S3E24
· 01:00:53
Hi, everyone. It's really nice to see you guys. Some of your faces are familiar, some I haven't had the chance to meet yet. My name is Cecily. I'm a marriage and family therapist here in Saskatchewan.
Cecily Brennan:I'm originally from California, so I'm a transplant. I'm married to my fantastic husband, Chris, in the back there. And, I'm really excited to be here to talk with all of you about this really important topic that's quite I think we're all feeling this in our in our culture as it's mental health has become quite a big umbrella to talk about. I'm really passionate about youth development and specifically the role of adults in our youth's lives. I get to work with adolescents, couples, individuals in a therapy context both privately and in a public role.
Cecily Brennan:So, I I love my job, I love what I get to do, and I love talking talking about this. It's really I feel like this is gonna be a really interactive kind of seminar and so I want you to feel free to get up, move around if you need to. I know it's quite warm in here and we've been doing a lot this weekend. And so some of you are tired. If you need to get up and grab a coffee to keep yourself awake, do what you gotta do.
Cecily Brennan:I want you to take care of you in this time. Okay? And there's gonna be lots of time for questions so feel free to, like, jot those down and then at the end we'll we'll make some space for some q and a. Okay. So, as we are diving into this topic, mental health, we hear these words anxiety, depression, trauma.
Cecily Brennan:These words are thrown around quite often and it can make this whole way of navigating this feel quite complex and muddy, especially when we have different youth talk using these words and having really different experiences of them. So, normally this would be like a three hour workshop and so I'm gonna do my best to condense it into the really important information I'd love for you to be able to walk away with. But and so some of that's gonna look like first talking about the developmental tasks of what adolescents are intended to be going through. And then second, the biology, like what's going on in the body and then in the brain and what like how that interacts with development. And then lastly, we're gonna talk about when mental health concerns appear having this backdrop, then what do we do as adults in our kiddos lives.
Cecily Brennan:So as we're doing this, I want you to take a minute and reflect on your own teenage experience. For some of us, that feels like a very long time ago, but just try to remember maybe not so much what you looked like or what you did, but how did it feel to, like, be in your body moving around the world, going to school, being at home, asking big questions? For some of us, it could have felt like just awkward. I feel like that's like a universal feeling for teenagers. Right?
Cecily Brennan:There's this awkward feeling in our body, in our in our thoughts. For others of us, we had, like, these really high emotions and then low emotions and then high emotions all in, like, the span of two minutes. Right? That's pretty normal. For some of us, it's like big dreams and idealistic thinking.
Cecily Brennan:Or for others of us, it's, like, really hard to get out of bed. Teenage time is just a really unique time in our development. And and as you're in your your memory of how you were felt in your body at this time, I'm gonna invite you to think of an adult that you had in your life. Maybe it was like a parent, or an auntie, or a grandma, or maybe it was like a friend's mom, or a teacher, maybe a youth worker in your life, or a youth pastor. Just gonna invite you to to remember what did it feel like to know you had that person in your corner.
Cecily Brennan:And just to kinda take that with you as we go through this content and and remember what that was like. Now, I know you can't really see this slide. I I realized that as I pulled it up. But this is an image of the disciples and Jesus in the boat. So some of us are familiar with that story where the disciples are all gung ho with Jesus ready to cross the Sea Of Galilee.
Cecily Brennan:And, oh, there we go. Okay. And, and suddenly, it says in scripture, suddenly this storm comes out of nowhere. And I don't think they would have probably planned to cross the sea at that time if they had known. So it's just kind of this abrupt scary storm that just seems to just like appear.
Cecily Brennan:And so we have the disciples. What are they doing in this moment? As the sea is splashing around, What kinds of emotions are in that boat? Anxiety. Good.
Cecily Brennan:I think, Peter, one of them gets pretty angry like, why are you sleeping, Jesus? Right? There's a lot of different high intensity things going on and Jesus is showing the opposite. So as we dive into this content, we're gonna come back to this, but I want you to have this picture of just Jesus chilling there, slaying in the boat. He's sleeping while everyone else is kinda panicking.
Cecily Brennan:Now, developmental tasks. You might have a hard time seeing this slide, so I'm gonna kinda talk through it a little bit. But we're gonna start by looking at age related developmental tasks. This is if all the conditions are met. Right?
Cecily Brennan:So a lot of this has to do with, the families we're born in, what kind of access to food and nutrition, and you know, all the right kinds of things, and not all of us have that. So I wanna recognize that upfront. So this is kind of like an ideal developmental progression. So let's look at preconception or conception into birth. Right?
Cecily Brennan:There's this time where we're being formed and what's really cool about this time is that even though we, don't have capacity obviously because we're in our mom's belly, but we we have this nervous system and our brain is at this place where it's able to pick up on cues. Like we're actually able to feel anxiety when we're in utero. And so the way the the developmental task at this stage is, do I exist? How do I know I exist? Well, oh, I'm getting like fed.
Cecily Brennan:My mom's right here. I smell her. I I can feel this like safety in the womb. Right? That's what's going on for for a baby.
