Ep. 183-The Surprising Truth About Parenting Teens: Why Control Backfires and Connection Wins
This episode is a conversation with Dr. Cam Caswell, "The Teen Translator," about how to actually connect to your teen who's struggling.
Most parents feel powerless when it comes to connecting with their teens (or a loved one that ACTS like a teen), especially when they struggle with anxiety, depression, or other intense pain. In this episode, Dr. Kibby gets golden insights from Dr. Cam, an adolescent psychologist, parenting coach, TEDx speaker, and host of the Parenting Teens with Dr. Cam podcast. The conversation delves into how can you actually support someone who can't handle their emotions, is in distress, but shuts you out? Parents of teens are all too familiar with this dynamic, but so are loved ones of grown adults who have the emotion regulation of a teenager.
Dr. Cam reveals that the key to guiding teens isn’t what most of us believe. Instead of controlling or punishing, she advocates for understanding, respect, and building trust, even when your teenager buries their face in their phone. Dr. Cam challenges your assumptions about parenting and equip you with practical, compassionate strategies to foster a secure, trusting relationship with your teen before the storm hits. Imagine transforming the typical power struggle into a partnership based on empathy and understanding.
Dr. Cam shares her journey from a communications background to becoming a leading expert in adolescent psychology, and how her insights can help any parent navigate the turbulent teen years. You'll discover how the brain’s development during adolescence makes traditional discipline ineffective, and why connection (rather than control) is the secret to cultivating resilience, independence, and open communication. From setting compassionate boundaries to understanding social media’s role, this episode is packed with actionable advice to foster emotional safety and trust at every stage. This conversation breaks down:
Why fear and control undermine your influence and how to replace them with connection
Practical ways to build trust that encourages your teen to share honestly - even during crises
How to set clear boundaries without punishing, and why respect is the foundation of safety
The truth about mental health struggles in teens today and how societal stigma and technology impact them
Simple daily habits to foster emotional regulation, resilience, and autonomy in your loved ones
In a world full of digital distractions, social pressures, and fears about safety, this episode offers a new blueprint: meet your teen where they are, understand them deeply, and lead with love, not fear.
Resources:
Podcast: Parenting Teens with Dr. Cam
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Dr. Kibby McMahon (00:00)
Welcome back, little helpers. Today, we have a really exciting guest, my friend, my inspiration, my mentor, my everything, Dr. Kam, who's the teen translator. Thank you so much for coming.
Dr. Cam (00:10)
you
Of course, it's so good to be here.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (00:17)
gosh. Dr. Kam, you're amazing. You have no idea how much admiration I have for you. Besides for specializing in emotionally dysregulated populations, which is what I do, teens seem like the other hardest population to focus on.
Dr. Cam (00:20)
Thanks.
⁓ Thanks.
Well, that is a big part
of the emotionally dysregulated population, isn't it?
Dr. Kibby McMahon (00:45)
That's right, that's right.
So I'm really excited to dig into all the kind of strategies. You're so good at having like really clear strategies for people to follow. And I don't think I've delved much into the adolescent and teen area, but not only do a lot of people have trouble right now with their teens, but they have a lot of trouble with people of all ages who might be emotionally a teenager, right?
Some people have partners who are very teen-like, and I've just been mulling over how personalities, people with personality disorders tend to be younger, right? They struggle with self-esteem and being egocentric and dealing with emotions that are at a much younger age. So feel like your strategies are gonna be super useful for the world in general.
But tell us a little bit about who you are. How did you get to focus on teens, everything?
Dr. Cam (01:48)
Such a,
yeah, I know. Not a straight path, that's for sure. I mean, my undergrad was in communications. I moved to LA to get into television. I was like all over the place, right? But I loved psychology and I always loved psychology. And so when I was literally in my late 20s, early 30s, I decided I'm gonna go back to college and get my PhD in psychology. And so I did, working full time, going to school.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (01:59)
my God, I didn't know that. It's amazing.
Dr. Cam (02:17)
Being a grad student, ⁓ teaching, research, the whole everything, right? I just did it all. I know, I was just doing it all. I don't know. I mean, before I even finished, I adopted my daughter too. I'm like, I'm just crazy, whatever. I'm a single mom, I'll just do it. So I don't know how I did it. I look back, I don't know if I would survive it now, but I was just doing it and I loved it.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (02:22)
How did you go from like how did you jump into that?
Dr. Cam (02:43)
I loved it so much and it was so fascinating to me, but it actually took me years to use it because I had so much self doubt. know, all of a sudden I had this title doctor and I never used it because I was like, ooh, that feels so like, I don't know. It just felt like a big deal that it felt very egocentric or something. I don't know. And Kibi, I remember talking to another doctor, right? Who is.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (02:56)
Yeah.
Dr. Cam (03:10)
just did a talk and I just went up and was like talking and he barely gave me the time of day. He was like, yeah, another mom, whatever, blah, blah. And I said, by the way, I'm Dr. Cameron Caswell. And I did that and his entire demeanor changed. And he turned to me and he looked at me and he's like, ⁓ and he, I'm like, seriously, that's all it took? I have never dropped that from my name sense. Like seriously, right? I'm like, I worked hard for this. I'm gonna get this.
