December 4, 2024 • 23 mins
We are joined by Dr. Jessica Hawkes, a leading child and adolescent psychologist from Children's Hospital Colorado and Associate Professor at the University of Colorado. Together, we explore the critical role mental health plays in students’ overall development, academic success and well-being from early childhood through adolescence. This is part one of a two part series on mental health in K-12 education.
Dr. Hawkes shares her professional journey and provides practical advice for parents and educators to recognize the early signs of mental health challenges, foster resilience and support children in navigating life’s emotional ups and downs. We discuss key strategies, from strengthening the parent-child relationship through presence and play in early years, to finding the balance between guiding and granting independence to teens.
Whether you're a parent seeking to better support your child or an educator aiming to enhance classroom dynamics, this episode offers invaluable insights for promoting mental health and well-being at every stage of a student’s journey.
Tune in to learn how mental health is integral to education—and how we can all work together to create a healthier future for our students. Come back next week as we continue the conversation about emotional regulation and resilience.
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Hello, everyone. Thank you for tuning in to elevate education. Today, we have a guest with us from Children's Hospital, Colorado, Dr. Jessica Hawkes, a leading expert in child psychology. I'm thrilled to be learning from her today about mental health throughout the pre-K 12 years. We'll be talking about how parents and teachers can recognize early signs of mental health challenges and discover strategies to support students overall well-being and success. Jessica, I'm so looking forward to hearing your insights. But to start, could you share a bit about your background and what drew you to a career in child and adolescent psychology? Absolutely. First, thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here to speak with you today. So I am a child and adolescent psychologist and I work at Children's Hospital, Colorado, and my associate professor at the University of Colorado and have worked there for about ten years and helped to oversee the different mental health clinical programs that we offer at the hospital. I have actually been interested in mental health since I was a young child, largely due to different personal experiences I had with mental health struggles that my own family had. I growing up and I quickly learned through those experiences, as well as being an athlete and having really important relationships with my coaches, just how powerful the impact of adults were in a kid's life. And I really wanted to pursue a career where I could help support not only the children, but also the adults in kid's life and being able to promote their overall emotional mental health and well-being. Thank you, Jessica. So I have two teenage daughters who are each navigating this unique moment in their lives. And I understand the importance of my role as their mom and supporting them through their unique ups and downs and watching them grow and face both exciting and challenging times reminds me how essential mental health support is not just for their academic success, but their overall happiness and well-being. And as a parent, there are days I feel really vulnerable and very underprepared, really, to help them navigate whatever it is that they're going through. And this is such an important topic. So I'm just so grateful that you're here today, and I know that our listeners are going to just take so much away from this conversation today. can you start by explaining why mental health is vital for students overall development and success, both academically and socially? Yes. So I really encourage folks to think about mental health as health. It's really impossible to separate out our mental health and our physical health. It is all our health. And so if you think about it as a holistic concept, really, in order to be able to be effective and school effective as a friend, as a child, as a sibling. Anything that you're doing in your life requires you to have a strong foundation and good mental health. Without that, everything can really start to crumble. And so it's really important for us to think about. We prioritize accessing good medical care for our kids and making sure that they are physically healthy. We should be doing the exact same thing and thinking about it in the same way with regards to their mental health. You know, we talk a lot about the importance of family engagement and the role that parents and families play in the overall success and well-being of our students. And we know that, God, goodness, the role of of a parent of a caregiver is such is so demanding. And so I just in way just really curious, what mental health considerations are parents most likely to see in early childhood? And how can parents distinguish between normal developmental behaviors and potential concerns? So in early childhood, we are much more likely to see behaviors that externally manifest. So those sorts of things that are behaviorally observable that tend to be more disruptive. A lot of times it's behaviors like excessive tantrums, physical aggression, not following directions. And in early childhood, those are more likely to manifest because in part, those are normal behaviors that young kids should be engaging in because they're starting to learn how to navigate the world, how to assert a little bit of autonomy. And so