Theology in the Raw - Why Is Gen-Z Suffering from So Many Mental Health Issues? Sissy Goff and David Thomas

Episode Date: March 12, 2026

Join us at Exiles Minneapolis!Sissy Goff (LPC-MHSP) and David Thomas (LMSW) are children and family therapists and co-executive directors at Daystar Counseling Ministries, where they’ve served for over three decades. They’ve written several books together including their most recent book: Capable: How to Teach Your Kids the Strengths, Skills, and Strategies to Build Resilience, which is an awesome book. If you are a parent in 2026, then you need to check out this book—it’s immensely helpfulSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Anxiety with girls is just through the roof. The average age of onset used to be eight, now we're seeing it drop to six and seven. I mean, it's just so young. Girls are twice as likely as boys to deal with it. And then we're seeing more depression than I've probably seen in 33 years of counseling girls and more suicidality. Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology Narod. The Exiles of Babylon Conference is right around the corner, April 30th of May 2nd in Minneapolis, Minnesota. all the information is at or on TheologyDraw.com. Check it out. We're going to be talking about so many important topics.

Space is filling up. So if you want to attend live, then you've got to sign up really soon. If you want to attend virtually, you can sign up for the last second. It doesn't really matter. So there we go. Theology and raw.com. Okay, my guest today, my two guests are Sissy Gough and David. Sissy and David are children and family therapists and co-executive directors at Daystar Counseling Ministries, where they've served for over three decades. They've written several books together, including their most recent book, Capable, How to Teach Your Kids, The Strength, Skills, and Strategies to Build Resilience, which is an awesome book. If you're a parent in 2026 and you need to check out this book, it's immensely helpful. This episode was recorded in person at Daystar Counseling Ministries and National Tennessee. So thanks to Sissy and David for letting me use their office to film this fascinating conversation.

So please welcome to the show for the first time, the one and only Sissy Gough and David Thomas. All right, Sissy and Dave, David. He just said you've never thrown it off. Answer to both anytime. Dave, David, David. I'll go with David. Thank you so much for being on the Alger de Rahn. Thank you for lending me your beautiful studio here.

in, are we, we are in Brentwood, right? We're in Nashville proper. We're actually in Nashville, Nashville, Nashville. Yes, in our counseling practice that we call the little yellow house sometimes, but it's growing. I've heard about it from a distance for a while, and now I have officially been inside the yellow house. So we're so glad you have.

That's just an experience. So you two have been in the parenting space, raising boys and girls space for how a lot, like 30-some years? Is that? 30 plus. Yes, 33 for me. We're Jen senior citizen. A long time.

What got you into it? Was it just being parents or was it something else? Well, we're both therapists. It's certainly where we started. And I would say I became a therapist. We're probably older than you. But because of Days of Our Lives. Did you ever watch Days of Our Lives?

I did. Wow. I don't want to admit it, but yeah, yes. But it was more of a thing when we were growing up. When we were growing up. Yes. Yeah. So I had never, I mean, that was a thing.

And counseling really wasn't a thing. And so I did not know anybody in counseling, talking about counseling, anything. And then in high school, I watched days of our lives. And there was a child psychologist. And I remember thinking, I don't really know what that is, but I can't imagine getting to go to work. every day and help kids and help them understand themselves more and who they want to be in the world. And so it stayed in my brain. And I tried a lot of different avenues of careers in college from interior design to being a pediatrician. And I just, the psychology courses were my favorite.

And so I was at the University of Arkansas and moved here to go to grad school at Banderbilt. And when it came time to do an internship, I had actually, actually been to a concert that was a big fundraiser for Daystar and fell in love with the concept of what this place is. And so did my interview with our dear friend and boss, Melissa, Traythin, who started Daystar and I've been here ever since. And then two years later, this friend that I had gotten to know through the music industry, which was a career for you and a little sad thing for me for a minute, came to me and said, hey, Daystar sounds really. cool. I'd love a job and I said, oh, we're not hiring to David. Oh, you were a musician.

Now it was not a musician, but I was working in the music industry. Okay. And yeah, she was real encouraging about the possibility of getting to work here. So thankfully, an opportunity did happen at some point, but we had similar journeys just that we're the exact same age. And same of growing up in a time in the world where I didn't know a person who'd been to counseling. I just didn't have a category for that. But in college I worked every summer at a camp for elementary age kids and loved it and knew, I think, early into that journey that I wanted to work with kids and also knew about myself that I was not patient enough to be an educator or smart enough to be a pediatrician. So I was like, how can I find

my way to some kind of work with kids? And what happened throughout my experience of working at that camp is that a lot of my colleagues would come and get me when they had kids who were super homesick and like working through the tears or we'd be hiking during the day and I would end up in conversation with kids whose parents have been recently divorced and just something about being with kids in hard places just felt really natural and familiar and so taking a lot of psychology electives along the way and found my way to that major so yeah and thankful for this incredible place that I came straight out of grad school here and haven't wanted to be anywhere about this place so what is daystar for audience. What exactly is it?

