Friendship Pain: The Mental Shift That Can Protect Your Teen

'Early adolescence is a friendship meat grinder, and your kid will eventually find their people,' according to Megan Saxelby of Wild Feelings. But oh boy it's tough!  

Megan wants parents to know that using words like “dramatic” to describe genuine social pain can accidentally give us permission to dismiss their emotional reality and teach our kids that their experiences doesn’t deserve to be taken seriously.

In today’s episode we explore why it hurts so much to watch our child struggle socially, and why our instincts to either dismiss or ‘fix things’ can often make it worse.

The good news is that there’s new research, by the eminent Dr David Yeager, that shows there’s one thing our kids can learn that can reduce depression in teens by nearly 40%.

We hear the details and some great tips for us parents on the frontline.

Megan Saxelby:

https://wildfeelings.substack.com/ 

Rachel's Substack:

https://teenagersuntangled.substack.com/

The Study:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s44220-022-00009-5

This is such a big topic I have created a lot of content to cover it:

https://www.teenagersuntangled.com/boy-friendships-and-supporting-our-sons-in-forming-positive-friendships-also-what-the-we-sho-1/

https://www.teenagersuntangled.com/114-friendships-frenemies-and-boy-banter-parenting-our-teens-through-the-relationship-pitfalls/

https://www.teenagersuntangled.com/puberty-toxic-friendships-pick-me-girls-top-tips-for-parenting-teenagers-from-teenagers-147/

https://www.teenagersuntangled.com/top-friendship-tips-for-teen-girls-lessons-from-real-life-sisters/

https://www.teenagersuntangled.com/139-preparing-for-secondary-school-friendship-groups-and-those-awkward-talks-about-porn-and-sexti/

https://www.teenagersuntangled.com/friendship-girls-and-toxic-groups-also-resilience-how-to-get-your-teen-to-keep-going-instead-of-g/

teenagersuntangled.substack.com

Chapters

• 0:00 Why Tween Friendships Hurt So Much
• 2:10 Belonging Is Oxygen: What’s Happening in Their Brains Megan explains why belonging in early adolescence is as vital as “oxygen.”
• 5:45 Mentalizing & Learning to ‘Human’: Empathy as a Skill
• 9:05 Harmful Stories About Adolescents & The ‘Be Nice’ Trap
• 15:50 ‘Mean Girl’ Myths, Relational Aggression & Leaving Boys Out
• 19:55 Supporting vs Rescuing: Distress Tolerance for Parents
• 24:50 The 25‑Minute Intervention That Cut Depression by ~40%
• 31:43 Normalising Complexity, Big Questions & ‘You Are Not Alone’
• 36:53 Emotions as Data, Not Verdicts: Conflict, Boundaries & Redemption
• 41:53 Teaching Dignity, Repair & Civic Skills (Not Just ‘Being Nice’
• 47:58 When Your Child Has ‘No Friends’: Expectations, Introverts & New Spaces
• 53:18 Cringe as a Bridge to Connection & Where to Find Megan

Transcript

Rachel Richards: 0:00

Hello and welcome to teenagers. Untangled the audio hug for everyone supporting anyone going through the tween and tween years. I'm Rachel Richards, journalist, mother of two teenagers and two bonus daughters. Now in today's episode, we're going to talk about tweens and early teens and explore why it hurts so much to watch our child struggle socially, and why are instincts to fix things making it even worse? And the good news is that there's new research that shows there's one thing our kids can learn that can reduce depression in teenagers by nearly 40% so it's really great news now with us to unpack all of this is early adolescent parent coach Megan Saxelby, the former teacher who specializes in early adolescent developmental window, where those pro social skills are most teachable. She's also the founder of wild feelings. She coaches parents through the common pain points of parenting 10 to 14 year olds, and we know there's a lot of pain. Welcome Megan,

Megan Saxelby: 0:55

thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you again. It's my favorite age. It truly, it's like, I taught middle school for 17 years, and everyone, anytime I told someone what I did, their response was always either like, discuss, or that I discussed or that I should be sainted. And I used to really throw people when I'd be like, No, your response is the problem. I think they're the best. We just have to shift how we see them.

Rachel Richards: 1:19

Yes, and I think that's the I think it's actually because there's a gear shift generally in for the parents and actually keeping up with that and knowing what we're doing. And the truth is, I've spoken to friends about this before where, you know, if you're the teacher, you're seeing a lot of these people, little people, coming through your school. I've got my one kid, you know, this is my first time, and so it's, I need help as well. So it's brilliant that you're here, and you actually recently described adolescence as a friendship meat grinder, yes, on the money, but you also said they'll eventually find their people. So we kind of, so what we're going to do is we're going to talk about, okay, what's going on there, and then how we can, how can we calm down so we don't sit there thinking, well, they're never gonna have any friends. It's a disaster. Because I think that's how we often feel. I have actually got lots of episodes on this topic, even with my daughters, because it really vexes us. Now, there is a lot of friendship turmoil, and you call it middle school in America, in the England, we kind of we have junior school that finishes around 11 or 13, and then senior school and but and this turmoil is not just them being difficult. There's actually science behind it. So what's actually happening to children's brains when they're feeling excluded or left out?

