Episode 43 – ADHD and Teens: A Conversation with Maggie Dent

Jane McFadden:

Hello and welcome back to ADHD Mums. In this podcast, we tackle the tough, often unspoken realities of motherhood, neurodiversity and mental health. Hello and welcome to the next episode of ADHD Mums.

Today, we have got one guest that I have been chasing for over a year. It’s Maggie Dent. How are you, Maggie?

Maggie Dent:

I’m really good. Thank you for being persistent. My diary fills up scaringly quickly, especially as I’m winding back a little, like, you know, gradually because I’m 70 in March. So come on, girl, slow down.

Jane McFadden:

I saw you live on the Sunshine Coast this year. It was the best parenting seminar I have seen ever.

Maggie Dent:

That’s my stand-up comedy act, wasn’t it? Or was it something else?

Jane McFadden:

You know what? It was. And that’s what I loved about it. I wished I had have bought my husband because I kind of thought it was going to be content heavy. He’s not going to like it. And actually, he would have loved it.

Maggie Dent:

It’s a common response because so often what’s happened is the poor guy gets dragged along next time and he feels like he’s being dragged. But within, like, four or five minutes, their arms unfold because they kind of feel OK, all right. I didn’t think it was going to be this funny. And also, the shift between them, because guys’ communication is quite different, as all us females know if we’re in a relationship with a guy. And so for me, I’m blessed that I can speak both languages.

And so swinging between them, but also every human is engaged with stories. And as you know, there are so many stories within my presentations because of my work, not only in teaching and counselling, but as a mother to four feral sons. And then all the stories that parents share with me that I’m deeply honoured to shine into the light because it helps us all see things differently when we feel the truth of them, rather than this is what the research says.

And so often when I see the research, I go, yeah, that wouldn’t work with most boys. That’s not going to work, but good luck.

Jane McFadden:

And sometimes the research is really far behind as well, I’ve noticed. It takes so long. Exactly. By the time we figure out and research it, it’s kind of like old news. It’s not really progressive. So I thought yours was far ahead of any research.

And also, you know, in the neurodivergent space, right? We’ve got some cutting edge stuff that’s been around for like seven or eight years that still is in mainstream schooling. It isn’t in university teacher training. And you think, come on, it’s a bit like one of my biggest pet hates is behaviourism is still the most fundamental behaviour strategy that we follow in schools when we know we’ve got so much evidence that it really doesn’t work long-term and it mainly works with rats. Anyway, I’ll get off my box and…

Maggie Dent:

Oh, look, I love it.

Jane McFadden:

And you know what? This is going to be off topic, but we’re back on topic in just a second, Maggie. I saw on social media that you were going to do a workshop, possibly with Vanessa Lapointe. I always never know how to say the last name. Holy moly. It was like Christmas day had come for me. It’s so interesting how you can connect with like-minded souls.

Maggie Dent:

I was at an international conference in Vancouver in Canada in 2012. And early childhood educator, I was presenting my real kids 10 building blocks, you know, a humble little speaker in the back corner. And she delivered a seminar just straight away. I hadn’t done a lot of study around Gordon Neufeld’s work. I knew all about attachment, but she just nailed it in a way. And so that connection, I’ve just strolled right up and said, you and I, we’re going to be friends.

We work it out later. She’s a prairie girl and I’m a farm girl. And we’re only mothers of boys, but our passion is very similar. So we’ve become just best friends. So it’s our excuse to catch up as I get her out here and work a bit, she gets me to Canada to work a bit. It’s really only to catch up as friends.

Jane McFadden:

It’s so exciting. And I think I found the delivery and the same with Vanessa around, yes, there’s books. We all can read a book, but if you could nail the delivery and the message and the stories like both of you do, that content actually gets through. As to handing my husband a book and him going, yeah, I might read that. Never. Not even in the toilet because they’ve got their phone now.

There was a chance with a post-it note on the side near the toilet, but not now. And they don’t always read what we tag them on. When I’m working with them, I keep saying read it when she tags you on something, dude. My husband never tags me, never reads or anything I said. Anyway, back onto topic. So you have got a brand new book out on teenagers. Congratulations to you.

I have a eight, seven and five year old. I’ve got one girl and two boys. And so on this podcast, we do seem to focus on the under 10 age group just because that’s where my head’s at. And I’m sure I’ll probably go teenage heavy in the next five years, but we have a lot of people requesting teenage content, which is fair enough. And then I saw your book come out.

So today’s topic is going to be on teenagers. How do you think your content and your diversity, like, can we meet in the middle or is it different? How does it work? A lot of people have questions around that.