But going into adolescence was a whole nother path of it because I taught adolescent psychology, loved it, and had parents who were taking the class, I taught an evening class because I worked full time. And they were telling me, my god, this is changing my relationship with my own kids. Because I get them. Nobody's taught us this. Why has nobody taught us this? Like, that's a really good question. So I have been on a mission ever since to teach it to as many parents as I can.
Because once we understand our teens, the psychology of what's going on with our teens, it changes the entire way we perceive them and the entire way we approach them. And that changes everything.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (04:16)
Whoa,
whoa, I wanna get all of that. I wanna get all that juice, especially because I have a three-year-old now and I think that anytime I talk to a parent of a teen, it's almost kind of like we accept that this is gonna be a black box of like, it's gonna be horrible.
Dr. Cam (04:37)
Yeah,
Dr. Kibby McMahon (04:37)
They're gonna do drugs
Dr. Cam (04:38)
I knew that.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (04:39)
and sex and who know, AI girlfriends, we don't even know at this point. And it's almost like we are resigned that it's gonna be terrible. as if like that's the time that they're gonna separate from us and it's just gonna be painful and confusing and we're helpless.
Dr. Cam (04:57)
And we do have that
attitude and that's part of the reason that period of time becomes that. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because we end up seeing our teens and translating and making assumptions and our entire demeanor towards our kids, teens changes drastically and we're not aware of it. We're aware of them changing towards us, but we're not aware that we changed first.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (05:24)
Interesting. How so? Is it just like stepping back or what's the, what do with teens, like what is the hard thing?
Dr. Cam (05:26)
Yeah.
No, it's it's.
Well, you just said it to Kibby. We have so much fear around the teen years, so much fear, and I understand why I'm a mom of a teen. I get it. There's a lot out there to fear. The problem was we parent from that fear and when our kids are younger, we have a lot more ability to be like it's in control. When they go to their friends house, we go with them. You know we know all the we know all the parents we when they go to practice. We're with them. We signed them up for this stuff, right?
So we're very, very involved. And then our kids become teenagers and our involvement is no longer wanted. And it's for good reason because they are now becoming an adult. But now we have fear and we don't know how to manage that, letting them be them and keeping them safe. And we end up holding that control. And we also end up questioning and doubting and making assumptions about every little thing.
Like they can come home, have a bad day, snap, just like we do. And we're like, oh, none of that attitude. I knew it. You're a teenager. Look at that attitude. It's like, no, that's a human being being dysregulated, just like you are right now in response to your team being dysregulated. There's no difference, but we have a very different expectation. We have double standards for our teens. Our teens are not allowed to have a neg differing opinion or
get upset or say something in response to us or any of that. we're like that needs to be fixed now. They can't be like that. like, but they're human. They can be like that.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (07:08)
That is so familiar, not only also with teens, but like anybody who has like, who's struggling with mental health. And I think that the thing that I'm wondering is then like, how much control do we have? Right? This is like the teens or someone else is like a, their own person, you know? But at the same time, are respon- we feel responsible, right? It's like,
Dr. Cam (07:36)
We are responsible.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (07:37)
if my phone comes home drunk or something, I'm gonna be like,
⁓ like I know better, right? I have more of a prefrontal cortex than you do.
Dr. Cam (07:45)
Right.
Well, and here's the thing. We do know better and it is our responsibility to keep them safe. The problem is the way we try to keep them safe actually makes it harder for us to keep them safe because what we tend to do is we tend to create a lot of boundaries and rules and consequences and all these things that try to control their behavior without getting any deeper than behaviorism, which is I'm going to reward a good behavior and
punish a bad behavior and that's gonna, that doesn't go into their brain. That doesn't change the way they think or how they view the world. And so now that's all we have. And when we do that, they end up being quieter, sneaking around us, lying to us, saying things that, now we have no idea what's going on and no ability to impact. And this is where parents get really stuck because the more that happens, what do we do? The more we try to control, which is the very reason
We're stuck in this position. What parents have a lot of is influence. They have a ton of ability to influence. But the problem is that requires a strong relationship and you cannot create a strong relationship when you're focused on controlling their behavior. Because nobody wants to hang out with somebody that is constantly telling them what to do, how to do it, when to do it. This is what you did wrong. Correct this. Ew. Ew.
Like, I wouldn't hang out with you if you did that. So kids are up in their rooms and parents are like, why are they in their rooms? Well, I'm going to be honest with you because you're no fun to be around.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (09:26)
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Cam (09:28)
But
they want to be around us. wish so many kids wish so much that they could be around their parents, that they could trust their parents with what's going on in their life. They do, but they can't. And that's not because we're bad parents, it's because we're parenting from fear.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (09:47)
I'm getting masterclass like a crash course in parenting right now Okay, so what what do what do you do? What do you do? Tell me what to do?
Dr. Cam (09:55)
Well, we're going to be afraid. We're going to have to sit there and be uncomfortable. And that's part of parenting. And I think that's the part that we're not able to let go because most of what we're asking of our teens when we step back is honestly not in our teens best interest because it's not helping them develop the skills or the abilities that we want them to. It's for our comfort. You can't do this because it makes me uncomfortable.
You need to do this because it makes me more comfortable. You can't treat me or say it like that because it makes me uncomfortable rather than going, if you're saying like that, clearly you're very uncomfortable. Let me understand what's going on so I can help you manage that. We don't, we don't go there. And again, it's because we weren't raised that way. We just weren't. And that's why there's so many adults who can't regulate their emotions because emotions were something that were bad.