Megan Saxelby: 2:36

Yeah, I think one of the hardest things like you said about parents just having their one is that you don't also have time to, like, read the studies about personality theory or neuroscience, right? You're just trying to get through your day. And then it's not just that. It's your first time with your one kid. It's like your most precious little being, right? It's like you built you built them, you made them. You love them. So it's not like, you're not sort of neutrally watching a person navigate the world. You're watching this thing you love so much go through genuine pain. And from a brain perspective, I think what we forget or don't know about this age is that we kind of used to talk about, you know, zero to three as some of the most like, key development in young people's lives or kids lives. And now we really because, you know, you don't have to be dead to look at people's brains these days, fMRI studies show that it really is like 11 to 17, but it's when they're really starting to experiment with their identity. And the easiest way to make sense of what's happening in their brains at this moment is that belonging is oxygen. Belonging is everything. It is what's making the blood flow, it's what's making the brain grow, it's what it's making them feel stable. It's what's making them act out or retreat or isolate or anything. It's that belonging truly is oxygen, and at this age, it is the oxygen that they need to be able to do most anything

Rachel Richards: 4:04

else, and it feels absolutely life threatening, absolutely

Megan Saxelby: 4:09

I mean, there's, there are fMRI studies that show, and this is not just for children. I know we can all attest to this as adults, that your brain processes the threat of humiliation the same way it processes the threat of being punched in the face. So the exact same mechanisms, like the reason they react so loudly and so big, is that to them, it and to all of us, actually, the threat of humiliation or isolation really does feel like the same threat is physical harm, and so your body puts up these fight or flight defenses, and you flood with emotion because you're trying to either prepare for or make sense of this turmoil. And it's, it's, it's so hard because I was in the States, like you said, we call it middle school, so I was a dean. Which meant I was the one in charge of discipline, social dynamics. Anytime a kid made a mistake, I was the one talking to them. Anytime a parent was having a hard time or the kid made a mistake, I was the one calling the parent and trying to explain it to them. And some parents would just say, oh God. Like, why can't they, why can't like, Why is this still happening? Why can't they just get over it? And I'm like, because they're learning how to human. You cannot learn in a one off, one fell swoop, like learning to human requires small, painful experimentations and repetition, and truly, when they feel excluded, it feels like they can't breathe.

Rachel Richards: 5:43

And I think what's fascinating about this period is, I think Lucy Fuchs called it will she described the mentalizing that goes on. And the mentalizing is when you go from sort of knowing what you think and knowing you know listening to other people, but then you suddenly realize that they may, actually may have different opinions to you, and they and you, and they may be being sarcastic, or they may you have to start trying to read signals in a much more complex way, which is very difficult.

Megan Saxelby: 6:07

Yeah, it's very difficult, and it it's, again, this sort of we, I think, have a false belief that empathy is a character trait, when, in fact, cognitive empathy, that kind of perspective taking, is a skill, and we have to teach it explicitly, like we would teach anything else. And yet the you know, I know you've had Dr David Yeager on as a guest before his, his sort of research around the mindset that we have about adolescence contributes to a lot of the dismissal at this age that we expect them to be a nightmare or dramatic, and so that gives us backdoor permission to dismiss them and not take them seriously. But we are also missing there is the skill building

Rachel Richards: 6:49

is so let's go, let's go on to that. Because you're set you're saying we have a tendency to dismiss it. Let's really dig into that, because I think you're right. I think there's this like, oh, it's going to be a nightmare. They're going to be awful. You know, it's sort of throw away comments. Why is that a problem?

Megan Saxelby: 7:06

Oh, because it's everywhere. I mean, think about, sort of every modern movie about adolescents and parents, every piece of media. The trope in everything that has to do with this age level is your friends are going to abandon you. Social peril exists like, like, horrific social peril exists around every possible turn. Your parents are going to treat you poorly, and that, like, bad things are going to happen, right? Like, all the books around this age, all the movies around this age, and then as adults, we are also being primed from the time they are little, the story I told, right about telling people I taught middle school and everyone would go, Ugh, or God bless you, and I was like, No, your your reaction is the problem. I think they're the best when I show up with this love and affirmation and care, but that a lot of that comes from my own understanding. I had learning disability. I still do, but I got late, diagnosed with learning disabilities, young and I was a nightmare, like my mom's joke is that she got nauseous from the ages of, like, 11 to 14 when she knew I was on my way home because I was spending all day sort of code shifting and trying to survive in a situation right where I was worried at every threat that I was going to say Something wrong and look stupid, or I'd have to go to the secondary room to take my test because I got extended time, which always felt humiliating, even though it was a you know, in an attempt to support me. So I was a kid who caused trouble, like I got kicked out of class and was a behavioral issue on purpose, because it was way better the vulnerability risk seems so much lower to be known as the sort of like smart ass problem kid who got to spend a lot of time in in school suspension because the lady was cool. She gave you Jolly Ranchers and she let you read. Why wouldn't I want to spend my day there? And it took me a long time to figure that out. So that was all part of my empathy for that age group, is that we just expect the worst of them. I always ask parents to think about this. Is an odd fact. But in the States, we have something called Toys for Tots, which is a non for profit organization that sort of like people can donate to when the goal is to, like, give Christmas gifts, right to sort of give Christmas gifts to folks who might get children who might not otherwise get some. It stops at 13. So you're 12, you are you know, you get a toy for Christmas. What? Nothing happened. Nothing about your family's social situation changed. Nothing about your desire to be cared for, nurtured and belong changed. You just grew a year older, and now all of a sudden, society's decided you are no longer allowed, like, comfort this sort of, you know, childish stuff. And I think if you ask young people, if you have young people in your life and you're like, Is this really true, ask them what happens when more than two of them show up in a public place? No one's excited to see them. Every. One starts policing them, following them around, assuming they're going to Nick things, assuming they're going to get up to no good. They show up somewhere, right, with like money to spend. When people are like, right? They just get met with this sort of dismissal before they've ever before you know anything about their character. And young people say that all the time, that people just sort of expect the worst from us. And I think the challenge of that and us parents, you may not expect the worst from your kids. I'm not talking about individual families. I'm talking about this larger social story and then the impact that it has. And so when we think about this fact that cognitive empathy is a skill perspective taking right? It requires being invited in thinking about friendships and relationships and all these things. Requires someone being willing to sit with you and talk about it. And yes, because we have, and you know, this is not to say parents don't have endless hours in the day to sit and, you know, spend seven hours talking through whatever friendship drama is currently happening. That's not the ask, though. Yeah, they don't. They actually don't want that much of your time, right? They mostly want to talk about it with their friends. But what they do want is to come home and feel like their emotional experience is important and deserves attention. And when we have this story that we consume we don't mean to none of us are coming at our children with malicious intent. The world is busy. There's chaos around every corner. Adults are tired. There are so many things happening. We are not planning on abandoning our children. But when we've been swimming in this story, that they just have to get through this phase that it's not permanent, that everyone has a hard time, and then your kid comes to you with a hard time, inadvertently, you just have more of an inclination to be like, it's just these friends don't even matter. You're not like, I'm not friends with anyone that I was friends with in middle school. Don't even worry about it. And we mean that as comfort, but it's guilty.

