substance abuse, incarceration, and at older age had money for retirement and were living healthier, fitter lives. So that's a key area. And the general rule of thumb: the less impulse control your child has, the more structure they need. So if you have an impulsive child, they are at higher risk. We know for kids with ADHD who drive, when they're off their medications, they have four times the accidental death rate of teen drivers who don't have ADHD. So they are prone to accidents due to their lack of focus and impulse control. Second area is your emotional system, your emotional system called the limbic system. Um, and it's your child's temperament. And I've explained it before, but just quickly, some of you have children who are whinnie the poo. When things happen, when stress happens in life, they just shake it off, brush themselves off, and say, Oh, bother, but there might be honey in a tree. And they're back to happy again and they roll through life, the ups and downs of life. Some of you have piglets, they get anxious when they're stressed, when life happens, and they can't overcome their anxiety and often have to back away from trying new things or getting up on stage or they freeze because of the anxiety. Some of you have rabbits. Rabbits are the ones who get angry quick and they get pissed when stress happens, and they often react that way. I had one when I was explaining this to fourth graders many years ago. This one boy said, I'm pretty much wounding the poo until I'm playing sports at recess, that I'm a rabbit. And his fellow classmates all nodded. Yeah, he gets all upset and argues and is ready to fight over anything. Uh, and some of you have eeors, and the eeyores get sad and they get depressed, they get melancholic, and they struggle with getting through the ups and downs of life. So if your child has one of those temperaments, the eeyores, the piglets, the rabbits, they are going to be at higher risk for struggles later in life. And the third area is your nonverbal system, which is where we read social cues from others and integrate social cues from others into our thoughts and our feelings, and we perceive others' feelings, we perceive their thoughts, and it's the seat of empathy where we can have empathy for others and act on it and include others and reach out to those in need. And some of you have kids who have amazing nonverbal systems, and on average, females are in the 80th percentile, us males are about the 50th percentile for how well we do it, and it has to do with genetics and estrogen in the brain. But some of you have those social butterflies, and they're always looking to connect others and make the whole group feel good, invite the whole class, and helps everybody get along in peace and harmony. You might have a child who doesn't have the best nonverbal system, and they struggle more with understanding others' people's feelings and thoughts, and have an emotional reaction to it themselves, and don't act on it because they're not really aware of it. So they're gonna struggle more socially, and then often because of that are higher risk, because those are kids who are usually the targets of the bullies who want to pick on the kid who's odd. You gotta understand those three areas and you work on those. And in the book, I suggest you make it learning opportunities for the family. Because if I meet a child who's a piglet, I always ask them, which parent did you get it from? And they always know. They know which parent has anxiety, then it's just like them. Uh, or if they've got the rabbit, I've had numerous ones say, my my dad's a rabbit, or my mom's really a rabbit. She reacts, she gets mad fast. Um, so then as a family you work in, I had one family years ago, they told me the idea. They had a family worry jar for the mother and the daughter because they were both piglets and they had a little worry jar. And anytime they were managed their worries, they would put a fuzzy ball in the jar, and when it filled, then they did a special activity together. So you want to make those things a family adventure. So, on one side, in terms of knowing if your child's what, you do have to understand family history and genetics. The second is if your child's had early life experiences or traumas. There's a scale in mental health called ACES, which is adverse childhood, what is it? Oh my God. Adverse childhood experiences. ACES, that's what it stands for. And those are experiences that are really difficult on kids. Obviously being abused, being neglected, malnourished, don't have the basics they need, they're going to be at higher risk. They are less resilient because of that. Then you have things like divorce, deaths in a family of loved ones, all sorts of things. Fire in the house, you name it. Those experiences put children in higher risk of anxiety and depression because of those experiences. And it has to do with how the brain wires on repetition. So if you experience a bout of severe anxiety or a bout of depression, your brain is 70% more likely to have another one. If you have a second one, it's 70% more likely to have another one. So it's exponential. So the brain runs, it develops pathways. And when your brain makes a pathway, it often wants to go back to that pathway. It's got it already. So they don't have to design a new pathway, it can just go down that same one. So when you've had a major pathway for depression or anxiety, then the brain finds an easier way to go down it and it keeps following that pathway. Think of it as a path through grass in the summertime, and you people cut the corners on the sidewalks through someone's lawn, and a month into summer they've got a brown track through their lawn and they're quite upset because people keep cutting through their lawns. But that's the part of the brain in with its patterns and the way that follows, and it puts children at higher risk. Also, if your child was adopted or had attachment issues, those are the really big piece to children who are going to struggle as teens and young