Session 478: Surviving Middle School: Your Questions Answered

In the final episode of our Surviving Middle School series, we’re answering your questions about navigating this sometimes complicated stage of growing up. Dr. Russell Ledet joins us for a Q&A covering friendships, social media, and newly navigating independence. He shares practical advice and perspective for parents who want to better understand what their middle schoolers are experiencing and stay connected as they grow. Tune in for a thoughtful conversation filled with insight and guidance for navigating the middle school years. Resources & Announcements Want to reflect on this conversation in community? Join us inside our Patreon https://community.therapyforblackgirls.com/ community where we’re unpacking this episode together. You can now catch episodes of the Therapy for Black Girls podcast on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@therapyforblackgirls. Be sure to subscribe to get new episodes every week. Did you know you can leave us a voice note with your questions for the podcast? If you have a question you'd like some feedback on, topics you'd like to hear covered, or want to suggest movies or books for us to review, drop us a message at memo.fm/therapyforblackgirls https://memo.fm/therapyforblackgirls and let us know what’s on your mind. We just might share it on the podcast. Grab your copy of Sisterhood Heals. https://www.sisterhoodheals.com/ Where to Find Our Guest Instagram https://www.instagram.com/drrussellledet/ LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/rjledet Website https://www.russellledet.com/ Stay Connected​https://click.convertkit-mail.com/27uv20p9mpioh8edr34s8ug63w344hg/58hvh8ug08p6wzc6/dGhlcmFweWZvcmJsYWNrZ2lybHMuY29tb3JibGFja2dpcmxzLmNvbS9wYXRyZW9u Is there a topic you'd like covered on the podcast? Submit it at therapyforblackgirls.com/mailbox https://www.therapyforblackgirls.com/mailbox. If you're looking for a therapist in your area, check out the directory at https://www.therapyforblackgirls.com/directory. Grab your copy of our guided affirmation and other TBG Merch at therapyforblackgirls.com/shop https://therapyforblackgirls.com/shop. The hashtag for the podcast is #TBGinSession. Make sure to follow us on social media: Instagram: @therapyforblackgirls https://www.instagram.com/therapyforblackgirls Facebook: @therapyforblackgirls https://www.facebook.com/therapyforblackgirls Our Production Team Executive Producers: Dennison Bradford & Gabrielle Collins Director of Podcast & Digital Content: Ellice Ellis Producer: Ndeye Thioubou Production Assistant: Bria Mosley See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

• 0:10Speaker 00

  Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, a weekly conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves. I'm your host, Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information or to find a therapist in your area, visit our website at therapyforblackgirls.com. While I hope you love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is not meant to be a substitute for a relationship with a licensed mental health professional.

• 0:55Speaker 00

  Hey y'all. Thanks so much for joining me for session 478 of the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast. Today, I'm sitting back down with Dr. Russell Lade for the final installment of our Surviving Middle School series. He's answering all of the questions from our TBG community. But first, a quick word from our sponsors.

• 1:19Speaker 01

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.

• 1:24Speaker 00

  A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. In season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, host Martine Hackett continues the conversation with people living with MG, CIDP, and the broader rare disease community, exploring what comes after diagnosis through stories of hope, progress, and connection. Produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenx. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:54Speaker 02

  I'm Martha Stewart from the Martha Stewart Podcast. When you want to make your best, it's got to be McCormick. From everyday meals to hosting dinner parties, turn to McCormick. Their convenient, versatile flavors elevate every dish. McCormick has been and is an essential in the kitchen. Now they have a new line of signature seasonings crafted by flavor experts with everyday favorites like garlic and olive oil, globally inspired ones like chimichari, and more. McCormick's signature seasonings make it easier to add bold flavors that make each bite of your meal more delicious. Try the chimichari blend that elevates grilled meats. Explore the full array of blends and find your favorite at McCormick.com.

• 2:37Speaker 00

  From raising a middle schooler in a tech-driven world to truly understanding what's behind the ups and downs of this stage of life, we've covered so much throughout our Surviving Middle School series. We've talked about friendships and fitting in, the growing influence of peers, social media, big feelings, and the sometimes tricky shift towards independence. Today, we're wrapping up the series with a Q and A featuring Dr. Russell Ledet, who you may remember from the previous episode of this series. We asked you, our TBG listeners, to submit your questions about surviving middle school, and I even tapped my own group chat to find out what parents really wanted to know. In my conversation with Dr. Lade, we dig into some of the questions that come up again and again during these years. How can we help kids build healthy friendships while navigating the pressure

• 3:21Speaker 00

  to fit in? When should parents be concerned if their child prefers to be alone? How do we support kids through bullying, peer pressure, and the influence of social media while still giving them room to become independent? Throughout our conversation, Dr. Lade shares advice and lessons learned around this unique stage of life, and I'm excited for you to hear his perspective. Press play and let's get into it.

• 3:47Speaker 00

  Well, thank you so much for joining us again, Dr. Lade.

• 3:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm so excited to be here, Dr. Joy. Thank you for inviting me into the space again.

• 3:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, so people heard you on the podcast. There were all kinds of follow-up questions, my group chat had questions, so I will get right into it so that we can cover as many as possible. So I first want to start by talking more about friendships because we know that this is a really big thing that kids are navigating during this age. So how do we help kids navigate the desire to be liked and to fit in?

• 4:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, this is one of my favorite topics, so I'm glad you're starting off with this one. First, I want to conceptualize something for parents. I've heard some parents criticize their children for wanting to belong. And sometimes they frame it as like weakness or like vanity. But actually, it's a developmental need. Like, it's something that you need during your teenage years. The goal is not necessarily to fit in. The goal is also not to fit out. So I like to do something real quick. I like to distinguish these two words that we use all the time. Actually, it's three words, but two phrases. There's belonging, which is this, like, you could think of belonging as, I can be myself and I can still

• 5:02Speaker 03

  be accepted. And then there's fitting in. Fitting in says, I have to change who I am in order to avoid rejection. So belonging and fitting in are not the exact same thing. You want to skew your kids towards figuring out where they belong as opposed to them trying to fit in. Now, there's going to be some gray areas there because maybe there are some parts of them that need to grow, and maybe what we perceive as them fitting in is them actually growing. And I think the goal in all of this is not to convince your children that they should not care about what other people think. That's unrealistic. What we want them to do is to care without allowing other people's opinions to completely

• 5:42Speaker 03

  define who they are. So I like to ask parents to do something that allows the child to build their identity that doesn't focus on popularity. So like, what are things that you're good at? What matters to you? Like, what is something that's really important to you? Where do you feel like you get to be yourself the most? And then my favorite question I like to have parents to ask is, what makes you feel comfortable instead of your friends always trying to figure out if there's something that needs to be fixed by you? And the other piece of this, aside from figuring out the child's identity outside

• 6:23Speaker 03

  of popularity, is curiosity on the part of the parents. So instead of criticizing the child for building friendships and trying to figure out social confidence, one thing parents can do is be curious. Like genuinely, just be like curious George. Like, you just asking questions because either you want to confirm your assumptions, or you want to correct your assumptions, or you just want to understand better what the child is thinking about this thing from. So questions I like to tell parents that they can ask their kids is, how do you feel after you spend time with so and so? How do you feel after you spend time with them? Are you able to disagree with that person and you all can still be friends? Are there times when they pressure you to do something that you

• 7:07Speaker 03

  have no interest in doing whatsoever? And then this question around identity comes back around when you are curious and you say, well, do you feel like you could just be yourself around them? And if they say yes, then you say, oh, that might be a pretty good friend. But also have them define what they mean by when they say, I can be myself. Because I can be myself can be them being a version of themselves that doesn't align with the family values or who you're hoping that they define themselves to become, and you know it can lead to some pretty deleterious behaviors.

