Episode 4: Parents of Depressed Teens with Ryan Moeller

Note: In this episode, Ryan Moeller, LMFT and I explore working with the Five Secrets of Effective Communication and the Relationship Journal. These are powerful tools created by Dr. David Burns. You can learn more about these tools on Dr. Burns’ website, www.feelinggood.com. You can learn more about the Interpersonal Model of TEAM-CBT at this link. You can also get a lot of help from Dr. Burns’ fantastic book “Feeling Good Together.”

• Transcript

  Kevin Cornelius: On today's episode, we have Ryan Moeller with us. Hello, Ryan.

  Ryan Moeller: Hello. Hello. Thank you for having me on, and I'm glad to be here.

  Kevin Cornelius: Oh, it's my pleasure to have you here. I'm so happy that I'm going to get a chance to learn a little bit more about you and about the work that you do with your clients. And so, I'd like to, for those people who are listening who aren't familiar with you yet, Ryan, maybe you could tell us just a little bit about who you are and what it is you do.

  Ryan Moeller: Yeah, thank you. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist. I'm located here in Mountain View, California, and I'm in private practice. I work with primarily adults and teenagers and a few tweens, mostly working on issues such as, depression, anxiety, school stress is a big one, you know, for a lot of tweens also, you know, stuff like that. School pressure as well as a lot of work on screen time, procrastinating, getting good habits as well for getting everything done on time. So, those are some of the bigger issues that - most common issues that I said I work with my patients.

  Kevin Cornelius: Okay. So you just said a lot of important things there, and especially, it sounds like when you're working with teens and tweens, you're helping them a lot with depression, anxiety, school stress, screen time, procrastination, and getting things turned in on time, right?

  Ryan Moeller: Yeah.

  Kevin Cornelius: A question popped into my mind as you were saying that, because I talk to parents sometimes, right? So parents will make an appointment for a free consultation because they're actually looking for therapy for their teenager, and sometimes maybe the teen is not so onboard with participating in the therapy, and it can be a little bit awkward sometimes to talk to the parent who's got lots of concerns for their child, and then they have this child who maybe is open to therapy, maybe isn't, maybe is really overwhelmed with schoolwork already, so is a kind of therapy that requires homework, a good fit for them. And I'm wondering if you could share some of your wisdom about how you talk about those things with parents.

  Ryan Moeller: Gosh, yeah. That is the question of the ages right the. You bring up a really, really salient point, and frankly, probably a pretty common one about the different desires and goals between parents and kids. And if I may, I kind of think of it as a spectrum when working with teenagers, on the one hand, there is the ideal client, you know, the teenager that asks their parents, "Hey, can you take me to therapy? I want to get some help." Those are great. On the other side, there's the ones that their parents are kind of forcing them and or they really don't want to, and they're in the middle, right? Maybe their parents kind of encourage them to, and they're kind of open to it, but not super into it, right?

  So you know, there's a lot of exploring and learning about where they are in that spectrum and kind of working from there, right? So, you know, if they're kind of interested, not super motivated, but they're into it. You know, what I like to do is, you know what David Burns calls dangling the carrots, right? The idea of really talked to them about what you can offer and kind of in a really excited tone, right? You know, being confident in what you can offer and about how you can help them. And sometimes they take that carrot, which is great, and sometimes they don't. And in those situations, you know, sometimes you can work with the parents instead. And you can be very forthcoming in them and saying, "Hey, you know, I would really love to work with you on problem X, but you know, I can totally see why you wouldn't and far be it for me to force you to do so. But just want to let you know that your parents are very concerned about it, and I'll probably work with them on it." So really depends on the situation, but that's often kind of the mindset that I like to do, right? We don't want to force kids to be in therapy, but we can entice them and show them what we can offer.

  Kevin Cornelius: Yeah. I love what you're saying, Ryan. I found myself in situations maybe before I was in private practice when I worked for more of a non-profit agency that - I was pre-licensed, and so it was very low fee and a lot of people were coming to us because maybe they were court ordered or maybe just parents were bringing kids in and saying, "You know, help! Do something with my child, I can't help them." And I have to say, sitting in a room for 50 minutes with somebody who doesn't want to be there, it's kind of like both of us are on detention. I don't like to put myself in that kind of position where therapy feels like a punishment for the teenager and also for me. And so, I like what you said that, you know, we don't try to force anybody to be in a therapy session.

