Change Your Brain Every Day - Pressure & Social Media: How Can You Get Your Kids to Confide In You? with Chloe Amen

Episode Date: January 17, 2018

In the second and final episode of a two-part series on vulnerability, Tana Amen is joined by her daughter Chloe to discuss the ways a parent can get their children to open up and be honest with them. Kids’ experience is much different these days, and with many of them trying harder and harder to be noticed on social media, it often causes a disengagement in real life. Learn how to take the steps necessary to understand your children and lead by example, and they will likely find it easier to open up and connect with you.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. Here we teach you how to win the fight for your brain to defeat anxiety, depression, memory loss, ADHD, and addictions. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we've transformed lives for three decades using brain spec imaging to better target treatment and natural ways to heal the brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com.

The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceutical products to support the health of your brain and body. For more information, visit brainmdhealth.com. Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. So welcome back. I am here again with Chloe, my daughter, I'm so proud of. We're talking about vulnerability and you read Brene Brown's book, Daring Greatly. And I was so impressed because I read it, like I said, in my forties and you read it at 14 and you're going to get just so much benefit by reading some of these books and learning this

stuff, you know, at an age where, you know, I'm always so impressed at how much you're always trying to better yourself. And that's a really important thing so we talked in the last segment about some of the things you do to ground yourself how you might be able to help teens you know utilize some of those skills one of the things I want to talk about in this segment is helping parents yeah and also so you talking to parents about how they might be able to help kids and me talking to parents, but also, you know, talking to kids. Also, what's the opposite? What happens if you decide you don't want to utilize some of these skills?

I like what she says. You know, we want to be thinking about abundance versus scarcity. Okay. So we have a scarcity mindset and we're terrified of being vulnerable because we're focused on scarcity. She identifies these, these three components, shame, comparison, disengagement, sort of the opposite of what we're trying to do with, with being vulnerable and opening, opening ourselves up. So, I mean, shame is a big one. It's why people don't want to be vulnerable, right? You talked about that in the last one, in our last segment. So you, you mentioned that, um, talk a little bit about comparison. Okay. So especially for teenagers, people my age, I was going to say, so especially people my age,

comparison is a big, is a big thing that kind of dictates what we do and the decisions we make because we're so worried about, but this person does this better than I do. Or what if I don't do it as good as this person? Or their hair is prettier or skinnier or I mean, it goes on and on with teens. Everything. Right. And I think that how we kind of gauge what we're comfortable with doing is based on what other people are comfortable with doing. So if that person's comfortable with doing it, then maybe I should be too. But what if you started it? What if you were the one to set that tone? And what if you were the one to do it first? That's being vulnerable. What if you were the one to do it first? And other people were to go, oh, okay,

she did it. But instead, I think we kind of compare ourselves with other people and, and see how it turns out for other people before we decide to do it. Right. So I think that's kind of what goes along with comparison. Have you read Roosevelt's, um, speech man in the arena yet? I think I've read part of it. Oh, you should read that one. I think it was actually in the book. I think part of it was in the book. It's one of my very favorite speeches or quotes because when you, I always told Daniel when I met him. So like I said, I didn't, I started working on my personal growth, um, you know, early on in life, but I didn't, I don't think I really had my major breakthroughs until I was in my late thirties. So you're way ahead of me. Um, so it was

hard for me. I mean, there were a lot of things were hard for me based on the, you know, the way I grew up and not having the same access to things and support and whatever. Um, I, but I was working on it. Right. And so, but I told Daniel when I met him, I never, ever, ever would marry someone who was well-known. I would never, ever marry someone who was a public figure or famous or on TV, God forbid. And he was like, why? I'm like, because I want anonymity. It took me forever to build my, like, privacy and walls and anonymity.

And I would never do that. I would never want to be, like, in the public eye. Be careful what you wish for. Yes. And then not only was he, did he do that, but then he wanted to drag me with him. So I actually love what I do now, but I had to really learn how to do that. And that, that speech man in the arena, just so well sums up. It's people who are in the arena, who are taking chances, who are making a difference. That, you know, so what if you're being criticized? The people on the sidelines, so what if they're making criticisms?