• 7:43Speaker 00

  Thank you so much for this, Dr. Lade, and I appreciate you talking about the idea of, don't worry about other people's opinions being unrealistic, because even as adults, we worry about other people's opinions, right?

• 7:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's like, say, oh, you don't worry about what they think. What are you talking about?

• 7:59Speaker 00

  Right, right.

• 8:00Speaker 03

  You care about what other people think right now.

• 8:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:03Speaker 03

  I mean, you don't want it to be so much so that it defines who you are, but what other people think actually matters. Like, the period of push and pull with the teenager, right, is a period where you're asking your child to accept feedback. And in asking them to accept feedback, you're also asking them to consider someone else's opinion. Like, so if that's the case, then they probably do need to care about what other people think because you're going to ask them to care about what you think. But then some parents may elevate themselves and say, well, but I'm the parent, and I'm like, you're still another person. Like, you know, so, yeah.

• 8:40Speaker 00

  So related to this, what if my child doesn't have any desire to actually be a part of social relationships, like they're maybe identify as a loner and don't actually prefer to hang around people? Is that a concern?

• 8:54Speaker 03

  It can be when it's like isolation for extended periods of time. For sure, it can be concerning. I think more often than not, children are, well, there's a couple of different things that can come with that that I want to preface. One is, how much time are they spending on the internet? Because these days, a lot of kids will say, oh, I have a lot of friends. And you're like, so who are your friends? You know, like, oh, my friends are on the internet. These are people they've never met before. These are people who may be adults. These are people who may be, like, there's a lot more to that. So if your kid is isolating and spending a lot of time on the internet, I would be quite concerned. The other thing is too, kids will oftentimes develop friendships with people who share their interests.

• 9:40Speaker 03

  And we have to take into account temperaments. The three main temperaments that we always talk about is easy, difficult, and slow to warm. Right? Like those are kind of the three big buckets. Easy kiddos tend to be easier to make friends. Difficult kids, it takes quite a while. And then the slow to warm kids, you kind of see them start off very slow and then they just move on in, right? They may have had the temperament of a difficult child. And so what that means is, is that longer established relationships may be more helpful for them. And so keeping them in contact with kids that they've been around for a while. Some kids like a multiplicity of friends. Some kids are like, I just like a small circle. My same friends, I don't want a whole bunch of new friends.

• 10:23Speaker 03

  And both of those things are okay, because you see that into adulthood as well. And so I think you would have to know the temperament and strengths of your child. What are their interests? Which is why I'll go back to a question that I phrased in the first segment of the questions, which was like, how curious are you? Like, how genuinely curious are you? I'm not talking about like curious so that you could get to a point that you want to make. I mean, like you, you genuinely are like, I just want to know. I don't have much of an opinion about it. I just want to know. And then I want to take what this child tells me at face value and respond to that as opposed to what I assume it to be. I think one of the things that I always try to encourage parents to do is make the least amount of assumptions as possible.

• 11:08Speaker 03

  Ask questions, like kids actually like questions. They get to answer it in a way that makes sense to them. And you get to learn something about them. Same way you and your spouse continue to ask each other questions to learn more about each other as you evolve. Children are the exact same way. They're evolving, they're developing, they're growing. Ask questions, because maybe what they liked before, they don't like anymore. I look at my daughter now, she's eight years old and she's starting to phase out of a Lilo and Stitch phase, which is crazy for me, because I spent so much time with Lilo and Stitch. But I'm also okay with it. And I'm like, hey, what's the new thing that you like? And now it's the Dogman books. Like she's big into the whole like Dogman book thing, right? And so I'm just like, okay, all right. So now we're in the Dogman book phase and we were probably moving out of a Lilo and Stitch phase.

• 11:53Speaker 03

  So what that means is, is that like, maybe I'll build her an activity to do that's around Dogman. And it's not around Lilo and Stitch. Whereas previously I would have built her like math problems and reading comprehension problems that were associated with Lilo and Stitch. Now we got to move her to Dogman, because my goal is to keep her interested. Same thing happens during the adolescent years. Figure out what their interest in in and then try to center activities and things around that.

• 12:19Speaker 00

  That's helpful. Thank you. Our next question, how can we support kids who we feel like may be being picked on or bullied?

• 12:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, so there are some things I have to say before I answer this question. I think if you are a parent who did not grow up with emotional safety, then this very well may be difficult for you to do. Because you're not familiar with it. Like, it's not necessarily that it's not something that you don't want, or something that you don't even want for your child. You just are simply not familiar with it. So there may be challenges with this. I, I would tell parents to start off by believing the emotional experience of the child.

• 12:58Speaker 03

  You don't even need to know every factual detail of what happened. You need to believe the emotional experience of the child. No questions asked. Like, they come to you and telling you about being bullied, being picked on, stuff like that. You got to believe their emotional experience, how it's making them feel. Even if you don't know all the factual details, the emotional component, they're not lying to you about that. And there are things that like will sometimes like minimize unhealthy things that we can say and stuff like, just ignore it. They're only joking. Oh, one I hate is you need to toughen up. I hate hearing that one. And the reference point of their own childhood, oh, that happened to me when I was young.

• 13:44Speaker 03

  It's like, first of all, this is your child, not your childhood. Let's just start there. Stop using you as a reference for this child, because your child is not you. And I need you to be okay with the fact that your child is not you. They're not even an emulation of you. So I think there are some healthier openings that we can use with our children. I'm glad you told me about this.

• 14:09Speaker 03

  I'm excited that you told me about this. I appreciate you trusting me

• 14:14Speaker 03

  with what's going on. Another one to validate their feelings is you didn't deserve that.

• 14:21Speaker 03

  Like, you, you don't deserve that, because then it helps them to establish some sense of self. Like, oh, yeah, I, I don't think I deserve this. And now I'm glad that the leader in my home doesn't think that I deserve this. And then ask about some of the details, like, has this happened more than once? Do you feel safe going to school? What is it that I can do to help you in this moment? Versus what can I do to help you when it comes down to school? And then there's the clarifying component. And not in a like, I told you, I knew that's what was going on. No, I don't know how helpful that's going to be. But you can clarify what actually happened, have them do some storytelling. Maybe they need to draw it out.