It's counseling for kids age 7 to 18 and so we have 15 counselors, full-time counselors on staff. We see 2,000 families currently. Oh my Lord. And I should say we also have seven dogs on staff who are many

kids favorite therapists. Mine is behind me currently named Patches. I love dogs and coming in here. I was like I feel like I said a pound. I'm so glad. Without all the diseases here. Yes.

I love it. I love it. We talk so much about how, you know, counseling is scary for us as adults, but for kids, especially, so many kids do not want to come. And so when they pull up and they see this house and they walk in and there are dogs and you probably smell the popcorn. We have popcorn every day. And so they can get an after school snack.

And I think the anxiety level over being here comes down so much just because of the environment that we're so intentionally trying to create. Is that the logic by having it in a natural house? Yes. That's fascinating. It's so warm coming, not physically, but I mean, it just has a warm presence coming out. That is exactly what we want people to feel. That's awesome.

Well, I imagine if you've been in this for over three decades, I imagine you've seen some changes in the kinds of issues that you're dealing with with teens. Is that a right guess? Absolutely. What are some of the top differences, changes? that you've seen from 30 years ago until what you're dealing with now among teens and kids?

Well, we could talk really probably specifically. I see more girls and parents of girls and David sees more boys and parents of boys, but anxiety with girls is just through the roof. Okay. Any more. Starting the average age of onset used to be eight, now we're seeing it drop to six and seven.

I mean, it's just so young, and it's now one in four kids, one and three adolescents. Girls are twice as likely as much, boys to deal with it. Boys are actually taken to get help more often, which is fascinating, I think. And part of what you would probably say about boys,

but that is one of the things, I mean, if you were going to do an overarching picture of why kids are coming in for counseling, I would say for the girls, anxiety is the primary driving factor. And then we're seeing more depression than I've probably seen in 33 years of counseling girls and more suicidality than I've ever seen with girls. Is anxiety and depression related?

Are they related? Certainly can be. Yes, they're not always. But, you know, it was interesting. I had never seen really anxiety ripple over into depression as much until the pandemic. And that was, I mean, anxiety rates pre-pandemic were really on the rise. And I wrote a book called Raising Worry Free Girls before the pandemic hit because, I mean, I wrote it before it hit and then the pandemic hit and it came out right then.

That might be why it's sold over 100,000. Well, I'm very grateful. It's been helpful. So needed. I'm very grateful. But, I mean, they were very much on the rise. And then we all went to Zoom. Everything went to Zoom.

And as I was sitting at my counter in my kitchen counseling these adolescent girls who had been at Daystar because of anxiety and I was seeing them become more and more despondent. in that isolation. And so that was kind of the first real evidence I had my eyeballs on of how when anxiety is present for a long enough period of time, I think often it ripples over into depression. And now, I mean, we can talk about so many things, but I'm seeing more social anxiety than ever before in girls and then withdrawal. And we know they're not connecting in real life. They're connecting more on screens, which is just making all of that worse. So I've talked long enough about

girls first you jump in about boys. It's such an important conversation. And, you know, pressing to your question, I would say there are a handful of things that I would say are exactly the same as when I started this work. And so I wrote a book called Raising Emotionally Strong Boys and I talk about the instinctive swing for boys between suppression, which is holding it in and eruption, which is just exploding and how hard it is for boys to find their way to that healthy middle ground of just expression, which is just naming my experience and figuring out how to navigate that. And as simple as it sounds, how complicated I think that has been for so many males in this world for so long. And so all throughout three decades of this work, I have seen strong evidence

of that and how it shows up. And it's why adult males in this world have led the statistics around internet pornography, infidelity, substance abuse, suicide for years and years and years and years that I think is deeply connected to that reality. If I just try to hold everything and just erupt and never learn how to deal with life on life's terms, as they say in the recovery world. And so I think that's the same. If I were to think about differences, you know, it's interesting. We have a brand new book coming out in April of 2026 called Capable.

And we talk about some of those significant differences. And I think unique to boys, if I think back to the very beginning of my work, if I even think back to my own boyhood and adolescence. I do not remember knowing a single guy growing up or in the beginning of my work meeting a single adolescent boy who is not chomping at the bit to get his driver's license. And I come across that all the time now. I parents, I sit with every week who are like, how do I motivate him to want to get his license? I've seen that too. Anecdotally. It's crazy. It's just this craving for independence. We could not wait to be able to take on that responsibility and experience the independence.

