Jono, Ben & Megan - The Podcast - Jazz Thornton's Advice On How Your Kids Should Deal With Mental Health :)

Episode Date: September 20, 2023

We talk to Jazz Thornton for mental health awareness week!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Morning, it is Mental Health Awareness Week this week, and someone who does wonderful things for New Zealanders' mental health is Jazz Thornton. You'll know her from Dancing with the Stars, Celebrity Treasure Island at the moment, and she's back for Series 2 of her podcast, which you can get on iHeartRadio. It's called Hope is Real. It should be called All That Jazz. It should be, but Hope is Real is better. All That Jazz and Mataz or something.

There was a huge amount of puns she got to roll with. She could have, but she does amazing things for Kiwis and their mental health. She shares her story, but she also on the podcast talks to experts, friends, and those who face mental health challenges

so you can get serious to the podcast on iHeartRadio. You're doing a very good thing. You got your daughter Sienna in, 13 years old. And she loves jazz. I mean,

she just, as all New Zealand does, but it was someone that she really looks up to and it gives a lot of people hope and shares her story, not afraid to share a story, which is awesome.

Yeah, and you sat down and had a bit of a chat with Jazz and Sienna. If someone is getting bullied or feeling down, feeling helpless, what would you recommend they do? The thing that I always say, especially to young people, is one, that asking for help

does not make you weak, it makes you wise. And I think that it's real easy to learn to ask for help when you know if you hurt yourself on the playground or on the sporting field or whatever for physical things but for some reason we find it harder to ask for help with emotional things so learning that at a young age is is a lot but in doing that to also always ask for help from older and wiser i think when you're really struggling asking for help uh from people that are your own age or friends at school it's good that people know what's going on but they're as wise as you are sometimes probably not even as

wise as you are yeah um and so you know older and wiser and just learning to ask for help is yeah what about as uh i guess as a parent as well what your advice you know for someone who's just got a daughter 13 yeah i think it's mine i think you're you know yeah but this is worrying me in all seriousness about you know the things that kids have to go through these days whether it's you know bullying whether it's even vaping whether it's social media body image all those sorts of things is quite worrying as a parent what advice would you give for us people like me that want to support our, you know, my kids through that time? I think that the biggest thing to do is to be having these open and honest

conversations as much as possible. I think you can't expect them to come to you when things are happening at school or when, you know, even things like vaping or social media is happening. If you haven't been opening up especially like i think the dinner table used to be really good for that but now it's kind of just become we go and watch screens or whatever it may be but if you're not having that constant space where you're just like allowing your kid to debrief their day or constantly asking like how i know how

are you really like how's your day going or doing it in a way that's not judgmental too because what i've noticed especially with social media the parents that try to be super strict on it that's when the kids turn sneaky and the kids don't want to talk um and so learning to attend you don't have to understand it um or you know don't be like oh back in my day it was so much worse it's gonna silence your kid yeah but just having those spaces try and reactivate dinner times if you can or just even like a couple times a week where you're at the dinner table no screens and having this conversation so that if stuff does hit the fan they feel like they can talk to you openly and honestly without sneaking around and drop them off at the school gate still give them big hug in front of their friends you love that don't you see it oh yeah that sort of stuff as

jazz still went in with some great Mental health advice For parents and kids As well And I think she thought This was pretty cool I just want to play Quickly from our chat That Sienna my daughter

Had and I had With Jazz It was talking about All the cool things That Jazz has done But what the things She's most proud of You've also done

All these incredible things You've made movies Books Spoke at the UN One one dancing with the stars. What is the one thing that you're most proud of? Oh, I think above any of the like Blumen accolades or trophies or whatever it is. Just I remember specifically one day I was speaking at a conference and this parent came out to me with her kid and the mum was just crying.

And she said that her daughter had been really really really struggling for a long time and been in and out of the hospital and um that for Christmas she had given her daughter my book and after that point um her daughter never ended up in the hospital again um and she was just like that just it saved my daughter's life and I think for me that's why I'm like if to just see these parents and these kids know that it's okay to ask for help and stay yeah that is above anything for me that's very powerful stuff