Podcast: Subtle signs your teen is struggling with their mental health (and why they are so easy to miss)

Lauren Mudrock

00:00 – 00:22

Hey guys, I’m on here with our therapists, Stacy and Stephen, today. And we are here to talk to you about subtle signs that your teen could be struggling with mental health and what to do about it. Um, so I want to get you to know you guys, you know, beyond just your credentials. So, give me your credentials, but also tell me something super interesting about you that, like, you would tell me on, like, a third date.

Stephen Battle

00:23 – 02:16

I am Stephen Battell. I have a master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling. I’m also nationally certified. I currently work in our PHP program with adolescents. I’ve been working with teens, middle schoolers, and young adults for quite some time at this point. During my time in graduate school, I was working in an alternative school with middle schoolers. That was a lot of fun, never a dull moment for sure. I’ve also coached track and field for several years at the D3 level as well as community college level where a lot of the students coming in were 18, 19 years old, so they were really coming through that transitional period that a lot of adolescents experience. And I have seen a lot of teens one-to-one during my internship experience as well as like a year after that. I kind of stayed at the internship site for a while. So yeah, I’ve gotten quite a bit of exposure to working with that population and as well as their parents. And then, some fun fact about me is when I ran track and field in college during my junior year, we were at the last chance meet, which is kind of like the final meet to try to qualify for any additional championships to extend the season. And I was like, I need to lock in here. So, I had my Chick-fil-A lemonade, I chugged that before my 800, which is half-mile race. And then I ripped it faster than I ever had. So, I was like, it’s got to be the lemonade. I went home that night, I tweeted at Chick-fil-A, their Twitter account, just kind of saying, “Hey, thanks for the lemonade, I PR’d.” And they re-posted my picture that I posted and quoted it, just kind of saying, “Our lemonade makes you mooove!” And it was moo-oo like a cow because that’s their mascot. Because they don’t sell beef. And that was really cool. I had my two seconds of fame there.

Lauren Mudrock

02:18 – 02:23

I love it. I love it. Stacy, you also had a couple seconds of fame.

Stacy Hinton-Shilling

02:25 – 04:01

Something like that, right? Um, I’m Stacy Hinton. I have been at Cenario for about 4 years now. Prior to Cenario, I was also in the education setting. I was a middle school teacher. Worked a little bit in the high school setting as well, as a teacher, paraprofessional. When I transitioned to the therapeutic setting, started off with adolescents, um, in a day program. Did a lot of individual work with them as well. Ran some groups. When I first started at Cenario, I was also an adolescent therapist. Um, adolescents were my jam. I love them and their families as well. Um, you know, they face a lot of unique challenges, so that was that was something I really enjoyed. Um, I have since transitioned to really loving the trauma realm, and I’m working now at Cenario running our adult trauma IOP, one of them. Um, and that’s kind of my professional world. Um, in my fun world, I am a mediocre singer at best, and I have done my mediocre singing for most of my life. Um, when I was 16, I decided, not because I had really, you know, lofty aspirations, but because I thought this would be fun, I decided to go audition for American Idol. So, that was a really fun experience. Um, the memories are a lot of things more related to the behind-the-scenes things, like singing “I Love Rock and Roll” for about 7 hours for them to get just a little clip. Um, or, “This is American Idol,” you know, in the whole, the whole stadium. Yeah, it was it was nuts. So, that was fun. My singing…

Stacy Hinton-Shilling

04:01 – 04:09

Throughout high school, we actually went to Europe to sing right after I graduated. And then sang throughout college as well. So

Lauren Mudrock

04:09 – 04:42

That’s amazing. Yeah, I think if I had, um, if I were back in high school, you guys would be like the cool teachers and like the ones I would go to and trust with all of this kind of stuff. So, that’s that’s amazing. I um yeah, I have had my little seconds of fame, but definitely does not amount to what you guys experienced. Okay, so so like I said, we’re talking about, um we’re talking about subtle signs that your teacher could be struggling with mental health. And I wish this was a resource that my parents had when I was in high school because I was really going through it. And I think, you know, when you’re in that state, you really don’t Like, at least from my perspective, I had no idea that I was going through anything. It was just kind of like this like constant like buzzing feeling of just like discontent and like really I’m not okay and I’m really angry all the time and all these things and like you just I don’t know. Uh, it wasn’t until I was an adult and I went out and like sought answers for myself that I realized there was a lot of stuff that I was going through, um, that just totally was not normal, was not addressed, and um then it left a lot more for of work for me to do on my own when I could have uh gotten ahead at a much younger age had my whole family been informed of all this stuff. So, um, this Yeah, this this conversation is really um near and dear to me in that way. So, um yeah, I would love to know, you know, what your guys’s um Was there a time that you guys went through a similar situation like that? Like when you were a teen that you either didn’t know how to ask for like you didn’t know how to ask for help or like people just didn’t give you what you needed? Like, did you guys ever relate to that?

Stacy Hinton-Shilling

06:05 – 07:40

Yeah. I think one thing that comes up for me is that my whole life, um, I’ve always struggled with attention and focus. Um, I’m pretty sure it became a running joke. Since kindergarten, every report card said, “Stacey talks too much.” Um, and look at me now. Um, but uh, yeah, I talked too much and I was impulsive and I, you know, did all these things. But I also was a straight-A student and I was a 4.0 and I was in the gifted program, which hint hint is the telltale sign you have ADHD if, you know, as a child in the 90s you were in the gifted program. Um, but you know, I was a high achiever. Also came with some perfectionist tendencies, which hey, also leads to some anxiety. Um, but there wasn’t a lot of knowledge about ADHD and what that the different ways that it can present in children. Right? So many people think, “Oh, it’s a bunch of little boys that like have so much energy and are running around and interrupting the teacher,” and that’s not just it. Um, so I remember going to college and I took a world geography course and I was like, “I don’t know how to study. What is studying? What do you mean study? What?” Like, I I just know this stuff. I And I don’t just know this stuff. Um, so yeah, I don’t necessarily think it was a fault of anyone, but like if this information would be provided, like, hey, like maybe it’s not anxiety. Maybe it’s if if the ADHD type component could have been managed, would the anxiety have swelled to the degree it did? I don’t know.