Maggie Dent:

Yeah. Look, to be really honest, every single human being and every single child wants to be seen, heard, if understood would be great, valued and loved. And so, so much of, you know, my work actually, when I, you know, cause in the early years, I didn’t really put a special focus, but I’ve been teaching neurodivergent kids in my classrooms for 15 years. Most of them were boys because I probably missed some of the masking of some of the girls.

But we also remember we didn’t have inclusion in those days. So not, not a lot were in our classrooms. And so intuitively, I also found I’m extremely restless. If you’ve seen me present, my brain doesn’t remember stuff unless I’m moving. So I figured out I had to move in classrooms. So when I started to realize and watch boys walk around, the occasional one had been identified as ADHD, but the rest were just restless, sitting still too long.

And that was a bit me. And I thought, cause I’m a bit like a boy. So, you know, I started introducing brain breaks and I started letting them sit on the floor if they were right on the floor, if they handed it to me. So without even knowing it, Jane, I was accommodating for a lot of kids. You know, if anyone looked in the window, they would have said, she’s lost control of the class. They’re not sitting at a desk.

What sort of hopeless teacher have we got here? But of course the results were exceptional. And the other thing I did without knowing it is I actually really valued my connection to every kid in my classroom. And so I’d start every year group saying every single one of you matters to me, not just the smart kids who do great in English. You all matter. My only promise is I’m going to do the best I can so that the end of the year are a bit better than you are now. But in the meantime, you matter as a whole person, not just a brain on a seat.

I don’t think any teacher had done that. And so they felt safer. And when we feel safer, the nervous system is safer, isn’t it? So they’re more likely to want to kind of hang in there with you a bit more.

And also to know that when they lose it, and of course, you know, adolescence is already another layer of not much cognitive capacity for making great choices. So kind of it all merged together, Jane. And I think that was where I began to understand it.

And then one of my own sons, you know, every now and then there was a teacher saying, Oh, I’m sure he’s got ADHD. He never can sit still and he calls out too much. And I just saw him as a highly spirited human.

Anyway, so moving forward, as we go into adolescence, my approach is that every teenager will make poor choices, right? They’re wired for it. Yes, neurodivergent kids are likely to possibly make more because of all the, you know, we know that impulsivity can be a challenge and staying on track can be a challenge. But I am going to argue all the way through that every parent, regardless of whether your child is neurodivergent or not, you have to change the way that you are coming alongside them in order to develop their resilience is a bit overused, but their capacity to step out one day and navigate a world however they find it.

And that we really have to stop rushing in and fixing things, doing their homework, because it’s not helping them develop those skills around that. And one of the big ones of mine is we need to celebrate failure in adolescence, because it’s one of those windows where very soon you’re going to be a grown up in a workspace or studying, and you’re going to have failure moments.

And that we need to not see that as our kids have messed up, failed, something wrong with them, they’re flawed, they’re broken. No, they’re human. And one of the first tips I want to give you is can parents of teens muck up more often in front of their teens and just own it? Because I did that with mine, mainly because I’m a bit forgetful, but also I was perimenopausal at the time, so my memory had gone to crap. So I couldn’t remember much either.

So it was really quite funny because they were helping me remember and I’m trying to help them remember, but we made a lot of lightness around it. And I sense today’s world. I mean, our teens are struggling so much more at higher levels in every area. So no wonder parents are more worried, but also parents are more stressed today. So it’s hard to turn up with lightness, but I’m going to challenge you that if you can do that when you’re getting yelled at or slammed doors or whatever’s going down, they’re arguing the heck out of it, which is all developmentally appropriate, that we don’t buy into it and join into the fight and let us become another combatant in the moment of the heat, then you will notice a significant difference because they’re still looking for what I call a safe base.

And the research is so strong around, that’s research I do agree with. It just says the safer the base at home, the better the chance they’re going to navigate all the bumps of this bumpy ride with more effectiveness that might not lead to significant mental health challenges or even significant accidents.

Jane McFadden:

Oh, absolutely. I love that. I’ve got my first question here is, can you explain some of the changes that happen in the teenage brain and how this affects decision-making communication?

Maggie Dent:

So much on that one. So much. So let’s start with the very first thing. Girls go into puberty before boys. So your girls will be anywhere from tween years onwards. Boys are a little bit later. They’re cognitively behind, socially, emotionally behind. So you might notice, you know, your girl getting some sass much earlier than you had hoped. And then in the journey, we’re going to change the child brain, hopefully to a mature adult brain.

So mother nature in its wisdom is going to prune off stuff you’re not using and remodel and reshape the brain. So it’s not all bad news, but the first bit that is pretty bad news for mothers of boys is they weren’t remembering stuff before puberty very well. They weren’t good at organization, still can’t find their socks. They forgot, where’s my blazer? I left my button. So unfortunately, that gets pruned even a bit more.