Rachel Richards: 12:04

I've done that. Yeah, we have. I learned not to do after a while. But no, no, absolutely done that. And they're like, Mommy, that's not helping, right? Yes, no, I love that point. One of the problems is that there's, there can be a tendency to turn this pain into in on themselves. I've seen this with my daughters, where they'll talk about something and then they'll blame themselves, yes, and they'll say it's because of something I am and this. So can you talk a bit more about this kind of fixed identity that they can get?

Megan Saxelby: 12:35

Yeah, it's so common in early adolescence, we are just trying to figure out who we are. They're literally in the sort of developmental psychology term for it is ideation separation, which is where you're literally developing a new identity and separating from the prior you Right? Which is, we've watched our kids do it, you know, like one day they're willing to wear, you know, I don't know, a shirt with like a character on it from a childish TV show, and then all of a sudden it's like, throw that out. Don't ever like or a friend I never wore that. I never wore that burn it. Or friends coming over after school and you get a panic text that says, make sure all my stuffies are off my bed. Right there in this moment of trying to decide and find and it's very common, self criticism is a safety behavior. It is our brains very clunky attempt at self care. If I tell myself I suck first, it will not hurt as much if someone else does it because I've sort of conditioned myself to believe it. It's something that young people do often. They catastrophize. They believe that exclusion, social pain, social aggression, is an indication that there is something fixed and unchangeable about themselves, and then they internalize that, and young women are far more likely to do this than young men, because we don't give young women the same permission to experience negative emotion. Think about how much we police anger in women and girls from a young age. So from a young age on the playground, you can see this, right? If you went to any playground in the world today after school, you would see young boys getting behavior about or feedback about their behavior. Jeff, don't push you would see girls getting feedback about their character. Megan, be nice.

Rachel Richards: 14:27

Oh, my goodness. Constantly say to people, my daughters, be nice. Yes, do not use that. No. What do you mean? I What does that even mean?

Megan Saxelby: 14:36

Yes, I that's my number one joke. When, when parents start working with me and they have young girls. I'm like, here's the deal. The first rule is that you have to stop using the word nice. You have to stop telling them to be nice. Thinking about niceness. It's not a quantifiable thing, and it's actually not something they have control over. So we need to name that's a big part of it is that we need to name the behavior. I need you to use kind words. I need you to be a friend who thinks. Of others. I need you to be someone in our house who does chores because we're all participants. I need you right, like you. I need you to use kind words with your friends, because you're you are a thoughtful person. I need you to give other people permission to be messy, because we are all messy. Sometimes that's very different than you know, be nice, and that's why a lot of what we see with young women is what they call in the research, relational aggression, right? When you weaponize your relationship? Because sometimes young women feel like to be, to be like, loud, rude, to like, be confrontational, is in violation of niceness. So instead, they internalize and then they weaponize their relationship.

Rachel Richards: 15:43

I talked on many occasions about that kind of mean girl thing and the groups and the and so, yeah, that's a fascinating reflection on that I

Megan Saxelby: 15:51

always tell parents is, I'm like, please, I know we all love the movie, but please stop calling it mean girl behavior, because that's not what it is. And then that also leaves boys out. So if we have this agreed term, right, that like, mean girl behavior, again, is something we are all socialized to expect from the young girls in our lives, and then we're surprised when they exhibit that behavior when we've sort of been telling them, right? Media, all the things have been coaching them that that's actually just what you're going to start doing when you're older. It also leaves boys out. How are boys supposed to make sense of like, unkindness, but also, more importantly, connection. When I taught middle school, I can't tell you how many a heartbreaking conversation I had with young men about, like, I want to hug my friend like the jealousy they felt for relational closeness women are allowed. I want to hug my friends. I would love to hold hands with a friend walking down the hallway like they when I would sit with them sometimes, and they'd have this chance to be open with me, and I would say, like, you know what's going on with you and so and so. And they're like, I don't know our friendship feels weird, and like I just want to be closer to them again, but I don't know how to be close to them now, because I can't, like, when we were little, you know, like little boys talking about, like, when we were little, we used to be able to, like, hug and hold hands, and it was fine. And now, you know, in a totally non sexual way, just in a connective, relational way, they want physical intimacy and closeness, and they're also not allowed it.

Rachel Richards: 17:23

No, that's such a good point, and I talked about that in an episode where I'd used the research of naibi way, who studied voice for decades, and how it switches for them around this period, a bit later than with girls before that it's like love story, these really, really close loving relationships together, and then suddenly they feel that if they've got to fit in the mind box, they can't be doing that anymore. It's a horrible thing to experience.