Lauren Mudrock

07:42 – 08:14

Yeah, that’s I definitely relate to that too. That sounds very familiar. Um, but it is like I do feel like so many gifts come from yeah, from in my my life with myself. Like my ADHD has uh benefited me in so many ways because I found out how to work with it. Um I actually yeah, I got like a diagnosis uh diagnosis before and my whole family including me denied it. And they were like, “No!” Because it didn’t fit that like it didn’t fit that description too and it’s so yeah, definitely. Thank you for sharing that.

Stephen Battle

08:18 – 09:23

That segues nicely into kind of my experience. Overall, I feel like a lot of times we, as teenagers, didn’t know how to fit a specific mold, or we just couldn’t fit a specific mold. And I think that was my biggest struggle, was trying to, like we all have to figure out, how to manage ourselves and manage our unique experiences and our interests. And I think for me, I had so many different interests, but I never knew which way to direct them or how to pursue them, what was available to me. And I think it would have benefited me to just kind of have a little more guidance of like, “Hey, you know, this interest could, you know, you can explore this, and you can try that.” Because I think I think I had a solid home base, at least at home, despite a lot of the clashes that riddled, you know, the kind of teenage and parent relationship. But I think I often felt alone in my interests and felt that I maybe was the only one interested in those things because I wasn’t sure just kind of where to look for people who had those kind of similar similarities to me.

Lauren Mudrock

09:24 – 09:41

Alright, so I think that what, yeah, what you guys brought up and what we’ve all brought up, do you guys feel like that’s still very relevant today? And like, do you feel like it’s changed in like how it shows up for for teenagers today?

Stephen Battle

09:42 – 10:18

I think it’s maybe even more relevant today. High school, you know, is just such a rat race between popularity and acceptance and just trying to find where you belong. So, especially with, you know, we have exposure to a lot of social media, right? We have TikToks and everybody’s doing the same thing, their trends. Everyone’s doing the same things, and then we’re not matching those, we can, you know, lead our teenagers to feel even more alone than maybe we might have even back then without the exposure of seeing everyone kind of do the, you know, same uniform things.

Lauren Mudrock

10:19 – 10:54

So, as a millennial, I grew up like in the age of like, we’re just discovering video chats, we’re just discovering, I don’t know, Vine. Like all these freaking things. I I feel for what teens have to go through today because um it is that like follow these trends and be perfect. And that makes me want to cry as as an adult. Like no, thank you. But like, as a teenager, like I got to live out, like we did get to be quirky online, and like we got to be such weirdos and like everybody like it was so normal. It was so normal to be like whoever you were in in all of that. And so yeah, that um that is really tough for them to have to go through today and and I yeah, for any teams who might be listening to this, I feel for you. And so so you spoke a lot about everybody figuring this out on their own. Like we went through it. It is really tough to like you like you say, you have to learn to manage all of this on your own. Um at some point it does come down to that. Uh people can tell you whatever and give you guidance, but um it’s your responsibility.

Stacy Hinton-Shilling

11:36 – 11:40

Yeah. Like, but at the end of the day, you have to make your own decisions for yourself.

Lauren Mudrock

11:41 – 12:04

Yeah, exactly. So, so there’s so much thrown at everybody and they Yeah, it it just leads to challenges and those challenges lead to, you know, emotional hurts and can spiral very quickly into like mental health challenges. And then parents are in this position. I’m sure I’m not a parent so I can’t speak to this and Stacy, you you’ll be able to add to it. Yes.

Stacy Hinton-Shilling

12:06 – 12:11

We have big emotions as my almost one-year-old, but we are not in the teenage years.

Lauren Mudrock

12:12 – 12:40

But like, as a parent, like you’re still trying to figure things out and like you’re attuning yourself to her and um that’s also uncharted territory. And so it’s yeah, it I can imagine that it’s just a big it’s challenging for everybody. So, so what are some some signs that teens are in that space where they need their parents to be able to almost catch those things for them that they might not even be aware of?

Stacy Hinton-Shilling

12:42 – 14:17

I think things that I’ve noticed, um, both personally, professionally, hearing from former adolescent clients and their families is often the subtle changes. Um, that that hindsight, it’s like, oh my gosh, that was so big. How did I not see that? Um, so things like your high-achieving student is like, “Uh, I don’t really feel like going to school today,” or like, “Hmm, I don’t feel great. Um, like all my stomach hurts.” Right? So, they may not outwardly be expressing, “I’m really anxious,” or “I’m feeling depressed,” and “I’m feeling hopeless,” or “I’m suicidal.” Um, it’s it’s often, again, early signs are those more subtle things. Or, um, you know, maybe you’re not a high achiever, but you’re average and you get your work done and you do your thing, and now your teachers are noticing you haven’t done your homework or you haven’t turned in assignments in a week. Um, things like that are things that come up for me most often. Um, again, those subtle things. Or maybe you’re a family that eats dinner together every night, or your child is involved in a sport or any other kind of activity, and they’re kind of like, “Uh, I’m not really interested this this uh quarter, marking period, whatever.” Um, I think those can be I I want to emphasize the words can be because if your if your student is saying, “Hey, Mom, I need a break. Um, I don’t want to play soccer this this fall,” I’m not necessarily saying that that’s a warning sign, but some of those things can be.