adults and are much at higher risk for having mental health problems. So look for those two things. If your child's had some of those ACES experiences, therapy is highly warranted to reconnect different make different pathways in the brain. I've been helping with a young man who's had massive panic around math, and the kid is off the charts gifted. He just passed some big certification test and I can't remember, some computer thing or whatever. The kid Ace did the highest score ever. But he was been failing math his whole life and had really horrible trauma experiences with math when he was a child and a middle schooler, and just instantly freezes up, can't get the homework done, freezes up on tests. And I've been working with him, he's a junior now, last couple of years on coping strategies, relaxation strategies within math. And he told me the other day, he says, I'm doing great in school and I have a C in math for the first time ever. He had to go to summer school last year. And I'm like, way to go, I'm so proud of you. I said, now we're gonna take it one more step. So next time you're taking your math finals this week, I said, when you're in that final, when you get anxious, I want to think to yourself. I want you to say to yourself, I'm in a safe place, and math is my friend. I can do it. And he loved it. So I can't wait next week to find out how he did on his final. So kids with those experiences are going to need expert assistance. Um okay, next, signs that your child may be struggling. So again, mood changes for teenagers at puberty are just up and down. And if I was to draw a graph, I'm doing it with my finger, but this is audio. But my finger's going up like a wave, down like a wave, up like a wave, down like a wave. Pretty frequent on and off. That's the standard teenager. One minute they're happy and excited about something, the next minute they're all pissed off and upset. And then another friend calls and they're happy again, and it's just up and down. And they can say something horrible to you as the parent one minute. And two hours later, oh hi, mom, can we go shopping? And you're like, What? You just said I was this. No, I'm not going shopping with you. And they're like, what's wrong with you, mom? Couldn't you get over it? They're just up and down. So what you're looking for is prolonged mood and behavior changes. So it's ups that stay up a really long time. That would be like a manic episode, or downs that last, and they're down or their anxiety just will not go away, and it continues to get worse. So it's really prolonged mood and behavior change. So, in terms of that playing out, loss of traditional interest. Now, kids go through phases with what they like. So you might have a child who you took them to soccer since preschool, and they were on the club team in fifth grade, and in sixth grade they say, I don't want to play soccer anymore. I want to do this. And you're like, but but you're great. Like, we've been doing this all these years. I don't, I'm I don't like it anymore. I want to move on to something else. That is standard, is changing your interest, which is not bad at all. That's a great thing. Kids need to try different things and see which one they really like and want to stick with. Find out where their passion is. And it may not be the one they were doing. It might be subtly totally different. But the key is they find other interest to get engaged with. It's when they give up all their interest, but don't add any new ones that puts them at a greater risk. That's more of a sign that they're struggling. Also, a drop in grades. Now, again, that's not because they had a Spanish teacher they couldn't stand and got a poor grade in Spanish, their first D ever. Bummer, but that's not life-threatening. It's when you see those grades plummet and they stay down there and they're not moving. And grades, as much as we I think we put way too much emphasis on grades, um those were one of our sticks. That's how we measure how well a child's doing. Excuse me. And withdrawal. So more and more withdrawing from others, withdrawing from their social groups, and they're be they're getting socially isolated. Now, again, children change friendships. My son had a best friend through fourth grade, and all of a sudden they weren't friends anymore. And I was friends with his parents, and it was like heartbreaking. It was like a second son for me, but they went their separate ways. And so kids will do that. They'll be friends since preschool, and all of a sudden, they're off to a different group. Again, it's when they sort of Socially isolate and switch friends, but they don't pick up new ones. They stay isolated and their only friend is their phone. Or now we'd have to say an AI friend, which more and more news is coming out about how toxic those are and have actually promoted mental illness in kids. So that's when you need to start worrying. Other things would be prolonged sleep problems. Now, again, in the old days, before cell phones, if they had a sleep problem, you knew about it, you knew they had a sleep problem. Now we know that 75% of teens check their phones between midnight and 5 a.m. Really not recommended for sleep. So don't let them have any device in the bedroom when they're sleeping. That is just stupid. But if they are having trouble falling asleep, they can't stay asleep. That would be an indicator they're struggling. Also, changes in diet, either massively losing weight and appears to be deliberately taking it off, or gaining weight, either one. Now keep in mind, those of you who have middle schoolers, they craved candy. Sweets. They love their candy. I did two. My favorite, and Sydney, I'll ask you what your favorite was. Mine, of all things, was Luden's cough drops, cherry cough drops. I love those things. I think it was Ludman's something. And I'd go to this five and dime store and I'd get those things. I and I have no idea why I got hooked on those, but I loved them. Sydney, did you have one that you've your favorite go-to candy?

