Talking To Teens

Magnus Resch, author of How to Become a Successful Artist, reveals the key to succeeding in the art world, and explains how your teen can get a head start on making all the right connections.If you've enjoyed Talking to Teens, we'd love if you could leave us a five-star rating, and if you have time, a review! Full show notesThere’s nothing we want more than to see our teens to grow up happy and successful….with stable careers! So when they mention they might want to pursue acting or painting or playing the trombone, we can start to get a little nervous. While we love that they have a creative side, we know that a life in the arts is anything but consistent. If they could only see the benefits of a degree in engineering or business, they’d understand that the artistic struggle might not be as fulfilling as they think.But alas, they won’t listen! Teens are stubborn, and will likely maintain that they are destined for the artist lifestyle. So what can we do to help them find the success they’ll need to stay aflo

Andrea Brand, author of Stop Sweating & Start Talking, shine slight on why sex talks are so essential, and what we can do to make them less awkward. If you've enjoyed Talking to Teens, we'd love if you could leave us a five-star rating, and if you have time, a review! Full show notesFor centuries, parents all over the world have been plagued by the sex talk. How could we possibly cover all the intricacies and complications of fornication with our teens? And even if we’re able to sit teens down for “the talk”, they aren’t exactly excited to get into an awkward discussion about the birds and the bees. As soon as you start talking about body parts, teens run the other way or cover their ears.…and you’re left wondering if the two of you will ever be able to talk to about sex!As difficult as it is to have these discussions, they are essential to teens' physical and mental health. Kids are going to be interested in sex regardless, and if they dont learn about it from you, they’ll turn to the internet. And while

Jonah Lehrer, author of Mystery, explains why the unknown is so tantalizing, we just can’t seem to resist. Turns out, we all could use a bit more uncertainty in our data-driven world, because curiosity is a powerful driving force in our lives.If you've enjoyed Talking to Teens, we'd love if you could leave us a five-star rating, and if you have time, a review! Full show notesAs parents and people, we tend to seek out certainty. We keep our kids in the same schools so they can have consistent friends. We cook the same group of recipes, so we’re sure to have something ready for dinner without too much stress. And we encourage our kids to study hard so they'll be sure to get good grades, get into a good college, and get a good job. We feel that if things are certain, we can live comfortably without worrying about our teens too much…even if it can get a little boring!But what about mystery? Could adding a little bit of unpredictability into our lives make us happier? Might it prepare our teens better for the comp

Marcus Du Sautoy, mathematician and author of Thinking Better, shares how laziness and the wish for a shortcut can actually push our teens to come up with creative and time-saving innovations.If you've enjoyed Talking to Teens, we'd love if you could leave us a five-star rating, and if you have time, a review! Full show notesHard work is essential to success…right? If we want teens to thrive they have to hustle, grind and work laboriously to achieve perfect SAT scores or a spot on the basketball team. We condemn teen laziness, hoping that kids will understand the value of blood sweat and tears. For goodness sake, how will they ever get anywhere in life if they’re not spending hours with their chemistry textbooks or practicing their free throws all afternoon?But maybe it doesn’t have to be that way. Perhaps there’s some merit to taking the easy way out–so long as it’s clever! If teens can find ways to get to the same result without all the effort, they might just stumble upon a great discovery. This week, we’r

Shane Trotter, author of Setting the Bar, sits down with us to discuss how our technology-obsessed, individualistic culture might be holding our teens back from reaching their full potential. If you've enjoyed Talking to Teens, we'd love if you could leave us a five-star rating, and if you have time, a review! Full show notesTimes are changing—and so are teens. The introduction of technology to each aspect of everyday life has fundamentally altered the way teens act, think, and experience the world. Our education system is not the same as it was 20 years ago, and it’s shaping our teens dramatically. Our culture has changed, pushing teens to become more individualistic than ever before. For better or for worse, growing up has become an entirely different experience than the one many of us are familiar with.For kids, this new world has benefits…but also serious drawbacks. Young people are more connected than ever. They’ve got comforts and conveniences that we never could have dreamt of in our teen years. But ra

