The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Combating Teen Anxiety: Teen-Parent Communication Journal by Gina Nelson

Episode Date: February 12, 2026

Combating Teen Anxiety: Teen-Parent Communication Journal by Gina Nelson Combatingteenanxiety.com Authenticgains.com https://www.amazon.com/Combating-Teen-Anxiety-Teen-Parent-Communication/dp/1949642895 Is your teen struggling with anxiety and you don’t know how to help? This journal will teach you and your teen to communicate in a non-confrontational way, using emotionally safe prompts to express vulnerable thoughts, feelings, and responses. Combating Teen Anxiety Parent-Teen Journal will help you both: Initiate discussions using a fill-in-the-blank prompt so that you both can express your feelings in a clear and productive manner. Identify body sensations and the emotions associated with your thoughts so that you can slow down your responses until you are feeling calmer. Navigate vulnerable conversations in an emotionally safe way that will increase understanding and improve connection between you. This journal is a powerful tool to help you navigate the challenging conversations that arise during the emotionally charged teen years. You and your teen will ultimately form a stronger bond and develop skills that last a lifetime. As a special gift for you, I want to offer you a complimentary express course on how to catch your teen’s anxiety before it gets out of control. To access your Free Mini-Course go to www.CombatingTeenAnxiety.com

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they help authors reach their audience and maximize their book success. Today, we're amazing young lady on the show. We're going to be talking about her book, combating teen anxiety, teen parent communication journal out November 1st, 2022. And some of you are still stuck in your teens. I've seen you on the streets. So on Twitter, you may want to go back and read her book. Gina Nelson joins us on the show today. We're going to be talking about her and her practice, her work and the things that she does,

help people be better. That's what we do on the show. Gina has been a licensed clinical social worker for over two decades. And has spent the last 25 years of her career, helping individuals and families learn to adapt and cope with difficult life transitions. She's the creator of combating teen anxiety or proven 10-step method to reduce teen anxiety and give teens the skills to manage their emotions so they can succeed in future goals. Is that when you put them up for adoption?

No, I'm just kidding. I'm telling jokes in the bio. She also decided a parent-teen communication journal to give teens the language and tools to express themselves with their parents when conversations are difficult to discuss. Welcome to the show, Gina. How are you? I am so excited to be here, Chris. Now, is there cages involved in this teen negotiation work on these kids? Is that how it works? I've only had dogs, so all I know is crates.

We like to avoid that, if at all. Okay, let me make a note of that in case. I was going to adopt some kids because I need my car wash. Anyway, give us your dot-coms. Where do you want people to find you? Yeah, www. www.combatting Teen Anxiety.com. We'll take you to some information about combatantine anxiety and a free mini

course for parents. It's like an express course to teach you a little bit about how to help your team with their anxiety. And my main website for my practice is called Authentic Gains, and that's at www. Authenticgains.com. And so give us a 30,000 of what this book is about. Yeah. Well, the book is really about teaching parents and teens.

how to communicate together because teens just don't have any awareness of their bodies. They just don't have any awareness of kind of the emotions and where they land in their bodies. And so when they're trying to talk to parents, a lot of times you get a parent's ask them how they're doing and they get, you know, I'm fine. You know, I don't know. I don't know. A lot of I don't knows. And what I found in my work was that we needed to help teens get some language for how to communicate. And we also needed to give them some kind of technical.

technical format so that they could formulate what they wanted to say in a non-defensive communication style. I played engaged father-in-law. Is that how you turn? Stepfather? Oh, yeah, yeah, engaged stepfather. So it wasn't an official stepfather. But I played a gauge stepfather.

And I remember the young lady I dated her son was turning like 11 to 12. So he was starting down that teenage road. And he was, you could tell he was trying to figure out his. ego and his self and every now that he would blurt out something that would just be really offensive like back talk us like why don't you guys go after yourself you know something to that degree and he would immediately no sooner would leave his mouth then he had this look on his face like oh shit did i say that did i just come out you know and i mean at least he had the the i don't know what you call it the consciousness to be like i just said something really bad uh but you know i i i guess

that might be an example of, you know, what teens are going through where they're trying to self-actualize maybe. Yeah. And, you know, what that example that you just gave is a perfect example of a teen who's getting really anxious or just regulated in some way. And they just kind of blur out whatever's on their brain in that moment from a place that's not really safe. And what usually happens is the parent receives that comment and it comes out as the, now

the parent's defensive. The parent is kind of dysregulated themselves. and they might say something that they didn't mean to say or respond in a way that's not safe. And so safe communication is a really hard thing for even adults to figure out, but especially for teens. And so when I think about working with the parents, the moms, I work with a lot more women than men, just because, you know, I relate to them so much more, obviously, as somebody who's got grown kids and went through raising teens myself. And I, you know, I just, they see themselves in my story and the ability to kind of relate to them.