And if I back that up in the elementary years, it's more boys than ever who are afraid of joining a sports team or joining a new club. It is, you know, an adolescence beyond that, guys who are really fearful, debilitated over asking a girl to a homecoming dance or to prom. And the stats have completely flipped on boys applying to college. Like once upon a time, 60% of undergrad students were male, 40% were female, it's the complete opposite now. And hear me say, I'm so thankful more girls are going to college than ever, so grateful. But I'm greatly concerned that fewer boys than ever are. And the prediction is if we keep trending in the direction we are, we'll jump from 40 to 30, 30 to 20 and some point in not so far away future. And that's not to say college is the end all be all for every person.

and don't hear me say that. But the common denominator through all those, I think is a boy's desire to avoid risk, healthy risk. And I think risk and adventure are hardwired into who we are as males. And so I think he's missing something foundational when he's not playing a sport, even if it feels scary or joining a new club or asking a girl to a dance or getting his driver's license

or risking applying to college. All those different rights of passion. passage that I think are so needed in terms of his whole development, that that's a huge shift I've seen in all the years ago in this work. Have you ever woke up and found yourself stuck to the mattress because your old sheets have lost their elasticity so they slip off anytime you move? You don't always realize how bad your sheets are until you need to replace them. So if that's you, I would invite you to check out bowl and branch signature sheets. Bowling branches signature sheets are made from

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probably plays at least a role, significant role. Oh, yes, it does. Okay. So what are some other, I mean, you could expand on that, but what other reasons? Because the driver's license thing just doesn't make sense to me. But I've seen that. Like my kids were eager to get their driver's license, but we've raised some pretty, yeah, they don't fit the typical moment.

they're pretty adventurous and have a lot of drive. But some of their friends in Idaho, you can get your driver's license at 15. Your permit at 14 and a half. We have children driving cars in Idaho. You do indeed. But we know some of our kids' friends who are like 16, 17. No, I'd rather have mom drive me around.

I'm like, wait, what? What? What is it, what's the cause of that fear? Well, your first guess is 100% of it. 100% on target. I mean, there are other ingredients, but I think, you know, so many boys, and I think you'd say the same with so many girls, are living so much of life online. And so I hear boys say all the time to their parents, like, I don't need to have friends over. I talk to them on a headset. Like, we connect through gaming. And there is so much missed,

so many layers of what's missed when that's the primary way that boys are relating. Yeah. So it's like, think about all the different layers of, having to pick up the phone and call a friend, having to orchestrate getting together, having to read social cues the way you and I are doing right now while we're looking at each other. There are all these missed opportunities that are there having to go to someone's house and just like have a conversation with their mom on the way in the door. Like just all these practice contexts that again, I think that feels too risky, feels, I think for a lot of boys too intense, too emotional, too relational, too many different things.

So it's like if I'm not practicing in the smallest of ways, it makes sense why the bigger things. It's like, oh, my goodness, I don't even want to do that. Ask a girl to a dance, invite myself over to a friend's house. Like, of course I don't want to go to college and have to meet a person I've never met before and live in a dorm room with them and figure out what I want to study and get integrated into campus life and all those different parts and pieces. So I definitely think we'd have a whole day's worth of conversation about the role of technology. about the role technology's playing in all this. But what else would you say? Well, I want to say all of this with so much grace

because the world of kids has certainly changed, but so is the world of parents. And we've seen a lot of shifts. In fact, Incapable, we kind of have these different eras of parenting and how it shifted over the years. And, you know, I laugh often that the only parenting book that was around when our parents were raising us was Dr. Spock.

And the one thing he said that my mom took away was smile at your children a lot, which if you met my sister, the compliment that we get the most is that we smile all the time. So my mom did it great. But I think I had a mom not long ago who said, you know, I just need you to tell me what to do. She said we have entered this phase in parenting of paralysis by analysis. And on one hand, we would both say, and I have a hunch you.

would say too that we have never encountered as many intentional, thoughtful, attune, well-meaning parents as we have in the last five years. I mean, it is beautiful how parents are leaning in with their kids and even trying to do things differently from their parents, as we talked about a little bit earlier, which is part of the problem, I think. Okay. And there's some overcorrection. There's some overcorrection that happens. And we talk about that in the book, too. And we talk about that in the book, that often in the beginning, all corrections are over corrections. So we've swung out a little bit too far, potentially. And also, if you were to pull up any of our phones,

the amount of people in each endeavor that is important to us that we're following is pretty substantial. And so parents have so many voices speaking into their parenting. I had another mom not long ago who said she was with her family, recently extended family. family and she said my daughter started being really disrespectful and I was so embarrassed and I didn't know what to do. So I went in the bathroom and I got on my favorite parenting app and I started interacting with the chat bot on the parenting app.