You hit them, you got punished for them. You had to go up in your room and hide them, right? So now we have them and we don't know how to manage them well either. mean, if your teen is setting you off and pushing your buttons, that is emotional dysregulation. That is the same thing that is happening to our teens. It's the exact same thing. It's hard. It's really, really hard. So if we're going to teach our kids,
how to regulate their emotions, how to communicate with respect, how to show up and push through really tough times. We have to be looking at ourselves and going, are we doing that? Are we doing that transparently in front of our kids? And a lot of us aren't because we feel that, emotions are bad, so we've got to hide our own emotions. ⁓ We think,
If they're triggering our emotions, that's on them. Our kids are not responsible for how we feel. We've got to take responsibility. Kibbe, it's all the same stuff you do, right? But for some reason, we don't apply it to our teens. We feel like they're the exception. Like, we don't need to respect them the same way we respect adults or strangers. We don't need, we can set expectations on them that we don't even have on ourselves.
And we need to step back and really look at what are we asking of our teenagers? Because it's not fair. And then the response we are very judgmental of, even though their response is completely normal and like ours.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (12:33)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That's fascinating. I'm picturing, I'm picturing all the, the first thing that popped in my mind was what I imagined a stereotypical difficulty with a teen would look like. Like my teen coming home drunk and like, fuck you mom, you know, and I'm like, no. Right, like I imagined like the screaming, but I am, I actually, the second thing that popped in my mind was like,
Dr. Cam (12:56)
Yeah.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (13:00)
Actually, what might be more hard these days is kids burying their faces in their iPad or phone and then parents being like, hey, do you want to go out to see your friends? Do you want to do anything? Do you want to go to school? And they're like, no. What do you do? How do you build that relationship when there's a shutdown?
Dr. Cam (13:21)
Well, here's the thing I would love to see, Kibbe. There is so much focus on stopping what they're escaping to rather than the focus of what they're escaping from. And we put so much blame. And again, get social media. Yes, it is addictive. Yes, there are crappy people on there that make it crappy. Social media isn't crappy. It's a tool. People on it are crappy and doing really bad things. Right? So let's...
Dr. Kibby McMahon (13:49)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Cam (13:49)
Let's separate those two and talk about why there's people on there being bad, not the tool they're using. I mean, and so I've talked to thousands of teens. Teens go to the phone because it is an escape from the real world. And the real world is too overwhelming, too much. They're at home and it's judgment and telling them what to do and correcting.
and your grades aren't good enough and all of this pressure, pressure, they go to school, they're being told what to do, where to look, how they can talk to you. And it's everything that is opposed to what a teen needs to thrive, which is independence and autonomy and self-confidence. And so they go to their phone because it's safe and they wanna hang out with their friends, but how do they go see their friends now? There's not a place to hang out, right? We gotta go to somebody's house, but I don't know those parents, so I don't want you going over there.
Like there's nowhere I want you to go hang outside, but you can't hang outside because there's unsafe people out there, right? So the one place they can go that nobody's sitting there telling them what to do is their games and their phone. And they can just sit there and do it. And, you know, yes, they can go into dark holes like a lot of us do. I also see a lot of teens that turn to it and that's their source of hope. That's where they go to find people that get them.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (15:12)
and
Dr. Cam (15:14)
that understand them, that they can be themselves in front of and not be judged. And again, this is not parents you suck at all, because parents don't suck. Parents are trying their hardest. They are trying so, so hard. And I see that. But what we're misunderstanding is the way we are trying so hard is backfiring. That's it. We just need to say we got to look at this differently and we got to focus more on not
Dr. Kibby McMahon (15:36)
Mm-hmm
Dr. Cam (15:43)
stopping my kid from being on the phone, but understanding why my teen would want to be off the
Dr. Kibby McMahon (15:50)
Yeah, and so how would a parent actually start to look at that? I'm just thinking about like, know, trying to picture what you're describing, like trying to build a relationship first and understand. And I'm like, the one side of my head is like, well, what am I just supposed to be their friend now? Like, what if they're doing something naughty or what if I'm worried? ⁓ And...
me sidling up to them and being like, ⁓ hey, I'm the cool mom. Tell me what you're, like what can you do?
Dr. Cam (16:22)
Right. And this is
the exact problem people have. They think it's one or the other. And it's not because neither one of those work. The thing is we keep going back to, well, someone's got to be the parent. And that drives me nuts because that means someone's got to punish basically. Someone's got to... Parenting isn't about punishing. Parenting is about understanding our kids, leading them, guiding them, being their support system.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (16:26)
Wait.
Right.
Right.
Dr. Cam (16:50)
helping them feel confident in who they are. None of that is achieved by punishing. Punishing is, I'm gonna make you pay for making me uncomfortable and not doing what I want you to do. That's it, that's compliance. So the second we go and say our goal is compliance as a parent, which it is if we're using consequences and punishment in lectures, that is trying to get compliance. And everything in a teen is about autonomy. It is directly opposed.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (17:01)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Dr. Cam (17:20)
We're not going to keep our kids safe and we already know this. Otherwise we wouldn't be struggling. If compliance worked and punishment using consequences and taking away privileges worked long term, we would not be struggling. But we are because it doesn't work. Because kids need to learn and they only will learn from people that they trust. And they only trust people that respect them.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (17:34)
Yeah. Interesting.