Cecily Brennan:And then what happens at birth? It's the first experience of separation. It's the first moment we kind of go, oh my gosh. Do I exist? Like, what is this air thing around me?
Cecily Brennan:Like, we're questioning the world around us. And the way we know we're safe, our nervous systems at that age pick up on, oh, mom smell. I can smell my mom. Oh, I'm fed. Okay.
Cecily Brennan:I'm safe. Obviously, they're not being able to tell us that, but they can communicate through crying, through lots of different ways where we're able to see they're alarmed, they have anxiety, they have some fear going on. Right? So babies are born with this nervous system that's intended for them to survive. So that's number one what our bodies are constantly looking for for us from the moment we're conceived is, how can I survive this?
Cecily Brennan:And so the role of adult or of development, if we were to go all the way up I don't have time today to go through each stage. That would be a whole other workshop probably on just this slide I could do. But we move through these tasks to go, okay, like starting starting around toddlerhood, we start to question, like, is the world okay? Right? We're moving into feeling things out.
Cecily Brennan:What's it like to go outside and and make sure my parents are back there? I wanna make sure I'm okay. But am I gonna still start discovering the world? And then we start to move into this question of, okay, I kind of get a grip on how this works. Now am I okay?
Cecily Brennan:How do I know if I'm okay? And as we get to three, four, five, six years old, then we move into like, okay, I'm getting more of a grip on this. How much can I do? How much can I do with my hands and discover and explore? And then we're are we're intended to move into this question of how well can I do it?
Cecily Brennan:And all of these are in the context of relationship to our parents or our guardians, where we're we're kind of going, I'm gonna try to do all these things well, but that's what kids are hoping for. They it's like wired into them to see like, okay, is mom and dad or whoever's taking care of me able to see like, I'm I'm doing this right, like I'm getting there. They're questioning, they're wanting to be the same as us, right? To see if as they grow, can I eventually be like them? And then this crazy thing happens at age 11, 12, 13, and it's this whole adolescent stage.
Cecily Brennan:It's this primal question comes online and it's like, woah, I've been doing this thing for my parents, for my culture, like I've been doing all these things to figure out how to be in the world and now I need to figure out who am I. Right? It's that idea of identity. Some of us might have been at that workshop earlier today, all about identity formation and it was really, really good. Some of you were there.
Cecily Brennan:But it's this question for adolescents that really sits with them and drives every single thing they do. So again, not all of us, I think this is a important point to make is some of us flunk some of these stages or some of us get stuck in some of these stages. Right? If we've had hard things go on or we didn't have all the conditions met, we might have gotten stuck at that question. How well can I do these things?
Cecily Brennan:And so there's this insecurity that sits there. We don't. Right? We don't always make it through this perfectly and it doesn't always correlate to our age especially if we get stuck at certain ages. So you might be thinking right now as I'm going through this content, like I'm thinking of that 25 year old in my life and and they really resemble more back here this question.
Cecily Brennan:Right? This is this is something that is quite common and it's important to notice where is somebody actually at developmentally. So just as a baby grows into a toddler and into a child and to an adolescent, the same thing is needed the whole time and it's this idea of the womb of attachment, this safe experience even though we're not like literally like on them like okay we're gonna keep you safe. It's for them to always know in their body like I have a sense of safety if I if I'm back home or I'm with my parents or I'm with my auntie or whoever it is for us. Right?
Cecily Brennan:So as they move into adolescence or especially, like, later childhood, emotions start to kick up. That's where we start to see our emotional brain start to grow a lot and they get mixed feelings. They get more than one emotion at a time like toddlerhood. We move into this stage where we can really hold a lot of things. And so adolescents start to face a lot as they enter this who am I question.
Cecily Brennan:They not only are navigating that question, but, woah, how do I hold all these emotions at the same time while I'm navigating that question? So what's the point of all of this? Why do we go through those stages? It's to become an adult. Right?
Cecily Brennan:We're intended to become our own person, still connected, still part of culture, part of our families, but to really be our own person. And if we don't go through these things well, then there can be some real problems along the way where we can if we're stuck, we might have a really hard time setting boundaries later in life. Right? We need our kiddos to go through this this process really well so that they're able to control their impulses someday or be able to attach eventually to their own spouse. Right?
Cecily Brennan:There's a lot of there's a lot of need for continued attachment in this time Like And and that's where it can get really muddy with a lot of the parenting conversations like, should I be a helicopter parent or should I, you know, be the kind of parent who just lets them explore and do their own thing? And we won't get into that today, but the main point of all of that is to make sure we're close by so that they know, okay, as I'm navigating these really hard questions, I know I can rely on somebody. That felt sense of safety. And so I'm gonna invite you guys just for a moment just to kind of shake things up a little bit is to get into groups of two or three and if you're by yourself just join up with somebody else and just talk about certain youth that you see in your context. Okay?
Cecily Brennan:So kind of like for example, if if it's in your youth group. Maybe, you know, there's like that really shy kid that you have a really hard time getting one word out of and they they hardly connect with you with eye contact and you're wondering, I don't know how to connect with this kid. There's that kind of style of kiddo. Or what about like the the really annoying kid who's like always blurting out things that are inappropriate or saying things really loudly? Like what kinds of teens do you see in your context whether it's at youth group or church or at home?