Stephen Battle

14:18 – 15:23

Yeah, exactly. And that’s the tricky part, the subtlety of it. But like, we’re looking at that functioning level, right? Like from their baseline, what, you know, what’s their normal level of functioning? And then what slight changes are we seeing? And we can find that in like their eating, we can find that in their sleeping. Um, you know, and it’s hard to differentiate, right? Because a lot of teenagers are staying up late, and so, like, of course, they’re going to be tired in the morning then. But if it’s more like, you know, they’re waking up throughout the night, or they just can’t get to sleep when they’re trying to sleep, then that’s a little different. Um Then as far as activities go and extracurriculars, like Stacy was mentioning, right? Um, if they are isolating from those or like, you know, losing interest in those, are they replacing it with something else? You know, is it Or are they just completely stopping all extracurricular activities and kind of doing nothing when normally they would prefer to keep busy? So, like, really kind of tuning into your teenager’s personality and like their normal functioning versus, you know, what is going on now, I think can point to some hints at least.

Lauren Mudrock

15:24 – 16:01

For sure. Yeah, looking hearing you guys say that, looking back I totally had those times where um I I wanted to withdraw from everything and absolutely everything and we didn’t we didn’t we didn’t know all of this stuff and like my mom was like, “No, you have to be in sports.” And like it was just like it was so it was so forced and yeah, it’s uh so so what other things are like How can we start to I don’t know if I want to ask that question. Um Can teens miss signs of this stuff, too? And like yeah. I guess I’ll start there.

Stacy Hinton-Shilling

16:02 – 16:41

Absolutely, because we can miss the signs, right? How many times do we lie to ourselves? “No, no, I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine.” Yeah, I mean, the reality is there’s still so much shame and stigma surrounding mental health. When, like, newsflash, everybody’s got some anxiety, everybody’s got some depression. Um, but that still doesn’t feel normal in today’s world. So, yeah, hell yeah. It’s really easy to miss the signs, um, or to chalk it up as like, “Oh, I stayed up late, that’s why I’m tired,” or, “Oh, like I just had a rough week. That’s why I don’t want to go see my friends this weekend,” or, you know, that kind of thing.

Stephen Battle

16:43 – 17:04

Yeah, so yeah, I mean they And they don’t know to call it anxiety, depression. I think Stacy mentioned that, uh something similar to that earlier. Um so like a lot of times it might require like a parent to point out some of those changes to them for them to even recognize that that’s happening within themselves. But then it’s like how are we going about pointing that out, right? Um is it What’s going on? What’s wrong with you?

Lauren Mudrock

17:07 – 17:19

Yeah, exactly. That’s so unhelpful. So, like, is it persecutory or are we like coming from a place of, like, “Hey, I noticed this. I want you to feel good. What’s going on? Come talk to me.” Break that down because. That, um, how exactly how you said it. You just say things so. Oh, it’s so beautiful. But I know, if I heard that I’d be like, “Man, I wish I could do that.” So like, can you break that down to like how parents could apply that? Because

Stephen Battle

17:40 – 18:35

So, I mean, I think personally it stems from like the roots of it are our teenagers go through changes. They just do. And therefore, how they interact with their family changes compared to like when they were kids and they relied on Mom and relied on Dad for everything. And now suddenly they’re more independent. And as parents, you know, parents can get offended a little bit by that, you know, um, whether that’s what we want to call it or not. Like, we can take offense to our teenagers’ changes. But I think that leads to the reaction of like that kind of persecuting reaction to those changes where it’s like, hey, you know, do you not like us anymore? Or why aren’t you eating dinner with the family anymore? Like, are they, you know, they’re too edgy now? But instead, we can approach it from a standpoint of, hey, I noticed this change. I’m not faulting you for not eating with the family. I want to know what’s going on. Like, are you okay?

Lauren Mudrock

18:37 – 18:40

You know, just like, what can we do to help? And then just listen.

Stacy Hinton-Shilling

18:41 – 18:56

I also think with that, you hit on something so important, um, that kind of like that pushback away from parents is literally developmentally appropriate, right? Erikson’s stage, identity, versus what is it? Inferiority, something like that, right? Um, they’re literally figuring out who they are and they it’s a really delicate balance of supporting them and letting them fly, right? Like baby birds that’s finding their wings. Um, so it’s really really important that they have a safe space to do that, um, to figure out these things.

Lauren Mudrock

19:19 – 19:25

Okay, let’s dive into that. What would, like what is a safe space and what would that look like?

Stephen Battle

19:26 – 19:38

Yes, so I would say a safe space is like a home base, right? Like the home should be comfortable enough for the teenager to then go out and explore, get their asses kicked, and then come back home and know that everything’s okay, right? Because the world’s a brutal place, high school is a brutal place, and so they’re going to get torn to shreds a little bit here and there. But as long as they can come home and get mended up and not have that wound opened up even further by parents, I think that is the healthy balance there. And it’s like we can’t protect them from everything that happens out in the world because then, you know, when we hold on too strongly, then we’re, you know, we’re the bad guys. Um, so I think that that’s kind of where that balance lies. The home environment should just be a place where like they can come and feel understood, um, feel like uh not, you know, impeded upon as far as their privacy goes and um

Lauren Mudrock

20:20 – 20:25

Just feel like it’s a space where they can open up when they’re ready.