Wow. And so we are seeing parents because the trouble with those of us in the expert field, expert world is we all say different things to the degree that we feel like not only are parents overcompensating. And so they're trying so hard to be so emotionally in tune. And they're having these experts. And a lot of the emphasis right now in the world of parenting is only about attunement. You talk so much about truth and grace. And it's very grace oriented. Attunement.

And not as many boundaries. Okay. And so we sit with parents a lot who are saying, really, I can do that? Really? I can still give a consequence. That's like they're afraid to say the word. And so they're doubting themselves. They're leaning on these experts.

They're trying to compensate for how they were raised. And so what we're seeing is a lot of rescuing and a lot of doing things for kids instead of kids learning to do for themselves, letting kids learn to tolerate discomfort, letting kids learn to work through the hard thing. For all of these reasons we're talking about, we're not doing it so often. And we talk with this capable idea about kids learn. they're capable by experience, not by hearing us say you can do hard things. Right, right.

We want to say that too, but they've got to do them. And we are stepping in, research says in light of anxiety, the two most common parenting strategies are escape and avoidance. And so I step in and pull them out rather than letting them do hard things, little things, fill their water bottle in the morning before school, make their lunch, have a hard conversation. I love, there's a huge movement now back to landlines. Oh, really?

Oh, good. And just like David was talking about, the great thing about a landline, how many times did I pick up the phone and say, Goff's residence, this is Sissy speaking? Yes. You know, even that, I'm having to say something to someone that I don't know who's on the other line. Yeah. That's uncomfortable. And kids today would say, I feel triggered by having to talk to someone that I don't know.

And so it's so good for them to lean into that discomfort. Oh, it's so good. We talked offline about Jonathan Heights's book, The Anxious Generation. Yes. which it confirmed so much of how I was feeling and thinking and just again a lot of anecdotal things. I guess this big picture idea is we have been under protective of our kids with their online world and overly protective in the real world and we need to completely flip that. Give them more freedom, let them scrape their knees, go out and get hurt on the playground.

but we need to be much more vigilantly protective of this really toxic online world that has been shown to really destroy our mental health. Would you agree with that analysis in your own research and therapy? Wholeheartedly. We love Jonathan's book. And I love too that he didn't just take that dad and say, here it is, but really put it into some practical ways that parents and schools, you know, as, as, people who care about kids could begin to think about what we could do with that.

That's good. So in your book, Capable, How to Teach Your Kids, the Strength, skills, and strategies to build resilience. That's why when I read the sub-tide, I'm like, ooh, I bet there's some anxious generation here. And then sure enough, when I started reading, I'm like, oh, yeah, you're quoting Jonathan Hyatt. But you say today's kids face unprecedented levels of anxiety, depression, and emotional distress. despite our best efforts, our children continue to struggle with internal and external pressures

that impact their mental health. What are, you say, despite our best efforts, what have been the efforts that people have made to address this? Why haven't they worked? And what are the good efforts, the better efforts we should do? I mean, you've kind of touched on it a little bit, but I would love to kind of focus specifically on that. you know it's interesting

I was thinking as both of you were talking a minute ago in response to your question we had a conversation with this delightful mom recently and she was talking about growing up and how she played sports and really doesn't have any memories of her parents being at her games and she said because I just

kind of always knew they both worked outside of the home and that wasn't an option and she said and now as I'm a parent myself like I will beat myself up if I can't beat myself up if I can't be it game. I can think about the flip there of it was just a normal thing. It wasn't an option for parents because of their schedule. And now it's bad parenting if you're not at every single sporting event.

And the way we see that play out in our offices with parents who will report that like I feel so guilty that I wasn't there. And we even challenged parents in the new book. Try to find sometimes when you can't be there. That that could be a great thing for your kids and a great thing for you and could communicate a lot of different things. I mean, it could communicate a great message that we think is good for kids of your parents have a life outside of you. And they have friendships and they have church and they have work and they have all these things that offer a lot of value and meaning to their lives in addition to the great value that parenting brings to their lives as well. And so that came to mind as the two of you were talking, I think, as one of the significant