Yeah. Let me write this down. When is the time that you put the team at the production at what age? Well, hopefully we keep them until they're 18 and launch them. And hopefully you've done a good enough job that they want to be in your life and your adults. You want me to work too. and on top of the raising the teens and you know and then feeding them that's a whole do you have a book on feeding the teens we did have some boys and and that was a lot of sports you know what that's like to bring like several hundred dollars with the groceries and you can't even get into the fridge and they've already consumed them all and then they're in the fridge going is there more mom and you're like what the hell the tornado happened yeah so yeah it's funny how they grow and they eat I'm having that problem right now with a puppy

about eight month old he eats like everything it's little stuff he shouldn't be eating so that's always good he's like my drug phase in my 30s or something i don't know what that means but it's sounded like a good segue so you this journal is is it is it more so who usually possesses this journal in the in the in the thing between the parent and the in the teen is the teen or the parent or both actually both so um it starts out by just giving some kind of language to body and some sensations and getting some vocabulary that the teens can utilize of, you know, some of the bigger feelings that maybe they don't have language for. And then it's really set up with a teen entry that has some very specific prompts that allow them to really formulate their thoughts with

good intentions of their parents. So essentially they're saying, you know, you know, it wasn't your intention to do X, Y, and Z. But when you do X, Y, and Z, I feel unsafe. And really helping them understand like where they feel that and they use these prompts to to really help them articulate those those feelings and they also are able to articulate that they know the parents are actually trying right that the parents are in a good place now what happens is when when we write things down like this it gives us time to think and to process our emotions where we're living in a society where people are just sending text messages, sending out emails, blurting out explosive language, and nobody's taking the time to think. And so the teen writes and fills out,

you know, why they don't feel safe. What would, what about the parents, maybe nonverbal communication or behaviors makes them feel unsafe? And then they can say, I would feel safer if you did X, Y, and Z. Let me give you an example. Let's say every time the teen comes to the parent, the mom's busy doing, And she's busy with life. Like, she's a busy mom. She's coming home from work and she's trying to manage other kids. And so maybe she's multitasking and she's not really present. And the team might say, you know what, when you're on your phone or you're multitasking,

you're not looking at me, it makes me feel like you're not listening. It makes me feel not seen. And they're able to verbalize that in this journal. And then they hand it to the parent or put it someplace that they agree upon. And the parent gets to take some time to reflect on those comments and respond back. I need one too for girlfriends. Do you have one for that? Well, you know, I actually works very well.

Because girlfriends and teenagers are a lot of like, you go, how are you doing? I'm fine. And you're like, I don't know what that means, but I'm in trouble. Yeah. So I need a book for that if you get around to it. But it might be similar. You know, it's hard to talk to teenagers because I've lived through that. You know, I'm fine.

And you're like, you know, you try and converse with them. You know, and you're just trying to be a human being. you're like, hey, how was school, man? Is you okay there? Fine. Slams the door. So, yeah, I mean, do you have a chapter in there, like, how to talk to your parents without wanting? I can't set this up, right?

Do you have a chapter in there about how to talk to your parents without making them want to choke you out? That's always probably a good one. No, but I will say that in the actual program that I've created to really teach some of these, you know, more in-depth skills. we're going to go much more in depth into those. The journal is kind of a foundation of learning that to communicate. Because more often than not, as I'm working with, you know, moms who are really struggling, a lot of times they're saying, you know, I don't know what to do. I try and do everything possible.

But in reality, you know, moms, oh, all of us have nervous systems. And all of us are kind of bouncing back and forth between kind of that sympathetic fight, flight, and safety. And a lot of, you know, high performance. kind of moms who are busy managing multi-things, they don't know how to get themselves to safety. And so part of what the teen is watching is what's going on in the home? What's the anxiety like? Is mom able to rest?

Is mom able to do some self-care? And if a parent can't do that, then they can't help their teen regulate because if they're going to, if they're like in this sympathetic space all the time, the fight, flight, you know, the story that's kind of. coming in that's pursued by them, both the teen and the parent is coming from a place of attack. And so in our communications in that sympathetic attack. And what we really need is we need both of them to get to a place of safety so that if they can get safe and calm down, we can circle back into a conversation that's much more productive and, you know, has that kind of safe connectedness to it. You know, you bring up a good example because what I found, and I've always tried to create a, you know, a lot of people refer to masculine frame or frame, which is a control position in some sort of either in a relationship or a small relationship or you're negotiating or you're, you're, you know, I mean, you're in my frame right now. You're in my show. And so it can easily become your show if I don't maintain frame and you would take over and basically start hosting it, which I've done on podcasts. I'm like, this guy can't. host, I'm just going to do it. I'm just going to take over.