• 15:03Speaker 03

  Maybe they need to tell you a little bit of it, take a break and then come back and tell you some more, because they may be reliving it. And that may be difficult for them to do. Is this simply just some conflict? Is this teasing? Is this them being rejected? Is this fight bullying? Because all of those things I just named, whether it's conflict, teasing, rejection, bullying, or physical harm, all of those things are painful.

• 15:32Speaker 03

  And all of those things being painful doesn't mean that they all require the same intervention. The conflict may require your child learning about conflict. There's kind of an offshoot there where it's like, how do you all handle conflict at home? If you just shut down the conversation as a parent and say, no, we're just not talking about this anymore. Okay, well, then your child probably will not be able to do a good job when it comes down to resolving conflict, because they didn't get to practice at home. If it comes down to teasing, obviously you could take the approach of, we'll figure out a joke to tell them back. To kind of keep the banter going if it's just something funny and it's harmless or something like that. But if it's genuinely to the point where it's like rejection and bullying and stuff like that. Okay, how do we want to address this? Do we want to have a conference with the teacher?

• 16:16Speaker 03

  Do I have a close enough relationship with the parent where I can go and talk to them? Am I at a place where I can emotionally have this conversation safely? Or do I need to work through some stuff? And this is where I'm going to challenge a lot of parents, because for the parents who still institute corporal punishment, I'm like, everybody says like, don't touch my baby. And then you do, I'm like, it's so confusing. I'm like, this is counterintuitive all by itself. And it's something to sit with for a lot of parents, because it's like, this is counterintuitive. You've already helped your child to realize that it's okay for somebody to physically harm them. But then they have to clarify who exactly can do it. That's a very confusing thing to do for a child, any child, even young teenagers. That's just complicated.

• 16:58Speaker 03

  But and then I think the way you have these conversations needs to be with a collaborative tone. It needs to always be with a, let's figure this out together. And then I think there are some warning signs that will require even more intervention. Like, if your child is like not sleeping at night, avoiding school, their grades are starting to go down. They have injuries now that nobody can explain. They're always complaining of like physical ailments. And you're like, whoa, where did that come from? Like, when you take their clothes off and you see bruises and stuff, okay, you need to intervene immediately. And so I think it, it depends on the degree of it. But I think our job as parents is to simultaneously make our children more resilient, but also feel safe.

• 17:44Speaker 03

  Both of those things need to happen at the same time.

• 17:47Speaker 00

  And you know, I can imagine after the day, like if you have this collaborative approach with your kid and say like, okay, if the decision is made to talk with the family and like the parents, I can imagine teens being like, no, that's going to be embarrassing. But if it does require that level of intervention, like what might make that a little bit more acceptable to a teen or a preteen? That this is how you feel like it needs to happen?

• 18:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, Dr. Joy, this is an amazing question. I think the follow up here is, let's have a conversation about what's embarrassing about it.

• 18:17Speaker 03

  Let's, like, tell me what's embarrassing about it to you.

• 18:22Speaker 03

  You know, tell me what's going to happen as a function of someone thinking that you're protecting yourself. And how are you conceptualizing this? Are you conceptualizing this as this is some component of my persona to my colleagues? Or are you conceptualizing this as I need to protect myself?

• 18:41Speaker 03

  Because one of those things is going to go more towards fitting in. The other one is going to go more towards belonging. I don't want you around people who go physically harm you or even emotionally harm you. And it doesn't sound like you want to be around people who emotionally harm you. Because that's why we're having this conversation right now. And kids can sometimes be in conflict. They, on one hand, they want these quote unquote friends, but then they realize they're like, oh, some of these friendships are harmful. But I don't know how to untether myself from these things, which is a process. Like, and it's not a, it's not a linear process. Like, it literally is a work in progress for the parents and the child.

• 19:24Speaker 03

  And the best thing in the world is the fact that your child is even discussing this with you. Because they could choose to not have this conversation with you at all.

• 19:36Speaker 03

  They could just be going through this thing on their own. You know nothing about it. They don't talk to you about it. They act like everything is fine. They, they minimize it until they can't minimize it anymore. And so, you know, like I said, the goal is, yes, indeed, to make your child more resilient is not to rescue them from everything. But at the same time, is to ensure that your child is physically and emotionally safe. And that safety starts at home.

• 20:02Speaker 00

  That's helpful. Thank you for that. So I want to move on to our next set of questions. That's really more about kind of like, how do we continue to help them navigate this independence? And maybe resilience that you're talking about? How can parents keep the lines of communication open as kids become more influenced by their friends and their social environment?

• 20:20Speaker 03

  Oh, man.

• 20:23Speaker 03

  You know, my favorite thing to tell parents is, can your children just talk to you?

• 20:34Speaker 03

  I remember doing this content, which I thought was just like pretty basic. And then my daughter was like, no, dad, like, I have friends who watch this. And we're like, yes, I wish I could tell my parents that. And one day I was telling my daughter, I was like, I'm a doctor, like, my job is to heal. And because my job is to heal, anytime I hear of a problem, I have to stop myself. Because it's so bad, I just want to fix it for you.

• 21:03Speaker 03

  And there are some things that it's not my job to fix it for you. It's my job to be there when you fall or you succeed at it. It's a safe thing that you need to figure out how to navigate on your own. I'm giving you as many tools as I possibly can. You got to figure this one out. Let me know if you need my help. She's like, yeah, that is helpful. And then she was like, yeah, sometimes when I'm talking to you, I just want you to like, just vibe with me. Just listen, just like, just vibe it out with me like, yeah, come live in my world for a little bit. And then sometimes I genuinely need your advice. She was like, and even when I get your advice, sometimes I'm not going to take it.

• 21:41Speaker 03

  And I was like, that's real? I was like, I can appreciate you saying that out loud. And I think my point to saying that out loud is, yeah, as parents, sometimes maybe we fix a little bit too much.

• 21:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:56Speaker 03

  And so they never learn how to fix some things on their own.

• 22:00Speaker 03

  And I've learned to just be like, a couch warrior. I've learned to just be like, yeah, just come, like, let's just grab an ice cream, just sit on the couch and just chit chat like I'm one of our little homegirls, like, just tell me that for real.

• 22:19Speaker 03

  They say, I know they ain't say that. What the hell on the day? Like, just, and, and just like, and she'll tell me stuff. I think

• 22:29Speaker 03

  when the idea of the parent is, I gotta fix it, I gotta fix it, I gotta tell you what you need to do. Then it's like, when do they learn?

• 22:37Speaker 03

  When do they learn? And my other piece of advice for this, which I think for every audience I've ever had is always they're like,

• 22:47Speaker 03

  I can see that one is, nobody's listening to your TED Talks.

• 22:55Speaker 03

  Nobody is listening to your TED Talks. And stop interrupting these babies.

• 23:02Speaker 03

  Be quiet. Just be, be quiet. Be quiet. You want these kids to talk to you, but you talk too much. You need somebody to talk to. That won't interrupt you. So let them have you as the person that they could talk to and not be interrupted. Don't interrupt them. Put some tape on your mouth and like, put a notepad in your hand and write down. But they talk too long. I know. Let them talk.