Megan Saxelby: 17:47

And how can we invite them as well, into this sort of idea that, like no relationships don't are not fixed our understand, like I constantly used to reference to my male students, my brother and his best friend Kevin, have been best friends since they were eight years old. They, I don't and they, I've asked my brother, and he talks about my mom's support for his closeness with Kevin. And like, they would have, like, sleepovers. And, you know, they're both, they're both married, they both have children, but like, they still, like, I hear them on the phone with each other. They say, I love you. When they hang up my they will text each other like the sweetest things, and they're both 37 but they my brother. I've asked my brother, I'm like, how did you maintain this with Kevin? And he was like, our parents were always remind like we just felt like we were allowed to be close to each other. And they did like they took each other as dates to a school dance. And they were just these, like, confident, but they were also socially successful. They were popular kids, you know, they but they just had this confidence that they were allowed to be close and loving. And I think part of that, I think I think we're allowed to talk about it.

Rachel Richards: 19:06

I think they're allowed to talk about it. But I also think that as long as, from what I was understanding from nobody raised studies, was as long as the boys somehow fit inside the man box enough, then they can do that right. If they're too far out of it, then they risk correct.

Megan Saxelby: 19:20

They were completed. And they were like, totally to root it back in that right, and to keep it rooted in what we know from the research. Truth is, they were athletically successful, right? They played football, they played lacrosse. So you're 100% correct that because they fit enough in the man box, this sort of quirk of their friendship to their peers was allowed

Rachel Richards: 19:42

such a pity. So for parents, you can get the parents who are quite dismissive done that myself at times, and also the parents who really just want to rescue their children felt that as well. Because, you know, when they're younger. I mean, my daughter even articulated it. She said, You know, when I was little, you just have a play date. Right? And then I would be friends with them, because, you know, it would just be that simple. And now you can't do that, and it's really hard. I can't but so what's the difference between sort of supporting our child and rescuing them?

Megan Saxelby: 20:13

Distress tolerance, we have to model that distress and discomfort are manageable, survivable, and normal. It is normal to be uncomfortable, and often kids get their cues from us. And I often encourage one of the researchers I adore, Dr Susan David, who has a wonderful book called Emotional agility. She talks about this a lot, this idea that you know, we have to allow the agility in it, and that we have to, you know, believe that these traits are changeable, that you know, that we can do things differently, but that discomfort is very normal, and that, that She her sort of phrasing around toxic positivity is the reason it can be so challenging, particularly in parental relationships, which is the normal desire to save your kid from pain. It is normal. I tell every parent I work with that like, of course, you want to scoop them up and, you know, micromanage their friendships and text the other parent on their behalf, or text the school about some group chat nonsense that's happening, or whatever. But what the message you send to your kid inadvertently is you are incapable. Your discomfort is a is a red alarm threat, and that we can control other people, which we cannot, and what you accidentally are telling them is that your comfort as a parent is more important than their lived reality. Oh, my

Rachel Richards: 21:53

goodness, that's brilliant. I love that. Yeah, it's true. It's absolutely true. And it's funny. I remember my daughter the Well, both of my daughters have been through these friendship problems, and I remember one of them asking me about it, and I said to her, I don't know how this will sort itself out. All I do know is that things change. They will change like it. Will not stay like this forever. And that's the all I could give her, but she did say that helps. You know, there's kind of she's not going to stay like this forever,

Megan Saxelby: 22:20

that actually like in the research, in the research that you referenced at the beginning about the study that showed a way to help prevent depression in youth. That was the whole study. It was a study, of course.

Rachel Richards: 22:34

Let's talk about that. I don't know who else was, because David Jacob is brilliant. He wrote 2025 he's absolutely phenomenal. If you haven't listened to that. Listened to that episode, you must, must, must. But there was someone else who

Megan Saxelby: 22:47

me, who was his I think his research assistant was what I gathered when I was looking it up. But it's, it's fascinating. It was about this intervention. Their theory was right. So David is famous. He's a protege of Carol Dweck, who's sort of the creator of growth mindset, and Dr Yeager became, you know, I think, very understandably aware that we could apply growth mindset theory in a bunch of different spaces and likely have positive outcomes. One of the places that they found that this study focused on was, what if we teach youth that you can also apply growth mindset to relationships. And so they took these groups of the this one study I referenced is, is a sample size of 600 students, but it's been replicated over and over. And the important thing, which is one thing I as someone who's a real research nerd, really appreciate about Dr Yeager is that he doesn't just focus on, like, middle to upper class white kids. So that sample size included a really diverse social sampling, and the intervention was very small. The kid the 600 children who got the intervention. So this is the thing I think sometimes parents get lost in is like, I don't have time for a five hour conversation, like I've got, we got dinner to make. I've got, or let's be real. What we also know is that all of a sudden your kid doesn't want to talk to you all day, and then at 1115 they want to crawl into your bed. And you're like, my guy, I gotta go sleep, you know. So I think one thing that I really hang my hat on here as someone who supports parents is that the intervention was 25 minutes, and they did it once.