And so frames can shift and keeping frame. And one of the aspects of frame is if you can create that environment that you talk about of safety and security and calmness and peace. And a lot of times as men masculine, we practice that in our relationships. But like, for example, right now I have a new puppy. And he's eight months old. And he's come from another family. that has really, this is why I start from zero with dogs, but he's got some bad habits.

And so one of the things we had to, we noticed when I first brought him home was he was really just crazy freaking out, a lot of food anxiety. You know, you give him food and he just eat it like it was nonstop, which is bad because they can aerate it into their lungs and die. And so I had to start creating a peaceful environment from him. And the other thing I was I learned about dog training and probably employee trainings. People always say, why are you so good with kids, Chris? I'm like, I've had thousands of employees. And is creating that environment of peace.

And if you do that, if you exemplify that, and I learned this from, who is the dog whisper guy, that your energy, if dogs feel fearing you, then they're going to feel fear. And you're going to have that fight or flight like you talked about, where you're bouncing off each other. And no one's getting anywhere. It's just getting worse. but by having that calmness of energy, my dog is slowly adapted and conditioned to where he's like, it's safe here. It's okay. I don't have to freak out. I don't have to flip out. And I think what you

spoke to that, if you're as a leader of the family as a parent, because if you don't, your children's going to take frame and be the leader, you've got to create that safety place apiece. One of my friends used to say to me about children, a very wise man, it taught me a lot of great axioms. One of the things is he goes, he goes, you can't overly constrain children. You can't try and lock them down and you wouldn't behave this way. He goes, you have to give them a big hallway to bounce around and stuff, but there's still containment in the hallway. So they have room to move and, and I don't know. Yeah.

I don't know what your thoughts are in some of that. Well, I have a lot of thoughts on that. I mean, you know, I'm an EMDR therapist. And when we, when we look at kind of core negative beliefs that people, carry, they kind of land in these areas of control over responsibility, this kind of defective shame category of worthlessness, failure, and safety. And that could be physical or emotional safety. And the interesting part about that is all of those core beliefs about herself formulate before the age of eight. So we have to look at what's happening in families at the age of eight. And so if you've got a parent who is anxious. You've got somebody who really hates uncertainty and needs certainty

with control. And they've got some rigidity of like, this is what my kid's supposed to do. There's the performance aspect of, you know, Susie's, you know, kid is doing X, Y, and Z. And look at how Susie's performing. And now mom is like, ooh, this is a reflection on me if my kid's not doing well. And so, so now we got shame going on for mom. And mom's going. And mom's going. okay, now if I can't get my kid to do the things and I start getting more rigid and controlling, you get kids that are starting to rebel because they feel powerless. And so all of that is so important because a parent, a mom, dad, they have kind of their own energy, right? They come home from work and sometimes it's, oh my gosh, the kids are saying,

what mood is mom in? What temperature when dad comes home, right? And the teen's nervous system, way before they were even a teen, learned whether they could speak, whether it was safe to say things or ask for what they needed based on how the parent responded. And that's about the parent's nervous system too, right? Yeah, yeah. And, you know, frame is just so important. I mean, like I said, if you're, you know, I wrote about this in my book, Beacon's leadership. Even as a parent, you're a leader.

You know, you don't have to be a CEO to be a leader. because I've had people say that to me. I don't have the title, so I'm not a leader. No, you're, if as a parent, you're a leader, and you have to create that frame. You know, women are nesters. They create that nest, but unless that nest is safe, and you're right, I've seen unstable mothers and unstable grandmothers that have trauma, unresolved trauma. That may be a good question for you. How, this is probably a really important point, because most people who aren't stable, who don't feel safe, they usually have trauma from their childhood in their past.

