Ep. 3 - Making and Investment in Teen Lives

Teen life isn’t noisy, it’s deafening. Between social media pressure, constant comparison, academic strain, and invisible grief, many teens carry more than adults realize. We invited a seasoned parent and financial planner who’s also a former board member, along with a newly licensed counselor who once navigated profound loss as a teen, to unpack what true investment in young people looks like, and why it delivers the best return you’ll ever see.

We draw a sharp line between contribution and investment. A contribution is a one-off gesture; an investment is patient, engaged, and adaptive. You’ll hear how a family moved from panic and pride to therapy and openness after a 19-year-old’s breakdown, and how that shift, “care, but don’t carry," changed everything. We talk frankly about anxiety, depression, substance use, and the shame that keeps parents quiet, then show how dropping secrecy accelerates healing. Alongside that, we spotlight grief that teens often face alone, not only through death but through broken friendships and sudden life changes, and how chosen family and steady routines can keep a young person grounded.

The heart of our conversation is speed and specificity. Four-to-six-month waitlists are unacceptable for a teen in crisis; it’s the mental health version of sending someone with a broken bone home without a cast. We make the case for more teen-focused therapists, rapid access pathways, and integrated support models where counseling sits next to programs that meet basic needs, teach life skills, and keep teens connected to purpose. When we treat teens as experts in their own story and build systems around that truth, autonomy grows, stigma drops, and progress compounds.

You’ll leave with practical steps: learn what typical adolescent behavior looks like, practice hard talks early, build contacts with school counselors and youth leaders, and make a clear promise, if you’re overwhelmed, we’ll find help fast. If this conversation resonates, share it with a parent, teacher, or coach who needs a roadmap. Subscribe for more grounded, hopeful stories, and leave a review to help other caregivers find tools that work.

Transcript

Welcome And Purpose

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to our podcast, Loud Enough from the Teen Action and Support Center. I'm Dawn Sprague. I'm a licensed counselor and one of the co-founders of Task. Our podcast is really a hopeful look at what's happening with teens and how we as adults can be helpful as teens make their journey to become the best version of themselves. We really want people who care for teenagers, parents, and people who are involved in the lives of teenagers to be part of what the work that we do. And we also want those people who care about teenagers. And so we are want to welcome you to today. Today we're really talking about investing in the lives of teenagers. And I have some guests here today. We're so glad to have Matt. Matt Kendall is an investment advisor representative, a certified financial planner at Wealth Path Investment Advisors. And we're really not, we don't really have you here just because of the investment work you do. We really have you here because Matt is a former board member for the Teen Action and Support Center. And he's also currently a campaign cabinet member. We have a comprehensive campaign, and so he is doing that work. And he's a dad who has raised teenagers. I also have Delaney Pfeffer here. Delaney is a previous uh counseling intern at the Teen Action and Support Center. She's gonna tell a little bit more about her story, but she is a newly licensed associate counselor. We're real proud of you and um really excited too. So Matt and his wife Rebecca have raised um two boys, been around lots of young people. So my first question really is well, what do you know from all of your experiences as a parent that so of some things that teens are really dealing with?

SPEAKER_02 1:56

Oh gosh. Um, today's world is so, yeah, I've raised two boys, 28 and 24. It was very easy, not um, you know, there's a lot of hidden things that they don't talk to you about.

SPEAKER_03 2:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:09

It's really hard to uh to get out of them. Um so extreme dialogue is and and openness is is so much needed. And um, they're struggling with peer pressure. We've always heard that. Social media, you know, is one of the worst uh pieces, I think, in in in in our environment today that really puts a lot of pressure on them like that. And then just getting through school and education and watching their peers and others maybe do better once they make it, you know, past high school, they start in their late teens into college, and then after that getting jobs. There's so much pressure now today to find the right job. And I tried to tell everybody your first job is not your last job. And also that, you know, uh what's worse than having a bad job, no job at all. And so um just the comparisons that people do with one another, um, I think is is bad. And obviously, obviously, you know, um there we've always had, you know, um teen pregnancy to to um help with, and TAS does a wonderful job, 100% graduation rate. And then also substance abuse. Um and there's a reason for that substance abuse. It's called the stress, the anxiety, maybe depression. Um you got to get to that root cause. And so that's something that I open my eyes up to be really open with my kids now, and I talk about my struggles with them, so they know that we're not isolated.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

That's so good. Yeah. The comparison factor is huge. We've talked about that quite a bit. So, same question for you. Delaney has you have recently been a teenager and also been a counselor primarily with teenagers when you interned at task. So what Matt, what you said about a lot of times parents don't know. They really don't know, but counselors get to hear some of that. So, what do you think are some of the really big things that teens are dealing with?