Rachel Richards: 24:24

It was, how amazing is that 25 minutes once,

Megan Saxelby: 24:27

one time? So it was not five hours of therapy, it was not a weekly appointment with the school counselor, the school support team. It was 125 minute intervention that had kids do four really specific things, which is why I immediately when you joked that you said, Listen, I don't know how this is going to turn out, but I know that it's not going to stay like this forever. And I immediately was like, No, that's everything. Like, if parents listen to this and take nothing else away, if every parent could train themselves to say exactly that their kids would be better off. Right? Because here's what the study did. It taught them the sort of fancy term for it is incremental personality theory. But increment, right? Think about the word increment. It's just small changes towards sort of a better a better outcome. And so the first thing was they taught these kids this theory, this incremental personality theory, which was, which is really just growth mindset in friendships, which is that everyone changes. You were not victimized or excluded because of a fixed trait in you, and the kid who did the nasty thing or the hurtful thing, they also like that isn't due to a fixed trait in them. So you can change. But also that kid who Yeah, then they had them read a very brief article on neuroscience that just explained that thoughts, feelings and behaviors can build new pathways that they can change, right? So you introduce the idea, you give a little bit of science to back it up. So parents, if you're like I don't, but what? How would I do that at home? Just Google neuroplasticity and show your kid one two minute video. Then here's here's the piece. Then they had the kids read two quotes, short quotes, from kids who were older than them that sort of proved what they that like. I have experienced this. I have seen my peers change. I have changed what this theory and this research says is true. I've seen it happen. That's the like you you want to hang your hat on something, you just need an older kid to tell them, right, that's going to weigh 10 times as much. But and then lastly, they had these kids write a little quote of their own, telling them they were going to use it for future ninth graders.

Rachel Richards: 26:57

Oh, I love that. Yes. This is similar to the growth mindset. Because I think we had a study in his book where he talked about they were doing very similar things, yeah, and they'd also done one when kids have started university and they'd had older kids. Yes, this, this is all part of it, the same sort of skills, but it's brilliant.

Megan Saxelby: 27:50

There's, I think there's a researcher I also love, James zakiel, who talks about hope, has a great book called hope for cynics. He did this amazing study at Stanford. So he works at Stanford, and they saw this like kids were really complaining about social exclusion at Stanford. If you have an educator or someone who works in a school, listening to this and thinking, Well, how do I make that come alive for my students? So you know what they did, they polled their students, and they got statistics, little things that said, 98% of Stanford students want to make a new friend. Yes. 87% of Stanford students like helping other people solve their problems. 92% of Stanford students like listening if you're having a hard time. All they did was put those statistics on posters and put them in highly trafficked places around campus. It's these small and I think sometimes that's what keeps schools, institutions, parents, feeling stuck, is they think like, I don't, I don't know. Like, how do I do the big thing? It's not the big thing. It is small, incremental things. So exactly what you said, the way parents can actually replicate that study in their own home, do exactly what you did. You say, I, you know, I don't, I don't know exactly what's going on here. How long this is going to last? I do know it's not going to last forever.

Rachel Richards: 29:13

Yes, that the whole thing about being an adolescent is that you're changing, you're playing with your personality, you're finding your identity, but so are they. So when they're having a bad day, or they're behaving in a certain way, that doesn't mean to say they're this person, it means that's what's happening at that moment, right?

Megan Saxelby: 29:32

That's what's happening at that moment. And the this is where, when we talk about the skill of empathy, right? It being a teachable skill, adolescents are in this weird moment where they are progressing from what is totally normal, expectable narcissism. And I don't mean sort of like big and psychological, scary narcissism, like we have to think about our normal Yes, yeah. How are you supposed to figure out the world if you aren't focused on the self, we actually have to help them start sort of like looking around right and looking at other people in other situations, and so exactly what you said we need. We have to invite those kinds of questions when they come to us in those hard moments, rather than saying, this is just drama that'll pass like this little pass. You say, like That sounds hard. Tell me more. Yes, you let them explain. You say something like, you know, so many people are going through this friendship churn right now and that, I know that doesn't make it easy, that doesn't make it feel easier. Like very subtle nod to like you are not alone in this. You are not the only one going through this without dismissing them. It's saying things to your kid when they come to you like this, sounds God. Humans are complicated, aren't they? I went through something similar than like this with a friend when I was your age, don't tell them your whole story. They actually don't want to know, like everyone in detail, but tell them one or two things and then don't say. But it got better. You just say. And it was hard. I figured it out eventually, but it was hard you normalize without right dismissing. And this is the line we want to walk. Because, you know, we can't. We just don't. No one has the bandwidth to spend, you know, seven hours talking to their kid. It's just actually micro shifts, and micro agrees.

Rachel Richards: 31:29

And I think, I think the most important thing at the start is this, the acknowledgement that going, Yeah, that sounds I think I found that that was one of the most important things. And I think with my kids, there was an awful lot of looking around and thinking everybody else had themselves sorted, yes, and they were the only person who couldn't seem to figure this out, right? And it was the more I was able to say, you know, that I think they're probably having a hard time too, you know, and that we're all kind of hide, hiding how we're feeling, right? It helped them to kind of go, oh, okay, it's not just me. Completely.