Cecily Brennan:So I'll give you a couple minutes to do that and then we'll come back and talk about it. I'm hearing a lot of good chats. One more minute, and then we'll get back to the room. So maybe we'll wrap up our thoughts and kinda come back together when you have thirty more seconds. Alright.
Cecily Brennan:I would love to I I heard some good chats. I'd love to hear some themes of what you guys picked up on in your groups or what you're noticing. Anyone anyone wanna share? And it's okay if you don't.
Guest 1:I think just the kind of wide variety of views that you you get, whether it's you that are a little bit more easy to connect with or you better, like, extremely difficult with a variety of different interests and way they communicate with one another. Totally. Makes it a little bit of a challenge when you have to try to connect with each and every one of them in their own way and Yeah. Still keep them together as a group.
Cecily Brennan:That's a really good point. Yeah. There's so many types of kids. It's really hard to like keep track of all of them. Totally.
Cecily Brennan:Yeah. Anyone else have a thought? Yeah.
Guest 2:Yeah. So I get to see these kids and I teach them and see them in different Contexts. Contexts. Sure. When you start putting it all together Yeah.
Guest 3:You know,
Guest 2:you you start to see, okay. This this makes sense.
Cecily Brennan:Yeah. And it gives
Guest 2:you a different kind of way of looking at it because Mhmm. I know what they're going through at schools. Then when they come to youth and they're acting out, you know, we, okay. Well, okay. That makes sense too.
Guest 2:Right? Yeah.
Cecily Brennan:And Yeah.
Guest 2:To get different insights. But there's just so many factors that go into it, and you have to understand Yeah. And appreciate that
Cecily Brennan:Yeah.
Guest 2:That they're coming from a lot of these kids, some of them are coming from extremely broken situations.
Cecily Brennan:Totally. Yeah.
Guest 1:And it's
Guest 2:gonna affect everything.
Cecily Brennan:Yeah. That's a really good insight to notice what environments bring out what aspects of our teams.
Guest 2:And they just they're trying to figure out who they can
Cecily Brennan:trust. Totally.
Guest 2:Right? Yeah.
Cecily Brennan:Can I trust you?
Guest 2:Yeah. Are you gonna leave me in here?
Cecily Brennan:Yeah. Are you gonna accept me? Yeah. Yeah. Very good.
Cecily Brennan:Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Anyone else before we jump back in? I feel like it's really good to start having a different lens for all of our kiddos, especially you talking about how there's such a variety.
Cecily Brennan:It's like maybe the really annoying kid doesn't have any kind of attachment and so that's his coping mechanism of like, okay, I'm gonna get at any, I'm gonna pull out all stops to try to figure out how to connect with an adult because it's like a starved feeling inside. Right? Okay. That's development. We're gonna jump into a little biology and then we're gonna get into mental health.
Cecily Brennan:So buckle up. Biologically, what do we kind of talk about as a as a culture and in general, what do we notice start to happen in adolescence? Hormones. Hormones. Yes.
Cecily Brennan:Yes. Anything else?
Guest 3:Lack of sleep.
Cecily Brennan:Lack of sleep. Yeah. Yeah. Lot of body changes. See what's going on in the body, it doesn't care about our experience.
Cecily Brennan:It's just gonna happen. Right? It doesn't matter where we're developmentally at. Our body kicks in and it's supposed to do that at a certain age. We We start going through puberty and all the things and we often talk about hormones as like the main reason that kids feel a lot of emotions and they're kind of going through this thing.
Cecily Brennan:But I'm here to talk to you a little bit about something different that I think is really important to know. At age 12, 11, 12, 13 depending on the kid, this huge thing happens and it's a massive dopamine dump. So have you guys heard of dopamine before? Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Cecily Brennan:What is dopamine intended to do for us? Any ideas? Make us feel good. Yeah. Make us feel good.
Cecily Brennan:Yeah. The three main points of dopamine coming into our system is for pleasure, it's for motivation, and it's for learning. So why on earth would our body do this massive, massive dump all while we're going through home, hormonal changes? That's like the context for a big storm inside. Right?
Cecily Brennan:Yeah. Yeah. So this dopamine thing is actually a super good thing for our teens. It's intended to get if we were to go back to this slide, like some kids might only stay here if they never got this dopamine surge. So the dopamine surge is intended to have them go, okay, I'm gonna try new things.
Cecily Brennan:I'm gonna step outside of like my parents ideas for me. I might push against everything I know. How many of us experience that in our teens? They're intended to do that for a reason because they have to answer that question at the top. Who am I?
Cecily Brennan:Without dopamine, a lot of us would be way too scared to try anything new or to try anything that we might we might enjoy. Right? And so this is happening in every single teenager And, but with that comes a lot of things like adrenaline so and then they don't quite have their thinking brain formed yet. And so then you get kind of some not great decisions. Right?