Dr. Cam (17:48)
You don't respect somebody that's trying to control you. It doesn't happen. You fear them. You dislike them. You resent them. You may even love them, but you don't trust them.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (17:59)
Interesting, interesting. So I'm almost seeing this just like a baseline attitude shift, right? Instead of being like, gotta get them to not do the bad thing and to do the good thing, go to the school and the homework. It's more like, I'm gonna see this person as an autonomous, independent human being and get to know them.
Dr. Cam (18:21)
Yeah, they're going to make bad choices. All adults, all humans make bad choices. All of them. But the thing is, Kibbe, here's the thing. Our job isn't to prevent them from going through hard times because hard times is what builds us as a human being. It's what builds confidence and what builds resilience is going through a struggle and getting through. If we prevent the struggle or we punish them for struggling.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (18:29)
But I feel the fear, I feel the fear already. It's like, what if the bad toys are really bad, you know?
Dr. Cam (18:51)
That's not going to teach them confidence or resilience. That's going to teach them avoidance. And we see this a lot. We have very low tolerance for discomfort right now. We have low tolerance for boredom. We have low tolerance for feeling anything but happy because we have this belief that our teens need to be happy all the time. And I hear parents say all I want them to be is happy. Like that is a really high unfair expectation because I don't know a single human.
that's happy all the time. That is not a state of being. That is a momentary emotion. Right? So we need our kids to struggle. need them to, we need to give them a safe place to feel big anger and big sadness and big embarrassment and big all this stuff. Cause those are human emotions. There's not, those are not issues. They're not problems to fix. They're big emotions to experience and get through. We need to let them struggle and figure it out.
We need to let them fail. We have to let them fail because we need them to be okay with failing. If they're, and I see this a lot too, kids are so afraid to fail that they no longer try.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (20:04)
What does failing mean to kids these days?
Dr. Cam (20:07)
I mean, failing now just means not getting a straight A and not being the best, to be honest. Like every kid I talk to feels like they're a failure because they're not the best and you're never going to be the best at anything if not, and especially not everything. And we have such high expectations and we've got to understand that, you know, not getting straight A's doesn't mean they're a bad student.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (20:17)
Mmm.
Dr. Cam (20:36)
not being on the varsity team doesn't mean they're a bad athlete, right? We've got to understand that there's room for everyone and being the best at who we are and being a strong character and being able to push and try the next level is really important. And it's okay that if you try and you don't achieve it, that doesn't mean you failed. It's mean you've really pushed yourself outside of your comfort zone.
And what do do next? What's another thing you can try? And I think we've got a lot of kids that are like, I'm not only am I afraid of trying and failing, I'm just not even, it's better to just not do it at all. I'd rather look stupid than dumb. I'd rather look lazy than stupid, basically, right?
Dr. Kibby McMahon (21:30)
Right.
Dr. Cam (21:32)
So I think we have to really understand what is our expectations that we have on our teen teen and do we give them enough room to make mistakes.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (21:44)
How do you, what does it look like to actually practically give them room to make mistakes? Like let's say they're shut down, they're on their phone, they don't wanna talk to you, and we wanna change that, we wanna shift to the attitude you're talking about, which is like supporting them and getting to know them. How do you start?
Dr. Cam (22:03)
I would start by understanding why they're on their phone all the time rather than focusing on getting them off their phone.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (22:09)
⁓ Is it just like, hey, are you scrolling there?
Dr. Cam (22:14)
Right. Well,
right. And now we're like, ⁓ like me, like me. Right. No, it's just, know, for most parents, I would say the first step is just to be in the room with them without saying or doing anything. Just learning to be in the room. I mean, when you watch very dysregulated animals and how people approach them, it's the same way. Right. Because right now we've created a relationship where
Our kids are already going into fight or flight when they see us. Like I have kids that tell me the second they hear the door close when their parents come in the door, they start getting like frantic, right? Because they know something's coming. They know there's going to be a lecture or there's going to be a fix or there's going to be they're going to be telling them what to like. There's this instant. Fear not for all parents, but for a lot of parents and we need to if our kids are ignoring us, we want to just start there and going. How do we make our kids comfortable around us?
Right? And this means, can I just be in the room with them without any expectations? Can I just be in the room with them without having to comment on what they're doing or having to ask a question and make them want to engage with me? Can I just be in the room and be safe? And a lot of parents struggle to do that. Just start there.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (23:39)
That is so simple and so amazing. And it reminds me of someone told me this recently, where even with toddlers, to have a specific amount of time where you're not telling them what to do or trying to be like, ⁓ come eat this, come eat that, but just be like, you're playing with Legos. Just have no demands on them for a little bit. That's interesting.
Dr. Cam (24:01)
Go do it. Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, the thing is, and I remember when my daughter was little being on the monkey bars, right? And she was playing on the monkey bars. And I was standing back. I was not underneath. And parents were looking at me and going, why aren't you right underneath her? Why aren't you right underneath her? And I'm like, because she's doing fine. And I don't want to create a sense of fear in her.
I want her to experience and learn for herself to get her footing. If she starts to slip or if she starts to do things that look dangerous, I will say, hey, you know, I'll calmly say, let's try something different, right? So I think what we end up doing even when we're little is we're constantly,
Dr. Kibby McMahon (24:52)
Okay.