And I think at some point they're just passing it right down to their children with generational trauma, right? Yeah, absolutely. But I think what we mistake a lot is that we think of trauma as big, we call it big T trauma, like the big events. But what I see in so much of the work that I get to do is that there's a lot of relational trauma. And relational trauma comes from attachment wounds. It comes from the explicit things that were actually said. in the home or the implicit, like, nonverbal communication. And so an infant can learn under the age of two before language even comes online that

I'm not supposed to have any needs because mom's got big needs, mom's really anxious or dad's really explosive or something's going on in the family that says, I need to not have any needs. And they don't even have words yet, but their system, their nervous system responds and goes, oh, like, I've got to get small, right? Yeah. And so that is relational trauma. It's not necessarily, you know, your big T traumas of physical abuse, sexual abuse,

those kinds of things, but it's, it's something that is chronic and it keeps happening over and over again. And it just helps to reinforce those negative beliefs that a little person feels about themselves. And that just continues into adulthood. Yeah. There's a lot of, you know, I've talked, I've interviewed. lots of people, I suppose. And then over my life of being single, I've interviewed lots of women,

and I've seen kind of the end, I am at the end game, so I'm seeing the end game now, but I'm seeing the end game of what a lot of unresolved trauma does, and whether it's Big T, childhood trauma, or whether it's just slight, like divorce trauma. Like, I'll talk to people, and they'll, they'll talk about, you know, how confused and how unsafe they felt during a divorce between their parents and, you know, the juggling, sometimes the hateful back and force, you know, they have to witness, you know, I've done that as stepping in as a pseudo-stepfather into relationships and seeing, you know, sometimes I'm the only one who's the adult in the room between the two parents, and probably because I've had thousand employees.

But, and so, you know, the trauma that comes from that, you know, there's a lot of kids that shut down. Divorce really affects them in some ways that they don't really express. I mean, I've often seen that when people talk about divorce from a child's perspective, they're kind of still left in the wilderness. Mommy and Daddy are on, you know, they're butt heads and in that trauma sort of or what we talked about earlier where you butt heads unsafe and, you know, things like that. Yes, yeah. And they're, they're emotionally unstable, basically, I think, his awareness looking for, two words. And so, yeah, it's, it has a big effect on them. But, and that's probably why even more important, this journal is important. I mean, if you're,

if your relationship between your partners is having issues, you know, this may be a good time to check in on the kids. And it's, it's amazing to me how many people, especially sometimes in the hate that goes on a divorce, that they literally forget about the kids. I mean, and they'll use them for weapons. You know, I've, I've been on the phone trying to go. between the father and mother and Johnny Bob didn't send the coat home this week and it's a you know and then the whole house is losing on our end because Joe didn't send the coat you know shit like that and you know just and people are playing games like oh I'm I'm withholding it because I don't you know and it's like do you guys think about these kids man these kids are going through hell and they just they got parents that are just unstable and emotionally wreckage so yeah I mean this might be you might want to cut a separate version that this book and be like maybe add some changes to it. I mean, I don't mean to tell you what to do, but I'm just an idea guy. So they pay me five bucks a day for is maybe you should do a divorce, the journal routine to help them. Yeah. I think you know, I think there's this concept,

you know, our autonomic number system is responding constantly to the situation, whether it's a divorce, whether it's, you know, just mom having big emotions, somebody having depression, whatever's going on. And, you know, the amygdala, which is our, like, danger center for fight-flight, has a really great purpose. I mean, its goal is to, like, keep you safe, right? If a pack of, you know, coyotes come after me while I'm out walking with my dog, that danger center is going to go, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, run, Gina, right? And that's purposeful. But what happens is that the amygdala who, that is our danger center, it makes mistakes. And it doesn't know the difference between real danger and perceived danger.

Oh. Okay. So if I see my parent really just regulated or they're banging on things or they're like huffing and puffing and doing stuff when they get home because there's distressed and they're, you know, I mean, I feel for them. I was that parent, right? It's hard. It's hard doing it all.

But what does the teen see and what story does the teen make up based off of that behavior? And so the team goes, whoa, like I can't ask for anything. right now because mom, you know, mom is just got too much going on or she's overwhelmed. And so they stop asking. They say it's not safe. It's not safe for me to show up and ask for anything, you know, or they just feel powerless sometimes in those divorce situations like you're saying they, they might just be told, hey, this is your new, this is your new daddy, you know, or this is your new, and there's no choice or negotiation or discussion. And it just, just is. And, you know, conversation about it.

It's a, and, you know, I mean, sometimes there's, there's chaos in a relationship. There's arguments. You know, I was really blessed. I grew up at the very, I grew up at the end of the kind of the masculine alpha era. And my grandparents exemplified true masculinity and femininity in its best to me. And in their relationship, we never saw them fight. We never, we never knew there was a problem between the two of them. We heard that they fought, you know, they sometimes argued.

behind closed doors. We never saw them at each other's throat. The one of them never backtalked each other or said anything bad about the other when you're around, you know, both my mom and dad, you know, and take jabs at each other sometimes in front of us and not, and separately. And, you know, that would leave like, I guess what I'm trying to say would, it would be very hard as a child because you're like, mom, why are you bashing dad? And dad, why are you bashing mom? And, you know, they're just taking pot shots in front of us. And it's really confusing. as a child because you're like, well, I love you both. And, you know, I understand what the hell's

going on between the two of you. And I certainly didn't understand the depths of the relationship at, you know, 10 years old. And so I think these are all reasons why it's really important to have a book like yours. And especially for the parent, too. So the parent can be present and check in on themselves. Well, I think that's a really great point, Chris, because that's really it. the reality is the teen is not going to throw the white flag and say, you know, let's like, you know, let's take a time out. The parent needs to be that person, but that means that they have to be able to be the bigger person. They have to be able to regulate themselves. They have to get themselves to a place of safety. And, you know, it's kind of like that time out.