SPEAKER_01 4:03

Yeah, I think um, Matt, you really touched on a lot of the things that I've found myself working with with the teens. Also being a teen, I mean, it was not that long ago, but it was, yeah, it was long enough. Um, but I do interestingly still find that comparison factor to be huge um with working with teens. I worked with teens at task, and then I worked with teens um in a competitive dance environment as well. So um I saw a lot of those same themes pop up. I think social media really does compound that for them, um adding in bullying in that way, um, them having to navigate that. Um, I worked with a lot of teens that dealt with grief, which I wasn't really anticipating. I mean, I having dealt with it myself, but um I I found that to be interesting and not just grief of losing people, but losing relationships, friendships, navigating that. What does that look like in all of these transitions that they're going through in their lives? So um yeah.

A Parent’s Crisis And Learning Curve

SPEAKER_00 5:11

There's a lot. There really is. We probably could take up all of our time um talking about that. My own experience with with families specifically and with teens is that um things happen to teens and they're not prepared for it, really. Uh, and parents aren't prepared for it, or people who work with teenagers, they're just they're not prepared for it. I think oftentimes we do so much prep work when when they're little. You know, we we want to know all the developmental stages, we want to be ready for all the things that they might experience, but then they just start growing up and we're like, they're they're good to go. We don't, we don't do as much, we don't invest as much of our time in preparing for that. So I I know Matt, you have a a personal story too. And just I just wonder how um when when stuff comes to you as a parent and you're not really prepared for it, what what how do you how do you react to that? And then what do you do? Tell us just a little bit about your story.

SPEAKER_02 6:12

Yeah, my story. Um I mean, we were fairly strict parents, maybe a little more helicopter than we should have been, but we were very engaged for our boys um and knew what was going on, at least we thought. But we didn't know what was going through our oldest boy's head growing up. We knew we had some problems, he wasn't challenged in school, he was bored, we switched schools, went to the charter school later on. We seemed to think everything was going great. Um, and then when he was 19 at sophomore at the university, still a teenager, but on that cusp, um, he had a pretty uh massive breakdown from anxiety that led to depression and some substance type stuff. And um, we were in the blind. I had never personally um dealt with, you know, certain substances and other things. I never had really experience of anxiety or depression or how to treat a kid. And so we were in a panic mode. And we sat in and, you know, Don knows I called her. I'm big on therapy at that point. My wife and I were going to see someone to try to figure out because we we knew something was going on. We just couldn't figure it out. And to kind of navigate that. And Don, we were lucky enough to get with Don and another therapist, and and he he went away for um about 105 days, but it was a great program, great give back, but it took resources from our families that others don't. And that's what makes me really sad, is that I I have had two or three other uh people I know about every month or two, I get a call that somebody is, you know, having trouble with a teenager, where it's you know, suicidal or or substance abuse or whatever, and a lot of them don't have the resource to send their kid away and front the money or whatever. And that's why task is so important because it is basically a free resource for these teenagers. Yeah. And we have to get in front of it. Um, teenagers are our future, and so we have to get in front of it because that leads to long-term um issues if you don't. Um, so I learned a lot from my story, and then also the feeling of um, you know, um, you you feel you lose your pride. A lot of it's ego, I will say. I mean, I had an ego. I didn't want my friends knowing what was going on, I didn't want to talk about it. Then it's beating yourself up. What should I have done differently? And I have replayed this story a million times, and I know now that I couldn't have done anything different. Uh, I don't like to be reactionary, I like to be proactive. In this case, I had to be reactionary, but you just you cannot blame yourself as a parent or others. Um, this is just innate in certain kids and outside uh influences that can trigger that. So we learned therapy leaning in and just uh doing everything you can to support your child during this trauma and experience. And and we came out on the other side very, very well.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