Dr. Cam (24:54)
and our kids learn like, you know, or they learn when mom's around. I'm nervous. So I don't want mom around. So I'm not nervous all the time because she's panicking. Right. We need to sit in discomfort and we need to understand our kids are going to make mistakes. If we want to be the person that they come to when they make mistakes, if we want to be the person that they come to when they're trying to make really tough decisions and have
Dr. Kibby McMahon (24:57)
Thank you.
Right.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Dr. Cam (25:24)
some sort of ability to guide them and some sort of, and them to have value in what we say and what we think, they need to trust us. They need to know that we understand that it's their need and it's their choice and that we can have, we can share our thoughts about that choice, but ultimately it's their choice. And parents really struggle with that.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (25:35)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Cam (25:51)
We want to tell them who their friends can be. We want to tell them what their priorities should be. We want to tell them what they can and can't wear. We want to tell them how much time they should be spending on their phone or what they should be doing on their phone. And when we're telling them all the time what to do, none of that becomes heard. It all becomes noise. So I like to save my strong guardrails, I call them.
for the things that matter most, the things that keep them alive. Not, I don't like that shirt, don't wear that shirt. If she's comfortable in that shirt, wear the shirt. But if you're going out with people and someone gets in the car and they're drinking and they get behind the wheel, you do not get in that car, end of story. I'm saving it for that. That's the one.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (26:21)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah, what what can you give me more? ⁓ More examples of what that looks like to guide to trust and also guide like you know you see your teen on the phone or you see you know they're maybe going out with some friends that you're like, ⁓ no, you know, I don't know.
Dr. Cam (26:50)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, and again, this is about getting understanding because a lot of times we make assumptions. And this is another thing I hear all the time. Like, I've heard this story from so many kids. It's not even funny, but they'll be like, my mom wants me to hang out with this one person all the time and she doesn't get how terrible this person is. Like, she's mean. She's so nice in front of my mom. My mom loves her and she's nasty.
And she wants me, she's the one that's the bad influence. And I want to hang out with these kids who have piercings and a tattoo. And my mom is like, no way, can you hang out? And they're like, but we, they're so good. Like none of them drink. And so we have these judgments about the kids that are kids. What we want to understand is why our kids are choosing those friends. Because they are choosing them because there's something about them they relate to.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (27:37)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Cam (27:52)
So if we start going, your friends are trash, we're saying you're trash. Because they are hanging with their friends for a reason. So we want to understand what is it about your friends that you like? What makes them good friends? How do you feel around your friends? Do they make you feel better about yourself or worse about yourself? We want them to learn to reflect. When we tell them, this is what your friend is doing to you, this is what your friend is thinking about you.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (28:12)
Hmm. Hmm.
Dr. Cam (28:20)
Not only do they shut that down because how do you know you're not there, but also we're not asking them to reflect themselves and we're not helping them build that reflection skill. So one of the things I love to think about during adolescence is that your your their brain is now connecting the dots. That's what it means by that prefrontal cortex not being fully developed. It is developing right now. It's not like, okay, at 25, it's suddenly it is now in the middle of the biggest
growth spurt it will ever be in. It is learning to connect the dots. So what we want to do is give our kids as many opportunities to connect the dots themselves rather than connecting them for them. Because connecting them for them is like teaching them to play tennis while you're holding the racket. They're not going to learn. They need to do it. And what's frustrating is as parents we go, but I know the best way. I know the faster way. I know the safer way.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (29:09)
Mm.
Dr. Cam (29:20)
You do because you've been connecting the dots for a long time. Your teen is going to connect the dot and the first time they're going to go all over the place. They're going to go right, then left, then up, then down, then loop, then loop, and back and around before they get to that dot the first time. The next time they do it, they're going to go their path is to be a little bit straighter because they're figuring it out and they learned, ooh, that was the wrong way, this is the right way. They learn and every time they do it,
The line gets straighter and straighter and they figure it out on their own. And sometimes they come up with a better solution than we did. So we need to let our kids, we can point out the two dots. That's a great thing to do. Hey, you have these friends and you're feeling really insecure lately. Don't connect them. How do your friends make you feel?
Dr. Kibby McMahon (29:55)
Yeah.
Dr. Cam (30:12)
Right? So we're not going to tell them answers.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (30:20)
What about...
What about when you said, it's a matter of life or death?
that is actually harder to figure out. At least, you know, like these days, I don't know, you know, like with all the news, you know, people just go to a concert or their school and get shot up, you know, like in this world.
Dr. Cam (30:34)
Here it-
Well, this is the thing, Kibby. We have to separate
fear.
Right? From what's really going on. Because if we're trying to prevent them from every danger on the planet, we don't, they know the dangers before we do. I'm gonna be honest with you. They have known about people online far before we did, because they've been encountering them. They are going to go around that corner and see it before we can. We can never stay in front of every single possibility of danger out there.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (31:00)
Mm.
.
Dr. Cam (31:17)
What we want to do is teach our kids how to reason and make good critical thinking, be able to critically think on their own. That's connecting the dots. I want to send my child out there who is now on her own in a big city and know and trust that she is making good choices because she knows how to make good choices because she has spent her entire life in my home.
making choices.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (31:49)
Mm.