differences. And the assumption to your question would be if parents are at every game and so attuned and invested in on top of things, then wouldn't that translate to kids being healthier and happier and their emotional well-being more intact? And the reality is we've not seen that at all. So you can have over attunement or attunement only is actually unhealthy. Yes. And we'd add to it that, you know, the U.S. Surgeon General declared parental stress, a state of emergency alongside youth mental health. So I think it's put so much pressure your own parents. Like if I'm not doing all these things, if I'm not reading all these things, if I'm not leaning in in all these ways, I'm not quote unquote doing it right. My wife and I were

just, we've been having these ongoing conversations because, you know, our kids are kind of going from teenage to adult. They're adulting, as they say. And we just, we, we generally enjoy our kids. We want to be around them a lot, hang out with them. But we've seen, we're like, you know what, it would, it's actually healthy for our kids for us to be, busy doing something, have our own friends, or if they're like, hey, we should have movie night or something for us to say, ah, you know what, sorry, we have, we have plans. Maybe, maybe, maybe tomorrow or something. And it's kind of counterintuitive because you're like, yeah, the more we can be around the kids, the better. But like, you're saying that that,

that could, that could be an, uh, that there could be an overemphasis there that could actually lead to more, more problems. Yes. That's so funny. I remember a mother telling me that her child went away to college and she said, I mean in a different town and she said she would call me so often and say, mom, I can't find the flower in the grocery store and say, hey, I'm not in the grocery store with you. I don't know. You're going to have to figure it out. Ask another human being in the grocery store. Right. Exactly. But that feels so in keeping with exactly what we're talking about. Wow. Yeah. How do we figure out how to not connect the dots for them on purpose? Wow. What are some other things? Okay, so over or attunement only,

social media. What are some other maybe causes of the rising rates of anxiety, distress, and what are some ways in which we can better address this? Well, I'll jump in with another one that I think feels particularly significant for girls and that is this language that they're using.

The language? The language. So when we were growing up, if we were really upset at our parents, often the worst thing we could say to have the most impact would be, I want to run away. Yeah. And now.

No one runs away anymore. It's terrifying. Exactly. Right. No one runs away. They wouldn't feel capable if they did. Whereas we thought we could handle it with our little knapsack on our back. But for them, I think what they say often at really, I mean, we had an eight-year-old

who said to your parents, I'm so upset. I'm so mad at you. I'm going to kill myself. And that has become, we in parenting seminars, we say that out loud. parents answer, you know, finish the sentence for us. And it is. They want to kill themselves is what they're saying the most. And, and kids don't say, I'm stressed. They don't use that language anymore. They say, I have anxiety. Not even just I'm anxious, but I have anxiety. They don't say I'm sad. They say I'm depressed. Yes. They're jumping to these huge words and ultimately diagnosis.

because I think there's a sense of if I don't have a diagnosis, what I feel isn't valid. And in all this attunement, parents with the best of intentions are jumping into, and I will never forget. And I'm probably going to offend someone saying this because it has become so much more common than three years ago, I was meeting with the mom of a seventh grade girl for the first time. And she came in and was talking about how worried she was about her daughter. that she was struggling a lot relationally, seventh grade daughter. And she said she has rejection sensitivity dysphoria.

Is that a thing? Well, now it is. Is it okay? Yes. At the time, I thought, what seventh grader in the history of time hasn't had rejection sensitivity disorder? I mean, really. But then we give this diagnosis and to something that's really a normal emotion.

We're pathologizing normal emotions at times. And it's fascinating, Preston, because I would have said, I probably noticed eight years ago this shift in kids coming in. And I felt like they were trying to get me to give them a diagnosis. And we don't diagnose a day star on purpose. And I think they were Googling diagnostic criteria for depression or whatever it was. Well, probably four years ago, another shift. shift happened. And what today, kids' primary source for mental health information is no longer Google. You can probably guess exactly this.

Chat, right? Well, it's moving to chat, but right now it's TikTok for girls. Oh, okay. Primarily. And so I'm having girls come in diagnosing themselves with things I have never heard of because some influencer on TikTok talked about it. And in fact, it was interesting because I saw this. This was just maybe two sentences in Jonathan Heights book. but it's something I experienced multiple times counseling where I was starting to have kids come and talk about, talking about tick disorders more, how they were experiencing tick disorders, where, you know, it's kind of this repetitive, uncontrollable movement. And so I'm always trying to figure out what's going on, you know, do the research to

understand more of how to help. And I found this article that talked about how across the country, we were seeing kids with tick disorders pop up in different regions of the country with specific ticks. And what was happening is they were tracking influencers. This sounds crazy. But I promise that it's true. They were tracking influencers in certain parts of the country who were popular that had these ticks and they were seeing more kids illustrate them in those regions. So it's socially contagious. Yes. It's called a sociogenic illness. And so if I watch you do it long enough, I'm going to start to do it myself. So I would say that is certainly something I feel really concerned about today is the use of TikTok as the source

for mental health information, which to your point, I loved we got to have you on our podcast and interview you a minute ago and you talked about the importance of parents being the source. Yeah. And mental health is another field where certainly you want to be the source as a parent. How do you advise parents to navigate the use of smartphones and social media? Do you have, I don't know if you're allowed to give advice on that, but it just, whether it's the therapeutic advice or just your personal thoughts, like, what would you tell a parent if they're like, if they want to know when or do I let them have a cell phone and social media?