Stacy Hinton-Shilling

20:26 – 20:57

Yeah. I think with that too, it comes um, basically having a safe place to land. Um, that this is a place that not only is there no judgment, um, but it’s validating. I think validation, um, when I used to run my adolescent groups, I would bring parents in and we would do an activity of validation versus invalidation. And so many parents were so surprised at the subtle ways that they were actually invalidating their teenagers. And had no idea and and Ninety percent of the time, I choose to believe that people, whether it’s parents, kids, just adults, are good people. Right? There are good people that are either misinformed or, you know, it’s not bad intentions. However, we still need to be accountable for those things and learn and grow from those things. So when it comes to validation, your kid might come home in shambles over something that happened. And to you, it might be this big, right? You, as a parent, may have just had like a shit of a shit day. Like, really, I don’t care that Jessica didn’t invite you to her birthday party. In their world, that is the biggest thing right now. And if they’re coming to you being vulnerable and sharing, “I’m just distraught, Mom. I’m I’m feeling so like rejected and isolated that they don’t want me to be there. I thought this person was my friend.” Like this is huge in their world. And that moment is such a crucial window of building like, “I’m so sorry, that must hurt.” Or like, you know, whatever that looks like in your parenting style, but not dismissing that. And those little moments, and they start from really really young, building those moments is building that safe space, is building that soft place to land, like

Lauren Mudrock

22:16 – 22:20

Okay. So, I want to ask a question there. Um Because I know that, again, I’m not a parent, so I can’t ask from this perspective. I can only ask from, like, I was a teen once and I had a lot of rifts with my parents and um, can can they build validation after, you know, because you’re like, start young. Like, start young and validate them from day one. Um, Can they repair it? The answer is yes, they can repair it. Yeah, for sure. But, but I want you to speak to that. Like, if if we have been going, like if I’m a parent and I’ve unknowingly been invalidating my my kid, um, how do I how do I shift that?

Stacy Hinton-Shilling

22:57 – 23:06

Accountability is the biggest thing. This was going to be my little rant at the end, but that’s okay. I think one One big thing is apologizing. Right? Parents, there’s a very antiquated view, love you mom and dad, but of respect your elders at all costs. That’s not it, right? Or that elders have the ultimate authority, power, knowledge, and our kids are smart, like bad-ass humans. So, apologizing is, I think, one of the biggest and easiest ways. Like, “Buddy, I I didn’t realize that’s what I was doing. That wasn’t my intention.” And asking your teenager what they want or need. Like, “I want to make sure I don’t do this again. Is there a way that I can communicate better? Is there a way that I can make you feel heard? Is there a way that I can validate you?” Again, that autonomy is also really important. So, giving your teenager options and taking accountability, I think, are the two biggest things. And also recognizing that these things take time, right? Whether it’s knowingly or unknowingly, if this damage has been done, it’s not going to be fixed overnight. It wasn’t damaged overnight, it’s not going to be fixed overnight. So, if you’ve had somebody, a friend, a colleague, a partner that’s hurt you in some way, big or small, a simple “I’m sorry” like, “We can move on,” right? Probably not going to happen. So, being patient that just because they’re your child doesn’t mean that it’s just better automatically. Yeah.

Lauren Mudrock

24:43 – 25:22

I want to, this, this I love where this conversation is going. You guys are both like, you guys are killing it. I love this conversation. So, my immediate thought goes to, well, if I’m and again, I’m role-playing here because I’m not a parent, but like there’s going to be some ick in me. Like, I’m, like it wasn’t my intention to hurt you, I’m in your corner, what are you talking about? Like, how do I, if it, if it feels bad to apologize and acknowledge that stuff. Like what, as what can parents like, yeah, like how do they navigate their inner emotions around all of that?

Stephen Battle

25:25 – 26:36

And so, I mean, Stacy brings up an excellent point of, like, you know, the parent and child relationship is collaborative, right? Like so often we’re trying to get the child to just comply. But when we do that, suddenly that means we’re we want them to fit a very specific mold. But these are people we’re talking about, right? Not just our children. They’re not just, you know, our, you know, ownership like children. Um, and so I think for parents, right? Like first, pat yourself on the back. You are doing the best you can, right? There’s no rule book to any of this. Um, you’re doing whatever you can as far as like you’re genuinely trying to take care of them. Like Stacy said, we want to think that 90% of human beings are doing things with good intention. And so like, I think if we can lean on that, then we can have faith in the fact that like we’re able to grow them. Because it’s like, all right, well, I know that what I did wasn’t wrong because I had bad intentions. I know that it just didn’t help in this very specific case. So, now let me try something new. Let me try to change something so that I can better support my person, this other person who’s growing and struggling. Um, yeah, so I think it’s really collaborative.

Lauren Mudrock

26:36 – 26:47

I love that collaboration over compliance in that sense. And I would like to add that there’s I have I wrote a poem once. I wrote one poem. And it was uh it was called Room for Error, and I’m like, in life there’s room for error, room to get it wrong on the first, second, and third tries, and room to even like flirt and mess up and like there’s just room for Life is so malleable and flexible, and you don’t like we we live off of this whole like first impressions matter thing, and they do, but like you can again always repair. And so I think the same thing applies in these situations is like give yourself grace. Like know that you you are allowed to mess up, and like chances are like if you keep trying, like your your kids gonna notice that you’re trying, and they’re like they’re gonna be like, hey, that’s pretty cool. I’m not going to say it, but like that’s pretty cool. Like, all right. Yeah, so this I I I love that the the graciousness and collaboration of of all of that. That’s awesome. Okay, so going into that, what are some success stories that you guys have seen in your own work around these kinds of, um, so everything from, you know, recognizing signs that, you know, their team’s struggling or repairing relationships. And, um, yeah, I’d love to hear about that positive end.