I love that. Thank you for for sharing that. I know it it is really difficult when you're a parent and you weren't expecting anything like this to be part of your family at all those emotions you're talking about. Uh really, there's so much grief for parents. There's so much shame. I love that you and Rebecca worked hard at like how do we best help our kid? Like that's that's so great. And my hope would be that people would be like, if it ever happened to me, then I'd be prepared. You know, I I would I would kind of know what to do. So your story helps people think about like we should be thinking about that a little bit. And so, and Delaney, I want to I wanna just touch back on what we talked about. Like you have been a team recently, and um just like you're not prepared. Teenagers are not prepared for some of the things that you went through and some of the things we know teenagers go through. So um cancer becomes part of your family, loss becomes part of your family. I I know that that's a really hard part of your story, but um tell us a little bit about like what was that like for you? These things hit you, you're you're trying to navigate them. Who invested in you? And tell us about that part of your story.

Grief, Belonging, And Chosen Family

SPEAKER_01 10:26

Well, I think as hard as that story is, I think the thing that makes it so uh joyful to talk about is those people that invested in me. So, yes, my mom had cancer, I think, pretty much my entire life. Um I think I was first four years old when she got it. So we kind of just grew up in a chaotic environment essentially. Um and then she got better and then it came back, and then she unfortunately passed away when I was 12. Um, which when you're 12, like that is unexpected, you know? So um you think about someone who's sick and it's kind of there's an anticipatory grief that I know about now, but then to me it was completely out of nowhere. And so um, and I'm the youngest, so I kind of watched my family deal with this and um kind of just navigate the like what do we do now? My mom was the one that held everybody together. Um so um, unfortunately, with all of that, things got really difficult. I dealt with a lot of anxiety and depression. This is in a completely unrelatable topic among my peers at the time. So felt really isolated. And um what's really cool about which how do you make a segue like that? Um, is that um I had really great people around me. So I um at the time I was I grew up dancing. So I was dancing at um backstage dance company at the time, and that was such a great place for me. I met so many awesome people there. Um, and they helped me stay in that, even though financially now we were a single parent family.

SPEAKER_00 12:23

And that was an investment, right? Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 12:27

Um, so that was fabulous because that also allowed me to really maintain and foster friendships. And uh through that I had um my best friend still to this day. Um, Nathan, he um was a huge part of my life when I didn't really have a lot of places to go. Um everything was just difficult during that time. And so he and his wonderful parents, uh CJ and Tim, scooped me up and uh uh brought me into their home and uh took me in as one of their own for, oh gosh, I just moved out a couple months ago. So um, or I guess literally a few weeks ago, actually. So uh yeah, they kept me around for a while. So um yeah, great, just a great support system that I had that as I then flipped to being in the counselor role with some of these teens that are navigating something very similar. Um, I I see those little green flags of you've got support right there and you've got support right here, and you've got support where you are now. So really can totally speak to the investment that was made at during all of those phases for me and how thankfully those happened and I land in this room here today.

SPEAKER_00 13:44

Yeah. Which which we're really glad about. We keep using this word investment, and you are an investment person. So what's the difference between just being involved, maybe, and making an investment, do you think, in the life of a of a teenager?

SPEAKER_02 14:02

Yeah, I was thinking about that. Contribution versus investment. So to me, like in my my business, a contribution, somebody walks in, puts$2,000 in their IRA and walks away, not worried about it, or walking, you know, just nobody's watching an investment. You're you're investing, you're watching your growth, you're you're making changes in your portfolio, your other financial insurance and all that. And with teenagers, we have it's easy to write a check for some and just you know, deposit and task and walk away. Um, but you we really have to invest our time, our effort. Our teenagers are the future to our success, our children. And if we lean in and invest with them, send them to task, have a therapist, do this, that, lean on task as ability to help that, we will solve so many problems as their brain develops and they get in, and they'll contribute to society and themselves and their family a lot better. And I've got an example. I've got a friend in college. Um, he struggled in college with sub a lot of drinking, substance abuse, and anger. And I never knew this, uh, and I always wondered why does he act that way? Well, as a kid, he was uh abused in the Boy Scouts, and his parents told him and his grandparents that he can never talk about it. So he had this pent-up trauma that was never allowed to be exposed or outward. And I think um now he's a lot better, but um, if you get ahead of it and and you start treating trauma, other issues with these teenagers, whatever problems they've gone through, um, poverty, uh help them with pregnancy or whatever, they're set up for so much better success in the future. And you know, I give you great accolades being what you've been through and then giving back. That's a true investment. It is because you live that that life and you understand, you have the emotional intelligence to understand what that teenager or child's going through. That is perfect for what we need in our therapy and counseling and other. We need folks that have walked that journey. And so investing to me is not only giving your time, but staying involved. Um, you know, I hear this phrase all the time care, but don't carry. It's so hard. Um, I'm a carrier and it causes stress, and then you have to go see a therapist yourself. But lean in and care and be active and invest in those kids. Don't just make a contribution and walk away.