Well, I'm going to tell every parent I'm working with to read the anxious generation. I do that weekly because I want you to work with the best data. And Jonathan's accumulated some of the best data we have access to at this point, 10 years from now, we're going to have even more data at that point. But in thinking about making informed decisions for your family, like, I want you to work with some of the best data and to understand all of what's possible that all three of us know. Like the Internet is, it's possible that we have access to more information than any other time in history.

And that's fantastic in some ways and not so great in other ways. It is. Yeah. What else would you add to that list? Well, we talk with parents often because they have that question. everywhere and that you don't want to be the first to let your child have whatever technological advancement it is because they'll often be perceived as fast or cutting edge and no more of things that you don't want them to know obviously but you also don't want to be the last okay

because I think our job is to raise responsible kids in all ways including technology use and I taught a parenting seminar on technology years ago that was miserable it's always miserable to talk about technology for long. And there was a dad in the room. I won't tell the full version of the story. But basically, he jumped up at the end of my hour talk and started yelling loudly into the microphone about how technology was not a child's God-given right and how he didn't let his kids get on the internet on their phone or send a photo from their phone until they turned

18. Until they not only turned 18, but were on their way to high school graduation. Literally is the moment he let his son do these things. and he said screamed if your child's on the internet go home and shut it down i didn't know what to do but say let me pray for us send the people out i know exactly fun moments but my immediate thought was that poor kid had zero freedom senior year can you imagine sitting in his dorm room or in his apartment three months later what he got into and your kids are going to make mistakes in terms of technology you would rather than make the mistakes while you're there to work it through with them rather than not having a clue.

And so our joking thing that we say is don't be the first, don't be the last, be the next to last. So the key is obviously you can give it to them too early, but you don't want to give it to them while they're still under your supervision so that they can be present with them while they are learning how to use this tool that is going to be a part of their life. life, you know, it's just inevitable. Yes. That's fascinating. Well, going back to driving, we talk about it a lot, like treat it like driving. Think about how you've, when you get your permit, you've got to spend a year in the car with your parents.

There's so much oversight. It is. So scary. Sometimes scary for kids, always scary for us. And then after that, we don't just throw keys at kids and say, well, let me know how it works out for you. But there's going to be connection points and checking in. And if I have a fender bender, then I,

I'm going to lose my vehicle for a while while it's being repaired all the different parts and pieces of that experience of teaching kids and letting the rope out. I think it's a great blueprint for how we could handle technology. I'm curious with social media or let's just say heavy use of social media, wrong use of social media, heavy cell phone use, with so much coming out that this is not good for, I mean, anybody's well-being, but especially teens were on a lot. Are we seeing, is there a tipping point yet? Is there starting to be a movement where kids are seeing that this actually isn't making me happy or it's making me more miserable and are we seeing lesser use or not yet? I'd be curious what you're saying.

Well, it's interesting. I was thinking just we were talking before we hit record about I was doing an in-service at a school in Texas a week ago and walked up to the entrance and there was, we're a campus, we're a phone-free campus and I was so curious to

interact with the administration and ask a couple of questions like how was it enforcing this? How did parents and kids respond? But what are you seeing? And to your question, they're like, it's so much fun what we're seeing. Like we're seeing kids have so many more conversations at lunch. They're playing

cards. They bring in board games. They ran down this long list of all these things that were not happening when that wasn't in place and are happening now. And they said, even the noise, like we had to adjust to the noise, you know, because it was so quiet because they're all scrolling and there's so much laughter at this point. And they're like, it's a great problem to have to figure out noise again in a cafeteria.

So if more and more schools do that, students will get a long-term experience of I have seen myself happier with us. Yes. And maybe they'll go, some will go back. But that's got to, I'm sure all, I'm sure most of those students will, they've had a, they've had a, taste of the good life, you know, like they, that will impact. They pulled the students who reported it. And they said they were so honest and saying, like, we do not want to feel this way. We were so convinced we were going to be so mad and wanting this experiment not to work. And it just has.