that push and pull with parents and caregivers is actually appropriate. So it's actually in some ways difficult to create that cut off. This is when it becomes a problem because there's no definitive like if you have X number of tantrums a day, it's now a problem. It's really more about from a family unit perspective, is it causing you distress? Is it causing your child's distress and is it getting in the way of you all being able to function and do things day to day? Is it impairing your relationship with your child? But those kinds of behaviors are normal in really early childhood. Once you start to get into school, pre-K, kindergarten, a lot of those behaviors should start to go down just through normal development and through those normal interactions that you have with your child. If they're continuing to be present, especially if they're starting to show up in school, that's when we start to worry. And then we also start to see right as kids transition into school, there are a small subset of kids that will start to show certain signs of anxiety, especially separation anxiety, as they start to separate some from their caregivers. That's also somewhat normal, especially if they've primarily been with their family unit for the first two years of their life. But again, we expect over time that that separation from a caregiver gets easier and easier. But those are the primary early childhood behaviors that we tend to see as problematic. Are there any particular strategies you've seen successful for parents to support their young children in managing their emotions? Yeah, I think throughout our conversation for me today about just how critical that family engagement and presence is in a kid's mental health and well-being, regardless of the age of the kid, a parent is absolutely the most critical central piece of a kid's mental health well-being. So in early childhood, parents can really support their children's mental health through a couple of different ways. The first one is being present. And by being present, I mean you are with your child, not distracted, not multitasking. You are physically present with your kid engaged in enjoyable activities. Kids at a young age are much less likely to be able to have robust verbal conversations because that language is still developing and that abstract thinking is still developing. So in young, earlier childhood stages, it's really a lot of play that allows that relationship to connect and strengthen. And we know that that parent child relationship is one of the most important protective factors that buffers against mental health problems. So really encouraging parents to just spend time with their kids engaged in fun and enjoyable play. One of the things that's really helpful for parents to do, especially if they're seeing that their child is struggling with behavioral difficulties of an earlier childhood, is to try to focus on doing play at least once a day for ten or 15 minutes. That's focused on whatever the child wants to do and really trying to refrain from making that play educational. Because what happens when we try to make play educational all the time is we just inadvertently make it about our agenda as the adult. So we're asking things like, how many are there? What color is this? Can you put this block on top of that block, that sort of thing? We don't really necessarily have a strong emphasis on needing to know that our kids know the answers, but we're just trying to make it educational so that we do as parents. But unfortunately, that can get into a power struggle with a kid who's already struggling versus if you really just follow the kids lead and let that play be very non directional, really about whatever the kid wants. It creates this really wonderful rich opportunity for the parent of the child to connect in a way that can be very helpful. The other primary strategy that I would encourage parents to use with young kids is to be really purposeful in how they're using their attention, because a parent's attention, especially at a early childhood development, is hands down the most powerful reinforcer that they have in their in their toolbox. And so you can use that to help promote a kid's behavior in positive ways or in negative ways. And it's all about the intentionality and how you're directing attention. So pay attention to the kinds of things that you want to see your kid engage against. So. Your child has a hard time regulating their emotions and you see them trying. You see them maybe having some partial successes. You want a parent to call attention to that. I can see that you're trying to take some deep breaths. I can see that you're trying to calm down. That's amazing. I'm so proud of you. Versus if a child is really getting emotional and struggling, if we pay attention to that. But in a negative way. Stop screaming. Stop crying. This isn't that big of a deal. We're still giving attention to that behavior, but we're giving attention to the behaviors we don't want to see. But it inadvertently reinforces those behaviors and makes them more likely to happen. Because what our child learns is when I engage in this behavior, it makes my parent more likely to engage with me and I want that. So I'm going to keep doing it. So it's really just about catching your child, being good, paying attention to those behaviors you want to see because it's going to make them happen more and more. I love the reminder to be present. I mean, I think just as parents and even our educators, I think it's just a powerful reminder of the role and the relationship that we have with the young people that we engage with every day and so be present. It's