Zach Westerbeck, author of You're Not Alone, joins us this week to talk about how mental illness manifests in teens. He also shines a light on what we can do to help a teen that’s struggling with anxiety or depression.If you've enjoyed Talking to Teens, we'd love if you could leave us a five-star rating, and if you have time, a review! Full show notesCaring for teens with anxiety and depression can be incredibly difficult. No teen is the same, and living with mental illness is different for every family. Because these disorders are so stigmatized in our society, we rarely talk about them–making them even harder to spot, diagnose and treat. Some days it might feel like there’s nothing you can do to help your teen feel better…and that’s not a good feeling!No matter how hard it may seem, however, you’re not alone. Plenty of people are going through the same thing–probably more than you think! And by talking to professionals, you can discover some tried-and-true ways to help your teen get a hold on their mental h

Dr. Roni Cohen-Sandler, author of Anything But My Phone, Mom!, sheds light on how toxic tech use affects teens’ self-image. Plus, she doles out tricks for more productive tech talks with adolescents.If you've enjoyed Talking to Teens, we'd love if you could leave us a five-star rating, and if you have time, a review! Full show notesHave you ever tried taking your teen’s phone away? How did they respond? Did they scream? Cry? Bargain and beg for you to give it back? For many families, arguments over tech use are an exhaustingly repetitive part of everyday life. Devices can have plenty of benefits for teens, but can also be addictive and problematic! As a parent, it can be scary to feel like teens are ditching their homework for tik tok, talking to random strangers online, or running free all over social media.Helping teens create healthy tech habits is hard work–but not impossible! Surprisingly, it starts with encouraging teens to be themselves. Confident teens are less likely to hide behind screens, and more

Christia Spears Brown, PhD, author of Unraveling Bias, explains how prejudice develops in children, even if we don’t teach it to them. In this episode, we’ll learn how to have conversations about equality in our own homes.If you've enjoyed Talking to Teens, we'd love if you could leave us a five-star rating, and if you have time, a review! Full show notesTalking about discrimination is pretty complicated and scary…so sometimes we just don’t! We hope that if we just don’t mention offensive stereotypes or racist notions to our kids, they won’t develop prejudiced thinking. We’ll remind them that everyone is equal, and just pray that their schooling will do the rest. If we wouldn’t know what to say in a conversation about discrimination, it’s better to just abstain…right?As much as we might wish for our kids to naturally grow up without bias, studies show that it’s bound to happen. Influences from TV, movies, video games and social media can shape the way young minds think. When young people see racist and sexist

Mark Goulston, author of Just Listen, helps us break through our teenager’s barriers to have vulnerable conversations, solve conflict, and create more open lines of communication.If you've enjoyed Talking to Teens, we'd love if you could leave us a five-star rating, and if you have time, a review! Full show notesHaving an open, communicative, connected relationship with your teen is awesome…but pretty difficult to achieve. Teens don’t exactly make it easy to get close to them–when we try to have heart-to-hearts, they usually just roll their eyes. Plus, it’s hard to spend quality time together when they disappear to their rooms for hours at a time! Being vulnerable with teens can be an incredible way to bond with them and prep them with life advice for the world ahead, if we could only get them to listen.To make things more complicated, having these conversations is usually a two-part process. Even when we’ve got kids to open up, it’s another challenge altogether to know what to say! When teens tell us about w

Chris and Holly Santillo, authors of Resilience Parenting, shed light on raising teens who persevere. They’re sharing how teens can balance independence and connectedness, and what we can do to model resiliency for our kids.If you've enjoyed Talking to Teens, we'd love if you could leave us a five-star rating, and if you have time, a review! Full show notesThe road in front  of our teens is a rocky one. They’re heading into adulthood in the midst of a pandemic, trying to figure out what they want to do and who they want to be. They’re attempting to find independence, but also curate new relationships. There’s no shortage of obstacles in their path–if they want to get through, they’ll have to know how to persevere. They’ll have to be resilient.But how can we as parents help them get there? Turns out, there’s a lot we can do! And it starts with being resilient ourselves. If we show kids that we can  bounce back from our mistakes, they’ll know that they’re capable of it too. Then, when it’s time to step out into