Cecily Brennan:There's not a lot of like connecting the dots or thinking ahead in this season of life. So the dopamine can feel to us as adults like terrifying but for the teenagers there's this like this whole thing going on where they're like, oh my gosh, I got to explore the world. And if we don't see that happening, we might start to ask, are they stuck a little bit? So dopamine being a is a chemical substance. It's called a neurotransmitter between parts of your brain.
Cecily Brennan:And it it promotes that novelty, that idea of I'm gonna I'm gonna try try a lot of new things, not just one new thing. I'm gonna and so it's a really good for us to start coming alongside them. I I think the hard the bummer that I notice a lot in my practice is a lot of adults try to be the person in their life that's like, oh, here's all the reasons it's not gonna work, Jimmy. Like, don't try that because, you know, you're gonna, like, hit finances, you're gonna hit this, this, and this. And meanwhile, Jimmy is just having these bright ideas about, like, how to save the world.
Cecily Brennan:And a lot of times, adults are pretty disillusioned and they kinda crush those things. Right? We're actually supposed to like really entertain them and go, wow, yeah, what a great idea. Like, I wonder like what's step one to get there? Like, how do I engage with these ideas with our teenagers?
Cecily Brennan:Right? To not be the dream crushers even though we kind of already know, yeah, that's probably not gonna work down the line or maybe you're gonna hit some hiccups. Right? They want us they wanna feel us in their corner in this season. So how this relates to mental health is how how much you can see those words.
Cecily Brennan:I'm gonna touch on these things. There's there's a lot of while all this is going on, so the the biology and then the the development, our brains are also doing something they've been doing since we were born which is figuring out constantly how do I help this body survive. Right? So we've got this innate stress response system that our body is wired with to constantly pick up cues of, okay, how do I stay alive? And so mental health is a way I like to call it the body's natural defense system.
Cecily Brennan:So while these developmental tasks are happening, there our brain is like constantly going, am I physically safe? Am I emotionally safe? And we often think like physical means survival, but because God created us as social beings, like intended to be in community, the emotional side is just as big for us. So our brains are picking up on like that dirty look somebody said and filtering out these things that can cause emotional chaos inside for us. So for teenagers, the brain is filtering out a lot of things.
Cecily Brennan:The second one here is the unknown. Especially at that age, there's a lot of unknowns. And so we don't know what's happening especially in our body. If we're not sure of what we're gonna do with our life, all of these things, a fear response can start to happen. That kind of like anxious energy, and that's really normal.
Cecily Brennan:Third one is expectations. Shoulds and shouldn'ts. When anyone comes in and is like trying to tell them, oh, you should be like this, you should be like your sister, or oh, you should be doing this, or you shouldn't do that, for them, they're kind of allergic to that, especially as teenagers because they're kind of going, well, I'm figuring out who I am so I'm not supposed to be like my sister or I'm not supposed to be like this or I'm just gonna oppose what you're saying because I just I'm gonna oppose it. Right? The last one is incongruence in our environment.
Cecily Brennan:So kids are really sharp. When we have, let's say it's a kiddo who's like at home with an alcoholic parent, they're gonna be able to they're they're gonna pick up on those inconsistencies in the environment when they have have to go home and one day parent is like really kind and present, makes them dinner and watches a movie with them and then the next night is like angry and volatile and drunk, that inconsistency is gonna cause a lot of alarm in the body. Just the sheer fact of like, I don't know what I'm walking into day to day. We can also talk about emotional incongruency like flat affect on a face or, the kinds of responses we like if if a parent parents with, like, I'm not mad at you, but you can, like, see it on their face that they are, like, those kinds of things cause this fear response and alarm in our bodies. Right?
Cecily Brennan:So just to kind of give you a little, picture of this alarm system we have in our body, it's this little tiny tiny like the size of a pin inside our brain and it's called the amygdala. And the best analogy I've heard of it is like a fire alarm system in our buildings. Like, it goes off automatically the moment there's smoke. And some of you were here earlier this morning. We talked a lot about this with the teens, but and and they came up with a lot of how their body feels on these posters.
Cecily Brennan:Feel free to check them out after. But what goes on when we start to feel alarm in our body? And we really talked about how this is like an automatic thing. It's not something that, like, we can think like, oh, I should be alarmed about that. I think there's a fire.
Cecily Brennan:No. Like, our body goes, woah. Something's off. I'm gonna either run, I'm gonna freeze because I'm terrified, or I'm going to, like, it's that fight flight freeze kind of energy that we are designed to have. God made us with bodies with to have a stress system.
Cecily Brennan:Thank God we have that because a lot of us wouldn't be here if we didn't. Right? So it's really important for us to consider what it's like to feel our own alarm. As adults, we've had this alarm system our our whole life and to picture like our body having this alarm. And so I'm gonna invite you to like consider a thought experiment.
Cecily Brennan:You're just like maybe hiking in Banff or you're on a nice path that's super calm, the wind's blowing, you're talking to your friend, and then all of a sudden, you see out of nowhere like a cougar in the corner of your eye. What might you do in that moment? Any thoughts? What's that? Freeze.