Megan Saxelby: 32:00

I always joke, yeah, that they're like little meerkats, right? They're all sort of up on their hind legs just looking around. And they think falsely that everyone else has it together, or this thing they're experiencing is singular and it's not which is also when you talked earlier about like internalization and self criticism, that's part of where it comes from. Right? Is like your brain just wants to make sense, right? Our brains are storytelling creatures. So how do we deal with anxiety? Right? Anxiety is the distal fear of like, uncertainty. We just make up stories, and unfortunately, our brain is trained, usually, to make up critical stories, and it takes work to train it to have more empathetic stories, or more kind of zoomed out stories. And in adolescence, our job really is, how do I normalize? But help you zoom out? We also don't give kids, I think, enough permission to be like you. You actually like when we tell them, like, niceness or kindness, right? It doesn't they're like, well, that kid was not kind to me, yeah, so why do I have to be nice in return? And we have to give them more complex solutions, but also, like, more complex reasons for why. When I had a kid come to me and tell me, like some kid had done something genuinely hurtful and unkind. I did not, you know, I think people might be surprised, but like, I did not push them to heal that relationship. I would say, like, man, that does sound really complicated. What would it look like? Oh, that's interesting. And I would say, I would literally say to this kid, well, what does it look like to be in community with someone that you don't like right now? We love that, and they would, they'd be like, what I don't I don't know, because that's what they don't know how to do. It's like you don't, yeah, I'd always say, like you don't have to forgive them today. That's what we're going to work towards eventually. But also like they might have done something to you that feels unforgivable. And like, like, I'm not gonna tell you that. That's not true for you. So what I'm gonna say instead is, so what does community look like when we don't like everybody we're in community with, or we don't agree with everybody we're in community with, and they'd say, Well, I don't I don't know, and I'd be like, so it to me, I'll offer some suggestions, right? It doesn't look like getting all your friends together now to talk poorly about that kid. It doesn't look like socially excluding them. If the consequence is that they used to get invited to play like in the in the States, there was this thing. It was called wall ball where, like, literally, these boys would just like, Huck a tennis ball, and you had to touch the wall before the tennis ball did. And it'd be like, sometimes it'd be like, that kid did something gnarly to a couple of you in the wall ball crew, like, it's okay that he doesn't get invited. Like that you he doesn't get invited to play wall ball tomorrow. That is, like, the natural consequence for his behavior. Yeah, and we're too, and this is where, I think, even in schools and parents sometimes, this is where we micromanage of like rushing their timelines, and also like removing helpful, social, natural consequences. And I'm not saying exclusion with malice, right or negative intent, but, like, I don't know if you've been a jerk to six of the wall ball kids. You don't get to play wall anymore. Yep, yeah, that actually is more. And own it. And that doesn't mean then that you're gonna all take that kid out of the group chat and tell him he can never play wall ball again. And did it at that right? Like, we want to think about, like. Reciprocity and roads to redemption. And a lot of it would be like, listen, have you ever made a mistake and said something pretty gnarly to a friend? They're always gonna say yes, right? And then you say yes. So, like, I don't know, let's think about timeline here. Like, what does road to redemption look like for this kid? Like, also, what can a new relationship look like where this person's still in your social ecosystem, but they are not as close as they were before, and they need to earn back some of that trust before they can be close. I think we often also don't give kids the agency to set their own boundaries around friendships. Like, that's a question that I would, you know, tell parents all the time is like, Well, have you asked your kid, like, what kind of boundaries they need around this friend right now? And they'd be like, Well, no, yes. And I'd be like, yeah. Like, they let them offer up some of these solutions too.

Rachel Richards: 36:27

I love what you're saying, because I love this conversation about community. What you're doing is you're rolling out a canvas for them to actually look on and think, How do I make this work, instead of trying to fix it for them? And it's so important because it gives them space to think

Megan Saxelby: 36:44

and ownership. It's civic skills like we if we don't let kids figure out how to mend relationships or decide what feels like unsafe or, you know, challenging when they're when they're 12, we are not setting them up to thrive when they're 35 and someone has different political beliefs than they do, or votes differently than they do. I mean, we're just we have discomfort. This is, and this is, again, a Susan David quote, like, discomfort is the price of admission to a meaningful life. Yeah. And that means discomfort, but in a variety of different ways. There's another, again, I'm admitted research nerd. There's another researcher in the States. Her name is Dr Mary Helen immergino Yang, who did this amazing study about transcendent thinking, which is a complicated name when I just call it philosopher mode. It's this developmental tendency we see in kids to start asking bigger questions, about fairness, about justice, about all these things, and it the relationships fall right in there. And her research showed that the more we encourage kids to dive into complexity, to gray area, to grapple with kind of bigger moral questions they had. It was it was fascinating. It was both an immediate increase in like, self liking, but it was lit. It was lasted for five years. They measured these kids, both in the moment, and they followed them for five years. These young people, five years later, reported better levels of life satisfaction. I'm a huge fan of talking to young people about research, right? So when I work with young people, which I do often, I get hired to speak a lot at schools here in the States. And because that's kind of translating research into tools you can use at the kitchen table or in the classroom, is kind of my sweet spot. And I asked kids, I said, Why do you think this is? Why do you think that like, encouraging this kind of big picture thinking like because it actually also another fascinating piece that parents might not care about as much is that it actually grew their brains. It grew their connect, the connective networks between their sort of emotional self and their control, like their ability to self regulate and self control. But I asked kids, and I swear it's really funny, I Venmo this young man. He's a, he's a, he was at a school in Columbus, Ohio. I Venmo him $15 every time I reference this, because I tease him that I have to pay him for his great idea that I know, steal and dine out on. But I asked them, Why do you think this is? And they said, this kid raised his hand with this look of just like, oh. And he said, Well, yeah, if, if everything's complicated, I don't have to feel bad about the fact that I'm complicated. Ooh, yes. And it was. And he I just, and these kids all were sort of like, oh yeah. And I was like, Yeah, right. If you get more comfortable with the idea that, like, ethics are complicated, life is complex, all these things are complicated, then your own complication, either internally or socially or academically, like, it's not a it's not a death sentence, right? It's not this fixed mindset, that there's some part of the process, right? You see it as part of your trajectory, not a declarative on who you are.

