Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
Is the one messaging you wish you could tell every parent on this universe to empower them to support their kids on the home front?

AnneMoss Rogers:
Listen more and lecture less. Because our kids want to be seen and they want to be heard. And right now in that world of social media, that’s the message I get over and over from young people.

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
AnneMoss Rogers, thank you so much for joining me from Virginia.

AnneMoss Rogers:
Thank you for having me, I appreciate it.

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
Yeah, so you and I met on LinkedIn and you are a mental health warrior parent. And today I want to talk to you about how we empower our parents, like on the home front with helping their own kids mental health, particularly in a broken system. But first, let’s talk about you. I know you are a mental health speaker. You do keynotes. You co-wrote Emotionally Naked, a teacher’s guide to preventing suicide and recognizing

AnneMoss Rogers:
Yeah.

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
kids at risk. So tell me about yourself.

AnneMoss Rogers:
I also wrote a book called Diary of a Broken Mind and that’s my memoir and that was my first book. And so in 2010, around then, my son, my younger son Charles, his drug use started to escalate and I wasn’t sure why. And I would find out later that he was doing so many drugs and alcohol to numb thoughts of suicide, which I didn’t know he had. But I’m thinking I can get from front of this drug thing, right? But the taking away car keys and all that just doesn’t work. So we ended up going to see a counselor to kind of figure out our way through, you know, what are the resources, what should we try? And he’s, you know, he does wilderness, he does therapeutic boarding school, he comes back home some 22 months later. And he’s angry and I can understand that because none of that was voluntary. But now he’s close to 20 years old and he becomes addicted to heroin. And I don’t know it because he’s snorting it. And I didn’t even know you could snort heroin. So he’s doing it under my nose, no pun intended. And one day I recognized that my family silver is gone. I have one spoon. And the police show up that day and they tell me that he’s been plotting it. So long story short, I’ve found out he’s addicted to heroin and he goes to detox, he goes to Rehab, he goes to recovery house. He’s checked back in because he relapses. So he relapses after he goes to the recovery house. And then once he’s rechecked back into detox, he sees a friend, they walk out together and for two weeks, I don’t know where he is. And we get an occasional text message, occasional phone call. And then we’re out to dinner one night and we got a call from the police and they met us in the parking lot. And then the back of their police car, they told us that our son had been found dead that morning. Suzanne, thought for sure this is an overdose. But then the policeman said it was a suicide and the method, well, it left no question. And I thought, how could I be such a crummy parent? that my child would leave me this way because I thought, you know, I didn’t love enough. I did something wrong. And I punished myself for that for a very long time before I forgave myself. But what I want you to know is we were a normal family and we did normal family things. We baked cakes together. We played slip and slide. We, you know, I coached basketball. My husband coached baseball. And it wasn’t until I went back and look at all those little videos we shot in the 90s that I recognized that my son grew up in a house of love and that it wasn’t something that I said or did that caused him to suicide. And it was only once I watched those videos that it hit me. my gosh, I’ve been hyper focusing on the five percent of parenting I did imperfectly ignoring the 95 percent that I did right. And I’m going to bet a lot of your parents do that today. Focus on the imperfections, the one thing they did wrong. And I think there things we can do as parents to kind of go upstream before it gets to crisis, you know, and help our child. build those really important, resilient skills that they need. Those are lifetime skills, right?

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
Mm-hmm.

AnneMoss Rogers:
I am

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
I’m gonna go completely off my questions here, because I wanna totally backtrack, because you hit something huge. And I was just talking about it last night with parents is the level of shame that can be felt in families, either that they lose their child by suicide or the drugs or significant mental health disorders cutting. And I was with a group of women last night talking about this exact thing. And how can we create safe, empathetic, supportive spaces?

AnneMoss Rogers:
thing.

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
so that parents can feel empowered and not blamed or shamed because that’s such a difficult line and what you just hit on is so prevalent in any family that has a child who’s struggling.