Stacy Hinton-Shilling

28:02 – 31:09

I think a lot has come out of, like I said, that validation invalidation activity. Um, if nothing more than some really honest conversations. Um, I have seen parents A real big thing, um, is cell phones, right? And what degree of privacy does my teenager have with cell phones? And I have a very strong opinion on this matter that may not match what everybody else feels, um, but that’s that’s their property. That’s a piece of them. That is, you know, that kind of thing. Um, so I am of the mindset of do not go through your kids’ phones. That is a huge invasion, a huge betrayal. Um, and instead, if the phone is be and don’t take it away because for so many kids, this is or so many young kids, adolescents, whatever, this is their only means of connection with another human being. And so when people are grounding their kids and taking this away for 2 weeks, now there’s zero connection with anyone. Um, it isn’t like when we were growing up. You you don’t just run out the door to your neighbor. It’s not the same. Um, so taking that away, yeah. So, something that I’ve seen, one of one of the huge success stories that I I don’t know, my one IOP, every parent decided to start doing this, and I was like, um, something big I heard was my teenager is on their phone, like whether it’s scrolling or talking to somebody till all hours of the night, then they don’t get up, then they’re tired, right? Like it’s the cyclical thing. So, um, I instead of taking the phone away, I was like, let’s look at what is the actual problem? What is the actual behavior that you’re frustrated with or that’s interfering with your person, like this person you care about feeling good. And the issue was, I’m not getting sleep. Okay, so let’s actually figure that out. Um, and all of the teenagers were like, all right, I’m going to work with my parent. Again, collaboration, right? It’s not this is what I’m telling you to do. Um, there was a set time that every family worked out, and the their phone actually, for some of the families, it was helpful for the phone to go in the kitchen, like completely out of the room. Um, like it was it was awesome. Like people were honest, and one of my clients said, you know, like, yeah, I don’t trust myself. I will totally get up and go across my room and get my phone. Being in the kitchen, and they built this trusting relationship of the parent saying, I’m not going through your phone. I simply want you to get sleep. Plug it in and charge it overnight in the kitchen. I don’t I’m not looking at it. I don’t care what’s on there. You go to sleep. Um, people are getting rest, they’re getting up, they’re getting to school. Um, the that relationship there there’s some repair there. I’m not going through your phone. I’m not being nosy, and I’m not being like, you know, this authoritarian like, do as I say, give me your phone. Um, it’s really because because at the core of what parents are trying to do is they care about their kids, right? Like that’s that’s what it’s about. So, okay, here’s the phone. Other people put the phone across the room. So it was like, all right, 9:00 or 10:00 or whatever their time they decided

Stacy Hinton-Shilling

31:10 – 31:25

My phone’s going on do not disturb. It’s going across the room. I’m going to put a meditation on and I’m in bed, or whatever, maybe. So there are just a couple ways of like, just breaking things apart. That was one of my most successful groups that I really enjoyed.

Lauren Mudrock

31:25 – 31:27

That’s impressive that everybody got on board with that.

Stacy Hinton-Shilling

31:28 – 31:36

It doesn’t happen often. It does not happen often, but that was a that was a bomb group. They were they were a cool group of people. A symphony orchestra. Yeah.

Stephen Battle

31:35 – 32:26

Yeah. That’s like a perfect example of collaboration, right, between parent and and um child. And I think that um yeah, so something like that can be a learning opportunity for for the teenager, right? Like the parent can take the teenager’s side and say, “Hey, you know, what’s keeping you up?” And say the teenager’s like, “Oh yeah, I have a group chat with my friends. We’re always texting in there.” And it’s like, “All right, well, here’s how you can learn to set a boundary then, right? Um, because you need your sleep. Um, you know, if they want to be tired in the morning, fine, but you know, you don’t, you know you don’t like feeling that way. So here’s how, you know, here’s something you can say, here’s like how you can communicate with them that you’re going to go to bed and you’ll talk to them in the morning, as opposed to having the first reaction, you know, be give me the phone, it’s a distraction for you from sleeping. Um, because again, like I said, that doesn’t address the actual um like behavior of what’s going on. Um It’s just more of a reactionary kind of reprimand, you know.

Stephen Battle

32:32 – 35:03

I have a successful story from my part. I was working with a teenager who had just finished high school, but fell into a deep depression, just kind of wondering what the next steps were. So, kind of those hygiene was going down, just really the morning routine was wonky, kind of just not getting out of bed, being unable to do all these basic functioning things. And what we found was that this teenager had not really done much for themselves despite wanting to. Throughout high school, mom was doing everything for them, like laundry and things like that. So, they hadn’t learned how to really form that independence, and that was something they were really interested in. So what we worked on was setting certain boundaries, worked on communication, and they took it and ran with it. They went and talked to mom, kind of communicated like, hey, I want to try to do some of these things on my own and learn to build my own routine. And mom was just worried. Mom was really protective. Again, she was doing her best, and she just wanted to make life easier on this teenager because she knew what it’s like to be a teenager as well. So we ended up having a family session where mom was like, is my kid going to be okay if I allow them to do these independent things? I think it was helpful for, it’s always helpful for the therapist to stand by the kid and say, hey, I have confidence in them and I think you can too because you have a brilliant kid. You’ve done really well with them. In order to formulate this confidence in them that they think that they can do these on their own. Just be there for them for when they slip, because it’s not an if, they will slip. And we just all we have to do is put our hands out at that point. But mom kind of cried in session, and then they hugged. And mom was like, all right, you can do these things. And then this kid’s morning routine, getting up every day at a regular time, started applying for jobs, got a job at a pet store, and just kind of really made like formed that independence. And now is looking to get their driver’s license. It just opened up so many doors for this kid, and mom finally decided to open her hands and release, and that really enhanced their relationship together.