Dr. Cam (31:51)
Have I agreed with all our choices? No. Have they been her choices? Yes. Has she made bad choices and dealt with consequences from them? Absolutely. Has she learned from that? Absolutely. I'd rather her be making bad choices here and allowing her to make those choices and helping her reflect on those choices, not by telling her, but helping her reflect on them so she has knows how to connect the dots on her own.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (32:18)
Mm-hmm.
That's brilliant. That's really brilliant. I want to break up the issue that some teens, not some, it seems like a lot, are struggling with mental health issues. know, emotion dysregulation, which seems to be par for the course in adolescence and teenage years, but you have depression, anxiety. mean, tell me, what mental health issues are you seeing more these days?
Dr. Cam (32:45)
I have so much to say on this. The first thing I want to say is yes, there is, we are noticing more mental health struggles. There are several factors we need to consider about this though. First of all, there's far more awareness about mental health now than there ever has been. So there may have been just as many struggling for mental health in the past.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (32:55)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Cam (33:14)
but had no label for it, right? So first of all, there's more awareness. Second of all, there is more ⁓ labeling of everyday emotion as depression or anxiety. I hear kids will come and go, I am struggling with anxiety. Every time I have to take a test, I get anxious. And I'm like, yes.
That is very normal behavior. Of course you get nervous before a test. We have lowered our level of ability to sit in discomfort and now we feel like it's pathologized if we feel some kind of way. So kids will label, I'm an anxious person because they get nervous around people. I have social anxiety.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (34:02)
you
Dr. Cam (34:12)
Well, then we all do. Right. You know what I'm saying? I'm not I'm not undermining mental health. What I'm saying is the people that really, really are struggling for mental health are getting lost in the big sea of everyone claiming mental health issues. What I do think is really important is to understand mental health as something as same as physical health. We want to make sure that we keep our mental health strong. So we look at mental health as a problem.
You've got a mental health problem rather than saying, I want to help us find a way to make sure that we keep our mental health in good condition. I want to keep very strong mental health, right? That doesn't mean never feeling bad emotions. That means understanding that I can get through bad emotions. Right? So mental health is not feeling happy. Mental health is saying, I feel really sad right now.
I'm going to go cry it out maybe for two hours. But then I'm going to feel better afterwards and I'm going to feel like I got that and I'm going to look and go, what is my sadness telling me? Sadness is a message. Why am I really sad? Let me understand that.
So there's several reasons why we see mental health. We also look at social media as being the cause of all this negative mental health. And this is something that a lot of people are gonna raise their arms at and get really mad at me for. that's a.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (35:47)
and the
meta case. Did you see that? ⁓
Dr. Cam (35:51)
It does and I'm going to be
honest with you and this is going to probably backfire me. It pisses me off a little bit because I am not saying that social media and the conglomerates are angels. Hell no. I'm not saying that this is not addictive. It is addictive. The problem is there's a lot of stuff out in the world that is not good for us. Tons of it everywhere. That's part of technology. There's just
If we just spend all the time saying you're bad, it's your fault that this is happening, then we're going to spend all of our life doing that. Instead of going, how do we become people that know how to handle this stuff? Because this thing is neutral. There's a lot I get on this that I do well. Like my business runs on this. This is how I make money.
I need this. This is, I find inspiration on this. My daughter goes on and follows her Broadway stars and she loves them and she learns about all kinds of deals going on in the city and gets all kinds of free stuff and goes to movie premieres because she learns about it on social media. social media can do good and bad. It's how we use it that is good or bad and it's how we consume it that's good or bad.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (37:13)
Thank you.
Dr. Cam (37:17)
If we teach our kids to be aware of what's going on because this is gonna be AI and I and I think Our kids are gonna be struggling with something that's scaring them and they're gonna look back and say social media was so benign I Can guarantee it look at AI already? We're gonna have AI friends that are telling like that's gonna be like social media Why did we worry about that? We do that every single generation and then we look back and go well that's lame This is what serious and I'm like
The point is there's always going to be something serious and scary around the corner. Always.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (37:54)
Thank
Dr. Cam (37:56)
We can't fight every single thing. What we have to do is teach our kids to think critically and learn how to use these tools in a smart way. We don't do that by making it the enemy. We do that by making it part of our life and developing and showing and modeling how to have a healthy relationship with it.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (38:04)
you
Like what should like I without having practice in it, I imagine that my go to would just be like, go to follow these people. Look at this, you know, like basically telling them what to do. How do you
Dr. Cam (38:29)
Right.
So we got to stop back on that and go back to, who are the people you follow? And let me tell you right away, when we ask those questions, if we don't have a good relationship with our kid and we've always been correcting them, they're going to see that as a criticism. We can't just jump from, we have a really hard relationship and they're stuck in the room to suddenly going, I'm going to ask them the right question and they're going to crack open. It doesn't happen that way. We got to build up to this, please. And I think a lot of parents are like,
Dr. Kibby McMahon (38:35)
you
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Dr. Cam (38:58)
This doesn't work. I'm like, it doesn't work if you don't have that yet. And that's not saying you can't have it. You can. Everyone can. But we have to build to it. When you've built to it, and this is why we want to build to it, is because then we can say very casually without them feeling criticized, is who do you follow? Who do you like following these days? I follow these people who are the people. What are some of the funniest things you've seen or the surprising things? I have these conversations with my daughter all the time.