just it's just powerful. And I appreciate the way in which you framed that. You know, there are there are so many distractions and so many things that do take our attention away. But that meaningful investment in time and just giving our undivided time to the children in our lives can have such a big impact. So thanks for uplifting that. Mm hmm. Absolutely. As children enter adolescence, emotions can get bigger and mental health concerns can often intensify. You know, around the office this past Halloween, we had lots of inside out costumes, you know, and I think it's just it's such a popular Disney movie because, you know, in fact, it's so relatable. You know, so many adults actually related, too, to that movie because of just in the way it conveys, you know, our emotions and the way that we interact with the world and the way that our emotions show up. And so what changes should parents watch for that might indicate that their child or their teen in particular is struggling? Yeah, I love Inside Out. It has been an incredible clinical tool because it is so relatable and the inside out to movie is great because it actually to the point of transitioning into a more adolescence, there's a character of anxiety and we see a lot of anxiety as children start to transition into more of that middle school and high school ages. So anxiety and depression are definitely going to happen with increasing frequency over the course of a kid's development. So from that transition from earlier childhood to mid and later childhood and adolescence, we're going to see increasing prevalence rates of those kinds of mental health concerns. So the things that parents want to be looking out for are changes in any of their kids behaviors. So if your child is isolating more and I say more because we know that teens like to spend more time in their room, spending time, you know, doing whatever on their laptops or their phones. But if it seems like a big change, they just never come out of their room. They don't want to spend time with family at all. Maybe they even don't want to spend time with friends. That isolation is one of the telltale warning signs. Or if they don't seem to want to engage in the kinds of activities that they typically like to do. So maybe they don't want to go play sports, or they don't want to go out with their friends. If they start to struggle academically, they have a hard time concentrating on their academic performance starts to go down, or they just stop wanting to go to school. Changes in appetite whether it's increases or decreases same with sleep increases or decreases, can also be flags of warning. And then one of the other things that I think is important to note, especially in more of the youth group versus adults. One of the things that looks different with mental health difficulties is that our youth will sometimes show a lot more irritability, agitation, grumpiness, versus more of the classic presentation of what we think of when we think of depression or anxiety, where we think of, you know, a lot of crying and sadness. Sometimes it shows up more as irritability. So if you see that your child seems really on edge, a lot is snapping at you, a lot just seems extra irritable. That is also potentially a warning sign. Yeah. You know, I you know, as somebody who spent the majority of their career working and supporting middle school students, that irritability absolutely can be a telltale sign that our kids are struggling. And then that paired with what we would look for is changes in behavior in the classroom. Then we would also then look at, okay, so how are students doing academically? And if we're seeing some dramatic shifts and maybe their grades or just their overall academic performance, that would definitely be a time we'd be reaching out to families to say, you know, we just want to do, you know, the well, baby check on, you know, x student. We have some concerns. Are we seeing the same thing at home? And I think it just goes back to reinforcing that relationship with our families. You know, our parents are caregivers is so important. And so, you know, you you, you you highlight some some really important things that we should be looking for, again, not only as parents but, you know, things that we should be keeping an eye on in the classroom as well. So thank you for sharing those. I shared a little bit earlier that I have two teenage daughters and it's such a it's I've really enjoyed every phase of parenting. They've been equally rewarding and hard. And it's just been one of the greatest joys of my life is to raise these two beautiful young women. And I'm excited to see where life is going to take them. And, you know, like, you know, like teenagers, it's really hard knowing how much to lean in as a mom and when do I allow them to navigate and find their own independence. And it is such a delicate balance and one that I know I'm really struggling with as a mom. And so just I'm curious what advice or insight that you might be able to provide parents about how we can support our teens without infringing upon their need for independence? Yeah. Oh, my goodness. What a fabulous question. It is so, so hard to do. I can tell you as a child psychologist, I oftentimes joke that being a psychologist did not make me a better mom, but being a mom made me a better psychologist because even though I know some of these answers, it is so, so hard to do it when it is your own kid. I have twin five year old boys and I struggle with this at their age and I can only imagine that sweet spot of support and being overly involved. It will continue to be a battle for me and I think it is for