It's like, hey, we're not going to effectively agree on anything here. Why don't you take a few moments. I'm going to take some time. Let's meet back in an hour and let's circle back into some conversation when we're both in a little bit more calm place. Because the reality is if I can get safe as a mom, if I get myself to safety, I'm not only modeling that that's a powerful tool for my teen, right, because I'm showing them this is what we knew. We need to anchor. When I'm safe, my perception of my teen is coming from a place of the story I'm telling myself is that, you know, they're actually a pretty good kid. And they're not trying to, to, you know, de-rail me or, you know, make life harder for me.

You know, their intentions are actually good. But when I'm sympathetic and I'm in an anxious state, I'm like, what is going on? Like, I can't, you know, a failure. Like, I can't make anything go right with this teen. And if I get so overwhelmed, I fall into this kind of immobilized state. And now I'm really a failure. Like the thoughts of I'm a failure, I can't make things happen the way I want. and I'm out of control is kind of what the parents left feeling, right?

And so their system is so important. Yeah. I mean, I've been saying this all my life. It'll never happen. But I think we need to pump stuff in the water to make everyone sterile. And they've got to go before they can get married, before they can have children, they've got to go to college for whatever normal college stuff is. And they go to go to college for two years on how to raise children.

And they got to see a psychiatrist and fix all. their shit and they got to figure out and they got to go to school and take classes on how to have a healthy relationship with not only themselves but another person and you know it'll never happen it's one of those pie in the sky in your dreams chris like no one's going to do that but you think people would i was i was like i'm going to wait until i get my shit together before i'm trash some other poor persons with my trauma and crap. I'm 58 and I'm still working on it. So at this pace,

I'll have kids when I'm 100. Anyway, so this is good to have this book where everybody can kind of understand. And I think frame is really important for parents to understand. Whoever holds frame holds power. And, you know, I see we're going through that tussle with my dog right now. My dog has a lot of anxiety.

teenagers have a long anxiety. He's kind of learning, he's learned some bad habits to express himself, like getting on the counter, jumping on people. I mean, he doesn't just jump on you. He runs and barrel body slams you, which isn't fun. And my mom was 83 and I'm just, it scares me when he starts doing it. And so I have to create boundaries in containment and conditioning and teach. And I have to make sure that I'm consistent. That's another thing.

And so he's acting out in a way where he's asking me, hey, is this okay that I'm doing this? Do I need, you know, I'm doing this. So it feels good. It's kind of fun. I come up, run up to people and jump on them and I'm excited. And they seem to be excited because they yell and scream. And I think as a parent, you know, you have to create frame and be boundaries. I mean, boundaries are probably maybe something you talk about in your book.

Yeah. Well, I think that probably more in the program and even in any course that, you're going to learn more about that. But essentially, I think the foundation is if we have two stricter boundaries, like you said, it's just the rigidity of that. You know, in today's culture, we've got a clash of values, too, with teens and parents. And they might be like, here's the boundary. Like, these are the rules.

You only do X, Y, and Z. And it's like, hey, I don't fit into that, you know, those rules or that, you know, and there might be some variation there that's causing them to also feel unsafe. And so, yes, boundaries happen. absolutely important, but we have to be careful of, is that boundary coming from a place of control? Because parent feels out of control, or is that a boundary from a safe place from parenting? My favorite boundary is sending them off to military school when they're two. And then, you know, we see them in like summertime.

But I also fake my death and moved and changed my ID, so they're not going to be able to find me by the time they turn 18. I'd have made a great parent. Anyway, this is, anytime, anytime my niece and nephew call me to be, you know, our parents are being slave drivers. I'm like, well, let me explain to you how life at my house would go. Because, yeah, it's not going to be all fun in games. And if you want to eat and you want to sleep inside, then you got to do chores. And they're like, oh, chores.