SPEAKER_03 16:48

No.

SPEAKER_02 16:48

That's not what is needed. I mean, yes, we need lots of money. Yep. Yeah, definitely. So keep sending your checks. But um really that investment is what the key to success of our teenagers as they grow and mature and contribute to society in much better ways.

Contribution Vs Investment Explained

SPEAKER_00 17:04

Yeah, Matt, you mentioned the um teen brain development. You know, we I think uh at on every podcast I've done so far, I think we've talked about that a little bit. But it really we do really consider it the best opportunity for change. Um adults can change. It just takes longer. But when we make this uh this investment in preventative care and early intervention, when we do that, we have an opportunity to do some healing and to to help people be better equipped when they become adults. So it's really, I'm just gonna throw out here my um my new lingo, it's it's the ROI, right? It's the return on investment. Just learned all of this. Um, but it it's really, it's not just, and we do appreciate the people who help us provide services for our teenagers, but it's really looking ahead to what happens when we make that investment. And it's really why I wanted Delaney to come too, because there are so many kids. I promise you, when you were in school, nobody really had an idea of what you were dealing with. Um, because kids hide it, just like you said, Matt. And then people are surprised when something happens and they're like, what's wrong with this kid? That just exactly what why is he acting like this? This is exactly what you said. And so um, if we can, if we can make sure that we reduce the stigma for parents too, right? Kid comes to you, they're struggling, we don't want anybody to know, we don't want our friends to know. We have a comparison factor as well. Um, are you a good enough parent? And we don't want people to think that everybody is doing the best they can, and we don't know. So that was happening for you, um, Tim and CJ, I know knew what was going on and were willing to make an investment, right? And so I I just really appreciate it when when people will share their story. I appreciate you sharing yours and yours as well. But um, but I just want to talk a little bit more about return on investment because Matt, you pointed it out. But for Delaney, it it was not just here I am, it was the process of having people support you, having access to resources so that you could get the help you need. And so I want to just touch on that a little bit. Matt, I know a lot of people come to you and they're like, what do I do? So talk a little bit about um the need for resources for teenagers specifically.

SPEAKER_02 19:38

Yeah, um they come to me and I say, call Don Sprag. Now, Don, I mean, Don's one person, so she can't handle it all. No. And so um what we need, obviously, it is shameful that if somebody's in crisis, um a therapist counselor wait time could be four to six months sometime. And you cannot do that with children and teenagers. They need immediate assistance, like going to an ER. So we have to in Northwest Arkansas invest more and you know, great resources, all around task. I I tend to gravitate towards therapy and counseling because that's what affected my family's work, and I know it better than anything. But we have to grow the number of therapists um dedicated to teens. I mean, the most important time in the brain development. What other better time to get a hold of them? So, um, and start working with them and getting on into a really good trajectory for life. So I believe the number one focus should be um, you know, every teenager has an opportunity um to get counseling and therapy help, bar none, within a specified time frame. And it's got to be very quick. And that's my my dream, my goal of mental health in Northwest Arkansas, that we will make that happen. Yeah. Um and we will invest to uh bring, it's like going to the ER. We've got to have them in immediately. And so we have to grow our therapy and counseling and uh sections of task.

Teen Brain And Prevention ROI

SPEAKER_00 21:13

Yeah. Well, you are certainly doing a lot of work advocating for that. We we appreciate that at the Teen Action and Support Center. But also same for you. Talk, do you, if you don't mind, talk a little bit about like what you know about resources and how important teen-specific resources are here.