a lot of parents. You know, I think one of the things that's really important for parents to be mindful of is that one of the best ways to promote your child's mental health and more broadly promote your child's ability to develop resilience is by allowing them opportunities to struggle. And that can be really, really difficult as a parent because we are just wired to want to help support our kids and not having to struggle. It's hard to watch them be in pain or to be having a hard time and you want to jump in and help kind of protect them and try to pull them out of that struggle. But it's really critical that our kids have those opportunities not only to struggle, even sometimes to fail, because you learn equally important things through failure that you do through success. And so as a parent, of course, we want to help to scaffold. We want when they are stretching their development, they are learning new skills. We want to be able to be there with them to support them, but we don't want to do it for them because they never learn if we do it that way. And if you think about that, even at young, young ages, that's something as parents we have to do. If we're always holding our kids hands as they're learning to walk, they never get to learn to walk. Part of how they learn is through the stumbling and the falling. As a teenager in a kind of metaphorical way, it's very much the same. We have to let them walk and stumble and fall because that's how they learn. But when they fail, they learn important life lessons from that. They learn how to bounce back. They learn things that maybe they could do differently. So as a parent, our role is to help to support them in navigating that, be there as a source of support. Be a person who can help them develop critical thinking, critical problem solving skills by asking questions, being curious with them, but really ultimately supporting them and being able to figure out how to solve these problems and be able to do a lot of this with increasing independence. I love the learning to walk analogy. That's just a powerful example, and I don't think I would have made that connection about the resilience and the analogy of learning to walk and and goodness. I'm watching my own daughters learn to walk in so many different ways, you know, in their in their teenage gears. And so watching them navigate, you know, school and academics and athletics and all that comes with that, all of those pressures, you're totally right. You want to, like, swoop in and never want to see them fall and never want to see them experience any heartache in any way. But but I'm going to remember that learning to walk analogy. And I think, you know, even as a mom might pull back a little bit and let them find their footing, so to speak as they figure their way in this world and develop some of that resilience. And so. So thanks for sharing that. Yeah, of course. You know, just to build off of that a little bit, I think one of the things that if we were to continue with that example of learning to walk, think about as a parent, how you approach the successes that your kid has when they're learning those skills, you know, that first step that they take, ultimately they actually fall down. But they took they took that first step and what's here and we're very excited for them and we're like encouraging and praising. And that happens even though it wasn't perfect and even though like maybe at the end we stumbled a little bit because we're praising their effort, we're praising their inching towards the accomplishment of that goal. The same thing is really important to do even with teenagers. One of the biggest stressors that our teens face nowadays is this culture of achievement, where everyone has to be on the varsity team, getting a 4.0 or even more than a 4.0. Everyone's applying to really competitive colleges, Ivy League, universities, etc. And a lot of the focus is on the Oh, come on, this like end goal. We don't focus as much as we should on our our kids and teens efforts if they're trying. You know, if I have a child who maybe struggles with math, the goal should not be that they're getting an A in the class. The goal should be that they are working hard every day to do the homework, to learn the concepts, to do the very best that they can. And if they get an A, awesome. But ultimately the end game is not the grade really. It's about the process of trying and doing their best. That's what's going to help a kid feel successful and have that self-efficacy, and that's ultimately what's going to really promote that mental health and well-being. Now, I think, gosh, you just raised so many wonderful points. So many times I hear from families that just they just want my child to be happy. I want them to be safe, and I want them to be happy. And I think a lot of times we as parents and I'll say we equate that happiness with we just want everything to be easy. And, you know, we don't you don't we don't want any, you know, any bumps along the way. And it doesn't allow our children the opportunity to see what they're made of and and apply, you know, all of the life lessons, you know, everything that they're learning from the world, from at home, and really putting that into practice knowing that if I'm encouraging, if I'm providing support, if I'm cheering for my child along the way and I'm looking for some of these telltale signs of when something might be really wrong, you know that. You know what? I might I might actually get some of these parenting. I might get this parenting thing right once in a while. So I think, you know, I think it's really helpful what you're uplifting. So thank you.