AnneMoss Rogers:
Right, with self-harm with all of it. Where we look at ourselves first, where have we failed? And I’m going to tell you that that thought is going to creep into your head. Sit with it, you know, and then let it lift, then distract yourself. And then I want you to think, OK, this is not about me. I’m focused on me when I’m thinking about that. And I need to be focused on what is it about my child that is not going well, what is gravely wrong in their life. And we need to get to the bottom of that. And that’s not by saying what’s wrong. So there are just multiple ways that you’ve really got to build the kind of relationship where your child is willing to open up to you. And we as parents have to understand they’re not

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

AnneMoss Rogers:
cutting or self-harming to hurt us. They have pain that they can’t express, that they don’t understand, all this emotional pain, but they get blood. They understand what physical pain is and what that blood is because that represents what they feel. All that mumbo jumbo in their head, much harder to figure out. So all of those things are not

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
Mm-hmm.

AnneMoss Rogers:
our fault. But we have to understand that is part of the process and accept those feelings. But we can move through them and start to understand. when they start to get in the way, after you’ve acknowledged them, you have to say, is this helping the situation? Am I focusing on me? Or am I focusing on what could help my child? What is gravely wrong in their life that they’re using a coping, an unhealthy coping strategy and how can I move them to a healthy strategy? So let’s take self-harm for example. That is not resolved every night. So if you have a child that’s self-harming, we’re going to have to put up with lapses. because they’re going to happen. doesn’t mean that the whole thing is crashed and failed and they’re back in this awful place permanently. means they’ve lapsed. And anytime where we’re covering, let’s say I’m never going to eat chocolate again. But along the way of giving up chocolate, I go and I have chocolate because it’s really good and I really like it. It doesn’t mean that. I’ve failed, it just means that I’ve lapsed and I need to do whatever it is to build that foundation back and move forward and not keep focusing on what we think of as a failure when it’s really the part of the process of learning. So it’s learning to help your child have a healthier coping strategy and when they numb,

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
Mm-hmm.

AnneMoss Rogers:
with drugs or alcohol, that really sort of robs them of the ability to develop those healthy coping strategies. And in addition, we need to model. You know, if we’re coming home from work and saying, my gosh, I need a glass of wine to relax, what are we telling our kids? I need a substance in order to relax. And so we need to model ways in which we’re willing to get help in which we’re using healthy coping strategies because what are they going to do, Suzanne? They’re going to do, you know, what you do, not what you say.

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
Yeah, for sure. You one of the tricky things I find is to create spaces in approaching parents where parents don’t feel judged. Right. Within this dialogue and that they can feel like there are things you can do at home because it does start at home without any judgment or blame or taking them to those places where their mind will automatically go to.

AnneMoss Rogers:
Well, I love that you really focused on the shame and safe spaces because I think that’s what you focus on creating that safe space. So people feel I can open up and the other people here are going to understand instead of judge. And lots of times our fear of judgment can drive how we act. But there are people I know that there are still people today judging me. I could give a flip, but I didn’t arrive at that immediately. took some time to get past that.

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think this part of our conversation is so enormous. I didn’t put it in my questions, but it actually is central because we can’t empower parents to be able to lean into their kids on the home front and support their kids in our broken system at home if they’re feeling shame and judgment from the society around them.

AnneMoss Rogers:
No one listening to this is a bad parent. You’re a parent that’s trying to do the best you can do and you’re looking for strategies to help you move that needle forward in that regard.

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
Yeah, for sure. Okay, let’s shift, because I want to get into some good knowledge for parents to have. My question here is, can you give me overarching warning signs of concerning teenage behavior that could be just teenage behavior? You know, this teenage behavior, this normative, difficult teenage behavior, and now there’s behavior that gets into that. that dangerous territory of either mental health challenges or substance use or suicide ideation.

AnneMoss Rogers:
It is natural for teenagers to start to pull away from you and sort of spend more time with peers. However, if they’re pulling away from family and they’re pulling away from peers and friends, like isolating in their room, and they’ve not done that in the past a whole lot, that is a red flag because isolation is a red flag for more serious mental health issues and know, drugs, alcohol, suicide, self-harming, whatever it may be at whatever stage. So that’s one. Another one is it’s natural for kids to go from sort of childhood pursuits to young adult or teenage pursuits. Let’s say they love to draw and they were real into illustration. But now they’re in high school and they want to run cross country and now they’re like super obsessed with cross country and totally have dumped the whole art thing. That’s natural. What’s not natural is the child who played the piano and it was never pushed on him and he loved to play his entire life. He gets to be a teenager. All of a sudden he dumps the piano but he doesn’t replace it with something else. You know, all of a sudden I’m giving that up and there’s nothing else in that place. That’s a red flag. Another one would be, they all want more privacy, right? Cause their bodies are changing and so they, you know, feel a little bit more self-conscious. But if they’re being secretive, like passwords and seem to be sneaky,

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
That’s a good one.