And one of the key things is you will almost sometimes feel like an alien flew in your house and stole your boy and replaced them with this grumpy boy that’s giving you monosyllabic grunts and feeling angry. When they’ve noticed they forget more and more disorganized, they actually really get angry at themselves as well as you. They are incredibly confused. So my tip is if you’ve got a tween boy, you know, sit him down and explain what might be coming, that this whole journey is bumpy.

Your brain is not going to be a mature brain to closer to 30. There are going to be times you’re going to forget stuff and mess stuff up and turn up at the wrong orthodontist and all these things, but it’s a part of what’s happening. So the pruning, now you know it, but also accidentally in boys, the pruning can prune away their cognitive capacity to speak articulately. Right? So, so often I hear moms yelling at their boys, open your mouth, open your mouth. I can’t hear you. It’s not his mouth. It’s his brain. He did not ask for it to happen.

And I think when you get that in your head, the way you come alongside them is different. And I had two of mine who went there and two that didn’t. So it was kind of, it was interesting. So being able to be loving in that space, not just frustrated as hell.

And for girls, the pruning can do all sorts of different things, but they use all those bits where you get deliberately silent girls and moody girls, but they’re not monosyllabic. So of course they do better in my English classroom, you know.

Okay. Second one, the same time that that’s happening, the way they see themselves can change. And we know that all of us go through patches. Girls had body dissatisfaction, even in my ages in the sixties, even without Instagram magazines, filters and Photoshopped images. You know, so it’s a natural thing for us to go into. So you can see why it gets so much worse with the toxic influences of what our girls are marinated in online.

Secondly, the brain, other than the pruning, it’s remodeling. So what it does, if we were back and we still got these biological drives, if we were back in the African Savannah or somewhere, you know, right out in the deep, dark, wild expanses of Australia, you had to learn really fast as a boy to become a man or else you were dead. Right. So it was about survival. So it grew lots more dendrites, which helps us learn really, really fast, which is this unexpected window.

I call it the exciting window, even though it’s in the middle of the crap window, and that you can pick up a musical instrument, learn another language, get excited about physics. You know, your dance can go to another level, your football, whatever you’re into. If you throw energy into that, you get so much better, so much quicker. And this is why I’m really passionate about exceptional teachers in schools, because if you can light a flame in a kid in the high school, their whole life can change.

So that’s a really wonderful thing. But the sad thing about too many dendrites is you have a higher capacity for unfortunately becoming problematically or addicted to vaping, smoking, porn, online behavior, gaming, everything that you don’t want them to be into. So that’s the window that as parents, as you come, you are going to keep the rails on the bridge pretty tight. You absolutely have to have boundaries because they can’t make the good choices.

Around 16, 17, the brain gets into a much more mature space, and that window closes. So it also means I don’t get to be good at stuff as quick either. So that’s good to know, isn’t it, in that window.

And then on top of that, the myelination, which is gradually laying myelin on the brain, that helps us think better. And so often when I say to parents, I say, what were you thinking to their teen? Well, they haven’t got enough myelin to think deeply and critically. So that means they’re not good at empathy. They’re not good at planning for the future, motivating themselves to do their homework. All of the things that we’d love them to have, that doesn’t develop to the 20s.

So we need to come alongside them sometimes and help them co-decision make, collaborate rather than tell them what to do, because absolutely nobody likes being told what to do.

Now, there’s a couple of others under the brain bit that are particularly for boys. The impulse inhibiting neurochemical called GABA gets turned off. So way dumber things, way quicker, more risky. Girls will do risky behavior too, but the boys go to a whole new level, partly because of testosterone. And those surges are really profound. And that really, you know, there is often up to 60% of boys actually have a really big drop in empathy.

I don’t give a stuff, see if I care. And that’s your precious boy. Now, he didn’t ask for these things to happen. So it’s really important, Jane, that I keep on saying, when you understand it better, then you are able to parent better. But if you think he’s deliberately getting out of bed grumpy, wanting to be disrespectful, you’re going to miss a whole lot of guidance in this window because they are seriously dying and struggling more than ever in harmful ways. And they absolutely need us to be a bit better alongside.

So we’re going to change the, you know, the whole previous generations ways. You just had to be firm on them. You just punish them. You just ground them forever. No, they don’t learn a damn thing. And there’s a chance that they may go and self-harm as a consequence of being treated that way, when they’re struggling to make sense of this bumpy, crazy ride that was bumpy for every single one of us too.