I guess parents don't do chores anymore. Anyway, so let's talk about some of your work that you do and offerings of services at combating teen anxiety.com. Yeah. So at combatantinaxiety.com, parents can go into that and they can receive a free, three, it's like a three mini course series that gives you just a lot of some kind of highlight, high level tools. And then there's also a very comprehensive, can modular program where I work specifically with the parents and teach moms. Moms more specifically. I'm not picking on moms, but, you know, moms are going to be more apt to actually do this work.

and I'd be more invested sometimes than dads. Although I've taken dads through the program before, but I would just say moms, I think, are definitely more kind of my target of who I'm working with because they're the one that the teens looking to for so much of validation. And so by doing that, they are learning everything from shame, resilience tools to kind of their own triggers. They're learning all the different things that get them activated as well as how do we calm ourselves down. There's just so much value in walking into the vulnerability of it and being able to model some of that. I'll tell you, some of the things I've noticed from some of the teens just in working with them is that some of them think, you know, hey, my mom doesn't have any like imperfection.

She's so perfect. She did everything right. She's got this great job, you know. And why is that? It's because maybe the mom has such a intolerance to vulnerability herself that she only shows all of the success. And so, you know, hyper achievers, people that are highly successful, they might say, hey, my childhood was great. I got everything.

If it's a good family system. But the reality is they're still hustling for validation externally. And so when moms feel great in their work, feel capable and confident there, but come home and feel like I'm a failure here, that's where you're going to see a lot of dysregulation happening at home. And so moms learning how to regulate themselves. me being one of those moms who needed to learn how to regulate myself and understand the impact that I had raising my own teens.

That's why I do this work. It's because if I can help parents change the trajectory, I think what we're looking at now is we're seeing a whole generation of young adults who are saying, talk about your boundary. I don't want anything to do with you in their early 20s. I mean, this is what we see in TikToks and things coming up with that. And why is that? Because they didn't feel seeing heard, recognized. And so when they get a choice, some of them are pushing back pretty hard.

And my hope is, I don't want that for everybody. I want adults, you know, teens grow into adults that actually want to be in connection with their parents. Now, I think the whole problem with your system here, though, is one thing. When I was growing up, my parents and most parents in the 70s, they made their child. life a living hell. And, I mean, it wasn't a living hell, but, you know, we had to do chores. Oh, God, the suffrage. And, you know, I had to mow lawns, do dishes.

It was slavery at its best. Don, I'm just being funny, folks. But no, I mean, they, you know, and it was espoused to me that 18, I would be moving out. And so they basically did things that made it so that I really wanted to move out of 18. And here's the problem. I see this with the Gen Ziers. I'm not going to name any family members. Let's put that way.

But they made life so cushy and so, I don't know, you know, lovey and kind and safe. Maybe safety's right. They made it almost too safe because now the kids don't want to move out of the house. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you're seeing that too. I mean, we kind of got a failure to launch. We need to have, I don't know, just beatings on Saturday until the morale improves or something.

Well, here's the other side of that, Chris. I mean, what I would say to that is if a parent was more of that helicopter parent or over-functioned out of their own anxiety, they'd give their kid the opportunity to learn to fail. And in doing that, that caused some of what we're seeing today is kids that don't trust themselves. They have no self-esteem and they're looking for somebody else to say, tell me what the career is. Tell me what I'm supposed to do because they don't have enough initiative. on their own to be able to say, this is what I want. And they're so afraid of failing themselves that it's just easier to just do nothing.

Yeah. Failure to launch. Yeah. And we're seeing that. They're struggling with relationships. They're struggling with everything nowadays, even going to the school and what they want to pursue and what they want to do. Now, one of the problems, I don't know if you address this probably in your work and book,

I'm sure you do. I mean, you kind of can't avoid it. But, you know, when I was growing up, we didn't have cell phones, social media. And my friends now that have daughters, especially daughters, Jesus, I would not want to have a daughter in today's world. I just think of all the evil that I know is on the internet. And he has three daughters, a friend of mine. And he has to sit down regularly because they finally reach the age where he's finally let them on Instagram. And he has to have conversations about how, you know, these girls that are doing this, this isn't appropriate.

This is against our religion or whatever. But, you know, also explaining to them how they should value themselves. and stuff, but it's a constant battle because these girls and evening boys are presented with all sorts of wild, you know, crazy stuff on the internet that, you know, is being told to them, hey, this is the cool thing to do and this is what you should do. And, you know, some of it might be good, but a lot of it's really, you know, destructive or self-destructive. And so how do you, how do you navigate that as a parent or maybe as a psychologist with you utilizing your journal? Yeah, well, I mean, I think the journal is a great way to communicate about some of that.