Adverse Experiences And Brain Pathways

SPEAKER_00 23:32

I don't remember ever sweets so much, but like carbs. Like they used to have those little boxes of french fries to eat the microwave. Oh gosh. I love those things. Like fatty, high-rich foods like hot dogs. Yeah. I eat so many hot fritos.

SPEAKER_01 23:55

It's all instant carbs.

SPEAKER_00 23:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:57

And and for puberty kids, that's normal because their body's trying to put on weight for reproduction. So again, you don't want to freak out. That's their body going through changes. They need a lot of calories while they're going through puberty, and it's the whole system getting ready for procreation. That's what that's about. And then you see them lose some of that as they get a bit older. But in terms of eating disorders, that is not my specialty. I have a couple therapists that do that. But you do the classic, it's the child who eats, but then often they retreat to the restroom and you wonder, are they purging? Right? No. Because thanks to social media, anybody with eating disorder knows tons of ways to hide it from your parents. Because you can find that on social media. So it gets harder and harder to figure out. But going to the doctor for physicals, checking out the standard weight and height things would give you some indication.

SPEAKER_00 24:53

I just want to say, too, about eating disorders that I had a good friend that went through this with his daughter. And eating disorders are the number one deadliest mental health disorder.

SPEAKER_01 25:06

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 25:07

And also, like it absolutely rewires the neural pathways in the brain, so it's very difficult to treat. And when he was going through this, I mean his daughter was in and out of hospitals hundreds of times, but they all said the sooner if you have any suspicion of it, the sooner the treatment happens, the better because of that. Because of that.

SPEAKER_01 25:30

But it is those brain pathways get set up.

SPEAKER_00 25:33

Yeah.