Cecily Brennan:Freeze. Yeah. I would totally freeze. I would I would panic for sure. I think we all would panic but some of us might run.
Cecily Brennan:Some of us might feel like super fast heart rate. Right? Some of us might start thinking like, what's the protocol for cougars again? Like, I don't even remember. There's a lot of things we would do but usually there's like fear pumping through our body, lots of adrenaline.
Cecily Brennan:Right? So I want you to try to imagine like our teenagers when they talk about these big words like, oh my gosh, I'm so anxious or I'm I'm having all these feelings inside to start to think of it as alarm. Their alarm system is going off for a reason. It they might be saying, oh, I it's because of social anxiety or it's because I have to present in front of somebody or it's because of this. But I'm I'm gonna invite you to consider that it could go a lot deeper than that.
Cecily Brennan:It could be a lot of their home environments. It could be a lot of their relationships with adults. It could be a lot of other things too. But just to start to go, okay, is there something deeper? To be willing to ask that question.
Cecily Brennan:The main source of alarm for us is actually attachment relationships. So we're intended to have this whole like that we talked about in development, like this adult presence in our life. It's like a hierarchical dance where we're designed to have like someone we can look to that we know we feel protected by that's gonna lead us well, like shepherd us through life. And if we don't have that, we will have alarm. And so I one of my teachers uses the word alpha, like an alpha presence.
Cecily Brennan:And I know that word can maybe sometimes be, like, have this sense of, like, domineering or, kinda, like, overly bearing. And that's definitely not what I'm meaning by that word. I'm more meaning that like humble, like safe, that person you can come to and just like totally talk about anything you need to or share whatever and feel safe. So that's what I mean by the word alpha. And so when when that starts to get threatened, and so kids start to have that threatened at really young ages, right, or a lot of our kids do, then that that alarm is gonna be going off and probably sticking around throughout their whole development.
Cecily Brennan:And so when that starts to happen, they start to get feelings of vulnerability, like really big feelings of vulnerability. Like who can I trust? I can't even get to this question of who am I because I'm too scared of, like, everything around me. And so, I'm going to move slides here. I know this is a lot of content.
Cecily Brennan:Thank you for bearing with me. We're As we jump into this mental health side, I think it's important for us to to really have that lens of alarm and then to also, like, zoom out So to look at other things that teens are facing. So we we already talked about the first bullet point, like, this physical and emotional stuff going on. But then they've got that developmental alarm. That's, like, totally normal.
Cecily Brennan:Like, what's going on in my body? I was somebody who was raised in a home where we didn't talk about anything. So I was like asking questions in my 20s where it's like, I don't know how anything works. So I don't know what's going on. Like their alarm was there for me because of the lack of talking about it.
Cecily Brennan:Right? Peer orientation. That's like another major problem we're especially seeing now where kids are fusing to their peers as their main attachment more than the like adults figure in their life. And when that starts to happen, figure it out. Right?
Cecily Brennan:So they're not a safe attachment for each other. They often bail, they often, like, yeah. All kind you guys know. You guys are in these context. Peers aren't always the safest relationships.
Cecily Brennan:We have a lot of distracted adults. Right? A lot of adults who are also navigating technology and being on their phones or just working a lot in our teens lives so they don't have access to parent contact. We have the digital stuff, we have Snapchats every five seconds, we have notifications going off, there's a lot of reason to feel alarm. And the last one is lack of culture.
Cecily Brennan:I think this is a big one, like our culture has changed so much especially in the past ten years where it's like what even is culture? How do I be in culture? And we we really came from years and years of like culture was intended to be the place where there's like, rites of passage and this is how I know I'm an adult. This is how I know I've made it. And we don't really have that right now.
Cecily Brennan:So teens are kind of floating around like, yeah, like, I don't really know. And so there's alarm there. So, before we move into this sense of body armor, I'm gonna invite you to get back into your groups for one more time and talk about what you think of this idea of hierarchical relationships. I know that might be a new concept or, like, a different way of putting it, but to think of, like, how what is it like to show up in your teens' lives as a hierarchical, like alpha presence in the way that I mentioned it earlier? Or did you have someone who was alpha in your life that you can remember and what did that feel like?
Cecily Brennan:So either of those questions are a go, and feel free to just take a few minutes. We'll do, like, one more minute just for time's sake. So maybe we'll wrap up our thoughts and come back to the room. And I'm wondering I'm wondering as we kind of wrap this up and and have these discussions, like, if there's anything you're noticing that's like, what's that like to think of hierarchical relationships?
Guest 2:I think
Guest 1:it's something like we were discussing, how it's something that's really good for us and we like recognize that it was like really essential for us in our teen years and even Yeah. Even, like, continuing adulthood.
Cecily Brennan:Yeah. But, Totally.
Guest 1:The fact of how almost difficult and how intentional you have to be with them because it's kind of that weird it's like that generational gap Yeah. Where you're not sharing the same, like, social language all the time.
Cecily Brennan:Right. So
Guest 1:Right. It's like that. It's good for us, but it's like how do you you almost have to be intentional and, like, really seek it out.