AnneMoss Rogers:
That can be a red flag. So I’m give you an example of that. son, both my sons had a computer in the hallway. They were no, they were not allowed to take computers into their room and laptops were a thing, but it wasn’t a thing for kids to have them at that point. And I wasn’t going to, when they went to college, they could get a laptop. That was my role or you know, maybe when they left the house, depending on which one they wanted to do. And my son started, my younger son started hiding or not coming clean with the passwords. And I mean, he was going, he was on the computer late, you know, we would go to bed and he’d get up and get on the computer. So I had to make sure that the internet cut off at night. so that he couldn’t go on. And this was back before that you could get on the internet with a phone. mean, later on he could when he was older and the smartphones had come out. So that’s alarming behavior when they start to become secretive and manipulative and they’re lying a lot. You know, kids are gonna lie, they’re gonna try to get by with things, they’re gonna try to sneak out. But as a regular kind of thing, that’s a red flag too. You know, the change of friends, like they had all these friends, and now they’ve got all these friends and seem a little bit sketchy. So here we are as parents, what do we wanna do? We want to blame the friends. It’s those friends. It’s that influence. They have found each other and they have found each other for a reason. Maybe they all are feeling a certain way and they want to dabble into drugs and robo tripping and anything, you know, what kind of stuff is around the house and how can we use it to get high? They have found each other. And what I recognize is It wasn’t the friends because my son was right in there. And it wasn’t until I put spyware on his computer, not my proudest moment, that I started to recognize that. I’m like, well, this time, not for every time, but for certain things that were happening, he was the ringleader. They all had bad ideas is what it comes down to.

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
That is one of the most powerful things I have heard in a long time that they have found each other. Because so often you’re like, he’s got bad friends and it’s the friends and this grouping together because they all have the same needs, struggles. That is such a powerful concept that they found each

AnneMoss Rogers:
Birds of the feather flock together, right?

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
Yeah. Yeah, no, that’s good. OK, I want to shift this one. We could talk about this one for an hour, but we’re going to keep this maybe to five minutes. Social media, social media. This is, think, the biggest challenge right now. I can tell you as a teacher, it is the most contentious issue in schools. I’ve been irate about it. Watching colleagues let things slide when we have certain rules. So there’s that at schools. Parents not knowing how to literally I was asked that I was on a panel like how do I get the phone out of my my daughter’s hand physically, like I physically don’t know how to get it out, navigating it. What is your main messaging then to parents about this big, bad, unknown world of social media in terms of parenting our children within that culture?

AnneMoss Rogers:
Okay, number one, where do they get the phone? Who owns it?

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
Good?

AnneMoss Rogers:
We own the phone.

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
I just said that last month. You on the phone, parent or.

AnneMoss Rogers:
So I don’t think any child under the age of 15 should have a smartphone because you’re basically saying when you hand over a smartphone phone. Yes, I’m okay with you being groomed for sex trafficking. I’m okay with you watching hardcore porn. There are things on that phone. are so, no, you can’t get on that bus. We are hypersensitive about the real world and what they do out there. But when it comes to that phone, we have no idea what they’re doing. And when they do get that phone, there needs to be some serious boundaries. Like, and I don’t know how this family did it, but they set it up at the beginning that when you come into the house, that phone goes in a basket. And there’s one hour a night where you can hang on your phone, but then it goes back in the basket and everybody’s phone, mom and dad’s included are powered up in that basket in the hallway or in their bathroom. So have some kind of rules. Now there are bark phones and watches and things, you know, all I’ve got to pick up my kid for a dental appointment. There are alternatives. Number two, schools should be banning phones at school. There should be no phones. And we’ve done that here. So the local school did that. I went to present at my son’s school, the one Charles went to, and I’m asked back every year and I go there every year because, know, that’s where you went. And I said, well, how have you done since the

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
Yeah.

AnneMoss Rogers:
school, you know, doesn’t allow phones in classrooms, she goes, Oh my gosh, it was like a tomb before everybody clicking and looking down. And she goes, now I walk in, they’re talking to each other. They’re connecting and the absolute foundation for good mental health is connection and belonging. Number one, you are not going to get that if everyone is looking at this device.