What Lasting Mood Shifts Look Like

SPEAKER_01 25:34

And it's really a diffic difficult one to get rid of. And the tricky part, so I can remember in fifth grade, I was trying, I was in the loot league football, and they had a weigh-in day in August. And the way they did it was by age group. And then you had children who were under a certain weight, they were called the lights. And then you had children on the other side of that weight, and they were the heavies. And they had a weigh-in day to determine which league you'd go to because they didn't want to have really small kids with really big kids. I was right on the cut line between, and I thought, I'd rather be the biggest guy on the lights than the smallest on the heavies. And I purposely, for about two weeks, trimmed down on my, I went to one pork shop instead of two. And I got into the lights by one pound. So it was a very intentional part on myself to lose weight. If your child's a cross-country runner, figure skater, gymnast, they're obsessed with their weight. And they have to be. But it's once I got into the lights, I went back to two pork shops. I got up to the heavies, but I stayed on the lights. It's when they get into those training regimes and they've accomplished their goal for the season, but then keep getting further and further into it, and they can't stop. And you do see in some of the sports I mentioned a pretty high rate of eating disorders because weight is such an issue for what they're doing. Now, thankfully, because of modern training and understanding that having muscle in any sport is a good thing. You don't have to be a toothpick, you're probably better off being ripped and having muscle and some body fat. That's changing, and perceptions of that are changing compared to what they used to be. So those are the things you look at, starting points, other things. So those are some basic behavioral symptoms you're looking for. Another big one is children who are very rigid and inflexible in their thinking. My father used to say there's many ways to skin a cat, which is really gross. But there are. And I skin rabbits when we go hunting and eat them. And there's different ways to do it. Social relationships are very complex. There's always reasons that something happened that maybe you don't know about the other person, or you wonder maybe they were having a bad day, maybe this, maybe that. You want gray level thinking about the complexity of relationships rather than just being judgmental. Well, all those kids are jerks. And anytime I'd complain, there was one kid in my Sunday school I complained about quite frequently. I won't mention his name online, but my father would say, stop me and say, he always speaks very highly of you. And that would stop me in my tracks. And then I'm like, maybe he's not such a bad guy after all. But it's people that that are just black and white. You're either with me or against me. Or those kids are all different. They're those, they wear polo shirts. Those kids are bad. They're mean, they're bullies. It's that judgmental thinking and not really thinking of the gray areas of life. And also in terms of their problem solving. You know, the best problem solving comes in old-fashioned statements like when life gives you a lemon, make lemonade. Or sometimes in life you're the hammer, sometimes you're the nail. And as one young student told me one time, and he said, Yeah, and sometimes you're the thumb that gets hit by the hammer between the hammer and the nail. And I'm like, yep, that's true. And we know in social drama that one day your teen is just devastated, but all things work out in the wash, and tomorrow somebody else will be in the headlines tomorrow. The news changes fast. But it's the kids who are very judgmental, black and white, and really don't, they lack in self-awareness. So they often feel like they're the victims all the time. So they don't really take any responsibility for their part of the interaction. It's always the other person's fault. They did that. That's why I did this. I was justified in doing this because they did that. And they never really look at their own behavior and what they're doing.

SPEAKER_00 29:48

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: And I think it's even beyond that. It's they feel like people are doing it to them, and it's like a personal injury. They're hurting me. They're doing it on purpose.

SPEAKER_01 29:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:59

I notice I'm lucky I don't have one of those. My kids aren't like that, but my kids have had friends like that, and it makes having relationships with those people very difficult because you're always worried about how you're going to hurt them.