• 23:29Speaker 03

  Would you rather them talk to you? Who would you like to replace you with for them to talk to? If you feel like they talk too much, who do you want to put in your place? And let them have this conversation? Do you want them to put another teenager who generates dumb ideas at the exact same rate that they do? No? All right, then, sit down and listen. And thank God that they listening, they talking to you. Because they could not be talking to you and they can be talking to somebody else.

• 24:01Speaker 03

  And the problem is that

• 24:05Speaker 03

  not a lot of parents know how to listen.

• 24:09Speaker 03

  They don't know how to actively listen. They don't know how to ask questions from a place of curiosity as opposed to correction.

• 24:16Speaker 03

  They like, oh, let me, oh, so what do they do? Okay, so this is what you need to do. I didn't even ask you for your advice. I just asked you to listen. Like, all I asked you to do was to be a listening ear for me. And now I know my voice is respected at home, my voice is valued at home. And I have someone that I can go to about these nuanced relationship based things that I have going on at school. And maybe you're gonna give me some advice. And maybe you're not gonna give me some advice, but in either case, you gonna listen.

• 24:47Speaker 00

  More from our conversation after the break.

• 24:55Speaker 00

  A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. Tune in for season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, a Ruby Studio production in partnership with Argenx. Hosted by public health and policy expert, Dr. Martine Hackett, Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition pushes the conversation within the rare disease community forward. Featuring guests living with MG, CIDP, myositis, SMA, and other rare autoimmune conditions. Each episode explores hope, progress, and connection. How does research create new opportunities? How do shared experiences help light the way forward? How do we best show up for each other? Tune in to find out.

• 25:38Speaker 00

  Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 25:45Speaker 04

  Hey, it's Niall Rogers, host of Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series. I'm driving across the country, meeting some of today's most fascinating artists. We're exploring the stories before the moment that changed everything. This week, I'm joined by Miguel.

• 26:03Speaker 05

  That last year, finishing that record was the hardest experience of my life. To find your creativity and to believe in yourself, because somewhere in the midst of it, I stopped believing that my voice mattered and that I could find it again. That's a challenge. I was not feeling very confident creatively. Only, again, defiant in my belief that what this is about is express something honest. Say something honest.

• 26:39Speaker 04

  Experience Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series on the iHeartRadio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 26:51Speaker 00

  You know, Dr. Lade, I would imagine that sometimes that some people listening to this might feel like this is too close to being one of their little friends, right? Like, you kind of keep kidding with them on the couch. Feels like a, like, is that a boundary issue? Like, how do they know that I am their parent versus one of their little friends?

• 27:11Speaker 03

  The goal is to listen to them. The goal is not to agree with what they're saying. That's not, the goal is not, their friends may very well just like, go along with everything that they say. No, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that you can't even practice listening. Like, if you're in the middle of a conversation with a teen and you are saying they're talking too much, you not even thinking about the right thing. Your mind is not even in the right frame of reference. This is not about being your child's friend. This is about being your child's listening ear.

• 27:43Speaker 03

  I'm gonna ask the exact same question. The child wants to have the conversation, right?

• 27:49Speaker 03

  Who are you willing to replace yourself with for them to have this conversation that they're gonna have no matter what?

• 27:57Speaker 03

  Wouldn't you rather it be you? And I always tell parents, act like you've been here before.

• 28:05Speaker 03

  Act like this ain't your first time. Half of what they talking about, they ain't even gonna do.

• 28:11Speaker 03

  It's the same thing with parents, I'm taking away this and that, and then two days later.

• 28:16Speaker 03

  Like, come on, man. The same thing with TED Talks. I ask any parent, okay, you give a TED Talk. The TED Talk lasts for an hour. The kid may get in five seconds. They may get in five words in the hour-long TED Talk. If I asked you, what did you just finish talking about?

• 28:34Speaker 03

  Let me go back and look at the camera.

• 28:37Speaker 03

  And if you went back and looked at what you just finished talking about, ain't nothing linear about that. Nobody can keep track of what you talking about right now. And so to these parents who talking about, I'm not their little friend? No, you are not their little friend, but you can be their nurturing parent.

• 28:55Speaker 03

  I always say you can be firm and warm at the exact same time.

• 29:00Speaker 03

  You can have boundaries and still hug your child. You can have a collaborative tone.

• 29:08Speaker 03

  And still put in consequence, like all these things do not have to be mutually exclusive. I mean, I know where a lot of this comes from, this idea of like, I'm not their little friend. No, you are not their friend. No, you are not their friend, but you should be the listening ear. And I will also say this, maybe you didn't experience that. But if you're listening to this podcast, then you have the luxury of access to Dr. Joy. Dr. RJ, you got access to things that maybe your parents, I'm pretty confident your parents did not have access to.

• 29:42Speaker 00

  Right.

• 29:42Speaker 03

  Cause I don't think there's too many of me that have come up out of the sort. I'm just saying, and so you have a luxury that your parents did not have. And I'm sitting here telling you that your children want you to listen to them. Because I know this, because when they come in the office to talk to me.

• 30:00Speaker 03

  I may say 10 words, Dr. Joe.

• 30:02Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 30:04Speaker 03

  And them kids be sitting there like, they just keep going.

• 30:08Speaker 00

  Right.

• 30:09Speaker 03

  They just keep going and they say everything they thinking.

• 30:14Speaker 03

  And they like, man, it's so good to be around somebody who's actually listening.

• 30:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:20Speaker 03

  And I understand that there's this temporality component and the parents feel like time is moving. I gotta hurry up and fix this now because they don't be an adult soon. Yes, they will be an adult soon. But maybe we work on goals and aspirations and all those other things on a different day. And today you just listen.

• 30:41Speaker 03

  Today, they just know, oh, my mom and my daddy are just listening to me. They can hear me.

• 30:48Speaker 03

  Because they are going to want me to hear them later. And as I talked about in the last episode. Communication is one of the things that is learned best through modeling. And so if you're not a good listener, don't expect your child to be a good listener. Because their voice is not valued and

• 31:11Speaker 03

  this whole idea of do as I say, don't do as I do thing, it doesn't really work out very well. I'm gonna just keep it real with you. We know that already. So, yeah.

• 31:21Speaker 00

  So you already talked a little bit on this episode and on our previous episode about some of the dumb decisions that teens and tweens are making, right? That's kind of like par for the course. Is there a way that we can help them to slow down and maybe make better decisions without just kind of jumping to follow what everybody else is doing?

• 31:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, let them practice at home.

• 31:42Speaker 00

  Hmm, hmm.

• 31:43Speaker 03

  Like, when do they practice at home? I use the excuse of, I will let my daughter make bad financial decisions at home.

• 31:53Speaker 03

  And then let her learn from them. Like, I need you to make some bad decisions at home. I'm not coming down on you every time you make a bad decision. Cause I'm gonna make a bad decision. And then nobody gonna come down on me about it. And I'm not expecting a perfect child, I'm expecting a growing child.

• 32:14Speaker 03

  And I need you to grow from your mistakes. I don't need you to just grow from my experience. I don't need you to just grow from what I've been through. No. Some things for sure, you don't have to touch the stove, you know that it's hot.