Hello, everyone. Thank you for tuning in to elevate education. Today, we have a guest with us from Children's Hospital, Colorado, Dr. Jessica Hawkes, a leading expert in child psychology. I'm thrilled to be learning from her today about mental health throughout the pre-K 12 years. We'll be talking about how parents and teachers can recognize early signs of mental health challenges and discover strategies to support students overall well-being and success. Jessica, I'm so looking forward to hearing your insights. But to start, could you share a bit about your background and what drew you to a career in child and adolescent psychology? Absolutely. First, thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here to speak with you today. So I am a child and adolescent psychologist and I work at Children's Hospital, Colorado, and my associate professor at the University of Colorado and have worked there for about ten years and helped to oversee the different mental health clinical programs that we offer at the hospital. I have actually been interested in mental health since I was a young child, largely due to different personal experiences I had with mental health struggles that my own family had. I growing up and I quickly learned through those experiences, as well as being an athlete and having really important relationships with my coaches, just how powerful the impact of adults were in a kid's life. And I really wanted to pursue a career where I could help support not only the children, but also the adults in kid's life and being able to promote their overall emotional mental health and well-being. Thank you, Jessica. So I have two teenage daughters who are each navigating this unique moment in their lives. And I understand the importance of my role as their mom and supporting them through their unique ups and downs and watching them grow and face both exciting and challenging times reminds me how essential mental health support is not just for their academic success, but their overall happiness and well-being. And as a parent, there are days I feel really vulnerable and very underprepared, really, to help them navigate whatever it is that they're going through. And this is such an important topic. So I'm just so grateful that you're here today, and I know that our listeners are going to just take so much away from this conversation today. can you start by explaining why mental health is vital for students overall development and success, both academically and socially? Yes. So I really encourage folks to think about mental health as health. It's really impossible to separate out our mental health and our physical health. It is all our health. And so if you think about it as a holistic concept, really, in order to be able to be effective and school effective as a friend, as a child, as a sibling. Anything that you're doing in your life requires you to have a strong foundation and good mental health. Without that, everything can really start to crumble. And so it's really important for us to think about. We prioritize accessing good medical care for our kids and making sure that they are physically healthy. We should be doing the exact same thing and thinking about it in the same way with regards to their mental health. You know, we talk a lot about the importance of family engagement and the role that parents and families play in the overall success and well-being of our students. And we know that, God, goodness, the role of of a parent of a caregiver is such is so demanding. And so I just in way just really curious, what mental health considerations are parents most likely to see in early childhood? And how can parents distinguish between normal developmental behaviors and potential concerns? So in early childhood, we are much more likely to see behaviors that externally manifest. So those sorts of things that are behaviorally observable that tend to be more disruptive. A lot of times it's behaviors like excessive tantrums, physical aggression, not following directions. And in early childhood, those are more likely to manifest because in part, those are normal behaviors that young kids should be engaging in because they're starting to learn how to navigate the world, how to assert a little bit of autonomy. And so that push and pull with parents and caregivers is actually appropriate. So it's actually in some ways difficult to create that cut off. This is when it becomes a problem because there's no definitive like if you have X number of tantrums a day, it's now a problem. It's really more about from a family unit perspective, is it causing you distress? Is it causing your child's distress and is it getting in the way of you all being able to function and do things day to day? Is it impairing your relationship with your child? But those kinds of behaviors are normal in really early childhood. Once you start to get into school, pre-K, kindergarten, a lot of those behaviors should start to go down just through normal development and through those normal interactions that you have with your child. If they're continuing to be present, especially if they're starting to show up in school, that's when we start to worry. And then we also start to see right as kids transition into school, there are a small subset of kids that will start to show certain signs of