Lauren Mudrock

35:03 – 35:32

That is a beautiful thing. I um had an epiphany lately for myself that I feel like applies here. And it’s like I wrote it down in my notebook. I was like, people are only as big as the box you put them in. And uh we even and and like it’s it’s human nature. Like I I’ll be the first to admit I put everybody in a box and I and I expect that from myself. And I cannot wait for them to be like, “Oh yeah, I do this random thing.” And I’m like, “Never would have thought that!” All right, guys.

Stephen Battle

35:33 – 36:10

It’s a part of life and it’s a beautiful thing when you can recognize that. Like, yeah, but I feel like, you know, that would be easy to do. Like when you’re a caretaker and like trusting them, that’s hard to let go of. And that’s, ah, that is so cool that And I think that speaks to the importance of, like you were talking about earlier, um before the podcast, the experiential nature of therapy. And you can like listen to podcasts all you want, you can go search on the internet all you want, but like being able to sit down, human to human, and like I really think it’s through discourse and discourse like conversation and everything that like we We find ourselves out. Like, you can be reading and absorbing information all day, but unless you’re putting things out there, there’s no way. Like, personally, I would reflect and find, like, oh, like I’m falling apart because I haven’t built these other skills yet. Like, that’s something that I feel like I would only be able to do human to human. So, I just want to speak to that. Like, you can get so far with other resources, but then being able to actually sit down with somebody who can help figure it out and be in your corner, and also be in everybody’s corner around you that like you need to in order to collaborate. That’s where the change happens and where you see real growth.

Lauren Mudrock

36:48 – 37:12

Amazing. So, leading into that, like what are teens’ options for getting help? And because right now, we live in a world where everybody knows you can go to therapy once a week, or you can check yourself into a hospital with a mental health crisis. And that’s like sometimes, like there’s a lot in between. Yeah, but that’s the thing is like that’s one’s not enough and one’s too much. And like nobody knows that there’s anything in between right now. And um, that’s what we offer. That’s what we are here for. So, like what are And what are parents and teens’ options?

Stacy Hinton-Shilling

37:30 – 37:59

Stephen talked to this before, right? We’re always looking at our level of functioning. Um, you know, I talked about before subtle changes. So when there’s subtle changes, that’s where we need subtle change. Um, when there’s more drastic changes, that’s where we need more drastic change. Um, but in between, so we have our outpatient level where typically that’s somebody meeting once a week with an individual therapist. That’s kind of like what you spoke about. Um, and also there is there are outpatient groups. So,

Stacy Hinton-Shilling

37:59 – 38:09

Let me connect. Maybe I’m seeing my individual therapist once a week, and I just want to add once a week a group to connect with other people, that kind of thing. Maybe I need

Lauren Mudrock

38:07 – 38:24

Maybe in past there. Sorry. Outpatient. I’m I don’t like the word. Okay. Perfect. The flies are over my head. So, so can people just associate outpatient, the word outpatient, can they replace that with essentially therapy once a week? Like, how do I Not necessarily. All right, tell me more. Because then we have intensive outpatient.

Stacy Hinton-Shilling

38:29 – 39:52

So our IOP programs. So outpatient and inpatient is literally just the difference between you come home at night or you don’t come home at night. That’s really the That’s That’s what that language means. Um so there can be individual outpatient and there can be group outpatient. Then there can be intensive outpatient. Um so that’s kind of where that language comes in. Um so sometimes people once-a-week therapy is enough. Some people will choose to do two times a week of individual therapy. Um and some people will recognize that individual therapy isn’t enough and then decide to jump up to our um intensive outpatient program or IOP, which is a four-day-a-week program. The way scenario does it, we do a four-day-a-week program. Um and for our adolescents, this is typically coming at 3:30, um and and being in a group of supportive individuals with a therapist, learning new skills, processing through things, working with the families, um for 2 and 2 hours and 15 minutes, four days a week. Um if that doesn’t feel like enough or if your therapist is saying, “Hey, I don’t even I don’t think I don’t think IOP, um I don’t think this intensive outpatient is going to be enough.” Our next step, again, we still haven’t hit that inpatient hospitalization that you’re talking about, then we have PHP. And Steven, you can talk to this because this is your jam. That’s what you’re doing right now.

Stephen Battle

39:52 – 41:09

Yeah, so on PHP, it’s when we see like really marked impairment of functioning. So a lot of times it’ll look like, you know, kids really not going to school, missing a lot of days, like to the point where Truancy notices are coming out to the home. Um, or just really high suicide ideation, um, or lots of self-harm, um, or just, you know, like huge changes to those basic needs, like eating, sleeping. Um, and they just kind of like It’s a place to come and build, rebuild that routine and kind of get back on track with that. Um, I always call it when I’m kind of explaining it to parents as um a pit stop to really readdress those things and get them on their way. And it’s not to just suddenly stop treatment afterwards. It’s to step down afterwards to something less intense. But um, the intensity of it is meant to just like, um, rebuild those things with a lot of structure and a lot of support, um, so that these kids don’t have to go through it alone, um, for for a majority of the day, uh, and then only see a therapist once a week at a time, because it might not be enough. Um, so yeah, so if we’re seeing those huge, huge changes to their level of functioning, then PHP might be appropriate at that point.