  I think that's great that you can dangle the carrot and where we're explaining all of the potential benefits of the therapy in a positive and upbeat way, but not really trying to talk to anybody into anything. 'You know, this is what I have to offer, and if you want it, that's great, and if you don't, then of course I'll be working with your parents, or I'll offer to work with your parents instead." I wanted to ask you, - well, just take the first example of what you said you work with people on, right? Like, you'll probably work a lot with teens on depression, right? And so, I'm imagining a parent coming to you for a consultation. Of course, they're observing that their child is in bed a lot you know, maybe had some bad habits that they've gotten into as a way of kind of avoiding negative feelings, like, I don't know, video games all the time, or YouTube all the time, or something kind of falling behind in school, maybe even some school refusal sometimes. And just really low mood and low energy and low motivation. I'm curious. Maybe you could share with us; what would you say to the parent that you could be helpful to them with? Let's say that depressed teenager actually kind of doesn't want to come to therapy and you're going to work with the parents instead, what is it you could help a parent with in that situation?

  Ryan Moeller: Yeah, yeah. Gosh. That is a very good question and a very painful situation for a parent to be in. It almost sounds like in the sense that the parent is the patient. Is that kind of what you're kind of getting at? Are you kind of working with a parent as the patient, is that right?

  Kevin Cornelius: Well, I think that that's, now that you say that, I think that that's probably the only thing that we could offer them, right? If the teenagers not wanting to participate in therapy, then maybe what we have to offer the parent is, how about if I worked with you? Maybe this is difficult for you, you know, maybe you're experiencing some moods that you don't like. Maybe this feels painful or maybe you would like some help with communicating effectively with your child. And also, maybe you could just use some empathy and support around what this is like for you. So yeah, I guess you're right, we would, you would be offering to say, what if the therapy was for you more than for your child at this time.

  Ryan Moeller: Again, I ask that kind of question because it can be a little - I do think that dynamic does change a little bit if you're providing a parent session for child patient versus the parent is the patient, right? And yeah, if the parent is the patient, then I think you brought up some really great points about how we can conceptualize it, right? I can imagine, you know, perhaps as part of the kid being depressed, they probably have some really strong and negative thoughts that I'll love to help them with, right? You brought up the thing about communication, and that's actually one of the bigger things I do work with on parents is, I do like going over building the relationships with their kids using the five secrets of effective communication. That's pretty important, right?

  Because, I don't know about each specific case, but quite often this depressed kid probably isn't feeling very connected to their parents or probably for many people in general, right? They might be feeling kind of turned off or maybe some resentment or probably feeling quite disconnected from the parents. I do like hearing about getting more information about what their relationship is like, what do they do for fun of each other, what sort of joy and engagement do they have with each other. I will also say for this parent clients, you know, I do like giving some basic psychoeducation on depression, how it manifests and how it works. And we kind of can go over. In a similar way with working with the five secrets, is exploring ways to encourage them to do things that can be helpful for their mental health, but in a way that's very warm, empathing and caring versus being like an ultimatum or a consequence or something like that, right?

  So we know about, like you mentioned about these kids that would be playing video games all day or sleeping in, not socializing, isolating. We know that in order for them to feel better, you know, one aspect would be to improve their habits. Now, if the parent thinks that the goal would be to storm in and force them to do something, that's probably not going to be very helpful, right? So it would be kind of exploring ways that we can encourage their kids to do better, to recover, but without making it a battle. So, those are a few of the things that kind of come up for me when you bring up these types of situations.

  Kevin Cornelius: Ryan, I love the direction that we're going in here. If it's okay with you, what I'd like to ask you to try is maybe a little bit of a role play with me. Let's say I'm a parent of a teenager and my teen is sleeping all the time, falling behind in school, obviously depressed, is pretty unfriendly towards me, and as maybe even expressed, you know, some suicidal thoughts and what sometimes people do when they're really depressed. You're going to work with me and you're going to introduce to me the concept of the communication tools that you have to offer. And let's say that I've never been introduced to these before. Because I'll say for people who are listening to this episode, even if they've listened to the other episodes I have on the podcast, they haven't been introduced to the Five Secrets yet unless they have read one of Dr. Burns' books. So, I think it would be really interesting for people listening to hear you describe to me like what is it that you could help me with, with communicating with my teenager.