Cecily Brennan:Yeah. Yeah. Totally. That's a really good thought. So you're you're almost noticing, like, it's it's hard to to know how do I do that.
Cecily Brennan:But yet, like, you're noticing how big it was for you. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Anyone else have an experience that they wanna share?
Guest 1:Well, we had to really just notice that, like, the, when you talk about the peer to peer Yeah.
Guest 3:It's like
Guest 1:it's the blind leading the blind, right? Like how we're gonna
Cecily Brennan:That's a perfect way to put it. Yeah.
Guest 1:And and of course that is needed, right? Like still need
Cecily Brennan:friends Yeah.
Guest 1:That support system around them and head everything. And so and it it goes back to that intentionality thing. It's if we're seeing this as a problem, which it is, right, if if that's the attachment directions we're going through first
Cecily Brennan:Yeah.
Guest 1:Then how do we, as as youth workers, step into that to them to make ourselves
Cecily Brennan:Yeah.
Guest 1:That sort of Yes. Hierarchical,
Cecily Brennan:like Presence.
Guest 1:Presence and everything because it's clearly needed. Right? Like, they need somebody that has, like, experienced life and has figured out who they are Right. To come and help them figure out who they are.
Guest 2:Yes. And and
Guest 1:so they had to bolt down to intentionality, a lot. And it was just like, how are we actually being intentional about, like, making sure that
Cecily Brennan:Yeah.
Guest 1:That as you've learned, that's, like, what we're doing.
Cecily Brennan:Totally. Yeah.
Guest 1:The peer to peer thing was, like, really eye opening.
Cecily Brennan:Yeah. Yeah. No. I I thank you for saying that. And that's, like, a perfect segue into what we're going into, is how do we actually practically be in their lives in the roles we're in?
Cecily Brennan:When they don't have adults, it's the these defenses start going up. So this is where mental health concerns start to arise. So let's think about like depression. Depression is the result of like prolonged suppressed emotion, typically. I'm gonna talk about like widespread.
Cecily Brennan:Of course, there's nuanced cases but depression is like when we push down our emotions so much like imagine like a bag in my body I'm just pushing and pushing and then eventually it's like the body is like, okay, I'm done. Like I can't handle this anymore. I'm gonna just shut down. And even though it doesn't necessarily help them thrive, it's a way that our body helps us go, okay, I can at least survive this thing because even if I'm shut down, I can make it through. It's a it's a protection mechanism that shows up.
Cecily Brennan:Same is true for, anxiety. It's like this alarm and it's a way to figure out with energy, like it's a defense, tactic to kind of go, okay, I gotta figure out a way to survive this or to figure this out. Of course, when it becomes stuck, that's when we get a problem with mental health stuff. Right? I want you to kind of think of it as body armor.
Cecily Brennan:So this idea of, kind of how we talked about the automatic body thing that goes on with, when we have fight or flight energy. Same is true for a lot of these mental health things. So contrary to the way people talk about it, I I realize I see this quite differently than maybe some other people in my field but I think that a lot of the research is starting to show that, this is all just automatic. The the mental health stuff that we're facing is our bodies doing it. It's not us, like, having really bad thoughts that then lead to it, if that makes sense.
Cecily Brennan:And so the three defense, like main defense things that lead to mental health concerns are numbing out. So numbing out is when our brain actually protects us from feeling because it's too hurtful to feel. So if we're in a really wounding environments, like our brains are gonna start numbing out automatically. Kids at this stage feel like, I don't cares, but really they do. Their brains are just like turning it off.
Cecily Brennan:Tuning out is a second one. Tuning out is like when you start to see attention problems. It's like when the brain starts filtering out a lot of the wounding things but then it filters out too much and then you get attention stuff going on. The third one is backing out. So when kids I shouldn't say kids because we all can have this defense.
Cecily Brennan:We all have this body armor thing that you might even notice in your own experience where we can back out of relationships even the ones we care about because feeling right now or caring hurts too much. So a lot of us, if we're facing like really hard things at home to, like, be in other environments, it's like, I'm just gonna back out of everything. So, again, teens don't choose this. We don't choose this. It happens to us.
Cecily Brennan:So we've gotta be the ones to start to recognize, oh, is there, like, body armor stuff happening for this kiddo? Is there like something automatic going on that they can't even put words to? So it's our role as adults in their life to actually take responsibility for them, to initiate. So for the alpha people, the hierarchical person in their life, to really like step in and ask and say like I'm noticing this or to like really they might not even have words for it and that's okay but just to know someone sees them and is asking or saying hey I see like, you haven't really hung out with us lately. I wanna just have a coffee with you.
Cecily Brennan:Like, what's going on? Like, that does a lot for their nervous system more than you think. I think this is where youth leaders especially and aunties and, like, the if we can bridge in other adults if they're not having it with their parents, this can be huge for teen development. So even if you see them one hour a week and with you their experience is like, woah, I have someone who cares about me, that knows way more about life than I do and I I kind of feel safe with them, there's gonna be this thing that happens in their brain on a physiological level and and I want you guys to trust that. Even if you don't know what to say, it's like your presence alone that felt sense of safety is super big for them.