Loss Of Interests, Grades, And Isolation

Sleep, Eating Patterns, And Red Flags

SPEAKER_01 30:14

Trevor Burrus And they take it personally. Yeah, sometimes that does happen. And you might have one of your kids might be the victim of some really cruel bullying. And I'll talk about the cruel people at the end. And some of you might have a cruel child who is lacking in empathy. But most of the time it's not a black and white thing. Nobody's a victim. It's a tango, it takes two to dance. And when your child's always blaming others and never looking at themselves, that's not good. That could be a sign of problems later in life or just having good relationships. Because nobody really likes being on the other side of that. And it's letting things bounce off your back, off water off a duck's back, and giving people grace and your friends, and you realize even your best friend is going to share one of your secrets sometime because it's so hard to keep gossipy secrets. So if they do it once or twice, forgive them. It's just so tempting. It's very difficult. If they do it chronically, get a new friend. That's pretty simple. Then you don't want to trust that person. Or if you have the friend that's always borrowing money, asking you to Venmo, I guess now. Is that the app they use, the Venmo to buy stuff at the 7-Eleven, and they promise to Venmo you back, but they don't ever don't Venmo them money or don't pay for their stuff anymore. That's pretty simple. But you want to watch the rigid, inflexible thinking. Along with that is obsessive interest. In this case, I'll talk about extreme violence, but it could be related to eating disorders, it could be self-harm, cutting, but just obsessive interest. It could be obsessive interest in alcohol, drugs, that is just taking over their lives and gaming and social media. They're all obsessed with it. But it's when the kids really get into some of the more extreme violent self-harm content. So at Evergreen High School, a couple months ago now, the young man who took a gun to school and shot two others and died by suicide, he was into a site that showed real pictures, real videos of people dying. Real ones, not fake, but actually watching graphic videos of people dying or people being tortured. That's a problem. That's not a normal one. Or go getting on the sites that promote that, promote self-harm, promote harm to others. Again, black and white thinking other people are bad, those people are bad. We need to get rid of those people. And they feed on that. And if your child's feeding on that, and you need to look at their social media sites, you need to look at their computers. Sadly, it's really hard to track most of it. If your kid's on the dark web, you're gonna, unless you're a computer expert yourself, it's gonna be really hard to figure it out. But you try do your best to check into what they're doing. Always a good idea if you're worried to have computer use in public spaces, not in the bedroom. Uh, even though my daughter used to be able to close her computer, switch screens as fast as soon as she heard a foot. I think I caught her once and we're looking at TikTok. And but she was pretty good at switching screens really quick to make it look like she was doing homework. But you're looking for that. Also, extreme thinking about others that dehumanize others, minimize others, Nazi propaganda. Um, the influencer Nick Fuentes is beyond off the charts extremist and frightening. Now, I also want to explain there is normal middle school, high school humor, especially with males. It's called sophomoric humor, and sophomoric means the wise fool. And they think they're seeing all this stuff and they know everything. It the shows they like. South Park is an example of sophomoric humor. And sophomore, from an adult view watching it, there are some, it's quite clever, but it's often making fun of someone else. And what the br what they're doing at that age is they're trying to develop a sense of who they are. And the first phase of that, of figuring out who you want to be or who you want to be like, is to determine who you don't want to be like. So when you're watching South Park and they're making fun of somebody, or they're watching memes that make fun of others, they're like, yeah, I'm not that kind of idiot. I'm not that guy. I'm gonna be different than that. And it's funny to laugh at them because they're losers. For most of us, that phase goes away and it develops into who do I want to be? And they find role models, healthy role models and mentors that they want to be that person. And that's a great thing for your kid to have plenty of really positive coaches, mentors, teachers that are shaping them into the future and getting them out of this phase of just dehumanizing others. But if you find them, that's a chronic statement. And you may hear a middle school or high schooler make a comment about these kind of people or those kind of people, and you're horrified because you've taught them about diversity and acceptance of all of God's children, and there they are making jokes, or they're making body-shaming comments to a classmate, and you're horrified. That that is part of the development. It's a very unattractive part of development that hopefully gives way. But if your kid's not giving way and moving forward and they're stuck on, that is a concern. And finally, it's that nonverbal system I mentioned earlier, which allows us to have empathy. Now, for people in the autism spectrum, so that would be the low end of nonverbal processing, they don't understand that people communicate through nonverbal, so they don't notice it because they don't know people do that, and they just listen to the words. So that they get really they stumble with sarcasm or things being said but don't match up with the person's facial expression or the nonverbal that's going on. On the higher end, are the social butterflies who, when they see someone asks Sydney to make a sad look for me. And if I'm a social butterfly, thank you, Sydney. I'm a social butterfly, I'd recognize her in the cafeteria sitting by herself, and I would say to my brain would figure out, oh, if I was making those facial expressions, I'd feel left out. Therefore, she feels left out, and that would make her sad. And that makes me sad that she's sad. So I'm going to go sit with her. That is empathy at work. That's what you want. And that requires reading nonverbal. Now, unfortunately, those we'll put those people on the far right. So if you think of on the left side with people with autism that really don't understand it or read it well and don't have an emotional reaction to it because they don't even realize that's what's going on. On the right side with people that see it, notice it, and have an appropriate emotional response and act on it. That's called making your empathy a verb. Now, there is a small percentage in our population of people who are in the middle, we'll put them. They're quite gifted reading social cues. They can see that. And so Sydney's gonna make her face again. And I'm gonna think, oh, she's feeling left out. I could have some fun with her. And I go up to her and I say, Hey, uh do you want to sit with our group? And she nods, yes. And I say, just kidding, sit by yourself, loser, and I walk off. We call them con men in the world, people that manipulate others for money for their own benefit and do not care about how they take advantage of others. And they're good at reading it and they use it to break trust. So that system is how we trust others. But there are people who chronically break trust and use it for power and control and gain. I think on the female side of the equation, mean girls comes to mind. But keep in mind every child can be mean at certain ages, but when it's chronic. So if your chronic child is chronically not expressing empathy or acting on empathy for others or purposely manipulating others, um, that's a problem. Um of course, we know too, just from mental health, severity mental health issues, um, some children will develop psychotic disorders like schizophrenia, paranoia. Those tend to often come in waves, but they're pretty intense. And so if you're concerned about your child, as mentioned, hallucinating or having some really extreme thoughts, get them assessed by a professional. They need that. Um, of the I mentioned this last time, only three times in my career have I spoken to a school head and said that is not normal. And one was related to a child who totally got totally under understood nonverbal and did something really cruel to another child, just extremely cruel, that could have ended up in the child's death. The other two were showing early signs of schizophrenia. And playing with feces, playing with menstrual blood, spreading it everywhere. And that's really important for humans to do those things. And they both, I just said they're really developing a serious mental health problem and need to see a psychiatrist and look at medication. That's a pretty small percentage, but mental illness is real, and if mental illness runs in your family history, you should know it and be aware of it, and always be ready to do something about it. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 40:01