Lauren Mudrock

41:09 – 41:43

So I want to speak to that. So given the topic being subtle signs, um they’re struggling. Is that something that they can hide from their parents easily? And like, that would terrify me as a parent of like, hey, you could be self-harming and be contemplating suicide and I would have no idea. I mean, that actually happened to a friend of mine. Um everything seemed fine and next thing you know, it was it was a mental health crisis and um she had to get her daughter to the hospital and saw none of it coming. Um so like, how do you What do you do? Like, what’s something that might be showing that something more is going on and you might have missed the early signs and yeah, there’s something more serious going on.

Stacy Hinton-Shilling

41:56 – 42:08

I think the nature of self-harm tends to be a lot of shame. So, the likelihood of a parent seeing signs of self-harm are very unlikely. It’s something, yeah, it’s something that that apparent without somebody telling, without your child telling you this, you may not know those things. Um, I also think it’s really important to remember, this is something I stress with parents all the time, if your child is self-harming, it does not necessarily mean that they are attempting suicide or that they want to die. That is a huge distinguishing factor. Um, self-harm is a means of relief. The same way you might pick up a drink, or maybe something more adaptive, like go for a walk or call a friend. Self-harm is a relief. Self-harm is a coping skill. It’s not quite an adaptive one, and our goal in our programs is to give you more adaptive skills to use. But to that first piece of your question, yes, it is possible that those things could be missed. I think the ability to miss things relies heavily on the relationship you have. Meaning, can your child come to you and share with you, “I’m feeling down. I’m feeling worried. I had this breakup,” or I had, you know, typically there’s some precipitating factors that play into this. And like we mentioned before, kind of some of those early signs that could be ongoing, right? So your sleep is disturbed. Maybe they’re sleeping through their alarm clock every day, and you’re rushing to get them, or maybe they’re kind of like turning away their food.

Stacy Hinton-Shilling

43:49 – 44:59

Maybe those things are increasing in frequency. I think a lot of the subtle signs are also the big signs, um, just with greater frequency or longer duration, that kind of thing. Um, that’s what I would say, but also to be kind to yourself as a parent. That many times people, not even teenagers, people going through these struggle with asking for help and struggle with what steps to take. So, as a parent, if you are finding out about this late, or you’re finding out about this and a therapist is saying, “Hey,” it doesn’t matter that they’ve never been in individual therapy. They need five days a week intensive PHP programming now. That’s not necessarily a knock on you. It’s not something for you to be hard on yourself about. Um, it’s more something to recognize. Hey, you know what? Now they’re getting the help. Now let me start and jump in right now. Um, and that’s the biggest thing I can say is to whenever you do recognize these things, or whenever your child comes to you and says, “Hey, like, it’s not good. Like, or things don’t feel great.” Um, act then. Um, that goes back to that validation piece. Um, believe them.

Lauren Mudrock

44:59 – 46:19

Exactly. Yeah. I think that that’s a really important point to like for parents to take the pressure off of yourselves. I think your job is to notice some of the changes, not necessarily to fully assess them and all of the levels and severity of it, right? So like that kind of leads me to say that like um some help is better than no help, right? Because say you know, we see these subtle changes, and like we notice that like our kid has no appetite suddenly when normally they’re eating the entire fridge each day, right? Um and so we noticed that, and so we were like, okay, we’ll get you um an individual therapist to see once a week. That can then lead the, you know, now the therapist’s job is to continuously assess per each session, and they might begin to uncover some of those things that you might not have been privy to, such as like, you know, suicidal ideation or self-harm. And then that therapist can then help you like inform you and say like, hey, I think this level of care might be more appropriate, you know, like let’s bump you up to intensive outpatient or let’s bump them up to partial hospitalization. Um and get them into a program like that. So I think initially what’s most important is that we catch those changes so that we can at least open up the door for some assistance. Um and then it can kind of build upon there because as parents, you you can’t catch everything. Um and it’s not necessarily your job to. Um so take that pressure off of yourself.

Stacy Hinton-Shilling

46:20 – 46:28

Exactly. And to trust your child, like to trust, kind of building on what you’re saying more, is to trust each person to do their role. Trust your child to bring to you what they’re feeling and believe them when they say it. Trust yourself to contact the right people and believe them and connect them. And then trust your therapist that if they say, “Hey, this is what they need,” that they’re not saying it for any reason other than they care about your kid, too, and they want to see them improve.

Lauren Mudrock

46:52 – 47:33

For sure. I think that’s really well said from both of you because um, life, this life is hard. This life is hard, and it’s not like many parents these days get to be, you know, stay-at-home parents and get to be all in, um, on everything. And we’re juggling so many full-time jobs, not just a full-time job. There’s so many expectations of everything and um, so I think having that grace with yourself is imperative and um, yeah, using it as an opportunity to grow and evolve, um, rather than be hard on yourself about it and um, yeah. So, thank you guys for that. I think the last Just real quick if we can touch on what about school leaders and teachers? What how can they spot signs and what can they do to handle those situations?

Stephen Battle

47:50 – 48:46

Similarly, as far as I think Stacey mentioned earlier, teachers can catch those changes in grades and things like that where it’s really far from a kid’s baseline. Or let’s say a kid randomly bombs a test when they normally do pretty decently, they can sense those changes. But I think really in the role of a school faculty member or staff member or any kind of role like that, I think the name of the game is to build that rapport early. Right? We have to be proactive. We’re in an environment where these kids are learning, they’re growing, learning about themselves. We want to build that rapport so that when we do see those changes and we approach them, they are more likely to actually tell us at least a little bit of what’s going on versus nothing at all. So if the relationship isn’t built there, then essentially a stranger’s walking up to them asking them what’s wrong and we don’t talk to strangers.