Jane McFadden:

Oh, that makes total sense because, you know, my belief diagnosing a child means we have a deeper empathy for where they’re coming from. Hyperactivity, they can’t go to bed. Let’s have a look at it from their point of view.

That sounds like just 20% worse throughout the teenage years that you need to go even deeper into empathy.

Maggie Dent:

Although, if you can get them in that spark window because hyper-focus when they’re really excited about something. So if you can get a spark that’s outside of school and that’s something they’re good at, anything they’ve got mastery over in this window, it helps them feel better about themselves, regardless of what the world is telling them.

So again, even if it’s baking, cooking pancakes, racing motorbikes, no matter what it is, I think that’s the really big, exciting one in this window. I must share a story because I was supporting a boy with ADHD who there was a bit of, you know, conflict with mum at home in a pretty big way. Anyway, he did one of those impulsive things. Every boy in year nine can do it. It’s not just neurodivergent boys, seriously. Anything to make boys laugh, you know, they’ll fart, they’ll do God knows what in a classroom.

And anyway, he got really angry because the deputy principal publicly shamed him, shouted at him, right? So he was really, really upset and hurt because that’s not, you know, I’d already been coaching him around grown-ups can do things respectfully. Anyway, so he went and graffitied his car, but unfortunately he used his own name.

Jane McFadden:

Oh, why?

Maggie Dent:

Yeah, because he was in the moment, right? It’s his favourite tag, you see? And his mum dragged me down to see me because I was counselling full-time then, and you know all he needed, he just needed someone to hug him because he was feeling really super stupid. His mates were laughing about it. Thank God we didn’t have social media then, so no photos were online, but every single teen that makes a really poor choice, particularly publicly and public shaming is particularly dangerous.

And that’s what the world is doing to them at the moment, whether it’s catfishing online or it’s trolling online or it’s sextortion. We’re pushing our kids to death because the public shaming, all he wanted was somebody to love him while he’d done something crazy. I did have a lot of snot on my shoulder, but can you see sometimes even as a parent, just turn up and hug the hell out of them, right? Because they’ve got something big they’ve got to process and get through. They need someone on their side.

And if it’s not mum and dad, it’s those lighthouse figures I write about, which is significant adult allies, whether it’s extended family. And in my From Boys to Men book, I noticed how significant grandparents were in that space. If it’s not that, it’s a counsellor or it’s a teacher who gets you, who lets you swing by after class and just sits on the desk and has a bit of a chat. They’re just trying to connect with somebody whose face lights up a bit while they’re on this bumpy journey.

Jane McFadden:

I’d noticed you get behind the 36 months campaign. I’ve definitely got behind them as well. We’ve done some cross promos together. I think, you know, I mean, I don’t need to tell you shame is the lowest form of feeling that you can possibly have.

We need to acknowledge, Shane, that we know that a lot of neurodivergent kids can use their phones for regulation, whether it’s their music or their gaming or something like that.

Maggie Dent:

I absolutely get that. But it’s the social media side of it that we’ve really got to be able to put boundaries around so they get just enough when they’re a bit older. But can you see the worst time too for any teenager is night time because the prefrontal comes offline. So the worst behaviour is at night.

So anyone listening who cannot get that phone out of their teen’s hands already, just limit how much time. So that means in your house, all the phones are in the kitchen by, you know, 10 o’clock. Don’t get them till seven. Also make sure your Wi-Fi is not accessible via their iPads and laptops that they work on.

In other words, you can’t access it between those hours because not only does that mean you’re less likely to either betray or be the victim of awful stuff, but there’s a really good chance you’re going to get a better night’s sleep. And that’s a massive message as we move through this because of all the cognitive changes and the physical changes and the emotional changes. They need more sleep and they’re getting less. And then look what happens when they’re in high school with big subject loads, even less.

So there’s one more thing I didn’t mention in the brain bit. Can I go?

Jane McFadden:

Oh, please go for it.

Maggie Dent:

Okay. So the limbic brain, the emotional brain does some big changes. So that’s the other big one. Their emotional responses are going to be bigger.

I talk about the boy that came in my English class and 10 minutes after the class started, just kicked his desk through his chair, through all his papers, punched his fist into a wall and stormed out of the room. And everyone in the room just looked around, nobody knowing what had happened, even his friends. Anyway, when I went and got him some water and I sat down beside him and I just, I said, so what’s happened? And he said, I failed my maths test. He said that with an F word. And he said it was so important to me. And so I said, stay here till you’re ready. You come in when you’re ready.

Now, in most schools, you would send him to be punished. You would. All right. And still, so when I went back in the room, what was beautiful, his mates and his friends had put all this stuff back together and like, because they knew it. It’s what I called the tipping point.