  Ryan Moeller: Yeah. So for going right into it, you know, I would first like give that parent quite a bit of my own empathy, right? Telling them how painful and scary and difficult it must be to be parenting this kid and dealing with the challenges. And I would tell you, frankly, you know, I like to hear, you know, I'm also hearing from you that your relationship with, let's say, your son is not so good. And as I may have mentioned before, you know, one of the big symptoms of depression for teenagers is feeling disconnected and isolated from their parents, and from frankly many people, right? They kind of just connect from real life friendships and things like that.

  And so, you know, I'd like to offer you, if that's okay, there are some pretty distinctive and really helpful strategies that I can really help you with to improve your relationship with your son. Now, setting aside here, I can... well, let's take a step back, Kevin, because I think, you know, throughout this role play, I would also do say, you know, normally when we talk about the five secrets, we present it, but we also talk about the interpersonal stuff as well, the interpersonal model, right? I'd say, again, for people that are listening that might know where I'm coming from, it's sort of this idea that in order to improve a relationship, there might be some resistance to that, right? There might be some good reasons not to open up or to try to get closer with this person. And I think that is one thing that we can address as well. So that was a little bit - sorry if I kind of -

  Kevin Cornelius: No, I love what you just said, Ryan. So yeah, I was kind of jumping to like this method of learning the five secrets, but I like that you pulled back and said in the big picture before you would start working with a parent, you would explain to them, you know, what the interpersonal model is and why they might not be interested in using it. And you know, because while a great close relationship can be created with another person using these tools there are also powerful good reasons not to use them. And you'd want to bring all of those to conscious awareness and discuss them and kind of have this patient you're working with convince you that even though there are many good reasons not to use them, they still would want to do the work involved to get better. Is that kind of where we're going?

  Ryan Moeller: Exactly. I don't think I could have said that better than you have, frankly.

  Kevin Cornelius: And that kind of helps us understand the TEAM model itself a little bit more clearly, right? Because of course, TEAM is that acronym T for testing, E for empathy, and then a for assessment of resistance. And when it comes to, let's say, a parent with their depressed teenager wanting to be able to communicate more effectively with them; I could imagine, like for me as a parent, if I was coming in in that situation, probably, but I want to be able to "communicate better" is, these are the things I want you to do and these are the things I want you to stop doing, right? And I just want you to get better, right? And you know, the interpersonal model that you were referring to, maybe there's a different goal in mind, right?

  Ryan Moeller: Right. You said it so beautifully. When people think about getting closer and building communication, what they really mean is, how can I manipulate you to do what I want more effectively? How can I say these magic words, get you to do your homework on time, or to stop playing video games and things like that. And what we are offering with the five secrets is something that's a bit more powerful. Much more powerful, but also a bit different, right? You know, the idea that I do think that I can really help you become more connected, more vulnerable and even more close with your kid. But at the same time, you know, there might be some really good reasons not to, right?

  I mean, if this kid is, you know, probably has a lot of depressed, you know, adolescents are usually often angry and irritable. So I can imagine your kid might, you know, would say angry outbursts to you. They might be defiant at times. They are quite often doing things that you don't want them to, which can probably engender some very strong negative feelings and blame. And the question is if you want to, to really get closer to them, you're going to have to look at your your own role in things and to kind of overcome the blame and not have that be the force there, right? So yeah, we would definitely go through that process and and see if they really wants to truly get closer with the kid.

  Kevin Cornelius: Yeah. I just want to slow down for a moment. You said something super important, a lot of really good things in there, but the most important thing that stood out to me was, I can just see myself being in this position so much as a parent, but I'm coming to you because I want you to show me how I can convince my child to change. And that's not what your role is really, is what you're saying, right? Like, your role is going to be to help me have a better relationship with my child, where there's trust that's built and where there's greater closeness and intimacy and understanding and support. And in order for that to happen, I'd have to be willing to let go of blaming my child for the problems that the two of us have. I think that's what I heard you say.