Lauren Mudrock

48:46 – 48:55

Yeah, and would you say that it goes in the same direction of like, even if you don’t have that report, you can start building that now. Like Absolutely, yeah. I would say it’s never too late, right? Um, you know, preferably we’d do that early, but once we notice it, I think there’s kind of a duty to then start to try to build that rapport and support this kid as much as possible. Or maybe we can inform someone that we like another staff member that we know they have good rapport with. Um, and so kind of going down that road. And what would like what are some some things that a teacher could try um if they like break that down what it looks like to build that rapport and like how can they get started?

Stephen Battle

49:31 – 50:06

Yeah, so a lot of times simple hellos in the hallway, right? Um, cuz you’ll see a lot of kids, they’ll say like their favorite faculty members are the ones who talk to them and seem interested in them, right? So, like little conversations in passing, “How are you?” Um, “What you got going on after school?” And they’re like, “Oh, you know, I have practice.” And they’re like, “Oh, that’s really cool.” And then they walk around saying, they walk away saying, “Oh, that that teacher is actually really cool.” Um, cuz you just humanized yourself. Um, you’re no longer just an authority figure. Um, and I think that’s the biggest thing is, um, yeah, showing them a little bit of interest and showing your human side.

Stacy Hinton-Shilling

50:06 – 50:14

I think the biggest thing is exactly that: don’t be fake and phony. Right? Connect with them. So if they say something like, “Oh yeah, that sucks,” not… Be real with them. They can see through your bullshit, so like be real, be transparent, be a human with them. Of course, still be professional, but you can toe that line without being kind of like lofty, I think.

Lauren Mudrock

50:32 – 50:54

Yeah, we definitely get what you’re saying. Awesome. Okay. So, thank you guys, um, for all of this. Um, I’ll give you a choice between the last question. Uh, one is, what is a question you wish I would have asked you? And the other is, what’s one question you would like to challenge our listeners to today? Your choice.

Stephen Battle

50:56 – 50:58

Did you say both of those? I like both of them.

Lauren Mudrock

50:59 – 51:02

You can do both. I don’t want to keep you guys, but I’m here for all of it. Stephen, go for it. You can answer.

Stephen Battle

51:09 – 51:27

A question I would like to ask parents has to do with that collaborative piece, right? Um, I think all parents should ask themselves, are we looking for compliance or are we looking for collaboration? And then, does the idea of collaboration make you uncomfortable? And why? That’s a question.

Stacy Hinton-Shilling

51:36 – 51:49

Well, I’m going to pick back off that and I would say a question for parents would be, what are you doing to make sure that you don’t repeat the same mistakes that were done to you?

Lauren Mudrock

51:52 – 52:02

Excellent, seriously. I love it. I love it. Awesome. So okay, so Stephen, then what’s a question you wish uh you wish I would have asked?

Stephen Battle

52:02 – 52:09

A question that comes to mind is, what does it look like for a teen’s mental health to progress? I think because it’s so subtle, um, I think like Lauren, you were saying earlier, like life is hard. And so we’re going to continue facing challenges. And so, a team’s progress doesn’t look like them no longer being stressed out because that’s not realistic. What it looks like is them now using tools to uh build some resilience within that. Um, and again, it comes back to that basic functioning, like how’s their how are they functioning at baseline? And then what are they doing when they are stressed out or when they are faced with some adversity? Are they shutting down and allowing like just kind of rolling over and allowing it to kind of happen? Or are they now kind of facing it and um asking for help and um using tools? And I think that’s the biggest difference because we’re we’re not going to protect them from the stresses, but we will notice a difference in how they’re handling it.

Lauren Mudrock

53:03 – 53:11

I love that. And I would say, yeah, the better it gets, the better it gets, and every little bit adds into that that quality.

Stacy Hinton-Shilling

53:11 – 53:24

Yeah, I’m just piggybacking on that. I don’t have another question because you’ve hit a ton, but that’s so big that you said that because so many parents are like, “Okay, my kid’s going to be perfect, and they’re going to go to school every day and get straight A’s, and they’re never going to be sad or anxious ever again.” One phrase that I use is like, life keeps “lifing”. We can’t expect everything to be perfect, and no human has a perfect day every day.

Lauren Mudrock

53:35 – 54:06

Okay, cool. Well, thank you guys so much. Um, so, like we mentioned, we are Cenari today. Um, we offer therapy for when you need it more than once a week because sometimes that’s not enough. Um, and yeah, how can you how can you work with us if you are interested in and you’ve gotten this far? Um, it’s it’s pretty simple. You can just reach out to us on our website. You can fill out a contact form there or you can call our phone number, which I should have one second.

Stacy Hinton-Shilling

54:05 – 54:09

610 344 9600

Lauren Mudrock

54:09 – 54:13

Amazing. Perfect. Our admissions team, they are incredible, phenomenal. Yeah, you don’t even have to know why you’re calling. You can just say, “Hey,” I’m not sure what I’m doing here, but I listened to your podcast and uh heard something about mental health and please tell me more. And they will walk you through everything. Um and set up the third step is they’ll set up a consultation for you and you’ll just come in and work with one of our therapists and they’ll let you know uh what program you’ll be a best fit for. And even if um even if we can’t provide the services, we’ll make sure you get set up with somebody who who can. We don’t leave anybody. So Awesome. Well, thank you guys. Any final words?

Stacy Hinton-Shilling

54:56 – 54:59

I enjoyed this. This was awesome. Yeah, that was fun.