They're not doing anything. They're not doing anything. Right? So those are not the people I actually want. Like, I get criticized all the time. I can just read my Facebook page. I get criticized all the time. There was a time that would have been crippling to me. Now I'm like, well, if I'm not getting those criticisms, I'm not making a difference. Like I'm not, it means I'm not busy enough. Right. Because if that means I'm actually doing something

if people are criticizing me. So I actually use that as almost an opposite gauge. Does that make sense? Right. So I like that. Um, and the other one I want to talk about with you for teens is disengagement because social media is a big thing. Not only are teens using social media to compare themselves, but you mentioned something to me that was really important. You said that kids have to do more and more and more now to be noticed. To be noticed. Because of social media. It gets more and more extreme as social media continues and grows bigger. In order to be noticed or get, I guess you would say, validation, you have to go to extremes. So these nude pictures. Right.

You have to do all these crazy things and put it out there on social media in order to be noticed. Right. So in their attempt to engage and be noticed, they're actually almost disengaging in the real world. In the real world. So their social skills are less. They're not present with people in places. Right. We go to, you know, Disneyland even. Every teenager I see is like this. They're they don't even know like what they're not even enjoying Disneyland because they're so busy trying to like be on social media. It's crazy. So it's a really important thing and you know that I don't know our society we need to start working on that. So as a parent I've always because I've done so much work on myself of course I want to be able to pass that on to you. We never know if we're actually doing

the right thing, right? I always say that joke at some point, I'm probably gonna have to pay for your therapy. And that's okay. Cause we never know. You don't come with a manual, right? But we're trying to do the right things. And we want, I mean, people who listen to this podcast are trying to do the right thing. So we don't often get the truth from our kids. No. I feel like I get the truth a lot from you. Sometimes I'm like, ouch, I'm not sure I wanted to hear that, but it's good. So what are some things that parents could do or could do better to help their kids open up and be more authentic and be more vulnerable? Or what are some things that parents do that cause their kids to sort of shut down? So one thing I think that's really important,

parents sometimes expect their kids to open up to them, be honest, be more vulnerable. But at that same time, they're not willing to do it. They're not willing to be vulnerable. They're not willing to open up to their kids so why should why should their kids open up to them if they're not willing to open up you know i've told you some pretty shocking things actually i think yeah i would say so but um yeah so if you're not willing to open up to your kids and be vulnerable with your kids why should they do the same with you? I think one place, especially when you're a teenager, that's really important

is kind of trying to think like them. They're worried about being approved of, about getting validation, and that's why they look at other teens their age to see who've done it first or if it worked for them or doing certain things to be popular doing certain things to you know get certain things so i think that as a parent you have to kind of just look at it like in their kind of perspective and go they're just afraid they're just afraid to do it because they're not they're afraid of the outcome you know what i'm saying so you have to kind of just see it from their perspective instead of getting upset with them right I try really hard to remember what it was like being a teenager and quite frankly I remember it sucking kind of so um yeah I remember that but I I do try to tell

you things and I've always tried to make it sort of age appropriate at the time, but a little shocking almost so that you would know. Right. You look at me like, yeah. Because, and I've done that intentionally because I wanted you to know that number one, I wasn't perfect. Number two, that it's okay for you to do the same. That like I tell you stuff that's a little bit like just a little edgy for your age because um like you know when she's young that might be like whatever um so it's always age appropriate but just enough so that she knows oh my mom knows what's going on and it's okay for me to talk to her

right so i never wanted to make it sound like oh i didn't do that i was like i was such a good girl because that is not going to help you to open up to me what we want is somebody we can relate to right and in order to be able to relate to somebody if you want somebody to relate to you you have to think like them you have to you know be relatable in their in their sense you know so we would always joke around about it and yeah um yeah so i think um i've heard some of your friends talking and they're like I would often say well why don't you talk to your mom about that oh my god I can't do that like and it's like why so why do you think that they say that