Peter Docker, author of Leading From The Jumpseat, gives us pointers on how and when to let go of the urge to control our teens. Plus, he shares what we can do to stay cool when teens press our buttons. If you've enjoyed Talking to Teens, we'd love if you could leave us a five-star rating, and if you have time, a review! Full show notesIt can be alarming when  teens are suddenly staying out late, dating, and getting behind the wheel. It’s easy to see them as the tiny toddler they once were, when barely able to even walk! Watching them grow from little kids to young adults means that we have to relinquish control and give them more and more independence….which is no simple task. We want to protect them, shelter them and guide their every move to make sure they don’t go astray, but maybe this isn’t the best way to prepare them to take on life in the real world!This week’s episode is about taking the backseat as a parent. Even when we want to run out the door and stop our teen from going out in that outfit, or w

Dr Anna Lembke, author of Dopamine Nation, shares insight into the pain-pleasure circuitry in the brain and how it affects our ability to become addicted to painful things and numb to pleasurable ones—and how we can do a ‘reset’ to get back a sensitivity for both.If you've enjoyed Talking to Teens, we'd love if you could leave us a five-star rating, and if you have time, a review! Full show notesWhat do you do when your teen suddenly seems to be in a rut? It might be that they barely eat, lock themselves in their room, or stop talking to their friends…whatever it is, they won’t clue you in to what’s wrong. The truth is, they may not even know! These days, more and more people are finding themselves feeling down without an obvious reason—and this week, we’re going to find out why.In recent years, the number of prescriptions for antidepressants has gone up all across the globe…but so have rates of depression and anxiety. How could this be possible? It might just be that relying on medicine is actually making us

Dexter Dias, author of The Ten Types of Human, offers insight on the personality “apps” that drive human behavior. Plus, how to instill compassion and help your teen avoid burning out their kindness!If you've enjoyed Talking to Teens, we'd love if you could leave us a five-star rating, and if you have time, a review! Full show notesWhen we’re bombarded with some of the terrifying stuff on the news these days, we might find ourselves wishing there were more compassionate people in the world. Luckily, If we can raise the next generation to be considerate, kind and morally educated, we might be able to steer our society in a better direction. That being said, it’s no easy task to teach teenagers to practice empathy! This week, we’re talking all about compassion–how we can help teens develop it, and why they’re often at risk of losing it. To get to the bottom of what it really means to be compassionate, we’re diving deep into the psychology and evolutionary development that defines our empathetic impulses. By doi

Alex J. Packer, author of Slaying Digital Dragons, joins us for a look at technology’s effects on our physical, mental, and social health, and how we can control our own tech use, and not let it control us!If you've enjoyed Talking to Teens, we'd love if you could leave us a five-star rating, and if you have time, a review! Full show notesFor parents, technology can be quite the headache. We want kids to stay connected to the world, but is their iphone distracting them from school? Is all the time spent on social media making them depressed or anxious? Should we be limiting their screen time, blocking websites or supervising them while they’re scrolling through Tik Tok? At this point, it’s tempting to just throw their phones in the trash and forbid them from going on the computer at all!But if we try to set rules or even just tell them to put the phone down, they’re suddenly slamming the door in our faces or rolling their eyes. Even when we have the best intentions, trying to monitor teen’s tech use can turn

Dan Sheeks, author of First to a Million, gives us a run-down of what early financial independence could look like for your teen and how they can get started on their journey. It’s not about making enough money to laze around all day—it’s about having more options.If you've enjoyed Talking to Teens, we'd love if you could leave us a five-star rating, and if you have time, a review! Full show notesDo you ever wish you learned smart financial planning earlier in life? Maybe if you’d just had some more information, you could have that sports car you’ve always fantasized about...or maybe you would’ve just avoided making some rough mistakes! In order to set our teens on a better path, it might be wise to get them started on a financial education while they’re still under our roofs–so that when they step into adult life, they’ll pay bills and crunch numbers like a boss.The only problem is….kids don’t want to talk about money. They’d love to talk to you about the things they want to buy. But when it comes to investi