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
Which story is messaging we have to be giving to the kids? You think that you’re friends on Instagram? That’s not a friendship and that’s not authentic relationships. We need that messaging with our kids. That’s not your connection.

AnneMoss Rogers:
don’t think we can tell them that. need them to discover that on their own. Say, you’ve given the smartphone, you’ve not done any rules or boundaries. And I have a media plan and I can send you the link for that. It kind of gives you a basic, what are the media plan rules in our family? And you can adjust it to whatever they are in yours.

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
Do it. Yeah.

AnneMoss Rogers:
But that’s how they get on social media. there’s, and to really understand what they do on social media, I was in digital marketing, so I get it. I know what the algorithms do. And when your children are at their most vulnerable, that algorithm knows and they go right in for the child when they are at their lowest, when they have the fewest resources to dig out of it. So we’re basically taking a hammer when they’re in Lois and we’re keep beating on them and they don’t yet have the brain development to work through that. You want to know how the whole social media thing works? Read the book, Careless People. You will never let me tell you the tech people that is probably on your side of the continent.

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
okay.

AnneMoss Rogers:
They don’t let their kids near a phone, not near a phone. They don’t let them near social media and they have, you know, they’re pretty good at detecting if their kids are getting around that. Because what advertisers do, what social media, the whole thing is they want to keep you on the platform as long as possible. They will do whatever it takes because that’s what advertisers want. And so I’ve had kids tell me, well, so and so she gets so many likes. I’ve said that’s because she’s spending hours a day on social media and she has no real friends. she looks like she’s got millions of friends, but she does not have any real relationships. And that algorithm it’s favoring her because she is spending way too much time on social media.

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

AnneMoss Rogers:
And so that’s why she’s getting more checks and likes. And we can’t judge ourselves by that, but it’s that social conformity that they’re just preying on these aspects of being a preteen or a teenager or young adult. And we have to protect them from that. And part of that is limiting the folks. And if you do change, let’s say they take it away at school, you have rules at home. It’s going to take three weeks at least for that addiction to sort of work it for the sort of withdrawal to work out. They’re going to be angry. They’re going to be irritable. You are the worst. And it’s going to be pretty unbearable. About three weeks. And then it goes away. and then you’re back to, you know, they’re wanting to talk more, they’re wanting to connect more. That’s where we learn those skills that we need to learn. So I’m growing up in the late 70s. I remember playing dodge ball one day and I did not like that call that Tommy Knox made. He called me out. I know I wasn’t out. I was furious. He was not right. I go, stocking up. I don’t want to play with y’all anymore. Blah, blah, blah, blah. I go into my room and I’m like, huh, they’re the only friends I have in this neighborhood. Basically that was my world. This is going to be one boring summer. One hour in my room. I’m like, hmm. All right. So I had to go back, negotiate my way back in. to learn those skills so that I wasn’t going to have a completely lame summer. So it is so that face-to-face connection, the skill, that’s where they start to develop those skills. So our kids don’t have as much freelance time.

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
Right. Yeah.

AnneMoss Rogers:
They’re sent to soccer, then they have karate, and all these things have nice, neat little referees and adults telling them what to do. They need more freelance time where they’re figuring that out on their own. They need more freelance time exploring. Your 11-year-old should be allowed to get on the bus and go other places to use the public transportation. And we, I used to,

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
Mm-hmm.

AnneMoss Rogers:
As a seven year old, was on my bike, I was everywhere. But it is a lot safer out there than it is in here.

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
Absolutely, yeah, so much, absolutely. I wanna shift now to specifics into supporting mental health at home and whatever that is. So we know our systems are not doing what they need to be doing. My meeting with these wonderful women last night was how can we build up parents when we think our system’s doing what they say they’re gonna do and it’s not doing it. So I wanna dig in now into what is evidence-based plan B? like what parents do when they’re not finding the mental support that they need or they are getting the mental support but they’re still planning to be at home or the wait lists are too long, they can’t access the care. Can you give me the gist of what parents would do with that?

AnneMoss Rogers:
So I think first of all, if you can access family-based treatment so that your child is learning and you’re learning, and that is going to be more Zoom-based, you know, so you’ve got to have the connection in order to do that. But we can look up CBT skills, DBT skills, and I think really moving from punitive parenting wisdom God. Punishing, reward parenting, it’s not an effective strategy for this generation of kids. But, and we want to tell them, because we’ve learned all these things, and if they would just listen to us, well, when is lecturing ever worked, ever in the history of mankind? Never. They have to think it’s their idea. And the way we do that, Dr. Suzanne Simpson : night.