SPEAKER_01 21:31

Yes. Okay, I'm gonna go kind of twofold here on when I was a teen, um, it's it's that period where you are adulting more, but you are not an adult. Legally, you are not an adult. Um, so I mean, there were things I was navigating on my own, like how do I get my own health insurance before I was I was 16. So it's like, how do we do these things? And so that's why I think. Teen specific is so important because um that is just that is too neat, you know? And so I was thankful at that point to have a resource like task and have adults I could trust at task that I could work through um all the different things with and that I really felt seen as someone that was in this in-between of I'm still supposed to be a kid, but now all of these things that have happened to me have made me have to grow up really fast. And how do I honor that in my in my own self and then be successful in the way that I want to? So, and then in my role at task when I um was seeing clients as a as a therapist, I um I really see that um I lost my train of thought. There was my twofold and it went onefold. But uh, you know, I just see that importance of really focusing in. I I just thought it was really important to to not be the expert in the room necessarily with the teens, because never do they get an opportunity to be the expert of their own story. You know, it's there, they go to school and then they go home. And a lot of the times it's this is how things are done, and good luck. And so it's just really important, I think, to to get in there and just allow teens to have autonomy. And I think that to Matt's point, like with counseling and intervening in this particular age period, that's why it's so important because it's a it's a space where we're trying to teach these kids essentially how to have autonomy and be adults, but we don't really present those opportunities. And I think counseling is a really great way of doing that.

Access, Waitlists, And Urgent Care

Teen-Specific Support And Autonomy

SPEAKER_00 23:52

Yeah, I think probably your train of thought was around the fact that as counselors, because I've done lots of the counseling for the teens as well, it to have a resource right on site. Yeah. Right. So we don't have to send them somewhere else for those other resources to be able to get, you know, somebody who can help them with their adulting stuff or whatever it is, or teen parents, we have access to that. So that's one of the things I love about what we do at task is we have this whole teen well-being approach. So our counselors can refer and all of our programming people can refer to counseling if needed, and it works really well. It's it's it's so wonderful. And I appreciate both of you. I do want to, I know you said accolades. I just want to um I just want to share that um you are a return on investment for the Teen Action and Support Center. I'm very proud personally, um, because I've been part of your journey. But knowing that um you had the support outside of the resources at task was great. Um, and then having you circle back, I remember the day you said, can I be an intern at the Teen Action and Support Center? And I said, yes, but you have to interview. And it was not a shoe-in. No. Um I wanted it to be. And then, of course, you were just quite um, quite perfect for the work that we do. And so I'm really grateful that you did circle back with us, and and now you will be out in the world doing what we need done to make sure that teenagers get cared for. So I'm really grateful for both of you to be here so that we could talk about really making an investment and uh understanding what a return on investment looks like in your house. It's good good news, in your house, good news too. And so I'm really grateful. I do want to just share with people a few takeaways to make sure that um that what we talk about here might help you in some way or help somebody you know in in some way. First, it's just to be educated on what normal adolescent behavior is. Sometimes we get real panicky if our teenagers are doing something because we've heard on the news or we've seen in social media that it's just going to be terrible. Um, so make sure, I know, right? But make sure that you kind of have an understanding of that. We will actually talk about that some more on podcasts in the future. The other is to to know what the challenges might be, to to really understand your kid to your point, to really know and have as much dialogue as you can have, but to be prepared for what if. What if something didn't go exactly as you all hoped, and be open enough to make sure that your your adolescent knows that they can share that and you'll walk the journey with them. Even if you have to get support for it, you'll be able to walk alongside them. I I would just encourage people to talk to people who work with teens, school teachers, school counselors, pastors, people who are in the environment where teenagers are walking and sharing a little bit of their story. So the other thing is to invest in young people. Um, just to know that this is a very specific window of opportunity. And if we really do it well, then the future is just gonna look so amazing for each of them, for our community, for your community. Um, and so we are grateful that you are here today to listen and grateful for both of you to share your stories. So I just want to encourage people that when teens speak up, listen well. And when they feel like they don't have a voice, then be loud enough for them to be heard by others. Thanks for being here. Bye.