  Ryan Moeller: No, absolutely. Yeah, so that would be the big hurdle to overcome. And you think of a good point about change, you know, and you bring up how a parent wants the kid to change. But what we're offering is once you change, you know, examine your role and change how you communicate, that actually can change how the kid acts. And sort of sort of indirectly; kind of when we create our own interpersonal reality. When you change, everything changes, to an extent. And that's a little bit more philosophical than what I would say to most of my patients, frankly. That mindset does seem to work. Everyone's connected in a way, and so, yeah.

  Kevin Cornelius: Well, Ryan, I think that you and I are some more in this way. If I was going to work with a parent on improving their relationship with their child, you know, I would explain to them that I would love to work with you. I'm wondering if what I have to offer is even fair to you because you'd be actually doing lots of changing, right? You'd be focusing actually on your role in the problem, not just as somebody who's contributing to the problem that you're noticing, but you'd also be taking a close look at how is it that you're actually causing the behavior that you don't like in the other person. Because we are all creating our own interpersonal reality in every moment through the way that we communicate with others, and sometimes it can be really hard to look at what it is that we've done that's created the situation that we're in, that we're unhappy with.

  And if a person is interested in doing that, right? If they're okay with looking just at their own role and taking responsibility for doing all of the changing, then we've got so much to offer you, right? There's so many great things I can show you, and I think it's going to be awesome for you. But it does require only looking at what you can change. And then I think that that's a really great piece to give somebody too, what you said, which is, while we're not going to focus on making the other person change, because pretty much no good has ever come of that, right? I think almost every movie about relationships that you go to see, that's the story. It's like if somebody tries to change somebody else, it doesn't go so well.

  But if I was to start, you know, listening really well to another person, sharing my own feelings openly and honestly in a really respectful way, they can't not change, because I've changed so much. But we don't come in saying, I'm going to figure out how to manipulate this other person and change them, right? I liked that you use that term manipulate. I think that's so right on. And so, let's think about again; you brought us back to our big picture of the team model, right? And so, let's say that there has been some testing done, and you've given a parent tons of empathy, really helping understand them, built a great relationship with them, you know, they really trust you, they feel supported and heard by you. And then you've come in and there's been some assessment of resistance, so the parent understands that really all you can help them with is changing their own behavior. and maybe you've even helped them see that it would be more to... they've decided that there's more disadvantages in blaming their child than advantages, so they really are motivated to look at their own role in the problem. and then now we're at the point where you could introduce like, what are the communication tools that somebody could use to communicate well with another person? And I would love to hear how it is that you introduce those tools to somebody. Would that be okay?

  Ryan Moeller: Yeah. Yeah. So speaking of - now we're in the methods portion of the model, right? The actual need of the specific techniques. I'm going to have it like a few different break it down a little bit, to two key things. Well, the first thing I would ask would be to, you know, and maybe we've done it already from earlier, but I would love to get a specific interaction with them and their kid, right? Something basically, you know, what their kids said and then what you said, right? That would probably be a good step to kind of see what the interaction is. And again, it's very simple - one phrase that their kids said and then their response. And so, I would have that kind of in the back of my head or even up at front about seeing the stage there, and from there, yes, I would introduce the five secrets of communication, right?

  Kevin Cornelius: Well, Ryan, I don't mean to interrupt you. I want to say let's do what you just said. Because you're introducing a relationship journal, and so let's imagine that I'm the parent that's come to you and you can talk me through that, and I'll give you that information and you can show me how you would work on that with someone. Is that okay?

  Ryan Moeller: Yeah, sure. So if I were to, I would introduce the relationship journal and say, "Hey, you know, I'm glad that we've kind of worked through the steps and I'm really glad to hear that you really wants to improve your relationship with your child, and I'd love to do that. I was thinking maybe... can you think of a specific interaction you've had with your teen, you know, starting with something that they said, then following up with something that you said." So, just that quick little interchange. Does that make sense?

  Kevin Cornelius: I think it does. Like, you mean, and maybe one that didn't go so well.

  Ryan Moeller: Right.

  Kevin Cornelius: One that like shows what our conflict is.

  Ryan Moeller: Right.

  Kevin Cornelius: Sure I can think of one of those. So the other day my son was late getting up for school, just kept hitting [unclear29:00] button and not getting out bed. And I kept coming to the door and kind of like, "Come on, let's go." And he said to me, it was basically, "Oh, what's the point? I'm not going to do well at school today anyway." And my response was, "The point is, you need to get up and go to school and be on time."