And the tipping point, we can’t see what else is happening to our teen during the day. They may be having people being kind to them. They might’ve, like that boy, failed a test. But when they get to the tipping point, you just, you flip your lid and they don’t have the same cognitive capacity as grownups to go, jeez, I’m getting stressed. I’m just going to go and sit outside for a while. I’m going to make a cup of tea and have a Tim Tam. I’m not going to go out and do some downward dogs. I mean, they just haven’t got that, that bandwidth yet. They just flip.

And that’s why we’re increasing self-harm while we’ve still got a way too high figure for suicide, because it’s just too big for them to deal with. In other words, the whole world has got so dark. There’s no light in it. And that’s the metaphor I kept saying to parents. Do you want to add to their darkness? Or do you want to add to their light? Because the light means they will stay here with us. No parent ever wants to go through, you know, finding their kid who’s been self-harming.

And then in that window, they can get too excited. And I think a lot of parents will remember when Tay Tay was in Australia, you know, it really was getting a bit over the top in your home. It was too much. It wasn’t. It can be good and bad, but we need to recognize. And this is something I’ve had a number of parents come up to me. So I’m going to share it because I didn’t realize it was quite so significant that one of my volatile, the one that they all thought had ADHD, came in one day and gave me an absolute serve because I wasn’t letting him go to this party because I don’t let you go to parties until year 11. He’s in year 10. He thinks he should go. Everyone’s going. And I look like a dork. And you’re the worst mother on earth and gave me a big serve and then stomped off to his room and slammed the door.

And so about 20 minutes later, because I know that when you settle a glitter jar, it can take about 20 minutes, right? I made sure I was really calm, made him a Milo, got a Tim Tam, went down, knocked at his door. And I always recommend for parents, if you’ve got boys particularly, wait 20 seconds. And then I opened the door. I didn’t say anything. I just put the Milo in. I put the Tim Tam in. I shoved the dog in and I shut the door and I came back to the kitchen.

And, you know, and I see people thinking, God, why don’t you tell him it was disrespectful? You know, my hope, if he was a mature adult, I’d expect him to come back at some time and go, gosh, that was really inappropriate and disrespectful. I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings, but it’s a teenager. Because what I know has happened and it’s happened to so many people is when they do come out later, like they know that we’re still okay. They’ll sometimes give you a nudge, mumble a sorry, but we’re still okay, right? Because we don’t know what sort of day they’ve had.

So I’m going to say, it’s almost counterintuitive, but bring kindness into your home when you’ve got a moody, grumpy teenager who thinks you’re just the worst person on earth. Because it’s really hard to keep being mean to someone who’s been kind to you.

Jane McFadden:

Oh, that was, sorry, I was reflecting on my own parents then. And it’s so amazing. I had two beautiful parents. I was super blessed that they passed away early. So I miss them a lot. But as a teenager, I attempted suicide a couple of times at a very rough, rough ride. And I had great parents. I was undiagnosed autistic. So it was a whole thing, right? But it wasn’t their fault. But I was reflecting on the fact that it never occurred to me to check in with them at all, because I knew how much they loved me.

Maggie Dent:

Yes.

Jane McFadden:

You didn’t need to do it.

Maggie Dent:

Yeah.

Jane McFadden:

Yeah. And I just, the way that you portrayed that from a parent point of view, I thought it wouldn’t have even occurred to me as a teenager to check in with them. It’s huge. Because I just knew they were on my side.

Maggie Dent:

That’s an incredible way of saying it. Well, what we are is we’re social species and connection is our number one thing that makes us feel safe. So if we’ve suddenly, you know, been busted because of something, the school rang and they’re, you know, they’ve come in and they’ve, you know, they’ve also, you know, displayed distress. It’s like the whole day is worse. But their capacity to manage that. We just, you know, often as a teenager piled on all the list of the things that’s wrong with me.

And I too had a spontaneous suicide attempt when I failed an essay when I was at uni. Because the only thing that I thought was good about me was that I was pretty good at essays and I was pretty smart at school. And also my relationship with my mum was distant and aloof. And I do remember those words that sometimes us girls don’t ever forget. You know, I was too loud and I’ll never amount to anything. And because I didn’t like dresses, I was a failed female in my mum’s eyes because she was glamorous and gorgeous.

Anyway, I did heal the relationship later. So settle down everyone. But I was at university, a country kid in the city, all sorts of things that happened that were really scary for me. So my tipping point. And then when I failed that essay, something cracked. And the mask that I’d put up to the world. So I didn’t believe any of the other qualities in me that I was, you know, I had friends and I played sport and I was a school leader and, you know, I loved animals and I all these other things. I didn’t see them. I only saw the thing that didn’t work.