I think that they're afraid just like anyone else or for that afraid of opening up to anybody else like their peers because they're going to be it's going to be a disapproval it's going to be you're a lesser person because of it and I think not outwardly saying it but I think that sometimes parents do that I think that sometimes parents without really knowing it and without maybe not really meaning it, they kind of go, oh, that's bad. Like, you know, and kids think, think of that and associate that with I'm not as good. I'm not as good because my parents disapproved of me. Being a parent, it's kind of like we look up to our parents because they're our role models, right? Growing up, it's like my parent does this, my parent does that, and every kid wants to follow

in their parents' footsteps. But it's hard. It's really hard, just like it is with your friends, when you feel like your parents don't approve of you. So if they feel like they can relate to them, it makes it a lot easier instead of putting the shame on them, which makes them not wanna open up at all. So is there anything else you would add to that? Is there anything that has made it easier for you to open up? I know one story, and you might not even remember this,

and I don't know if it helped or not. Maybe you can say it helped or it didn't help. So Chloe is a perfectionist, has been by nature since she was little. Really hard on herself. And that did not come from me. We don't try to do that with her. We always encourage her effort, not her grades, not the outcome. We always encourage the effort. It's the hard work. It's the work ethic that we encourage it's never the grade or the whatever the result so you studied really hard for a test one time and it was like I think like fourth grade anyways she got in the car and she was crying she was so upset because she didn't get a good grade on the test but she studied really hard and so I'm like oh I'm sorry sweetheart I'm sorry that

you didn't get the grade you were expecting and so anyways when you told me the grade I'm like okay so high- five and you were like mad at me at first you're like what I'm like give me a high five and you got really upset and I'm like come on and we're gonna go for ice cream and you look to me you go I now I know something's wrong with you number one ice cream you're like ice cream you ice cream so but I took her out for ice cream and it was an intentional move. Right. It was to emphasize a couple of things. Number one, it's the effort. It's not the outcome that perfectionism is never going to be the thing that's going to help you out in life. But I also never wanted you to be afraid to, you know, be able to come in and share with me when

you're upset about something. It's like, that's not the goal. The goal was to have you put the effort in. Right. Because the effort's always going to pay off. The grade, so what? That eventually will happen. If you keep putting the effort in, eventually you're going to do, you know, it'll catch up. So I think when parents get so focused on the details, it can really damage that relationship. Right. We can't always control the outcome of what happens but it's the what you do to get there that's important if you you know if you follow the right steps to get there and the outcome doesn't turn out the way you wanted it to that's not something we can control but we can control how we get there we can control what we do to make it

happen right whether it turns out the way we want it to or not and so another thing that i kind of tell myself is not because i'm a perfectionist is to not let my vulnerabilities and what i think i need work on or what i think I need to be better at define me I like to find who I am because it's like if you let every little detail that you're like I can make that better or I'll wait until I'll wait like I'm not gonna I'm not gonna do that until I know it's perfect so in other words you don't take risks because you think you need to wait until you're better. Right. But I also think that when we put ourselves out there, if there's one thing that maybe someone picks out or that you yourself pick out that you don't really like, we let that one thing define who we are.

Like I'm not as good because of that thing. But I think it's really important to know that you can decide what defines you you can't let you know everyone else decide that for you or your own like little thing about yourself that you think you want to change and I think we can still want to change certain things we can still want to improve that's why I read books like Darrenaring Greatly. We can still want to improve things about ourselves and still own who we are and what we stand for while doing it and not let that make us, you know, less, less of who we are. So I love that. Well, we would highly recommend the book Daring Greatly. Um, and I'm so happy that you joined me today. Me too. I think this is really helpful for teens to hear and to help them find their center and their balance

and not necessarily look to other teens for approval, but rather to find their own grounding and be authentic. So thanks, sweetie. Thank you for listening to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. Go to iTunes and leave a review, and you'll automatically be entered into a drawing to get a free signed copy of The Brain Warrior's Way and The Brain Warrior's Way cookbook we give away every month.