You know, a parent can communicate some of their concerns about what they're seeing if they can't verbalize it themselves without their teen shutting down. And then it gives the teen an opportunity to respond back. And the hope of my journal is it is kind of the foundation for other communication. And so they use this to kind of start communicating back and forth until they start to learn language that they can actually come back and sit and have a conversation. and speak more from like a more emotionally mature place, right, versus that emotional immaturity. But yeah, I think social media is a huge problem. It's a fun place to be at times and there's a lot of teacher and there's a lot of, you know, that instant gratification.

And it's a time sucker that is also not just for the team, but also the parents. And so, you know, I go out to a restaurant and I see a whole family sitting at the restaurant and everybody's got their phones. And I'm like, are you texting each other or what's going on? Communication. We lost, like, there's a generation of kids, the COVID kids that grew up people that lost so much in communication. And they became the telehealth, you know, chatting, you know, through Snapchat and all of that. And so they lost, like, the basic communication skills.

And I think that's why I love the combating team anxiety journal because it actually forces you to take a pen. which slows down the mental process, which slows down your thinking. It makes you kind of have to think from a safety place and curiosity. And, you know, some people will go, oh, I've heard journaling is a good thing. I want you to think of this journal as a way of putting a pen to paper because when we write something down and we look at it, that's a very different response than just blasting out a text message. We're actually thinking about it.

and it gives a little bit more time before we just, you know, jump in with whatever we want to say, you know. The COVID thing, like you say, really impacted people. And I mean, not just young people. I have a big, huge dating group of about 5,000 people. And we can only get maybe on our best days, 100, 150 people out. And I'll talk to people that are my age, 58-ish, 50ish, 40s. and I'll be like, why don't you want to come out? Oh, I'm afraid of people.

Stranger Danger. And you're like, they're like, I don't know anybody there. And you're like, you don't know anybody at the gas station either, in the store and wherever the hell else you go, the mall. You're fine going there. And you don't know anybody there. At least we qualify people through the dating group.

And then the same thing I see with teenagers. So I used to have like 17 clans and in video gaming and the game destiny too. and so we had 1,700 people in them and we had everything from young people to old people like me in them

and everyone would get on comms and communicate you know, you got the little headset comms and you know we'd play games and do raids and you know

do all these cool things together and after COVID like you can't hardly get anybody on comms anymore in gaming like it's that strange or danger well I don't know it really

I mean we almost need after COVID we almost need to put everybody in psychiatry, I think, at this point. Obviously, everybody should have that because even in the best families, we all have stuff that we have to unpack, right? But I think that what you're mentioning, that social fear that teens are seeing, you know, that is definitely something that's valid. And, of course, your, not Instagram, I'd say, Snapchat probably, right,

where they are seeing their friends in groups and they're getting excluded. And, you know, the immediate reaction is, How do they feel about that? And one of the things that I think can help a parent with that when they're trying to help their teen is there's this idea of, we do it in therapy, but it's a right brain to right brain kind of connection, which basically means that we're going to connect with safety, and you're going to be able to feel emotion and kind of sit in that space. And what we do as parents so often is that, you know, teen comes and says,

man, I got left out of this. and, you know, I saw all my friends. They were all someplace and I wasn't invited. And the parent comes in trying to be helpful because that's what we do. But they offer a suggestion and they try to fix it. And if we try to fix things before we sit with the emotion and connect right brain to right brain, the kid doesn't hear anything that we say. The teens are not going to hear you because they feel unseen.

It's like, oh, mom just gave me a solution or dad just offered me some suggestion. And they didn't even hear like the pain. that I'm feeling in the moment. But if we sit with them and we say, you know what, that sounds really hard. You know, talk more about that. Let's talk a little bit more about what that really feels like. And we connect. Then together, we can problem solve.

Yeah. But we got to connect first. And we got to be safe to do that first. That makes sense. And the other thing that helps with journaling is it helps to be present. One of the things I really love is they go out and do photography. And when I do street photography, you're looking to capture, a moment, but you don't know what that moment is. You've got to be constantly scanning your horizon,

looking around, looking at people, where they're going, where they're doing, and you're looking for a moment to capture that's a human moment. And I like it because it really slows down time for me. It just takes time and goes, it just compresses it. And suddenly, like, our minutes become hours and and and uh and i like that and the same when you're journaling sometimes when you're reading you know you're taking a moment to go where am i you're checking in on yourself and being presence really important and i think it's hard as a parent because you're trying to juggle 50 000 things you got to feed the kids you got to buy groceries you got to pay the bills you got your taxes you got you know and you've got multiple kids sometimes so you got to make sure you're checking

in with each of them and you know you're just trying to cook dinner sometimes i remember sometimes just You're just trying to get dinner on so you can feed these animals running around your house. These little midgets, angry midgets. And it's hard. And so doing the present thing like you were talking about, being present. And, you know, I fought with that with my dogs. There was a time where I was really out of alignment where I couldn't be present. And I knew I couldn't be present.