Rachel Richards: 40:03

And it's like that the social conflict and anything, any of this conflict is information, not

Megan Saxelby: 40:09

a verdict, right? Right? Yeah, emotions are data, not directions, right? They're just data. And how do we teach kids to see them as that, you know? And how do we there was a framework I used when I was teaching middle school. Her name is Dr Donna Hicks, and I'm trained in her dignity based conflict resolution framework. And it get we the simplest thing is just it has these, this list. Of sort of dignity, is that inherent worth of every person, and it's not negotiable, right, no matter what people have done or said, but she has this list of 10 things that people need to feel like they matter, and it's things like accountability, inclusion, fairness, recognition. When I had kids in social conflict, they knew the rule, which was, you came into my office, you each got a list of the elements of dignity, and you had to spend five minutes writing down what element was at the root of your discomfort. Oh, that's brilliant. I love that. And then when I'll send it to you, then when we had the conversation with the two kids, when I was meeting the two kids, it was about behavior they could change, not an assassination on your character, yes, the thing you did outside, yes, yes, the thing you did made me feel a lack of x that is so different then you're a jerk and everybody hates you, right? There's nowhere to go from there. And then it is kind of also the foundation of that incremental personality theory that, like, if these things matter, if these if everyone needs these 10 things. Ah, shoot, man, everybody does. So all of a sudden you can get a kid without dismissing their emotions, you can get a kid to say, like, I hear you, Man, that sounds so hard that you know you felt really excluded. What do you think might, might what, like, I don't know. Do you think maybe they were feeling a lack of something that motivated them to do this? And then all of a sudden, I would get kids being like, Oh, well, yeah, we were all on, like, Roblox last night and, like, they sucked, and they were taking down our team, so we actually just kicked them out. And then, you know, my job, right, is to sit very like, you know, empathetic face, and go, Oh, huh. And then he started a nasty group chat about, you weird. I'm just curious. Like, do you see any connections, you know, and then the kid, usually, the kid would start laughing, and the kid would be like, Yeah, okay, yeah. And I'm like, listen, he doesn't get to start a nasty group chat about you. And I get why you would kick out. Like, if the kid sucks and he's dragging down your team and you guys just want to play and have fun. Like, I get why you would kick him out, but also like, Well, are we that surprised then that he did something nasty in return? And then it just becomes this conversation about, like, you're a person, you're human, you're just learning how to do this. And then it gave kids, I think again, this, I always talked about the power of that, like shared vocabulary was that it's kind of how you teach them cognitive empathy. Because I always say we need belonging to be an open book test. We need they everything needs to be right out there for them. Kids need to be able to look to people or signage or whatever to give them the answer. We can't, sort of like trick them and expect them to know the answers because they don't, because they're babies, like, they're basically still babies, right? And so how do we, you know, there's, I have young kids. Mine are two and five, and my husband sent me this Instagram meme the other day that was like, when you want to be mad at them, but, you know, their internal monolog sounds like this. And it was just this, like, this silly little noise, you know, and it's like, you want to be mad at them, but like, this is probably what's going on in their brain. And I actually sent that same reel to, like, a bunch of my coaching clients, because I was like, listen, I know they're bigger and it seems but like they don't know, and we're holding them accountable, or we're dismissing them when they're trying to learn, not because anyone's doing anything wrong, like just because we all have kind of, we're swimming in a water that tells us a story that's not that helpful. So I was like, you know, next time your kids being really a pain in the butt, can just look at them and kind of imagine that their internal monolog is just a silly song. What change it, no.

Rachel Richards: 44:35

And I think when I took away any of the shame, it becomes so much easier to have a conversation about how you move forward. You know, once you can remove this sense that they're the they're wrong or they're bad for it, right?

Megan Saxelby: 44:47

And it's so hard to though, because also, like, yeah, we never want to believe that they're the one who did something wrong, right? Like, it's also very hard to look at them through eyes that aren't biased by either how much we love them or the fact that, like, you know, maybe your kid's 12 and has ADD and forget stuff all the time and has been driving you crazy, and so you don't give them the benefit of the doubt, and they come home with the friendship concern, or maybe you've gotten too accustomed to like, well, what might you have done? And then the kid backs off, right? It's like we all just sort of have these biases when it comes to our kids, which is normal, natural and part of loving them. And, yeah, it's not their character. It's just a moment.

Rachel Richards: 45:32

And what would you say? To any parent who is really struggling at the moment and thinking, My child is never going to find their people. My child is friendless. This is the most it's been going on for ages. I don't know how to move forward from here.

Megan Saxelby: 45:50

I mean, honestly, the first thing I would tell the parent is to practice self compassion. It's one of the most powerful emotion mitigation tools out there, because, like, your emotions are a big part of this. I remember sitting across a mom of a sixth grader asked me out for coffee, and she basically said, what you said? And she was like, she just doesn't have social connection. I don't so there's two stories here. One is that, in this case, the kid was perfectly happy. Like, the kid loved reading alone. The kid was actually very comfortable with the fact that they had, like, one because I had done everything I was supposed to do as a dean, I had obviously noticed that this kid was socially isolated. Had done a lot of and like, I had come to the conclusion of, like, Man, this kid's just an introvert, and school's hard for them, so it's actually not the setting where they're going to find their people, because it's just too loud and noisy during the day. I mean, think about how hard school is for introverted kids. And so I remember having coffee with this mom, and I was like, so there's that version where I was like, what if your expectations aren't matched to the kid in front of you.