• 32:25Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 32:26Speaker 03

  But in, in the case that you do touch the stove and that is hot, I'm gonna put some butter on it. And then you gonna know next time, don't touch it.

• 32:33Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 32:33Speaker 03

  And I'm not gonna scream at you for touching the stove. You know, we gonna put some butter on it and you gonna know next time, oh, yeah. And the way I think about it is like, when you go into an emergency department, there's a big emergency, right? You don't want a trauma bay where the head doctor's in there is like frantic. Right? You want somebody who's calm and caress. Which goes back to my previous point. Act like you been here before. Don't act like this your first time. This, cause it ain't. And I know y'all need, I know y'all like you on a podcast with Dr. Joy, you can't be using ain't, I am. I am. I feel like I could use ain't and it's gonna be all right. Cause I know you know exactly what I'm talking about.

• 33:17Speaker 03

  You gotta act like you been here before and you can't panic every time your child makes a mistake.

• 33:22Speaker 00

  What do you think gets activated for us, Dr. Lade? Like, I feel like for myself, like just speaking for myself, I think like when I feel my seventh grader makes a mistake. I sometimes get activated because I feel like it is an indictment on my parenting. And like, oh, my gosh, what did I do? So what do you think gets activated for people? That's my example, but what, what for other people?

• 33:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, I think I said this on Dr. Kim Caswell's podcast. And this gonna be difficult to hear. So I'm gonna speak from my eyes standpoint so that nobody feels indicted. Sometimes I think too much of myself.

• 33:57Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 33:59Speaker 03

  And I epitomize, I epitomize who I am. And my children are from my lineage.

• 34:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:06Speaker 03

  And so because my children are from my lineage, of course, they gonna be just like who I think I am versus who I actually am.

• 34:14Speaker 00

  And who you were as a seventh grader.

• 34:17Speaker 03

  And who I was in seventh grade, I make mistakes all the time. Who, do I think I'm raising a perfect child? I'm crazy if I think I'm raising a perfect child. I'm raising a child who's trying to grow in a very chaotic world. And when they make mistakes, I gotta teach them that it's okay. I tell them, y'all, I'm gonna tell you something, I, I'm glad we bringing this up. You know what I tell my kids all the time, my kids know this. My dad tells us all the time, I hope you fail.

• 34:39Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 34:41Speaker 03

  I hope they fail and I hope they fail at home.

• 34:46Speaker 03

  I hope they fail at home all the time.

• 34:50Speaker 03

  And I'm not about to panic when you fail. I tell my daughter all the time, I hope you get the math question wrong.

• 34:57Speaker 03

  If you get it right, we ain't working on the right thing.

• 35:01Speaker 03

  I need to figure out where you're not good so we can work on those things. And I need you to be okay with failing. There's no way you gonna get very far in life if you're not okay with failing. Dwyane Wade said, my belief is stronger than your doubt.

• 35:19Speaker 03

  And the way I, I hijacked it and said, my belief is stronger than my own doubt. Cause every time you fail, you get this little inkling of like, oh, I'm not capable. No, I need you to be like, I'm more than capable. I just need to try a different way. And I think we have to be comfortable with our children failing and it's not an indictment on you. It's an indictment on the fact that your child is growing. We don't argue with the toddler who's learning how to walk, who falls all the time.

• 35:48Speaker 03

  They are learning how to walk. And our teenagers are learning how to walk. And our young people are learning how to walk. And our young doctors are learning how to walk. So you put in more safeguards and stuff like that, but you still don't stop them from learning how to walk.

• 36:03Speaker 00

  Right.

• 36:05Speaker 03

  And I think we have to be okay with our kids making mistakes and not panicking. Cause like, if I made a mistake, I don't need you to panic. I need you to help me to figure out how to not make a mistake again. And if you panicking, like you ain't never made this mistake. You've made worse mistakes.

• 36:21Speaker 03

  That you don't want nobody to know.

• 36:24Speaker 03

  And so I think we have to like back up and stop idealizing our children. We have this idea like, oh, my kids need to be perfect. Or my kids need to, man, tell you something. My wife has this ad is like, I don't need you to make straight A's. I need you to do your very best.

• 36:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:45Speaker 03

  And I, you're bringing up, oh, my kid makes straight A's. And that's an indication of what for you?

• 36:52Speaker 03

  What is that an indication for you? What is that? Cause sometimes we'll translate stuff like my kid makes good grades, that makes me a good parent.

• 37:00Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 37:01Speaker 03

  I don't know, I don't know if it correlates that, that linearly. It doesn't really work out that way. You may have put some good supports in place, educationally. But I, I think to the, my point to all of this is, is that those quiet time questions that I always leave in content. Where I'm asking the parents to, don't do this when you're elevated. Don't do this when you're agitated, don't do this when you're irritable. Do this when you get some quiet time. And just reflect on some of these things. Reflect on, why is my child having a tantrum triggering from me?

• 37:41Speaker 03

  Like, why? Is that because when I had distress, nobody would allow me to have distress? Or would be harmful for me to be like, yo, I'm not feeling well right now? Okay, well, you need to work on that, but don't let your child hold that with you.

• 37:55Speaker 00

  Right.

• 37:55Speaker 03

  And teenagers who are struggling with, some are struggling academically. Some are not struggling academically, but they're struggling socially. Some are not struggling socially, not struggling academically, but they're struggling emotionally. You gotta figure out what buckets your child is struggling in and those are the ones that you helped them in. And that's just the reality of it. Cause every kid has something that they need their parents to help them with, every single child. You know? And that's just my thoughts on it.

• 38:24Speaker 00

  That's incredibly helpful. Thank you for that, Dr. Lade. So I wanna move into the million dollar question that everybody has different opinions on around. How are we helping our kids set boundaries and like, figure out how to deal with stuff happening on social media? First of all, do you have thoughts around like a certain age? Like, is there an age limit that you think is appropriate for social media? Um, just your general thoughts kind of around social media stuff and kids.

• 38:52Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 38:55Speaker 03

  Let me start off by saying something. Social media engagement is household dependent. You, you would have to think about it from the perspective of like, my child needs to learn how to have discipline to do A, X, Y, and Z. In order to do any of those things, they're gonna need an attention span. And let me preface something by saying we are not talking about the child with neurodevelopmental differences who may have ADHD and autism. That's not, that's a different conversation. This is for the child who does not have ADHD, does not have any other neurodevelopmental differences.

• 39:37Speaker 03

  And what is competing with their ability to build discipline is technology. That's what we're talking about.

• 39:45Speaker 03

  So the child who has technology competing with their attention to build discipline, I'm gonna tell you some of the things that they're competing with. Algorithms, what's new? The rewards of social media and consistent and constant and pervasive stimulation.

• 40:11Speaker 03

  That's four things that are incredibly difficult to overcome.

• 40:16Speaker 03

  And so the first question I often ask parents is, who controls screen time?

• 40:26Speaker 03

  And they're like, well, I tell them to get off the phone. You tell them, I said this in the last episode, your voice does not have superpowers.