And the good thing for me, Jane, was the fact it didn’t work because I hadn’t planned it. And when I vomited up the tablets I’d taken and I was in a fetal position on the floor, the sun shone on me because I was a farm kid. So I was in nature a lot and I felt almost like I was being comforted in some strange, weird way. And then the thought landed for me, holy heck, I nearly did something that I really wouldn’t have wanted to do.

My God, look how vulnerable we are as 18 year olds. And that was when I decided to change from journalism to teaching because I felt I had all these things going for me that I didn’t recognize, that self-loathing, that self-hatred was already there and it just got too much on that day. And I decided I didn’t want to be here anymore. So you’re right. That’s the thing I want us to keep in mind, that there’s this fragility and it is in boys even more than girls because girls often tend to talk about their feelings or if they’ve got friends or if they’ve got a safe auntie or something, they do tend to want to process and talk.

That’s what a best catch-up with girlfriends is that we cry, we laugh, we dive into some really deep stuff, we go home feeling better. That’s not what boys do. So again, that’s what’s driven a lot of my work because I’ve worked with boys who have attempted and underneath it all, the way they see the world is like a cracked windscreen versus a clear windscreen.

And mine was equally as cracked even as an intelligent, cognitively capable girl. My view of myself was so distorted and that’s why I had to write this last book because I want parents to know, your kids are going to make bad mistakes, some of them big ones. I found a bong under your bed or you’re sexually active. I want to know how I can come alongside you to support you to overcome this hardship while you learn that this is your life. I’m not fixing it, not rescuing you, but I’m right beside you. I’ll make as much Milo and give you as many Tim Tams as you need, but I want you to work out because you are more than this.

And that really is very different to what we did in the past. And I just want to say one thing, absolutely no one likes being shouldered on or told what to do, even a toddler. So again, we tend to do that because we actually have experience that they would benefit from if they just listened. But they’re biologically wired not to because they’re developing their own autonomy, their own independence, which is what they’re meant to do. And they’re also individuating into a semi-early grown up, and they’re not a child anymore. So that’s why it gets confusing for parents who think, I’ll just ground them forever, they’ll be fine.

But we don’t learn anything from punishment. But we do learn something when there is a discipline that may happen as a consequence of a repeated thing, because I haven’t mislearned it. But we do it with compassion. We do it with kindness.

And can I share one story that came from a dad, which is just so powerful, because so often when the dads tell me the stories, I know I’m hitting some home bases. And it was about this couple and their 14-year-old boy who’d been in so much trouble. His grades were terrible, he’d been suspended twice, and the school had been in contact, they’d had meetings, and none of it was really working. It was grumpy, it was angry.

Anyway, the dad had been listening to the Conversations podcast with Richard Fidler, with me. And he had heard me say that sometimes you just need to make them feel safe, connect with them, with boys, make sure they’re fed, maybe take them for a walk, because it helps open up the word centre in the brain. And so he came in, he said to his wife, I’ve just been listening to this lady, and she said, oh, the school’s called again, you know, with a very sad look on her face. He’s in the bedroom, slammed the door, you know, he’s called out, hey, dude, let’s go for a walk.

Anyway, his son comes out very warily, because seriously, when your parents change, you go, what the heck’s going on here, right? Even if you come home from a parent seminar, they say, what did she say? Because you already do it, it’s weird. Okay, took him for a walk up to Maccas, which is about a kilometre and a half away. Sat down, had a big bucket of chips and a big thick shake, no interrogation, just had some time, you know.

And halfway on the way home, his son stopped and started sobbing. And his dad just held him, and the boy came out and told him what had been happening. These Year 11 boys have been picking on him all year. And they’ve told him if he dobs, they’re going to cut his face. Right, so this boy’s carried this burden all year, right, and he’s in his dad’s arms, he’s sobbing in his dad’s arms for like 10 minutes. Anyway, and then he perked up, and then they headed home.

And as he ran through the kitchen, he called out to his mum, hi mum, and raced to the bedroom. And she’s turned around and he’s gone. Who would have thought? A walk, bucket of chips, and a thick shake. And we’ve nailed it. And that is why we’ve got to change the way we do our communication with all of our kids. Because what did that cost, you know, an hour and what, $15 max? And he’s possibly completely changed that child’s life.

His risk for self-harm diminished completely. He’s now got his parents on side, and they will collaborate with him, so we don’t race off and, you know, that’s the other thing. Do not race off. We’re going to sit down together and work out what can we do that’s going to help you get through this, what steps. And if he really needs to, sometimes it does mean we shift schools, we do something else. But we’re going to sit down together and plan it together, even though he’s 14.