AnneMoss Rogers:
is we ask questions. So I do remember when my kids were, they were teenagers and I came home and I said, I am not gonna lecture ever again. And they’re like, dang, Lavin, sure you’ll do and you’ll never quit. And I’m like, yes, I will stop because you all are gonna help me. And they’re like, okay, I’m listening now. And I said, anytime I start lecturing, You’re going to point it out and I’m going to say, I’m so sorry. You know, I gave them solicited advice and I’m going to shut up now. And then I’m going to thank you. Well, what was I doing there? I was giving them their power back. I was saying, I need help. You can help me get this done. It takes 18 months to change a habit.

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
Mm-hmm.

AnneMoss Rogers:
Within two months, that habit was gone. I have never lectured since, not one time. And I asked questions with curiosity instead.

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
Hmm. Kids, you know what, you get them to where you know that they need to be, but they’re doing it, like you said, they’re doing it on their own. They’re figuring it out with questions.

AnneMoss Rogers:
And what the really magic phrase I’ve noticed with a lot of kids is, know, you’re smart. I know you’ll figure this out. So you basically told them you have the skills. So it’s just kind of an offhand. I’m not doing that toxic mom cheerleading. That’s pretty ineffective too, or the toxic dad cheerleading. or you’re so handsome, you know, we need to back off of that. We just need to say you have the skills to figure this out. Or if they come home and they’ve gotten a really terrible score and it’s like, that must be empathize. That must be really difficult. What do you think you’ll do differently next time? You’ve just planted a seed. didn’t tell them what to do. You just. planted a seed and started a conversation. So I think the listen more and lecture less, the go from being punitive parent to wisdom guide, being more vulnerable ourselves. And I don’t mean with like, you know, I think we might lose the house too big, but like. man, I just lost it with the neighbor about that tree. I’m so embarrassed. What do you all think I should do? Get their ideas. You may not do them, but you’re saying I value what you have to say. And then they start thinking.

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
also though, just did an interview with Steve Philip about this vulnerability. You’re also showing them that you don’t need to be perfect in a culture that is so achievement focused. I’m now modeling, it’s okay to make mistakes. I’m imperfect. So there’s freedom for them to not have to be perfect in a culture and social media platforms culture that say that you’re supposed to be.

AnneMoss Rogers:
human. That’s where I learned and you know, learn from. And I remember a friend of mine, she called me out and she said, my gosh, I’m freaking out. going back to work. She’d been a nurse. She’d been the one during COVID to put everybody on the ventilators. And of course, we lost most of those people. So and then she had to leave for about a year because of her mental health. And then she was going back to work. She was the main breadwinner.

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
Yeah.

AnneMoss Rogers:
She’s going back to work. And then I said, why don’t you ask your kids for their support? And she’s like, they’re eight and 11. And I said, you’d be surprised. Have them, tell them how you’re feeling that you’re nervous about going to your new job. don’t have to go into the details while I say, I’m nervous about starting this new job. I’ve been angry and irritable and I want you to know it’s not you. But maybe when you see me being that way, if you could just give me a random hug. Well, of course they come, they throw their arms around her and she’s like, yes. And she turns to Jelly. Again, you’ve given them their power back. Here’s how they took it one step further. For two weeks, they put little notes in her lunch. How was your day today, mom? I hope you’re not feeling anxious. And she said, I would just melt like butter right there. And she goes, How can you be in that go home and then tell them how much they meant? Again, you’ve empowered them to say, you matter, you have purpose. And then they wanna think of these creative ideas even more because it may not look it, but they want to impress you more than anybody.

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
Right. Here’s the other thing about that though too. When you do that and you talk to your kids in honesty and asking their opinions or their help or whatever you’re building their own self-worth because you’re showing them that they’re important enough and they are worthy enough that you can take this to them and you’re actually going to help me out with this. Right. Are you going give me your thoughts about it? That is so that I think self-worth is everything. I think self-worth is like number one. So you’ve said, so you referred to CBT, so cognitive behavior therapy. There’s so many resources online to learn CBT with anxiety and, you know, realistic thinking, dialectical behavior therapy, which is the gold seal standard for suicidal ideation therapy. But here’s something else that you said earlier that I’m linking to your response of how we empower parents. When you said that that phone is your phone, not your kid’s phone. you’re showing that you are the authority figure in the house.