• 40:35Speaker 03

  You are not God who said, and let there be light. It doesn't, it doesn't work that way. Like, as much as we wanna say, open sesame and the door just opens. Yeah, it just like never actually does it. Like you gotta get up and open the door. And so, discipline around technology has to start with the parents.

• 40:58Speaker 03

  And so, like, I have a hard stance on no screens at the dinner table. No screens at the dinner table. Like, I abhor a screen at the dinner table. Cause it's like, you need to learn how to communicate. You need to learn how to communicate with other people, to communicate with the people that you love. So like some basic things like no phones during meals, no screens during meals. Devices should charge in parents' rooms or outside of the rooms.

• 41:34Speaker 03

  Notifications off when you're doing homework. These are like very basic things. Establish screen-free family activities like painting, running in the water, going outside for a walk, playing with Legos, having a conversation around the table, like.

• 41:55Speaker 03

  And then my favorite is, I tell parents, when you're at home and there are screens, carry a timer around.

• 42:04Speaker 03

  And say, okay, if your reward is screen time, you get fifteen minutes of screen time. I'm setting the timer now. And in the beginning, the kid's gonna fight with you and eventually, guess what? You're not. My fifteen-year-old does not argue with us at all. Nine PM, everyday cellphone, laptop in our bedroom.

• 42:25Speaker 03

  Right down on the floor, her phone does not go in her room. We don't have to argue, but like, maybe three or four years ago, we would have been having this conversation all the time. And we were consistent, like, no, every night. Every night, she goes to her grandparents' house back in Louisiana, eats that same thing. I think this idea of just remove the device is not helpful. I think you have to replace it with something that's stimulating, something that creates connection, education, entertainment, sometimes escape, and then relief from boredom sometimes. Sometimes boredom is healthy. I'm okay with kids being like, yeah, I'm bored, okay. Thanks for letting me know. Appreciate you. Yeah. I'm sitting here reading though, so I don't know what to tell you. Appreciate you letting me know that you're bored.

• 43:09Speaker 03

  I appreciate you being aware of how you feel right now. It's very helpful, but um, go figure it out. And then I think when you start talking to the teenagers, the most important collaborative conversation as they start to age is like, yeah, what are you getting yourself into? What are you watching? How do you feel about yourself after you watch whatever you're watching? What's the best way for the two of us to stay in contact when you're not here in front of me? What's okay to remain private and what is absolutely not going to be private? And then helping them to understand that what you think you're posting privately will become public. Yeah. Whether you like it or not.

• 43:51Speaker 03

  Because this world is crazy. And I think at the end of the day, like, you know, the other part of it is too, is like, you know,

• 44:03Speaker 03

  I think the literacy culture in the home plays a huge role. You know, reading culture at home plays a huge role. It plays an incredible role. But at the end of the day, do you still visit libraries? Do you still visit bookstores? Do you still go to activities like art galleries and stuff like that? Like, they're there, and there's a lot of stuff that's free. Like, it's literally just like getting in your car and you go for free. Like, there's a lot of activities in libraries. There's a lot of activities for nonprofits all over, pretty much every city has stuff going on that is not screen-related, that we can genuinely get our kids involved in. Now, I'm also speaking from a place of affluence, which I always take that into account. But, I mean, I grew up incredibly poor.

• 44:48Speaker 03

  My mama still would make us go to the library. Even if the library we went to didn't have good books, it had books.

• 44:57Speaker 03

  And books are still exploratory measures. Like, there's still things that can allow for you to take a flight. Books will allow you to take flights that money cannot. I say that all the time.

• 45:12Speaker 00

  More from our conversation after the break.

• 45:19Speaker 00

  A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. Tune in for season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, a Ruby Studio production in partnership with Argenx. Hosted by public health and policy expert Dr. Martine Hackett, Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition pushes the conversation within the rare disease community forward. Featuring guests living with MG, CIDP, myositis, SMA, and other rare autoimmune conditions, each episode explores hope, progress, and connection. How does research create new opportunities? How do shared experiences help light the way forward? How do we best show up for each other? Tune in to find out.

• 46:02Speaker 00

  Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 46:10Speaker 04

  Hey, it's Niall Rogers, host of Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series. I'm driving across the country, meeting some of today's most fascinating artists. We're exploring the stories before the moment that changed everything. This week, I'm joined by breakout singer-songwriter Alex Warren.

• 46:30Speaker 06

  I had this dream of being a musician, and everyone I had known was kinda like, you're not good at music. You know, you should probably have other things a backup plan, whatever. Felt like I didn't have anyone close to me. And my wife had flown out to visit and she found out I was sleeping in a car. She didn't know. And she was like, let's do it. And she slept in a car with me. And for the first time in my life, I realized that in a life full of what I thought was things happening to me, something was finally happening for me. Dude, that's like the most romantic shit I've ever heard. It's the coolest thing ever.

• 47:01Speaker 04

  Experience Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series on the iHeartRadio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 47:14Speaker 00

  So one of the ways that I think a lot of people get their kids involved in, you know, things outside of the home is sports, right? So our next set of questions are around, how do you encourage like good, healthy sports competition and like being a part of a team? And like doing something that's extracurricular without instilling this idea of performance anxiety?

• 47:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, oh man, this is, you really got me with a doozy on this one. Cause I could talk about this for a while. I could talk about this for a while. A lot of kids who are trained to be like extremely competitive in these things, a lot of them have undiagnosed anxiety that

• 47:56Speaker 03

  doesn't really get recognized as a function of like how hard their parents are pushing them. And then you see it later on, when they can't hide from it anymore. So I like to tell parents that like, expectations are not inherently harmful. It becomes harmful when your child starts believing that the achievement determines what they're worth. And so, I love when I hear parents say like, I love you independent of what the outcome is.

• 48:28Speaker 03

  And not like, I love you, but I'm like, show you that maybe I don't love you

• 48:35Speaker 03

  as a form of my, you know, passive way of telling you that I'm disappointed. No, I love you, like I genuinely love you, independent of the outcome. I think that

• 48:49Speaker 03

  there should be some separation of a few things. When, especially when it comes down to academic athletics and expectations. There are the child's goals. There are the parent's hopes. And then there are the parent's unresolved dreams and fears.

• 49:08Speaker 03

  That's three different things. There is what the child wants to accomplish, what the parent hopes for, and then the parent's unresolved dreams and fears.

• 49:20Speaker 03

  And I could tell you the one that gets missed the most is not the children's goals, nor is it the parent's hopes. It is the parent's unresolved dreams and fears.

• 49:32Speaker 03

  That is the piece that gets missed the most. Because why would I sit down and talk about what I missed? Or what didn't happen for me? And am I living this through

• 49:46Speaker 03

  this child who I have so much say over?

• 49:52Speaker 03

  And so, things that you can praise are things like preparation, their ability to persist even though things get tough, them asking for help. Them being a good teammate, them recovering after mistakes. Them being honest about the things that they're struggling with, those are important things they can recognize. I used to be my daughter's tennis coach, my oldest daughter's tennis coach, and I had a coach.

• 50:17Speaker 03

  And coach told me, he said, when your daughter finishes practice, or your daughter finishes a match, you have one job.