anxiety, especially separation anxiety, as they start to separate some from their caregivers. That's also somewhat normal, especially if they've primarily been with their family unit for the first two years of their life. But again, we expect over time that that separation from a caregiver gets easier and easier. But those are the primary early childhood behaviors that we tend to see as problematic. Are there any particular strategies you've seen successful for parents to support their young children in managing their emotions? Yeah, I think throughout our conversation for me today about just how critical that family engagement and presence is in a kid's mental health and well-being, regardless of the age of the kid, a parent is absolutely the most critical central piece of a kid's mental health well-being. So in early childhood, parents can really support their children's mental health through a couple of different ways. The first one is being present. And by being present, I mean you are with your child, not distracted, not multitasking. You are physically present with your kid engaged in enjoyable activities. Kids at a young age are much less likely to be able to have robust verbal conversations because that language is still developing and that abstract thinking is still developing. So in young, earlier childhood stages, it's really a lot of play that allows that relationship to connect and strengthen. And we know that that parent child relationship is one of the most important protective factors that buffers against mental health problems. So really encouraging parents to just spend time with their kids engaged in fun and enjoyable play. One of the things that's really helpful for parents to do, especially if they're seeing that their child is struggling with behavioral difficulties of an earlier childhood, is to try to focus on doing play at least once a day for ten or 15 minutes. That's focused on whatever the child wants to do and really trying to refrain from making that play educational. Because what happens when we try to make play educational all the time is we just inadvertently make it about our agenda as the adult. So we're asking things like, how many are there? What color is this? Can you put this block on top of that block, that sort of thing? We don't really necessarily have a strong emphasis on needing to know that our kids know the answers, but we're just trying to make it educational so that we do as parents. But unfortunately, that can get into a power struggle with a kid who's already struggling versus if you really just follow the kids lead and let that play be very non directional, really about whatever the kid wants. It creates this really wonderful rich opportunity for the parent of the child to connect in a way that can be very helpful. The other primary strategy that I would encourage parents to use with young kids is to be really purposeful in how they're using their attention, because a parent's attention, especially at a early childhood development, is hands down the most powerful reinforcer that they have in their in their toolbox. And so you can use that to help promote a kid's behavior in positive ways or in negative ways. And it's all about the intentionality and how you're directing attention. So pay attention to the kinds of things that you want to see your kid engage against. So. Your child has a hard time regulating their emotions and you see them trying. You see them maybe having some partial successes. You want a parent to call attention to that. I can see that you're trying to take some deep breaths. I can see that you're trying to calm down. That's amazing. I'm so proud of you. Versus if a child is really getting emotional and struggling, if we pay attention to that. But in a negative way. Stop screaming. Stop crying. This isn't that big of a deal. We're still giving attention to that behavior, but we're giving attention to the behaviors we don't want to see. But it inadvertently reinforces those behaviors and makes them more likely to happen. Because what our child learns is when I engage in this behavior, it makes my parent more likely to engage with me and I want that. So I'm going to keep doing it. So it's really just about catching your child, being good, paying attention to those behaviors you want to see because it's going to make them happen more and more. I love the reminder to be present. I mean, I think just as parents and even our educators, I think it's just a powerful reminder of the role and the relationship that we have with the young people that we engage with every day and so be present. It's just it's just powerful. And I appreciate the way in which you framed that. You know, there are there are so many distractions and so many things that do take our attention away. But that meaningful investment in time and just giving our undivided time to the children in our lives can have such a big impact. So thanks for uplifting that. Mm hmm. Absolutely. As children enter adolescence, emotions can get bigger and mental health concerns can often intensify. You know, around the office this past Halloween, we had lots of inside out costumes, you know, and I think it's just it's such a popular Disney movie because, you know, in fact, it's so relatable. You know, so many adults actually related, too, to that movie