And she'll go on and even show me. She's like here. And I'm like, do you have people I should follow? And we talk about like, how do you feel when you get off of social media? How do you feel when you're on there? Both of us feel actually really good because we both have really positive feeds. Both of us have really positive uplifting feeds. So we go on and we feel good. ⁓
We also look at a lot of other things that we like to do instead of just being on the phone. So it's never been get off your phone and do something else. It's hey, what are other things we wanna do? It's hey, let's go do this or let's go, right? And again, it's things that she loves to do. It's things we have a relationship to do. ⁓ And so it's not you're on your phone all the time. And I've never also taken my phone away
Dr. Kibby McMahon (40:08)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Cam (40:24)
taking the phone away from my daughter as a consequence ⁓ because that does not teach her how to critically think, how to reflect on what happened or to have a healthy relationship with her phone because now her phone is seen as collateral and when it's seen as collateral, we want more of it.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (40:45)
⁓
That's so interesting. So interesting. What, gosh, what if your kid, your teen is struggling with not just like an emotion and a test anxiety, but it's like not going to school, depressed, people. Yeah, I'm hearing a lot of like school refusal and.
Dr. Cam (41:10)
There's a lot.
What?
Dr. Kibby McMahon (41:15)
And when you're in that crisis mode, especially as a parent, and then you also have like, you know, you know, self harm and all that stuff that to worry about, what do you do in that? Because it's hard to just start to develop that like relationship, right? That good relationship and just be like, hey, who are you following? Like, it's like, my God, my kid is struggling.
Dr. Cam (41:20)
so much for your time.
Yeah, and Kibbe, this is the part that's really
hard for parents because we go, I don't have time for this relationship stuff. But that's the fastest way. Like, the more you try to pressure them to go or the more you try to get just do, do, do, the more resistance you are building up. The more resentment you are building up. Every time we try to just go,
Dr. Kibby McMahon (41:46)
No
Hmm.
Dr. Cam (42:08)
I don't have time for that, I'm just gonna make them. We're making it harder.
Right? Because we're not addressing the actual issue and we can't address the actual issue if they don't trust us to share the actual issue with us. So if you feel like I don't have time for this.
I'm just going to tell you it's the fastest way to get there. And it's the fastest way long term to make sure your kids are okay. Because no matter what your kid is struggling with, the best thing that you can do, regardless of what it is, is be a safe place for them. That is the number one thing that prevents kids from making bad choices, making risky choices. Suicide, self harm, all of these is having a safe
person to share what is going on.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (43:02)
Hmm. Hmm.
Dr. Cam (43:05)
And then parents will say, let me get them to therapy. And therapy is wonderful. I mean, I do it. Of course, I love it. But my goal is always to help the parent be the person that their kid can go to. Because the person there, they're all the time. They're the one that cares more about their kid than anyone else on the planet. They're going to be there when I'm not. So.
Yes, I can definitely be someone to listen to your child and I love doing that.
But I want the parents to be the one that their kids feel safe going to. And that's what my goal is, is to help parents know how to show up in a way that makes their kids feel safe, allows their kids to feel safe.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (43:53)
That's wonderful. That's really wonderful. And then once, I mean, it might be obvious when that conversation comes up, but once there is that trust and that parent is safe, what are some ways to introduce, like you might need therapy, you might need help. I mean, it's interesting because like parents can actually like take their kids to a doctor, but.
Dr. Cam (44:20)
Well, yeah, I mean, I see
a lot more resistance towards therapy than openness a lot of times. And we want to be very careful about this because when we force it on our kid, or sometimes often we treat it like a punishment, like you got this, you got to go see somebody or they see you're the one that's broken. You're the one that is responsible for all of this. You need to go get fixed.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (44:35)
Right.
Dr. Cam (44:48)
They're not going to want to do that because it's not true. First of all, the relationship may be needing repair. Your team doesn't. Right. ⁓ And and you know, the relationship does. Right. And so saying you're going to go fix your side and I'm not is that it nothing changes. I see that all the time. Nothing changes. In fact. It just gets more frustrating. ⁓
when the parent changes how they show up, even if the teen doesn't go somewhere, I see a lot of change, tons, all the time. So that's the first thing. If you want your teen to go get therapy, I would go seek someone to help you understand your teen. ⁓ First, when we go and we're open about it and we talk about it to our teen and we have that safety and say, what do you think would help? You know, and...
Here's the other thing we do as parents a lot not realizing it is we tell our kid they have a problem that needs to be fixed and They may not see it as a problem
Dr. Kibby McMahon (45:49)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Cam (45:57)
So now they're not saying, you're right, I have a problem. They're saying, ⁓ you see me as a problem. You don't get me. So we need to understand that our goal is to understand what our teens are going through. What are they from their perspective? What are their challenges? What do they feel okay about? And what do they not feel okay about? What do they want help with and what don't they want help with?
Dr. Kibby McMahon (46:04)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Okay.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Cam (46:25)
What do they want to figure out on their own? Right? But as long as we're there and we're safe and they can come to us, they won't always. I mean, I probably have an I have one of the closest relationships with my daughter. She doesn't share everything with me. She'll lie to me 100 percent. It's part of human nature. It's part of protecting. It's part of a lot of things. Do I get mad at that? No. I try to understand it.