• 50:27Speaker 03

  Your job is to ask her, where are we getting ice cream at?

• 50:33Speaker 03

  I was like, Coach, really? He was like, yes. He was like, yeah, if you wanna erode a relationship with your child, only be their coach. He was like, you and that kid go get some ice cream. If they wanna talk about it, yeah, talk about it.

• 50:53Speaker 03

  If they don't wanna talk about it, it's okay. It's okay.

• 50:57Speaker 03

  Especially if they get back up and trying again. And I think going back to say this again is incredibly important. Having unresolved dreams and fears does not make you a bad parent, nor does it make you a bad person. But it does make you someone who needs to consider that, because there's a void in a space there that is for you to hold, not for your child to hold. Your child is not gonna be what you thought you should be. And you need to be okay with that. Your child is gonna be whoever they develop into, not whoever you want them to be. And that's, that's sometimes, that's sometimes hard for parents to hear out loud.

• 51:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, and we're talking about it within the context of sports, but I think that that applies to lots of the conversation we had today, right? Like, how much of our own resolved fears, our hopes and dreams, really, we kinda project onto our kids?

• 51:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, one hundred percent. One hundred percent, yeah.

• 51:55Speaker 00

  So, the other question I have about sports stuff is, how do you hold space for your child's big dream? While also helping them to be maybe more realistic, right? So, like, all of the kids that wanna be professional football players, or I wanna, you know, be like the top one percent tennis player in the world. And we know only one out of five thousand people like get this opportunity. So, you wanna encourage that, but you also wanna help them maybe expand their thinking, like, maybe have a plan B. What would be your suggestion for how we support kids with their big dreams?

• 52:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think it's a delicate balance of letting them to arrive there. You not gonna get them to arrive there as a function of what you think. As much as you want them to, like, I mean, we kinda do this trick in our head all the time, where it's like, if I tell them, then that's exactly what they'll think.

• 52:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, good luck. Good luck in telling a child what you think, and then they go automatically just adopt what you think. That's diabolical. Diabolical at its best. And I, and I'm gonna tell you something, to that point, the idea of realistic is tough with me. For me specifically, my wife of twenty years, she's only really had one verse of encouragement for me for the last twenty years. She was like, yeah, you don't surprise me when you do well. I just don't get up for that. You surprise me when you fail, so try your best not to surprise me.

• 53:24Speaker 03

  That's the only thing she would tell me, and my point to saying that is, is that like, maybe somebody would've called it unrealistic for me to become who I am today. Maybe, and I got here at forty.

• 53:39Speaker 03

  But I got here. I think somewhere that desire to be great was fostered. And now the desire is maybe stronger than we can control.

• 53:53Speaker 03

  And so, the athletic system may be the very thing that'll teach them that, and they'll learn a lot in that process. But the process of becoming great at something is something that can be utilized across the board, like, you know, Malcolm Gladwell talks about the ten thousand hours. You know, a lot of people who don't make it to the NBA still put in the ten thousand hours, and they learned a very valuable lesson, which is how to become excellent at something.

• 54:18Speaker 03

  And once they learn how to apply it to something else, they already know the formula it takes to become good at something. You practice, you practice, you learn, you retool, you get feedback, you practice, you learn, you retool, you get, practice, you feed. And then eventually, at some point, you become, oh, really good at it. I think of it as kinda like residency. I've been in residency for five years now, like, this is my fifth year. And so, man, at this point,

• 54:44Speaker 03

  I'm pretty convinced I've gotten enough practice.

• 54:47Speaker 00

  Right.

• 54:48Speaker 03

  But clearly, they're like, no, you need a little bit more, you know? And so, I think, at the end of the day, that conversation between the parents and the child needs to be allowed. Okay, what are your goals? What are your goals? I'll never forget this, when I interviewed with Steve Harvey, and Steve Harvey said that he never had a plan B. He said he always had a plan A. I was like, dang, I was like, that's crazy. And now, in hindsight, like, I understand exactly what he's talking about. That, like, yeah, I never had a plan B, I only had a plan A.

• 55:24Speaker 03

  And I was willing to do what it took to make plan A work. And I think that's the piece that sometimes is challenging for parents, because they see the child right now, and they're like, I don't think you're doing what it takes to get to where you want to be, but you've never been there before.

• 55:43Speaker 03

  And maybe they're in this stagnation period. It like, you know, even when I was in the Navy, they was like, you ain't gonna never be a doctor. And I was like, what? And then when I got out of the Navy, and I became a security guard at the hospital, and they was like, mm, I don't think you got what it takes to be a doctor. And I was like, okay, cool. All right, now, I'm four different types of doctor. Like, I think sometimes we can kill people's dreams with our own dreams and fears. Or the unresolved dreams and fears of our own. It's like, you can't do that, cuz I couldn't do that. And so, you support them, the child, honestly, more often than not, will help you to understand what's reasonable.

• 56:27Speaker 03

  The system will shake out. Kid wants to go to the NFL, and they not really cutting into high school or whatever, then the system probably gonna help them to figure out a different pathway.

• 56:37Speaker 00

  Right.

• 56:37Speaker 03

  Or maybe they'll get to college and help and figure out a different, or maybe they'll get to college and blossom. Those parts we don't know. We do have to foster the kid with the resources we do have reasonably to try to get to their goals, and maybe they won't land at their goal that they thought they would get at, but they'll land somewhere, that's for sure. They will land somewhere. There are a lot of athletes who are now physicians, lawyers, CEOs, business owners, influencers, motivational speakers, all these different kinds of things, right? Like, I think about Ryan Clark all the time. Ryan Clark went from being a world-class athlete in the National Football League to now like a world-class, like, journalist, like, you know, he's a podcast host, and like, people know him all over the world for

• 57:23Speaker 03

  his ability to think out loud and critically analyze things and stuff of that nature. But like, somebody could've easily told him at some period before, like, no, you good at football, but you could never be, you know, a world-renowned ESPN host, like, then what? And then he actually doesn't, then what? And so, I don't know if we know. We don't know who the next great person is gonna be.

• 57:48Speaker 03

  But what I do know is that the people who did become great were fostered by somebody. I talk about it all the time, like, people used to say, security guards don't become doctors, which they were right, because I became a double doctor.

• 58:01Speaker 03

  So, you know, it is what it is. You know what I mean? Like, you know, I think we have to, within reason, encourage these kids, man. They got enough things telling them they can't do something.

• 58:13Speaker 03

  They don't have a shortage of things telling them they can't do something, especially black girls. I'm raising two black girls, and I love this podcast therapy for black girls. So, specifically, I'm gonna be biased here and say, like, especially for black girls.

• 58:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, you can do whatever.

• 58:26Speaker 03

  I mean, Michelle Obama was not the first lady of the world getting talked about for her braids, like, that's crazy, like.

• 58:34Speaker 03

  Listen, Rob, I be telling my daughters, you could be astronaut, baby. Go to Mars. Go to Mars.