AnneMoss Rogers:
Bye.

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
You’re parenting, you are the parent. Like right there is empowerment for your position as a parent that you actually are in charge and you do get to call the shots. Which feels, that’s foundational I think.

AnneMoss Rogers:
Exactly. It is and you can ask for their input because nobody wants a dictatorship. You don’t want that in your family, but there are times that you’re going to have to put your foot down. You’re not your child’s buddy. You are their parent and the two are not the same thing. Doesn’t mean you can’t buddy up for the day and have fun and go fishing or whatever it is you want to do with your child. they look up to you and they look up to you for those boundaries. I think one of the most important things we need to teach as parents is taking that deep breath, not reacting right away. Wait till the brain settles. Think about the snow globe that you shake up and it’s all swirling about. We don’t want to make decisions when it’s all swirling about. We want to wait till it settles to the bottom.

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
Yuck.

AnneMoss Rogers:
We don’t make good decisions in emotional tsunami. So we want to learn, you know, that delayed gratification, that impulse control, and that can start really early. Some kids that’s going to take a lot more work and a lot more time, but that impulse control is the key to preventing all sorts of behaviors. And, know, and even when we talk about self harm, lots of times there’s, you know, you use a rubber band. So instead of cutting, why don’t you snap your wrist with a rubber band? One girl said, I hold two really cold ice cubes and I get that sensation of pain without actually hurting myself. So it’s kind of a step down process.

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
Thanks

AnneMoss Rogers:
Everything’s a process, it takes time. And some kids learn that impulse control and taking that deep breath really quickly. But your kids who struggle with that are going to take more patience and longer instead of pointing out when they don’t do it right. Look for those times when they do and go, I just noticed you took a deep breath before reacting. Amazing. That’s all you have to do. Don’t go overly toxic with it, just some little, I’ve noticed, I see you, I hear you.

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
I think it’s important for parents to know that your child does want you to be the parent figure, because it shows that you care to do it. And I saw this all the time in the psychiatric unit I worked, I taught at is they wanted that because then their parents were invested in them and leaning in and not neglectful. kids won’t, I think, admit it, but they want a parent to care enough. to make you put your phones go in the basket, guys. Phones go, like that’s our rule as a family. This is non-negotiable. There’s no gray area here. They really thrive on that because they want everybody, they want to be loved and they want to be cared for and somebody that is doing that in a loving way for your betterment because I love you that much.

AnneMoss Rogers:
They want boundaries. They don’t want to be thrown out into a field with no fences. They’re not ready for that yet. I mean, that’s why they, that’s why people grow up and then become adults. You know, we kind of, their fences are closer than there’s more and they make a mistake. Can we bring the fences closer and then we open them again? The gates, it’s a process. And parenting is hard. It’s never been easy. There’s always, there are always challenges and always new challenges for every single generation.

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
Yeah, I always do three wrap up questions to take us back to our goal, in this case, empowering parents on the home front with their kids’ mental health. Here’s the first one. In like one or two sentences, what is the one messaging you wish you could tell every parent on this universe to empower them to support their kids on the home front?

AnneMoss Rogers:
listen more and lecture less, because our kids want to be seen and they want to be heard. And right now in that world of social media, that’s the message I get over and over from young people. And in certain ethnic groups, another one is don’t be the tiger mom. You know, you only have as much value as your grades show me.

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
Mm-hmm.

AnneMoss Rogers:
you know, and that kind of equates for love and we need to get away from that.

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
Okay, number two, and you’ve just let into it because I think number one, you’ve answered number two. How can parents build connection when teens are feeling more isolated than ever? So listen more, lecture less, there we go. But can you give me maybe three other points of how we build connection with our teenagers and children that we know were in an isolation crisis are feeling more isolated and lonely than ever on this planet?

AnneMoss Rogers:
When we’re having a conversation with our child, so a couple of things. One is allow for those long stretches of silence where you’ve said something. Don’t be tempted to fill it with advice or chatter. Just shut up. Let them process that information because they’re thinking and it’s going to take a minute.

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
Right, yeah.