But the fact that that horrible, dark wound and secret has now had light shone on it, he just bounced through the house. And I think that’s exactly what sometimes the lighthouse figure can be in our homes. And I want everyone who’s listening, it’s not about your kids either, it’s about all our kids. Make your house welcome for them. Whatever it is, just turn up, offer to take rides for them, you know, offer to have sleepovers, even though they should just be called overs. No phones.

Make sure there’s food, pizzas, fire pits, music, dancing, whatever, because they’re not meeting in real time. They’re ending up with less social skills and more harm, because they’re digital natives now. And digital natives still need strong connection with real-time humans.

So it’s a hard thing. And there’s a thing called Jomo out there, which is the joy of missing out on doing something out in public. FOMO is only online. And apparently there’s a new app. I couldn’t believe this, Jane, when I heard it. There’s a new app or two out there that tells teens how to make excuses that don’t offend their friends.

Jane McFadden:

Wow.

Maggie Dent:

I know, right? And then we’ve got AI in the mix where you can actually have a supposed relationship with an avatar. And unfortunately, you can fall in love with a thing that’s not real. So can you see how we’re messing with their brains?

Jane McFadden:

Yeah. Oh, completely. Completely. One more final question before we finish up, because I’ve got one burning one. When we’re talking about emotional regulation, which is really like what we’ve really gone into. And then I love that story that you told the boy in the bucket of chips, because I was thinking, okay, so he goes back into his room alone and his dad’s come and told him off. His mom’s told him off and he’s alone with his AI or his social media, whatever he’s doing, which is going to be very negative. And he’s emotionally very dysregulated. And we move from a self-hatred talk into a passive suicidal thought. And then we start escalating quickly, right? Because as you said, this emotional regulation is not great. So they’re going to go quickly or they can go quickly.

What types of strategies or techniques can we teach our kids around how to calm down?

Maggie Dent:

Oh, golly, wouldn’t that be lovely if they’d listened to us in the first place? Okay. So there’s quite a few things that I have regulated over the years. And because I had boys, there’s a lot of testosterone in my house. So there’s a lot of rattling and punching and hitting high points and whatever.

And I’d done a lot of work around the ways that we can calm the nervous system. So some of the first things are, is check your tone of voice. Always check it. Are you talking with a tone of voice you’d use with your best friend? Or are you just got the mum or parent voice on? Because doubly, that’s a big sign.

Second one, keep your terms of endearment up for your kids all the time. Because so often, as they get into adolescence, we stop calling them those fun names that we did when they were little. It doesn’t matter what it is. Get your terms of endearment. So they’re going to feel, hang on a minute, tone’s different, body language is different.

I kept a lot of music playing in my house that was slower than a heartbeat because I knew it would bring their nervous system down. But there were other days that I’d be doing really dumb ABBA music and dancing crazy. In other words, I knew I could shift the neurochemicals in their brains by being a ridiculous mother or having really cool dance moves.

Obviously around boys, you’ve really got to make sure that they don’t get hangry. Always have spare food ready in the car because a boy after school, who’s also coming from a war zone, who’s also probably been busted twice as many times because he couldn’t sit still and he couldn’t concentrate and he thought it was boring. And he’s probably right. Not able to regulate and everyone’s on his case all day. You can imagine all day.

We need to, once again, recognise he’s not the problem, the system’s the problem. And that we should, by then, have had some conversations about, well, how do I best support you when you get in the car after school? I want to know, would you like to just listen to some music? Would you like to just watch some dumb, funny cat and dog videos? Would you like to watch people playing Minecraft? Which I cannot understand why that’s a thing.

In other words, we collaborate with them to work out what you can do. And then in that space, my other thought is, what are three things? And I’d love them to write it down and it’s up in their room on a very large piece of paper. What are three things I do when I feel crap? I mean, you don’t put the crap bit up. But what are the three things? Because you’ve got to have it front and centre, whether it’s go and play with a dog, you know, jump on the trampoline, it’s listen to music, it’s what is it? What are the three things that work every time I do it?

Right? And then recognise it can take 20 minutes for them to be regulated back. So if they do need to go online and do something that helps them regulate, especially with neurodivergent kids, they’ve got their 20 minutes to get it down. They’ve got half an hour, right? But we also have a timer that goes off, you know, five minutes before. So they realise this is my regulation time. If I want to do something else later, I negotiate with my parents. Have I done my homework? Have I done my chores? Whatever.