Like, they were able to say, we're laughing more. We're more present with people, all those things. So I think even if a parent listening right now is like, I want that, but my kid's school won't adopt that. I think we can still adopt the wisdom of that. and screen-free spaces in our home or our vehicles and screen-free times within our family so that we can allow kids to experience

some of these great benefits that I think, again, back to Jonathan's book, are communicated. I'm hoping that, you know, there's always like rebel movements, the punk rock movements within different generations and stuff. And I'm wondering if there will be kind of a punk rock retro, like, you know, I don't know a phone. Yeah, yeah, flip phone, old school, whatever.

And like, I wonder if that will become a, almost a trend, kind of a reaction against the status quo, you know. But I haven't, anecdotally, I haven't seen that white spread yet, but that's, I don't know. What are your thoughts? I don't have maybe two girls. Okay. In the last two years. One that said, I'm going to go back to a flip phone. And she kind of tried to impact those around her.

I don't know that. I think they thought it was cool, but no one jumped in. And then one who just really has heavily limited her use very intentionally. But the one thing that I'm seeing that's been really cool is I think kids are so much more educated now about the impact of it that I'm seeing a lot of girls whose parents are being wise to delay smartphones longer, delay social media longer. And for girls, it is so much, though, of their communication. And so there's so much pressure, I think, specifically for girls on that they should have it because everyone else does. And so I could name you four girls than I'm seeing right now. whose parents are fighting the good fight,

and the girls are doing a lot of loud complaining about it to their parents, and then to me saying, I'm really okay. I'm kind of glad they're waiting. But they don't say it to their parents, because I think there's even this, they need to save face with their friends. And their friends feel like, I'm so mad, my parents are so old school.

They won't let me have it, but they're really glad. So hang on to that parents. I've heard, and I don't, and I've seen this anecdotally, that, kids actually want rules. They want to be parented. They want boundaries. And they'll push that, they'll complain, whatever,

but deep down, they actually do want that. And they actually, they don't do well when there's zero rules and zero boundaries. Is that, do you agree with that? Is that an established fact or? We talk so often about how boundaries create security and kids. And too much power leads to insecurity. Yes. Yeah.

But they won't say that out loud, right? kids like they'll okay so you won't hear the kids saying give me rules but deep down they're like i got what rules or like i know with my kids like they just want to know like where it is i want to be i want clarity too like where the boundary is and some kids are you know they're prone to like want to break that rule or admit they'll come as close as they can to it or some are like i don't want to push whatever so they might respond differently but at the end of the day when there's no clarity or no rules they yeah they don't yeah they don't function well I counseled a teenage girl a long time ago whose parents were divorced and her mom was kind of the proverbial Disneyland parent.

And I remember her saying to me, I wish my mom would ground me because that's what parents do when they love their kids. So yes, to your point. It's funny now having adult kids looking back and now we talk about the real stuff. So how did you actually feel when you were 13? You know, and like, yeah, they all like are so thankful for the times we exercise the proverbial tough love or. gave rules or whatever. And there were times when they said, yeah, we wish you would have given,

you know, more rules or stuck by it. Even though in them, I'm like, yeah, in the moment, you were like, you didn't tell me that when you were 13. Right. And we wouldn't let you do whatever, you know. So, oh, it's tough. Do you find that that is hard, it's really hard among parents to establish boundaries,

stick to them, say things that their kids are not going to like, whatever? Is that kind of like one of the main problems you are running up against with parents? More than ever. Okay. Do they feel empowered to do that when you talk to them? Do they just need to hear like this is actually good for them? Or are they just terrified to?

I think they're terrified to send their kids to our office. To our offices. I mean, I feel like that's driving so much of it is I don't want to hurt my kids. I don't want to mess them up. And like we were talking about so many of the trends right now, we're not as boundary driven. And so they feel like they're going to be the reason. Their kids either don't like.

them or end up in counseling and have a hard time. Yeah. Yeah. Do you see the same thing with boys? Is it different for boys and girls? No, I do. And I was even thinking back to Sissy's wisdom a little bit earlier and the overfocus on attunement, which again, here I say is so important. But if all the focus is in that direction, which is ultimately about connection, it makes sense where it would begin to interfere when I'm having to set boundaries that I somehow make the connection that I'm interrupting connection in some way. And so, yeah, we were talking with a friend who's a brilliant psychologist, and she too has been doing the work for 30 years.

And she was like, you know, it's fascinating to me, even the questions that young parents are asking. I'm repeatedly having parents ask like, am I interrupting attachment if I send my kids to preschool? Well, that's not a question I ever remember parents asking any point 30 years ago. But if all the focus is in that direction, it's all about. attachment, attumment, connection, those things, then it just makes sense where it would feel harder and harder to bring boundaries into the equation and to prioritize health over happiness that my primary objective needs to just be about this and this alone. And it's both and.