Do I get hurt by it? Sometimes, yeah, because that's natural. ⁓ But it's not, I know it's not because she doesn't trust me, it's protecting herself, right? And we need to understand that if our kids aren't telling us something or they're lying to us, it's about them protecting themselves, not trying to be disrespectful or defiant towards us. It's a very different thing because now we're not focused on making them tell us.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (46:58)
Mm.
Hmm.
Right.
Dr. Cam (47:22)
We want to focus on how do they feel safe with us telling us.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (47:25)
Right. Right.
Dr. Cam (47:27)
I want to be very clear too, because I think a lot of parents, when they hear this, they go to the extreme you were saying, like, I'm just going to be so nice. And the beautiful thing about this is now you have the capacity to set clearer guidelines and agreements and boundaries. And boundaries are our own boundaries, not telling them what to do, but we can say. this was a big one with my daughter, because we both can get dysregulated.
You know, I remember I was braiding her hair and it was like the fourth night in a row I had to braid her hair for a show she was in and it was painful and I don't like doing hair. And she started getting really snippy with me because she was nervous. There was a lot, you know, sitting there is boring and I just stopped and I said, listen, I'm going to braid your hair. But if you're going to continue talking to me like that, I'm not going to braid your hair because that doesn't feel good to me. So if you want me to braid your hair, I'm happy to do it. It's your choice.
Like you can continue to talk that way, but I won't continue to braid your hair. Or you could change and I'm happy to braid your hair, right? Or there'll be a tone and she'll start getting kind of riled up and I'll be like, listen, if you continue this way, I'm just gonna let you know right up front, you're not gonna like my answer. We can keep this way, but it's not gonna go the way you want. So you can continue and.
you already know the answer is going to be no, or we can start over and figure this out together. And all that does is say, I'm going to, want you to be aware of how this is coming across to me. May not come across that way to other people. It's coming across that way to me right now. And this is my boundary and I'm not okay with it. And this is what I'm going to do to protect me without telling you what to do. And now she knows if I want to talk to mom,
and I want mom to help me, I need to not use that attitude.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (49:28)
That's so great. That's such a beautiful example of a compassionate boundary. I do see even people with adult children, you swing from, ⁓ I give them everything totally permissive, whatever they want, I'll say yes. And they're like, no, I'm going to be firm and cut it off and say, you know, so I love that.
Dr. Cam (49:44)
No!
Listen,
my teenager, and I don't want to be like my mom, but I do use everything I teach, right? She has been doing her laundry on her own since I think fourth grade. She does her own lunches. She does grocery shopping. Now for me too, when she's home, she has a lot of responsibilities. This kid does not just coast through the world, right? When she asks for money, she does not assume she's getting it. She asks, right?
She, there's so much that she respects in terms of me as her mom and me having that say, but without the threat. Because she knows without a doubt I have her best interests at heart because I respect her.
Even if I disagree, respect her. And she respects me back. That's how it works. And so it's not being permissive because permissive doesn't earn respect.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (50:49)
Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ it's so wonderful.
Dr. Cam (50:53)
Yeah,
the only thing I want to say is everything that I talk about is never about blaming parents for being a bad parent because every parent is doing the very best they can and I think every parent is a good parent to the level that they know they're doing it everything and I want to recognize this. Everything I'm talking about is just trying to pull back the curtain and say, hey, this is how it's always been but it doesn't mean it works and I want to give you another way to do it in a way that
creates less conflict because our teens are going to end up down this road either way. Sorry they are. We can either be there beside them and help them along the way and be someone they turn to or they can go completely away from us and we won't have any of that. That's really our decision.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (51:40)
Dr. Kam, this has been a masterclass in building secure attachment with your gene and operating from there, right? And I love that it's so simple and so challenging because it's really about, as you said, operating from your fear of like fear of like, my God, like they're gonna get into this weird drug and blah, blah. But like, let me actually get to know them as a person and...
help them connect the dots on their own, but with my support and wisdom, hopefully.
Dr. Cam (52:11)
Yeah.
It's hard. It's hard. I mean, I think the important thing is we don't know all the answers. So trying to give that to them is not helpful. ⁓ Helping them figure out how to come up with answers that work for them is way more helpful.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (52:29)
Oof,
oof, so hard, that's so hard. This has been so brilliant. I wanna give you a chance to tell anyone who's listening and who's like dying for your more advice. I mean, I'm like, how do I learn how to be more of a more secure, trusting parent for my future teen? How do people find you? What do you offer? What do you do?
Dr. Cam (52:32)
It is hard.
Yeah.
First is just Instagram at Dr. Cam Caswell. I'm on there all the time and sharing lots of information on that. And my website, askdrcam.com, you can find, because I have a women, it's mostly moms, it's parents, there's some deaths, but I have a parent group that we meet every single week and I actually do this and I help them through their stuff. It is the best group ever. I love that group. It's my inner circle. I have a course.
that walks you through everything and tells you step by step my new approach to parenting teens so you can do it yourself. And those are, that's the collaborate method. So those are the biggest ways.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (53:37)
Amazing. I'm going to link all of those on the show notes so everyone can find you. Dr. Cam, thank you so much. This was like, there was so many gold nuggets in what you just said that I just like, this was amazing. Thank you so much. Little Helpers, I hope you enjoyed this. Give us a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Tell everyone about Dr. Cam, who's struggling with their teen. And we'll see you next week.
Dr. Cam (53:49)
Thank you.