Cecily Brennan:This slide is like just kind of a couple pitfalls. I realize the font is really small. Basically, it's saying what we need to do in our adult roles is to kind of put aside our own idealism and expectations for them. It's really easy for us to think, oh, I'll just tell them one, two, three, like, don't do drugs. Like, here's all the reasons why you shouldn't.
Cecily Brennan:Don't go jump off that cliff. That's not a good idea because you could do this, this, and this. None of that registers with them. Information and reasoning at this age is is not effective. And a lot of that is because of their brain process.
Cecily Brennan:Like, their brains are, like, constantly growing and then pruning and then growing and pruning at this age so that they can't even register it. Yeah?
Guest 2:Just can you talk biology a little bit more about, like, adolescence? So what about, like, are you talking more about 12 to 14, 15? Are you still talking about the 17, 18?
Cecily Brennan:Yeah. Even into 17, 18. Yeah. There's, I mean, there's different things if everything's going right by 17, 18.
Guest 2:In theory should be starting to have a little bit more capability of the
Cecily Brennan:Yeah. In theory. Of the steps. Yeah.
Guest 2:Not that.
Cecily Brennan:Yeah. I mean, especially if they've had
Guest 2:Biological wise, like, they should be. Like, they're start us close this beginning at
Cecily Brennan:Right. But if they're still stuck developmentally, then their brains can't necessarily grow. So some kids get stunted that way. So I'm I'm glad you asked that question yeah, ideally, by 17, 18, they're they're thinking in certain ways we want them.
Guest 2:It might be appropriate to, like, lead them a little bit that way, but maybe moving away from that way to
Cecily Brennan:more achievable. Yeah. There's, I think, different ways we approach it for sure. And that's where I want you to trust your own insight. You know your kids and where they're at way more than, like, a book could tell you.
Cecily Brennan:Right? Yeah.
Guest 2:One of the things just adding on to that is to keep in mind that physically,
Cecily Brennan:Yeah. That's a good point. Boys and girls are really different. I'm glad you I'm glad you mentioned that. So yeah, we need to stop seeing education as the only answer, like telling them information.
Cecily Brennan:It's more about being with them, moving into like how we how do we even step in? Some of these questions you are asking like, what is the actual practical? Again, even if you don't know how to help, being that caring presence for them goes so far, like a really long way. They want to they need the most to experience belonging. They need the most to experience a sense of like, I am invited here.
Cecily Brennan:And if they don't feel that anywhere but with you, that's gonna help them grow. So practically, first first thing is identifying shields and armor or and their body armor. So if they're if you're noticing the shutdown, like, the the backing out of relationship, the numbing out, or the tuning out, start to kind of go, okay. Like, how do I get creative and step into this? How do I reduce disconnection?
Cecily Brennan:Number two. So bridge whatever they're facing that's dividing them. If they're like really stuck with their peers or at home with their relationships at home and you know that, it's like, okay. How can I be a bridge? Maybe I can see them like once a week at youth group, but maybe I know like this other youth leader who's got more time that can also like be bridged into this with this kid.
Cecily Brennan:We compensate. So, what that means is we kinda get their attention. We don't give them a bunch of information, but we kinda help them redirect. So like, Jimmy who wants to jump off the 80 foot cliff, if we're gonna be like, okay, here's why you shouldn't, What's Jimmy gonna do? He'll probably jump off the cliff.
Cecily Brennan:Right? Because he's already got that in his mind. He's got adrenaline. There's no stopping him. But if you're like, oh my gosh, Jimmy.
Cecily Brennan:I I got this skateboard. Come with me on Saturday instead. Like, let's go down that new, like, or that big hill in town and, like, see what we can do. Right? It's like it's actually getting their attention and bring being their brain for them.
Cecily Brennan:Their prefrontal cortex isn't developed yet. And so we need to be that with them and kinda help, redirect. Redirecting is the best way for teens to, like, listen and actually start to think about, oh, yeah. I think I was just super excited about that idea but now I can kind of, you know, as they make sense of it they're like, yeah, I could see the reasons why. So we're helping them might make these neural connections inside.
Cecily Brennan:And then the the last one that I think is the most important is softening the heart. We protect them from the wounding environments that they're constantly facing. Even if a kid has like an amazing family at home, they're still going to school or they're going to these places where they're experiencing wounding environments. And if we can be the person that can be the bridge that invites them to belong and to be like sharing like a place for tears or emotions, that goes so far for them. So you don't have to have the right words or know the kid through and through, but you're just literally being the person that they can, like, cry with or say I had a really hard day or this happened or angry and I'm expressing it and it's like just validating and being with them.
Cecily Brennan:It sounds super simple and it really is, but we we don't have enough adults in their lives doing this. So that's why we're seeing a lot of problems. A brief moment on when to refer. I think it's important that we cover this in a mental health workshop. We do need to refer at times.
Cecily Brennan:Right? Our kids today have a lot of complex stuff going on. You're gonna hear a lot of diagnoses, You're gonna hear a lot of thoughts from the kids or self diagnoses. Yeah. I googled this and I think I have this.