And there's also, too, that sometimes like with marijuana use different things and trigger it.

SPEAKER_01 40:09

So, yeah, I I did have a student last year who had some pot, a little too much, and he started hallucinating in the King Supers, and and it stayed with them for about six months before it went away. And that can happen. Just for some people, marijuana does not do well with their brains, and they get very anxious and paranoid and can hallucinate. They had something that was laced. I had a student who smoked a blunt that was given to her by some guy, and I there's a term for it. I don't remember like it's where they take a joint and dip it, the end of it in fentanyl or meth, and they dip it and coat it. And she was the first one to smoke it and got extremely hallucinogenic. Um while the other kids didn't. And so the suspect was probably she had the tip, she smoked it first, and the tip was laced with something. So those things too get in the way. And drugs certainly is an issue. Here in Colorado, we have a lot of marijuana, and there's a lot of use. And trying to stem that tie is impossible. What I try to do is teach safe procedures, and one I said was only buy stuff that came from a dispensary and it's in the original package. So you have an older friend buying it, you're gonna probably do it, but make sure it's sealed and you know where it came from. You're an idiot to take something from some guy that gave it to you, or you don't know the source of it. And it's no different than you don't have your solo cup, half-full solo cup of your alcoholic beverage at a party on the counter while you're dancing. Somebody could drop something in there, and then you're the next victim. So it really makes sense about teaching teens to be safe and how to protect yourself, because those things are out there, and you're not going to stop all of the teen behavior. That's not the same.

SPEAKER_00 42:03

And it can happen after prolonged use, too. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 42:05

Yes. Well, prolonged use. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:07

I mean, it can be triggered. You can be fine.

SPEAKER_01 42:11

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 42:12

And then you can be triggered. And I just wanted to say, too, it's just not having two teenagers now gone through two teenagers. It's not like when we were a kid and your friend had a baggie of stomach.