because of just in the way it conveys, you know, our emotions and the way that we interact with the world and the way that our emotions show up. And so what changes should parents watch for that might indicate that their child or their teen in particular is struggling? Yeah, I love Inside Out. It has been an incredible clinical tool because it is so relatable and the inside out to movie is great because it actually to the point of transitioning into a more adolescence, there's a character of anxiety and we see a lot of anxiety as children start to transition into more of that middle school and high school ages. So anxiety and depression are definitely going to happen with increasing frequency over the course of a kid's development. So from that transition from earlier childhood to mid and later childhood and adolescence, we're going to see increasing prevalence rates of those kinds of mental health concerns. So the things that parents want to be looking out for are changes in any of their kids behaviors. So if your child is isolating more and I say more because we know that teens like to spend more time in their room, spending time, you know, doing whatever on their laptops or their phones. But if it seems like a big change, they just never come out of their room. They don't want to spend time with family at all. Maybe they even don't want to spend time with friends. That isolation is one of the telltale warning signs. Or if they don't seem to want to engage in the kinds of activities that they typically like to do. So maybe they don't want to go play sports, or they don't want to go out with their friends. If they start to struggle academically, they have a hard time concentrating on their academic performance starts to go down, or they just stop wanting to go to school. Changes in appetite whether it's increases or decreases same with sleep increases or decreases, can also be flags of warning. And then one of the other things that I think is important to note, especially in more of the youth group versus adults. One of the things that looks different with mental health difficulties is that our youth will sometimes show a lot more irritability, agitation, grumpiness, versus more of the classic presentation of what we think of when we think of depression or anxiety, where we think of, you know, a lot of crying and sadness. Sometimes it shows up more as irritability. So if you see that your child seems really on edge, a lot is snapping at you, a lot just seems extra irritable. That is also potentially a warning sign. Yeah. You know, I you know, as somebody who spent the majority of their career working and supporting middle school students, that irritability absolutely can be a telltale sign that our kids are struggling. And then that paired with what we would look for is changes in behavior in the classroom. Then we would also then look at, okay, so how are students doing academically? And if we're seeing some dramatic shifts and maybe their grades or just their overall academic performance, that would definitely be a time we'd be reaching out to families to say, you know, we just want to do, you know, the well, baby check on, you know, x student. We have some concerns. Are we seeing the same thing at home? And I think it just goes back to reinforcing that relationship with our families. You know, our parents are caregivers is so important. And so, you know, you you, you you highlight some some really important things that we should be looking for, again, not only as parents but, you know, things that we should be keeping an eye on in the classroom as well. So thank you for sharing those. I shared a little bit earlier that I have two teenage daughters and it's such a it's I've really enjoyed every phase of parenting. They've been equally rewarding and hard. And it's just been one of the greatest joys of my life is to raise these two beautiful young women. And I'm excited to see where life is going to take them. And, you know, like, you know, like teenagers, it's really hard knowing how much to lean in as a mom and when do I allow them to navigate and find their own independence. And it is such a delicate balance and one that I know I'm really struggling with as a mom. And so just I'm curious what advice or insight that you might be able to provide parents about how we can support our teens without infringing upon their need for independence? Yeah. Oh, my goodness. What a fabulous question. It is so, so hard to do. I can tell you as a child psychologist, I oftentimes joke that being a psychologist did not make me a better mom, but being a mom made me a better psychologist because even though I know some of these answers, it is so, so hard to do it when it is your own kid. I have twin five year old boys and I struggle with this at their age and I can only imagine that sweet spot of support and being overly involved. It will continue to be a battle for me and I think it is for a lot of parents. You know, I think one of the things that's really important for parents to be mindful of is that one of the best ways to promote your child's mental health and more broadly promote your child's ability to develop resilience is by allowing them opportunities to struggle. And that can be really, really difficult as a parent because we are just wired to want to help support