And then the last thing is, work out what is their love language? I know it sounds ridiculous, but there’s five ways that we often connect and feel good. Not all kids like hugs. My oldest nearly broke my heart. He’s just not a hugger. I was ready with a million hugs and he’s back off mum, back off.

But I worked out what worked for him. I’d take him outside and shoot hoops. Love shooting hoops with his mum.

Jane McFadden:

I remember this in your conference.

Maggie Dent:

Yeah. Yeah. He’s 43. We still go up and shoot hoops here when he’s here with his grandkids, right? That’s how deep that connection was. I’ve got to work out what it is for each of them.

So another one is if you’ve got a hugger, that’s great. It means you also pounce on them sometimes when they’re crabby at you and you back off, you just leap on them. Whether it’s in the bedroom or in the hallway, you just leap on them and then run off. The next one is those words of appreciation. You know, thanks for that. You’ve emptied the dishwasher without me asking, which is a miracle in any home.

I noticed you put your clothes up. Just find one thing, word of appreciation. So incredible. And then you can look to what small gifts you might’ve thought of. I just remembered that you had run out of, you know, your favorite shampoo, so I’ve got it. Right? Just whatever it might be.

And our acts of service, and that’s another big one for the non-hugger. When I did something for him, like sometimes it was his turn to do the dishwasher, but if I saw that face and they’d had a big day at school, I’d do it. So when he came out to do it, he’d go, oh, it’s done. And I went, yeah, you look like you had a really big day at school. So I thought I’d do it for you today. It’s an acts of service, but I’ve done it out of kindness.

So I had very little of those massively volatile things because I’d worked out the ways, but I am going to say, I really believe as my granddaughters get to the tween years, and I remember me as a tween, a lot more big feelings. Boys tend to go through the storms quite quickly, and our girls can remember stuff for days. So I think we need to validate that feeling moody, feeling grumpy, being all over the shop, unpredictable, and it’s even harder for some of our neurodivergent kids.

And I love it when NeuroWorld talks about the fluctuating capacity, because that makes so much sense that teachers can understand too, that some days they’ve got it and some days they haven’t, but we don’t know what the sensory overload that created that or what the class before. So often I had to pick up the mess after a nasty teacher in a classroom before. I knew I couldn’t teach until I’d regrouped them and got them back. And we might’ve told jokes for 10 minutes, but can you see? I think when we understand that as we go forward.

And then I think the last one is the no matter what message. And this is the message I want you to write, notes, put in their lunchbox, put on their toilet wall, is there’s absolutely nothing that you can do that will stop me loving you. And that if anything big ever happens to you or your friends, you call us. The first thought needs to be, call my mum, call my dad. And that’s the no matter what, we’re going to love you no matter what.

And when they’ve got that message deeply embedded in their being, I can tell you it is so much better as a safety thing, especially after they’ve mucked up. You just go, no matter what, no matter what, dude, got your back.

Jane McFadden:

Yeah. Cause you do hear of people that probably were in a salvageable situation, then they’ve done something to try and get out of it. And then that’s where they’ve dug themselves a larger hole.

Maggie Dent:

Totally. Totally. And also I think it’s, you know, the very fact that I’m now recognising I’m walking beside my teen, not in front leading, not behind pushing and not carrying, then every now and then go, well, you know, what are your thoughts about that? How are you going to fix it? Why don’t you sleep on it? I’ve got so many of those communications you can use that when parents start using them, I cannot believe how many more conversations they’re having because the teen feels like they are actually really listening to me. They’re not telling me what I’m saying is wrong. They’re really listening.

So again, the biggest one is amongst that you’ve got exams coming. How can I support you? Yeah. I know you’ve got a difficult teacher this year, but we’ve got to get through that because there’s difficult people in life. How can we help you accommodate a different human while still knowing that you’re, you’re incredibly loved exactly as you are?

Jane McFadden:

Oh, well, that’s a beautiful note to finish up on Maggie. That was a emotional interview. I feel like I’ve gone on a complete ride. Thank you so much for your time. I really, really appreciate it.

If you’d like to check out Maggie’s new book, it’s going to be all of the show notes on teenagers. Plus you’re on a couple of podcasts, aren’t you Maggie?

Maggie Dent:

Yeah. Podcasts and obviously six seasons of Parental is Anything, but also The Good Enough Dad where we talk to dads, which I think I’m getting a whole new bunch of fans. I get stopped so much now by dads who want a hug and a photo because they want to send it to their wife. I think that’s just beautiful. So if you see me anywhere, I’m always up for a hug and a selfie. Seriously, except in toilets.

Jane McFadden:

I think that’s just, that would so be me. Thank you so much for your time, Maggie. I really, really appreciate it. You’ve had the good work. Take care. Bye.

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