Rigid Thinking, Victim Loops, And Growth

SPEAKER_01 42:24

It's very difficult. It's so much higher. And there's a term called greening out. I had a kid yesterday who said, oh, my friend greened out of my house, it was throwing up all over the place and sick, and that's when it doesn't work for you anymore. And one of the what you'll see with chronic pot users 10, 15 years, they green out. They get anxious. They they just start getting really anxious from it and often stop at that point. Oh, it's a hard time to be a parent, folks. I got to tell you, it really is. And that's why I'm so thankful for Australia. We have to do more as a country to protect our kids.

SPEAKER_00 43:02

They're gonna make it all video facial recognition that you can't chat if your face.

SPEAKER_01 43:08

Really?

SPEAKER_00 43:09

Uh-huh. I don't know when it's coming in, but they're under so much scrutiny because of all the lawsuits against them. But making it facial recognition in order to be able to chat. So if your face is young, you will not be able to do it.

SPEAKER_01 43:26

That is so cool.

SPEAKER_00 43:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:27

Yeah, because it's the open chat where they meet predators. That's where they are.

SPEAKER_00 43:32

Yeah, and there's a new, I meant to send it to you the other day. I'll see if I can find it, but there's a new group. It's like an online group, and it's probably a teenage 20 year old group of people, I don't know, maybe older, but where they target kids 10 to I think it was like 10 to 14, them to do terrible things through it that way and freed and extortion. Sex tortion. It's just so all of it.

SPEAKER_01 44:03

Incredible. It is a hard time to raise child children. It's a hard time to be a parent. The standards are so high. And one of my young men, who's 22 now and finally pulling things together, he was the king of being up all night on social media and the computer. He was in the deep diving on computers. Social media was too tame for him. But he said many times that I'm glad I grew up when I did, because I if I was that age now, I'd be really struggling. And he said, this is the age where there's no room for error for your kids or for you. We hold parents too way highly accountable, which you can make errors as a parent, it's fine. But for our kids, some of those errors can be catastrophic in nature. It is a very difficult time. And so much as a parent that you have to deal with. And you don't have to be perfect. That won't make any difference. But you do have to be aware of what's out there. And it is. Pandora's box is open. And any kid with a phone can see everything that exists in Pandora's box. And some of those things they shouldn't be exposed to. So we need to keep moving forward. And I'm thankful to hear that about Roblox. That's a good thing. I like that. Okay, I want to end with things beauty make me cry. First, uh yesterday, or was it two days ago, in 1964, Martin Luther King Jr. received the Nobel Priest Prize. And it's an acceptance speech, he said, and this is what gives me hope, with an abiding faith in America and an audacious faith in the future of mankind. We all have to hold on to that, especially right now. We all have to hold on audacious hope and faith in mankind. And you have to hold on to that as a parent, believe me, because it's a tough road. And then the second one, if a picture could speak a thousand words, I wish I could show you this photo. It was in the Denver Post today. Just brutal. Little girl, five, six, hair is all scruffed up. She's bundled in a coat, and in her tiny little hands is a half a loaf of pita bread. And there and the look in her eyes, it's this faraway look. Like you can see eternity in her eyes. And the article headline AIDS aid that's been flowing into Gaza falls short of the deal's terms. Children should never be part of a war. Period. Just unbelievable. Oh. I'm scared. I'm crying again. That's normal. I get used to it. All right. I want to bless all of you over the holiday season. I hope you have a great time with your family. We'll be doing the same. And happy, blessed New Year. And when I get back, we will continue with episode three on this section. And that's on the topic of how can my child be well in such an ill culture? We'll deep dive into that. So until then, I hope you enjoyed the episode. If you did, please share it with a friend. And over the holiday season, keep in mind, children do not do well without structure. And teachers know the last couple days before we go on a break is hell. And the first week or two back is hell because they're getting used to the structure again. And home, there's all these wonderful, exciting things to do. But if they're up too late, oh man. Then you're left with, oh, we did all this stuff, and now it's miserable and everybody's upset. So maintain some structure if you can. It's good for kids. But you're greatly buried through the holiday season sometimes. But I hope all of yours is joyous. And remember to relax. You only have to be this side of good enough. Thank you.