AnneMoss Rogers:
before they can process the information. Talk to them when you’re doing an activity where they feel less threatened. So maybe I used to go outside and shoot baskets with one of my boys and he would tell me a lot of stuff. My older child, I take walks with him. I’d still do this when he comes to visit. He’s 32, he’ll be 33.

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
Bye.

AnneMoss Rogers:
We go on walks. He’s an introvert, not a big talker. When we take a walk, he does not shut up. Aw. Aw, some talks and talks. And I think of all sorts of solutions in my head, but I make sure I keep those to myself. And I may ask questions. And if he asks me, I’ll say, well, here’s how I used to do it. But I know that it’s

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
You

AnneMoss Rogers:
you know, it’s not going to equate to exactly how you do it. But it just, you know, I’m just like, I’m just giving you an idea. And you asked me directly, but I’m still not going to tell them how to do it. You know, unless it’s how do I put in this plate for a light, you know, some, you know, really basic thing. Understand their fears. And I think.

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
Mm-hmm.

AnneMoss Rogers:
Lots of times so we’ve made a psychiatrist appointment. We get to that day they don’t want to go. And we’ve been, you know, we’ve waited for six months, we’ve done all this paperwork, my gosh. And now it’s here and they’re just going to kick it away. No way I’m forcing them. Step back a minute, take a deep breath. What are you afraid of? And then let them talk about it.

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
you

AnneMoss Rogers:
And then, you know, okay, I think they’re going to prescribe medicine that makes me a zombie. Wow. I wouldn’t want that for you. I want, I love you just the way you are. I, let’s ask that question. In fact, that’s a really good idea. Let’s write down some of these questions and could you ask the, the psychiatrist, at least most of them. And by the way, I can’t force you. to do any kind of treatment. I mean, it’s not gonna work if you’re not invested in it. So let’s just go get our questions asked and just go from there. And then the decision has to be yours. I may want to bake you, but I really can’t. And let’s just go and see what they have to say. So when you understand what their fears are, you can address that.

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. My favorite thing that you just said for connecting with your kids, you went for a walk with your son. Like right there when you said that and he sang like a bird means you’re on his turf. And there’s your connection of just what do you want to do when your son obviously likes to go for walks and everything you’ve just said kind of springs forth from that time spent together.

AnneMoss Rogers:
Yeah. Right? A lot of times, teenagers especially, you know, as women we want to sit across and talk to each other. Our teenagers don’t always want to be face to face. Sometimes they, that’s why sometimes people talk in the car.

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
Yeah, yeah. It’s a great talk.

AnneMoss Rogers:
We don’t want to make them always feel like a captive and want to kind of let them choose. Let’s go take the dog for a walk or throw the ball to the dog or whatever.

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
Whatever works. My big thing I said to parents in the psych unit, go take them for a burger and let them get bacon and they’re going to sing like a bird. Bacon, bacon on the burger. I mean it. They will because they’re excited about the bacon on the burger. And now they’re going to talk that my son, sings like a bird and let’s get bacon.

AnneMoss Rogers:
Great.

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
You know what works for you. You can’t do that if you’re a vegetarian. This is only for carnivores. That’s true. Here’s my last question. Tell me why should we all be emotionally naked as parents on the home front with our children?

AnneMoss Rogers:
I don’t think there’s really I think that shows that we’re authentic and real and human For those of us who have kids who are perfectionists when we show our own flaws when we Show that we pull ourselves up after a failure and figure it out That’s just so human and it’s an it’s just an example like no no If you’ve lost your mother and every time that you’re grieving, you go run into your room and you don’t let them see you cry or suffer, they’re gonna think grief is pretty easy to get through. They need to see some of the pain too.

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
Yeah. I think that empowers our children. Okay to not be okay.

AnneMoss Rogers:
It does. mean, it is. And we can’t just always be perfect ourselves or because they’ll expect that of themselves.

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
AnneMoss Rogers, thank you so much for this discussion. What you said, loved what you and I, I loved what you said. Bang on.

AnneMoss Rogers:
It’s been so great to be here. All right. Thank you. Thank you.

Dr. Suzanne Simpson:
Thanks for listening. Now you can do your part and share this with a parent who needs to be empowered to support their child on the home front. You can click like on that little link below, subscribe to this channel for more videos to come of how you can support your child and get on their turf and leave some comments. I’d love to respond. I’ll see you next time.