Cecily Brennan:Right? But there's a couple things that if you want to take a picture or, like, see it after, I could definitely pull it back up. But some main things are if they're not taking care of their basic needs like bathing or eating or, sleeping, those are big ones. If you start to notice that in a prolonged way, that's maybe a problem that you want to start paying attention to and think of referring. Another one is if they're talking a lot about death or dying, like often, where they're kind of fixated on this idea.
Cecily Brennan:That's where you kind of step in. You you use your intuition and it's better to ask than not. Like a lot of these topics they talk about are kind of scary for us and our own alarm goes off. So use that intuition to go, okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna step into that. Another one is failing at school, pregnancy, substance use, kind of a lot of the main ones we would think of.
Cecily Brennan:OCD, like obsessive compulsive types of behaviors. Usually those are rooted in alarm, but there's some specific, like, approaches in therapy that can be helpful for that kind of thing. Suicidal ideation, I don't know how many of you encounter that with the kiddos in your youth groups, but it's very much on the rise especially in the practice that I have. Sharing explicit photos, that's another place to refer that shows that there's a lot of stuff going on for that kiddo.
Guest 3:And who are we referring to? Like
Cecily Brennan:Yeah. Good question. I should have that on the site. Typically, a therapist would be a good place to start. So I'd start getting a good arsenal of people you trust in the mental health field.
Cecily Brennan:Mhmm. At least to be able to ask a question to. To say, hey, is this normal or is this not normal? And then to have some good doctor referrals because a lot of times, kids need actual medical help as well.
Guest 3:So how's it gotten better over the last ten, fifteen years for children's mental
Cecily Brennan:health then? That's a good question. I think I think not. I think we're seeing a downward trend.
Guest 3:Well, no. Like from a medical standpoint, not about the kids. Here's my situation ten, fifteen years ago. I tried to get my kid help. They kept on telling me there's nothing wrong with her.
Guest 3:We're not assessing her. Dada dada dada.
Cecily Brennan:Oh, I see. My daughter's manipulative
Guest 3:and she's been now diagnosed with, Schizoaffective Bipolar Disorder. Okay. So there's no way that there was nothing wrong with
Cecily Brennan:it. Right. I see what you're saying. I think it's more normalized to get help. I think it's improving.
Guest 3:Easier to get them out now.
Cecily Brennan:I think I think people's, attention to that is changing. There's specific so important. Yeah. Yeah. Is.
Cecily Brennan:I'm glad you brought that up because
Guest 3:I just wanna know that it's easier instead of a waste of so much time.
Cecily Brennan:Yeah. It depends on your area, you know, where you come from, but I think on the whole it's improving.
Guest 1:Yeah.
Cecily Brennan:I have a slide here for understanding psychosis and suicidal ideation protocol. Feel free to come talk to me after if you want more information about that. I think it's really important to know the signs and then how to step in because that is definitely on the rise in our youth culture. And we are back to this image of Jesus. We're kind of landing the plane here.
Cecily Brennan:I think it's really important for us to have this image stick with us. Our kids are in the midst of crazy waves like sudden, kinda like the storm the disciples encountered. Right? It came out of nowhere. There's a lot of alarm.
Cecily Brennan:There's a lot of anger. And yet Jesus is in there sleeping. And of course, they're kinda like, what the heck are you doing? Why aren't you panicking like that? But Jesus is inviting us, I think, to be the hands and feet of him with our teens and our youth.
Cecily Brennan:We get to be the calm presence that helps them through these mental health concerns. When you start to see kids with anxiety, think alarm. When you see depression, think I wonder how much they need to process, like how much is suppressed. When you think self harm or suicidal ideation, think how much anger do they have inside and how much of that has gone inward and like turned into kind of of self attack energy. A lot of it is rooted in this suppressed experiences of holding in things too long.
Cecily Brennan:I'm gonna have these these resources on the board here. If you want to take a picture of that, they're kind of just general across the board if you won't have more questions for specific things. But yeah, I'm gonna invite you to pay attention as you leave this workshop. Pay attention to your own alarm. God's given you your own system to pick up on their cues and when it's abnormal or normal.
Cecily Brennan:Right? All of your teens are gonna have crazy high and low emotions, their brains are dumping dopamine, their hormones are everywhere, and that's normal, and that's good, and so you're gonna see a lot of things that they think aren't normal. They're gonna say, what? No, I have anxiety. No, I have depression.
Cecily Brennan:I have this and this and this. You get to be the calming presence in the boat. Right? Like, hey, let me help you through this. I'm this is actually normal.
Cecily Brennan:I'll tell you about my life. Right? And and then when you see it stuck, when you see it prolonged or excessive, that's when you go to, hey, let's get you some professional help. I I know some people. I want you to be okay.
Cecily Brennan:And we're gonna keep meeting once a week or however often we see each other. That kinda make sense? Yep. Awesome. Okay.
Cecily Brennan:Thank you so much for your time. I'm up here for questions. I I definitely went to the full hour. So if you guys gotta go, that's okay. But if, you wanted to come chat, let me know.
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