And I was fighting just to be like, can you shut up brain long enough for me to just be in this moment? and to connect with my dogs. And you're right, whether it's dogs or kids, they will act up if you're not being present and connecting with them. And they'll do it because they're looking for attention because they have insecurity or

you know, all the things we've talked about here. Yes. Final question is, is at what age is the best time to give teenagers a lobotomy? Yeah, you know the answer to that. But, you know,

I think the reality is that we're a society that's throwing meds at kids too soon. That's true. And I think that sometimes if we could just look at the system and what's really happening rather than just identifying the teen or the kid as the problem, that if we get curious about what's happening for us as parents and our own life and how we show up, maybe not the way we want to show up, that maybe we could stop some of the anxiety that we have right now. We could teach people how to communicate better.

and let people feel seen. So there's not such a sense of not being seen. Yeah. I mean, when I'm present with my dogs or are trying to bring them calmness and create frame, especially sometimes, you know,

I go in the backyard and they're just out there just bouncing off the freaking walls. They're husky. So they have, I don't know where they go, but they buy some sort of crack energy off the street dealer once a day. And so I have to go out and establish frame because they're in their frame. And I have to bring calmness and peace,

because otherwise I'm going to get run over. and hit and jumped on and all the things of behaviors that are kind of okay for me, but I don't want my dogs doing that to people in the greet. There's nothing worse than when you're a man or woman and, you know, some dog jumps up on you when you don't know the dog. You don't know if you're going to get attacked or, you know, just going to tear your throat out or you don't know what's going on. And so, you know, kids are the same way.

I mean, I've seen a lot of kids that act out. You know, the middle child always has issues because they're kind of between the two, the first and third child if you study, what is it, birth order? Oh, yeah. I'm a half that middle child. Yeah.

My little brother was the middle brother, and I think he's still working on trying to get attention at this point. And I saw it with my uncle. There were three stooges were my uncles, my father and his two brothers. I call him the three stooges.

And the second one, yeah, he had the same sort of issues. But, you know, it's interesting. I wish people would, before they had children and got married, they would think about these things maybe more. But I mean, people are going to do what they're going to do, right? Right. I think we figured out what causes those children think.

So as we go out, give people a final pitch out on where they can onboard with you or reach out for advice or help or they can go to your website and things like that. Yeah, absolutely. So again, www.combattingteenanxiety.com will take you some, you know, information just about some of the work that I do. and then there'll be a free access to a course that's a three-part course that is going to be a version. And so I think that's a great starting place for parents who are trying to figure out what do I do here. And then to work with me either through that program or even individually, my office or my website for my practice is called Authentic Gains. So it's www. www.authenticgains.com.

Please follow me on social media at Instagram. I'm at Authentic underscore Gaines and Facebook, Authentic Gains. What a wonderful show we've had, wonderful discussion. You know what someone should do a book for, for teenagers on some of the issues we've talked about here?

How to raise your parent right? Yes. Well, let's again remember that parents are really doing the best they can. We are all trying to survive, and there's really no great real book. and most of us didn't get the parenting that we needed to learn the communication skills. So, I mean, when I look at this, I'm like, this is for both.

This is for the parent, just as much as it is for the teen, right? So we can do communication skills. I know some parents that need a lobotomy. So they're on Twitter. Anyway, thanks for coming by the show. We really appreciate it. Thanks for sharing all your good stuff. And hopefully we help some people and they can combat their teens better.

Yeah. Well, thank you for having me, Chris. It was a lot of fun. combating teens. Wait, I just describe my childhood. Anyway, thank you for coming by. Thanks for tuning in. Order up her book, wherever fine books are sold.

It's called Combating Teen Anxiety, Teen Parent Communication Journal out November 1st, 2020 by Genea Nelson. Thanks for tuning in. Be good at each other. Stay safe. We'll see you guys next time, and we've got some comments that came in. Looks like I forgot about them. Awesome topics.

So we're in our social media world. Best wish as always. Thanks, Dr. Ola. And, oh, geez, we don't want to do that one. Spam link. We've got to love him. We'll kick him off the site when I get off. So thanks for tuning in.

Be good at each other. Stay safe. We'll see you next time. You've been listening to the most amazing, intelligent podcast ever made to improve your brain and your life. Warning. Consuming too much of the Chris Walsh Show podcast can lead to people thinking you're smarter, younger, and irresistible sexy. Consume in regularly moderated amounts. Consult a doctor for any resulting brain bleed.

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