  Ryan Moeller: Right, right. So he said, "What's the point? I'm not going to do well at school anyways." And then my response is, 'The point is, you need to get up and get to school and be on time." Is that right?

  Kevin Cornelius: Yes.

  Ryan Moeller: Yeah. Yeah. I would have you, you know, present you a relationship journal and have you write it down, right? Write down in these steps here so we can kind of have it captured. Now from here, you know, I can imagine this interaction is quite emotionally charged for you. Now, I'd love to maybe start with the first step of when your son said, "What's the point? I'm not going to do well at school anyways." Maybe you can kind of share with me - what emotions do you think he was probably expressing at that point? You know, just for your best guesses.

  Kevin Cornelius: Oh, like, what was he feeling then?

  Ryan Moeller: Yeah.

  Kevin Cornelius: When he said that?

  Ryan Moeller: When you said that.

  Kevin Cornelius: Yeah. So he said I'm not going to do well in school anyway, so what's the point? It sounds like he's feeling hopeless.

  Ryan Moeller: Oh, definitely. Yeah.

  Kevin Cornelius: Maybe irritated with me. I keep coming to the door and bugging him.

  Ryan Moeller: Right.

  Kevin Cornelius: It sounds, you know, that's like depressing, like he sounds depressed, right?

  Ryan Moeller: Yeah.

  Kevin Cornelius: Maybe guilty, you know, I'm not going to do well anyway. Maybe he's feeling kind of bad about himself for not doing well in school, or even defective.

  Ryan Moeller: Probably incompetent, right?

  Kevin Cornelius: Incompetent. Oh, that's a good one. I'll write that down. Kind of discouraged, right?

  Ryan Moeller: Well, absolutely.

  Ryan Moeller: That's the thing about, when it comes to school refusal, right? Is the more that they're behind, the amounts more and more and more, which it's a very painful cycle, right?

  Kevin Cornelius: Sure. When you say that, it makes me think that maybe he just feels overwhelmed.

  Ryan Moeller: Yeah.

  Kevin Cornelius: Stressed out, right? And I don't know, maybe even angry at me.

  Ryan Moeller: Probably.

  Kevin Cornelius: Yeah, that's probably the feeling that he most often shares, that's for sure. Okay, that's probably a good list.

  Ryan Moeller: Yeah, we got a lot of really strong feelings that, of course, we don't know exactly what he is feeling, but I think given what he said, it makes a lot of sense, right?

  Kevin Cornelius: Yeah. Okay.

  Ryan Moeller: Yeah. So the next thing from here is, is we would do this exact same thing for yourself and your feelings when you said, you know, the point is you need to get up and get to school and be on time. You know, maybe you can kind of take a look internally and kind of ask yourself, you know, when you were saying that and when you had this interaction with your son, what were you feeling?

  Kevin Cornelius: Yeah, I was feeling frustrated. I think also worried about the consequences of him being late again. I'm also concerned, you know, he just looks like a mess, right? He's just lying there not getting up, just looks - it's just kind of like you want to shake him and say, come on, wake up and get with the program. But I'm also deeply concerned about his wellbeing. So maybe I'm also feeling a little bit - I don't know how to say it. Like, well, I guess guilty myself, right? Because I don't know what to do to help him do better. I've tried so many things and it seems like the things that I'm doing aren't working, so I feel kind of de defective as a parent. Maybe I could say maybe I'm also feeling defective like he is.

  Ryan Moeller: Right. I can imagine you may have at some point, "What am I doing wrong? I'm totally failing."

  Kevin Cornelius: Yeah. I'm feeling kind of hopeless, because am I going to be able to do anything to help him get out of this? And and I guess he and I have some feelings in common here because I feel pretty angry too with the situation, with myself, with him. That's probably a pretty good list for my feelings.

  Ryan Moeller: You know, as you're going for this, I feel a lot of like, even though this is a role play, I feel so connected to this pretend patient and what they're going through.

  Kevin Cornelius: Yeah.

  Ryan Moeller: You know, this is similar thing does play out quite a bit.

  Kevin Cornelius: Yeah.

  Ryan Moeller: Anyways, back to the role play.

  Kevin Cornelius: Sure.

  Ryan Moeller: Well, I guess from here, you know, maybe Kevin, any comments or questions about where we're at right here and all that before you continue?