Where did that over emphasis on attunement come from? Is that, is that just widespread in the therapy space? Is it, and how old, is this like last five years, 10 years? I think it's part of the overcorrection piece that we talked about earlier. And again, on the one hand, it's fantastic that we're more informed about attachment styles and thinking about connection and how we relate with the kids we love. And we can sometimes be thinking so much about that. Yeah. We've lost things.

We've lost prioritizing some other important things. I find me going back to anecdotally, when my wife and I, when all our conversations are all about our kids and this, that, and we're just two. Too involved, you know, which sounds weird because, again, it is the Gen X overreaction at there, maybe even millennial. Like, my parents weren't that involved. They were distant or whatever, so I'm going to overcorrect. And it seems so intuitive that this is what you should do.

But like you're saying, it's a good part of your parenting, a necessary part, but it can't be all about that. Yeah. Can you give me another concrete example of what unhealthy attunement or too much attuned? tunement looks like versus what would it be a balanced rhythm of attunement between a parent and child? You use the example as a good one of like a sports game. Like maybe you don't need to be at every single sports game. Are there other ways you can illustrate this? Well, we say to parents often, we'd love for you to think about two things you're doing

for your kids right now that they can do for themselves. Oh, okay. Whatever age. So attunement could be also doing too many things for them. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. That's where I think attunement filters over into rescuing.

And rescuing blocks resilience directly. And so, I mean, we always want to start with attunement. We always want to say, that sounds really hard. Oh, I hate that that's happening for you. And then our favorite thing after that is then to say, what do you think would help? What do you think is the right thing to do there? And that we ask questions rather than intervene. And so, yeah, empathy and questions.

We love that combination. Okay, good. Yeah. Oh, I love that. All right. Last question. Your book comes out in April. What is when people, there's so many parenting books out there.

Some better than others. I've been doing more, yeah, I've been more aware of the parents. I didn't realize it was such a massive, diverse field. Oh, my gosh. And so many parents seem to be, I've got a good friend of my, Lori Krieg, who's, she just actually came out with a book today. days ago, raising wise kids in a sexually broken world. It's amazing book. And so she's, she's dabbling in a lot of the online. And it's like you said, she says a lot of parents,

they're being parent, they're getting their wisdom from TikTok even. Like the online parenting space is pervasive. And she says, the number one thing that drives these spaces is fear. Yeah. It's just fear, fear, fear, fear, fear. There's lots of things to be scared of in our world today. But we can't respond with fear. We have to respond with wisdom, right? So what would be one major, major takeaway that somebody would walk away with from your book, capable? Is there, that's hard to boil it down to one. It's like 20 chapters.

But maybe not the major one, but just one of the many you'd want people to walk away with. I'll say one of my favorite components of the book to the question. to the question about, which is a major takeaway, we would want people to leave, is what are two things you're doing for your kids right now that they can do for themselves? And what are two things you're doing that they can almost do for themselves?

Okay. And along those lines, in the book, we have, we started calling them capable building exercises, and we have 100 based on age of silly things that they can do to help prove to themselves that they're capable, but also more substantive. things that they can do as well to prove that they're capable. So I think my biggest takeaway would be,

or what I would hope parents would get would be to start to ask themselves, what are the experiences you can give the kids that you love? So that they learn that they're capable because so many of the things, you know, we just have forgotten a lot of the soft skills that the world requires anymore. And getting a driver's license, asking a friend to spend time with you. I mean, doing the things that they're afraid to do right now, it's going to be hard to navigate the things that we know life brings all the time. And so, anyway, that's one of my favorite parts of the book

are the specific takeaways, practical things they can do to get some of those experiences under their belt. I think even building on that, that would be a great question for any parent of any age child to ask in every season. Like, is there at least one context where my kids, kid gets to practice regulation where they get that provides discomfort of some kind and promotes independence like in all seasons is there at least one because I think we get so focused on do they feel successful in doing this are they building confidence in this we're thinking so much about

those things but are we thinking in the opposite direction like are they uncomfortable are they having to learn something new are they maybe the next to the worst one on the team right now like I I I think the temptation would be then let's pull them out. And so is there at least one context in all seasons of kids growing up that offer those things? That's awesome. Thank you both for being on their podcast. I've been looking forward to this for a while. Love your work.

Love, yeah, how you approach this topic. It's just so dear to my heart. I love being a dad and yet it's the most challenging thing ever ever time. Yes. So thank you for helping people like me. It's awesome. We're so grateful. So good to be with you.

Thank you.