our kids and not having to struggle. It's hard to watch them be in pain or to be having a hard time and you want to jump in and help kind of protect them and try to pull them out of that struggle. But it's really critical that our kids have those opportunities not only to struggle, even sometimes to fail, because you learn equally important things through failure that you do through success. And so as a parent, of course, we want to help to scaffold. We want when they are stretching their development, they are learning new skills. We want to be able to be there with them to support them, but we don't want to do it for them because they never learn if we do it that way. And if you think about that, even at young, young ages, that's something as parents we have to do. If we're always holding our kids hands as they're learning to walk, they never get to learn to walk. Part of how they learn is through the stumbling and the falling. As a teenager in a kind of metaphorical way, it's very much the same. We have to let them walk and stumble and fall because that's how they learn. But when they fail, they learn important life lessons from that. They learn how to bounce back. They learn things that maybe they could do differently. So as a parent, our role is to help to support them in navigating that, be there as a source of support. Be a person who can help them develop critical thinking, critical problem solving skills by asking questions, being curious with them, but really ultimately supporting them and being able to figure out how to solve these problems and be able to do a lot of this with increasing independence. I love the learning to walk analogy. That's just a powerful example, and I don't think I would have made that connection about the resilience and the analogy of learning to walk and and goodness. I'm watching my own daughters learn to walk in so many different ways, you know, in their in their teenage gears. And so watching them navigate, you know, school and academics and athletics and all that comes with that, all of those pressures, you're totally right. You want to, like, swoop in and never want to see them fall and never want to see them experience any heartache in any way. But but I'm going to remember that learning to walk analogy. And I think, you know, even as a mom might pull back a little bit and let them find their footing, so to speak as they figure their way in this world and develop some of that resilience. And so. So thanks for sharing that. Yeah, of course. You know, just to build off of that a little bit, I think one of the things that if we were to continue with that example of learning to walk, think about as a parent, how you approach the successes that your kid has when they're learning those skills, you know, that first step that they take, ultimately they actually fall down. But they took they took that first step and what's here and we're very excited for them and we're like encouraging and praising. And that happens even though it wasn't perfect and even though like maybe at the end we stumbled a little bit because we're praising their effort, we're praising their inching towards the accomplishment of that goal. The same thing is really important to do even with teenagers. One of the biggest stressors that our teens face nowadays is this culture of achievement, where everyone has to be on the varsity team, getting a 4.0 or even more than a 4.0. Everyone's applying to really competitive colleges, Ivy League, universities, etc. And a lot of the focus is on the Oh, come on, this like end goal. We don't focus as much as we should on our our kids and teens efforts if they're trying. You know, if I have a child who maybe struggles with math, the goal should not be that they're getting an A in the class. The goal should be that they are working hard every day to do the homework, to learn the concepts, to do the very best that they can. And if they get an A, awesome. But ultimately the end game is not the grade really. It's about the process of trying and doing their best. That's what's going to help a kid feel successful and have that self-efficacy, and that's ultimately what's going to really promote that mental health and well-being. Now, I think, gosh, you just raised so many wonderful points. So many times I hear from families that just they just want my child to be happy. I want them to be safe, and I want them to be happy. And I think a lot of times we as parents and I'll say we equate that happiness with we just want everything to be easy. And, you know, we don't you don't we don't want any, you know, any bumps along the way. And it doesn't allow our children the opportunity to see what they're made of and and apply, you know, all of the life lessons, you know, everything that they're learning from the world, from at home, and really putting that into practice knowing that if I'm encouraging, if I'm providing support, if I'm cheering for my child along the way and I'm looking for some of these telltale signs of when something might be really wrong, you know that. You know what? I might I might actually get some of these parenting. I might get this parenting thing right once in a while. So I think, you know, I think it's really helpful what you're uplifting. So thank you.
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