Matthew R Kay, author of Not Light, But Fire, shares his vast wealth of knowledge on how to have productive discussions about race. As an educator and speaker, Matthew is well-versed in what to avoid and what to move toward in conversations.If you've enjoyed Talking to Teens, we'd love if you could leave us a five-star rating, and if you have time, a review! Full show notesYou know you have to discuss race....but you’re not sure where to start. With everything going on in the news and centuries of history to cover, there’s quite a bit to talk about. You might feel like you’re unauthorized or just woefully unprepared. What if you say the wrong thing, or your teen asks a question you don’t know the answer to? With all the uncertainty, it can be tempting to just skip the topic of race altogether.But if we don’t encourage kids to think critically about racism, they may grow up ignorant to prejudice in their community. They might not be able to identify microaggressions, or might not think about a certain language

Diane Tavenner, author of Prepared and founder of Summit Public Schools, joins us to shed light on the practical to-dos she has learned from running some of the highest ranked public schools in the United States.If you've enjoyed Talking to Teens, we'd love if you could leave us a five-star rating, and if you have time, a review! Full show notesWhen it comes to our kids’ education, we don’t want to cut corners. We want them to have access to a thorough, fulfilling schooling so that they’ll have a bright future! However, today’s school system often fails to meet our expectations. Teens are shuffled through a long day of sitting in a classroom, doing what they’re told, with almost no personal connection to what they’re learning. No wonder so many of them are falling behind or finding themselves woefully unprepared for college!Although it may seem like there’s no way to combat this problem, our guest today thinks otherwise. The trick, she believes, is to flip the script and put teens behind the driver’s seat of

Dr. Ethan Kross, author of Chatter, briefs us on his research on internal chatter: what it is, why it matters, and how to help your teen harness it before it gets out of control. If you've enjoyed Talking to Teens, we'd love if you could leave us a five-star rating, and if you have time, a review! Full show notesThere’s a lot to be worried about these days!  Whether you’re feeling anxious about the ongoing pandemic or just concerned that your teen is struggling in school, it’s easy to let distress clutter your mind. When we let that anxiety crawl around in our brain, we often find ourselves distracted from the better moments in life, thinking obsessively about a work meeting when we’re supposed to be spending quality time with our families. Interestingly, that voice inside our head–the one that’s always muttering about the past and the future–can be useful, if we know how to harness it. This inner dialogue comes from an evolutionary need to learn from past mistakes to survive the next challenge, and can help

David Bradford, PhD, co-author of Connect, shares his insights for how to create a deeper, more meaningful connection with your teen by tweaking communication.If you've enjoyed Talking to Teens, we'd love if you could leave us a five-star rating, and if you have time, a review! Full show notesWe often hear that the secret to a healthy relationship of any kind is communication...but what does that really mean? Does it mean apologizing when we feel we’ve messed up, or daring to discuss uncomfortable topics? Are there certain things we shouldn’t say, and how do we know when we’re communicating too much? How do we get teens who are checked out to actually hear what we’re saying? These questions and more are keeping us from having an open, communicative relationship with our teens.But when bad communication causes so many problems, it’s understandable that you might be hesitant. When you’re feeling frustrated or upset with your teen, certain ways of communicating can deepen the divide between the two of you instea

Christian Jarrett, author of Be Who You Want, brings us knowledge on the science of changing: what exactly can we change and how can we make changes stick. Plus, how to turn difficult personalities into successful ones. If you've enjoyed Talking to Teens, we'd love if you could leave us a five-star rating, and if you have time, a review! Full show notesIt’s hard to think of a group that gets labelled more than teenagers. Whether we declare them slackers, class clowns, popular kids or outcasts, it can be easy to put them in boxes based on their personalities! But have you ever considered that personalities aren’t as constant as you might think? Maybe teens’ personalities change with time as they grow or fluctuate depending on who they’re with or where they are. They might even have the power to intentionally change their own personalities if they put their minds to it.The debate over whether human personality is stable or fluid is one that reaches back through the history of psychology. Some scientists in the