Navigating today's parenting challenges with Dr. Alicia Smart

And parenting has never really come with an instruction manual, but today's parents are facing some particularly complicated challenges. From teens turning to AI for emotional support, to the toxic messaging they may be consuming online, it can be really difficult to raise emotionally healthy and resilient children. Well, psychologist Dr. Alicia Smart joins us now with some guidance. Dr. Smart, good morning. Thank you for joining us. Good morning. Thank you for having me. All right. There's so many different parts of this topic that we want to make sure that we address. And I want to dive in first to this idea that we're seeing a lot more young people using AI and specifically using chatbots when they're feeling lonely or anxious or overwhelmed. Can you give me some insight on what's driving that, why that's appealing to them and what parents need to be looking out for? Yeah. I mean, AI is available 24-7. It never gets tired. It's validating. It's nonjudgmental. And so it's no wonder that teens are reaching out to AI. I mean, some adults are also reaching out to AI for emotional support. And so when you think about, you know, what parents can do is to actually create maybe more openness and validation. You know, oftentimes as parents, We want to fix problems, and I think... Teens want to be heard. They want to feel understood. And so I often tell parents to slow down a little bit, listen first, and try to fix later, and hopefully become a safe base that your teen can come to. Right. That judgment part is the key part right there. I also want to talk about this, you know, this idea that gentle parenting is a really popular philosophy right now. But, you know, I feel like there can be a really fine line between being a gentle parent versus just not even having appropriate boundaries at all. How do we distinguish the difference here and what should we be doing? Yes. So I... This has come up many times with my clients. With parenting, I often talk about being compassionately firm. So what that means is holding the dialectic, and dialectic meaning two things can be true at the same time. So when you're parenting, you know, being validating and supportive while also holding the limit and having boundaries and, you know, having consequences. So you can say to your teen, yeah, I know you're upset. I understand why you're feeling this feeling. And the answer is don't. Don't know. You can still have limit. Yeah, it can be a hard balance to strike, but it's worthwhile to try to strike that balance. You know, the fact is here that parents also need to be taking care of their own mental health. You know, we all face all these pressures from work, from family schedules, our children's emotional needs. But why is a parent's emotional well-being so important to the health of the family? And how do we approach taking care of our own mental health? Yeah, I mean, I think most people have heard that saying you can't pour from an empty cup. And so our own emotional resiliency, just taking care of ourselves so that we're not reactive. Our kids absorb, you know, our emotional experience, and we're also modeling emotion regulation. So if we're not taking care of ourselves, we're more likely to be impatient, judgmental, reactive, right? So we want to model. How do you take care of yourself? Am I getting enough sleep? Am I eating well? Am I exercising? Am I doing things that bring me joy and allow me to recharge so that your kids can see you doing that? Because that's going to help them learn how, oh, what do I need to do to regulate myself as well? You know, another growing concern, too, is the influence of online personalities, especially on boys and young men. So for those who aren't familiar, can you explain what the manosphere is and what parents need to be looking out for in regards to this? Yeah. So the manosphere is kind of this, a group of influencers and people who are often, you know, maybe some might say even toxic masculinity or masculinity that's judgmental and harmful to women. And I think for boys, we need to kind of be curious about what about the messages are interesting or appealing to them. I mean, again, when you come in with judgment, For teens, they tend to shut down. And so... Understanding what's appealing about the message, maybe the themes underneath the message that they want, like a sense of belonging, a sense of strength. And if you can figure out what the needs or the thoughts are underneath, that could be a way to break the gap in the conversation to then gently challenge some of those messages that may be harmful. And last but not least here, I know I can attest firsthand that I've always wanted to protect my children from disappointment, right? I feel like most parents feel that way. But when is there a a point where that can do more harm than And then good. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm glad you said that because, yes, as parents, we want to protect our kids from feeling pain and distress. And yes, it can backfire. One of the things about growing up is learning how to tolerate distress, learning how to become resilient. I mean, pain is a part of life. Disappointment is a part of life. And so, unfortunately, when we're constantly rescuing our kids from discomfort, we're actually kind of giving them the message they can't handle it, right? And that might create more anxiety and more... more avoidant, which is not what you want, right? You want your kid to be able to know and be able to have confidence to take on things that are challenging and hard. Speaking of words we need to hear, Dr. Alicia Smart, this is terrific advice. Thank you so much for your time. You're welcome. Great to have you be here. 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