• 58:38Speaker 00

  Whatever, whatever. So, my last question, Doctor of the Day, is a little bit of a funny one, but the parents really wanna know, and I specifically wanna know, is there some science behind why these teens and tweens wanna wear coats and hoodies in the summertime? And then when it's actually cold, everybody wants to be in shorts. Is there a scientific reason?

• 58:59Speaker 03

  It is cool.

• 59:01Speaker 00

  It's just a cool thing to do.

• 59:02Speaker 03

  It's a cool thing to do, man. It's a cool thing to do. I'm pretty sure we had some quirks when we were that age, too.

• 59:08Speaker 00

  Probably, probably.

• 59:10Speaker 03

  Like, man, come on, man, we was wearing starter jackets, bruh.

• 59:13Speaker 00

  Starter jackets were very cool. But I feel like I only remember wearing a starter jacket when it was weather, like, jacket time. I don't feel like I remember wearing a jacket. You, so you were wearing your starter jacket all year?

• 59:24Speaker 03

  I wasn't wearing mine, but I know all the people care we was.

• 59:29Speaker 03

  Nah, and ain't nobody saying nothing to him.

• 59:31Speaker 00

  Oh hilarious.

• 59:33Speaker 03

  And now these kids got AirPods and cell phones and you know, makeup and you know, lip gloss and they don't even pass phone numbers on sticky notes no more.

• 59:46Speaker 00

  No.

• 59:47Speaker 03

  They pass out IG and I don't even think it's IG, so I think it's Snap, Snap.

• 59:51Speaker 00

  Snapchat.

• 59:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, it might not even be Snap, it might be TT's, you know what I mean? You know, like, hey, you know, you just gotta, hey, hey, rock with them. That's the least harmful thing, man, like, that's not, it's not the end of the world, you know, that's not, that's not.

• 1:00:08Speaker 00

  So let them wear their hoodies, you are a fan of letting them.

• 1:00:10Speaker 03

  First of all, let's just, let me ask you this question, the kid is wearing a hoodie, who bought him the hoodie?

• 1:00:16Speaker 00

  I bought the hoodie for the winter, Dr. Ledet, not for.

• 1:00:19Speaker 03

  No, you bought the hoodie for them to wear. You ain't buy the hoodie for the winter, not to mention, you know, he said, you wearing this hundred dollar hoodie, who, who's hundred dollars bought it? Who's hundred dollars bought it? Where the hundred dollars come from? How many times we clock in to get that hundo?

• 1:00:38Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying? And not you mad they getting use out of it?

• 1:00:41Speaker 00

  Right, right, we should be grateful that they're actually putting our money to good use.

• 1:00:45Speaker 03

  They, they could be throwing it under the bed. Then you gonna be mad at them, I buy you all the clothes and you don't even wear it, well, now I'm wearing it, you got a problem with that too.

• 1:00:53Speaker 00

  True, true. It's all about perspective, right? It's all about.

• 1:00:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, man, you know, hey, that's a sign you probably done made it a little bit. If your kid can just wear a hoodie, then when they get off school, they gonna ask you for Chick-fil-A and Starbucks, like, you already know how this go. Yeah, I ain't getting y'all no Starbucks and Chick-fil-A, but why we in the driveway right now? Why are we in the drive-thru? What we doing in the drive-thru right now? Why you on the app right now? You know?

• 1:01:20Speaker 00

  You're right.

• 1:01:20Speaker 03

  You know, you got all these points, stars, gold stars. You a diamond member at Chick-fil-A.

• 1:01:29Speaker 03

  I'm not wrong.

• 1:01:31Speaker 00

  You're not, you're not, you calling us out just a little bit, just a little bit.

• 1:01:35Speaker 03

  That's gonna be my content today, as a matter of fact. You a diamond member at Chick-fil-A and mad at the kid for asking for it. How they got diamond? Where you get diamond from?

• 1:01:45Speaker 00

  Everybody helped, everybody helped, it was, it was a group effort.

• 1:01:51Speaker 00

  Well, thank you so much for answering all of our questions, Dr. Ledet, this has been so incredibly helpful. Please remind people where they can get more of your content and stay connected with you.

• 1:02:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, you can follow me on all the social media platforms at Dr. Russell Ledet, that's D R R U S S E L L L E D E T, and if you ever are interested in me coming to speak at one of your events or whatever, you can visit www.russellledet.com. As always, I love y'all, I'm praying for y'all, and I'll see y'all next time.

• 1:02:19Speaker 00

  Perfect, thank you so much.

• 1:02:22Speaker 03

  You're welcome.

• 1:02:25Speaker 00

  I'm so glad Dr. Ledet was able to join me for this conversation and excited that he was able to come back and thoughtfully engage with our wonderful community. To learn more about him and his work, be sure to visit the show notes at therapyforblackgirls.com/session478. And don't forget to text this episode to two of your girls right now and tell them to check it out. Did you know that you could leave us a voicemail with your questions or suggestions for the podcast? If you have movies or books you'd like for us to review or have thoughts about topics we should discuss? Drop us a message at memorial.fm/therapyforblackgirls and let us know what's on your mind. We just might feature it on the podcast. If you're looking for a therapist in your area, visit our therapist directory at therapyforblackgirls.com/directory.

• 1:03:09Speaker 00

  Don't forget to follow us on Instagram at @therapyforblackgirls. And come on over and join us in our Patreon community for exclusive updates, behind the scenes content, and much more. You can join us at community.therapyforblackgirls.com.

• 1:03:24Speaker 00

  This episode was produced by Elise Ellis, Inde Chubu, and Bria Mosley. Editing was done by Dennis and Bradford. Thank y'all so much for joining me again this week. I look forward to continuing this conversation with you all real soon. Take good care.

• 1:03:43Speaker 00

  A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. In season seven of Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, host Martine Hackett continues the conversation with people living with MG, CIDP, and the broader rare disease community, exploring what comes after diagnosis through stories of hope, progress, and connection. Produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenx. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:04:13Speaker 07

  Hey, it's Covino and Rich Davis from Covino and Rich. Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability, and it starts with a great deal on an off-road Ready Tacoma or half-ton Tundra, two of Toyota's most capable and longest-lasting trucks. Combining power for work, tech for adventures, and style in between. Built on reputation for quality and reliability. Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which can mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. So get a great deal today and great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for more. Toyota, let's go places.

• 1:04:48Speaker 00

  Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? Zepbound, terzepatide, may be able to help. Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with obesity, or some adults with overweight who also have weight-related medical problems to lose excess body weight and keep the weight off. Zepbound is approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, or 15-milligram injection. Zepbound contains terzepatide and should not be used with other terzepatide-containing products or any GLP-1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if Zepbound is safe and effective for use in children. Don't share needles or pens or reuse needles.

• 1:05:30Speaker 00

  Don't take if allergic to it, or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer, or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop Zepbound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction. Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia. If you're nursing, pregnant, plan to be, or taking birth control pills. Taking Zepbound with a sulfonilurea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems. Talk to your doctor.

• 1:06:10Speaker 00

  Call 1-800-545-5979, or visit zepbound.lily.com.

• 1:06:18Speaker 01

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.