Rachel Richards: 46:58

Oh, this is such an important point. She was

Megan Saxelby: 47:01

such a social then I said, just before I gave her that advice, I said, Can you tell me a little bit about what you were like in middle school? And it was, you know, the president of every club and very, you know, and she, I knew this mom, I loved this parent, like she was still that person, right? She was like, the head of the PTO. She was always hosting fundraisers, right? Like, I was like, yeah, how might how you feel socially comfortable and successful, just like, not match your kids definition? And she was like, what? And I was like, I'm just saying, What if for a week, you looked at your kids social life and believed that it was exactly how they wanted it, and that Mom, it's really love. I mean, she and I are still very close, but, like, she jokes all the time. She'll just text me and be like, I'm still working on it, you know. And her daughter's like, a sophomore June, how she's a junior in college now, and I taught the brother as well. Totally different kid. And the mom was like, Oh my God, I didn't you know. So there's that one piece, which is that we might have expectations for socialization that don't match our kids. There's the other, much more painful piece, which is when you are the one absorbing the hurt, because your kid desperately wants that connection, and they just aren't getting it. So the other side of that coin, I think, is deciding how you can help your kid host. I think we often leave a lot of onus on kids to be in charge of their own social lives. But like, what is a play date with some kids that you know, that they might have something in common with or social connection with, what does it look like to arrange a middle school play date now, does that look like inviting them all over to like, you know, make like pizzas together? Is it like, you know, a night where they all come over and they share, like, four Tiktok videos that they think are very funny, and they have to, jokingly, like, air, share them onto a TV and, like, you know, share them with their friends. I have a substack post about this, but like, how do you help your kid host? And it has, like, stupid ideas, like, funny stupid ideas. So there's one is that, like, how can you sort of orchestrate a play date that is appropriate, developmentally appropriate for them. The other is, what are opportunities that they could get involved in, where you think that increases the chance that they are going to meet the kind of people like them, if your kid's a coder, what kind of clubs exist in your community that might get them closer that aren't school so often times, and this is different based on like resources and what we have access to, but oftentimes school, we sort of incorrectly assume that school is the only place they can make friends. How can you invite your kid to maybe choose like or you just do it for them, and you know them, you're the subject matter expert on your kid. You know they love X, Y and Z. Can you find a Lego club nearby? Can you also potentially shift your expectations of the age group they should be hanging out with? I saw this all the time in middle school, kids who you know in the states where the some kids start kindergarten and they turn five during kindergarten, my daughter, for example, has a late birthday. She's going to join kindergarten, and then turn six, we and that when they're when they're six, it's not such a big deal when they're 11 and 12. It's a very big deal. You might have, I would see this. I would have kids who still wanted to play with dolls, and kids who wanted to like. Can wear sexually provocative tops and like, right in the same grade. Yeah. And so how can you also potentially be like, oh my, my child, if they're a younger sixth grader, a younger 11 year old, they might actually enjoy hanging out with younger kids, and that's not a bad thing. That doesn't mean something's wrong with them. How am I shifting my expectations to meet where they're at developmentally? The other thing is also, I think, trying as much as you can to encourage your kids in the moments that it feels possible. Because sometimes, when you are sitting next to a kid who is really socially struggling, struggling, it feels impossible to push them towards hope. But I think again that, like life is long, this is not your entire social story. That doesn't make this moment easier, but that's something I know to be true. How can I help in the moment? And that might mean for a period of time, you you being more of their social net, right? You, I did that partner, you and your family. I mean, my parents did that for me for a while. Yeah, became their best friend. Yeah. And there's nothing and that, like and that, knowing that you're doing that, not with the goal to, you know, there's this show in the state, I don't know if you've seen Arrested Development, but like, the mother and the older son have this very funny relationship where they're very close to each other and it's like, yeah, you're not doing it in place, stepping in just Yeah, it's not permanent. It's a it's a temporary moment. And how can you temper your own expectations, too, for what their social, what a healthy social life looks like? So for example, I think oftentimes, like parents and I completely understand why have a really hard time sometimes with like, kids getting their socialization through, like gaming or phones and things like that. And I understand why. But how can you if that is where your kid is finding community set, like healthy boundaries around being okay with that, like maybe on the weekends. That means, if your kid is finding a lot of time, a lot of comfort with peers in a place, how is it? Maybe on Saturdays, then that boundary is laxer, because I know that that kids just gone through five days at school where they didn't feel accepted. So a big dose of like, connection on a Saturday is going to really help them reset their sense of self, their comfort. So I think that's a piece of it, too. Of we all have to be a little flexible, and, yeah, also parents have to take care of their own emotional landscapes. Because it's, it's really it's, it's really hard, it's very trying.

Rachel Richards: 53:11

No, those are all absolutely brilliant suggestions. I love them. Thank you so much. Is there anything else before we go that you have a burning you know thing you want to tell us?

Megan Saxelby: 53:21

I think just that, like the more we can teach the kids in our lives, that fun, dumb things are the bridge to connection, that cringe is actually a bridge to every great thing you want in life, that cringe is cool, the friends that you can be cringey with and that taking the risk of cringe is often like going to get you closer to a thing you actually want that.

Rachel Richards: 53:44

What a great quote. Love that. Megan, this has been an absolute joy. You've had so many brilliant bits of information, tips. I'm sure people are going to want to come and find you. I've got the link to your sub stack, then I'm going to finish in here. What is there any other thing that you want people to find you?

Megan Saxelby: 54:03

Sub stack and Instagram are where I'm the most active. But yeah, and I just really try that's kind of my goal, is to take all this research that I really want to read and then distill it for you into something tonight at home. Yeah, it was like you and I you and I have that so in common that, like, I love nerding out about it. I know you don't want to, right? Not you, but like the proverbial parent, like you don't have time. So I always joke with the parents. I mean, you don't have to go read all the parenting books. I did it for you. So just like and I taught middle school for 17 years. So I also know Amazing. Amazing actually works. You know

Rachel Richards: 54:38

Megan, thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much kindness and your lively enthusiasm. It's really infectious. That's it for now, if you want, if you want to get hold of me, I'm on substack and teenagersuntangled.substack.com My email address is teenagers untangled@gmail.com I love hearing your problems, your advice, your tips that I can share with everybody else on the sub stack. Join in. Come and there's a whole community there, and you can sort of ask your questions, and I have PDFs that you can download for extra information and all that sort of stuff. So come and find us. We're both there. It's where all the best people are. Have a great week. Big hug. Bye, bye.