  Kevin Cornelius: Yeah, I guess the way that you helped me look at this, like right away, I'm already noticing more of like what this was like for him and also for me that I hadn't thought about before. And I think it also maybe gets me in touch with some sadness that I feel about the whole thing. Like, maybe I should put down sadness is one of the feelings. This isn't what I wanted for him, you know, for his high school life to be like, so that's sad. And I guess the fact that we have a lot of the same negative feelings in common is surprising to me - kind of was, you know, it seems meaningful.

  Ryan Moeller: I think we've got a lot of, lot of good energy here and part of me wants to go straight to, you know, because I can see your mind is already starting to feel more empathic for your son. You know, even just going over how they might be feeling that can definitely really go past these defenses and really get in touch with the tender side of what your son is going through. So I think from here you can kind of ask; when you said this response, when your son, you know, who was most lucky, you know, feeling guilty, hopeless, discouraged, overwhelmed and stressed and angry when he said, "What's the point? I'm not going to do well at school anyways." And you said the point is he needed to get up and get to school and be on time. I mean, did that response... how do you think that - do you think that made the problem better or worse? What happened afterwards?

  Kevin Cornelius: Well, it definitely makes it worse because then he just digs the heels in even more. Like, if it was possible for him to bury himself anymore in those blankets, he would just burrow right in.

  Ryan Moeller: Yeah. How do you feel when you brought that up?

  Kevin Cornelius: I feel sad about that, you know, and I'm frustrated with myself right that probably my attitude isn't very caring or helpful, and so I'm just kind of making the situation worse instead of helping, which is what I was trying to do.

  Ryan Moeller: Yeah. I hear you, you know, kind of acknowledging this sort of feeling with sadness and frustration, and the same that you've been saying that you've been realizing that your attitude hasn't been that helpful. And from here, I'd like to offer and show you some great techniques and tools that can help with that. You know, namely, there's a thing called the Five Secrets of Effective Communication, would be open to learn more about that?

  Kevin Cornelius: Sure. Yeah.

  Ryan Moeller: Yeah. Awesome. I hope so. So the five secrets are a bunch of different ways to communicate essentially, right? So the first one is the disarming technique, in which you, you find the truth in what the other person is saying. Even if it's greater at truth; you find it and acknowledge it, and to really kind of see where they're coming from. This is a very difficult one, but it's probably one of the most powerful ones. The second one is empathy, and you can kind of divide it into two parts. There's thought empathy and feeling empathy. Thought empathy is when you kind of summarize and paraphrase what the other person is saying, and this can kind of denotes, you know, that you are really listening, right? That you're really trying to understand them. When someone summarizes what you said, it kind of gives the idea that that they're trying to understand you, which can be helpful. The fueling empathy is when you kind of take your best guess at what the other person is feeling, right? I got you so far?

  Kevin Cornelius: Yeah.

  Ryan Moeller: Awesome. Awesome. And again, when we do feeling empathy, we don't actually know what they're feeling is providing the best guess. So after that, there's inquiry, which is asking gentle probing questions to learn more about what the other person is thinking and feeling and what they're experiencing, which is distinctly different than interrogation, right? Which sometimes people can [unclear41:19] to you, but it's doing this in the attitude of gentleness and curiosity, right? So that's inquiry.

  After that there's I feel statements, which is expressing your own feelings in a thoughtful, respectful manner, right? And when I say feelings, I mean feeling like as an emotion word, right? Saying like, you know what, I have to admit, I'm feeling a little sad or a little unhappy or a bit concern, right? Something like that. What I see some people make the mistake of saying, you know what, I feel like you're not listening to me. Which is not a feeling, right? That's just saying, you know, you're not listening to me, which is quite the opposite of what we're trying to get here, right? And the final secret is stroking or complimenting, so to speak, which is basically having a tone of respect and care for the person throughout this interaction. And ideally, you know, trying to weave in some genuine, authentic compliments if you can. So, this sounds like a lot.

  Kevin Cornelius: Good. Yeah, yeah. Well, I want to pause there for a second because we're going to have to wrap up our podcast soon. But I like the way that you just presented the five secrets varied effectively, and I'm wondering if you'd be willing to try doing one more. I don't mean to put you on the spot here, but I want to see if you could show us, and I realize you wouldn't do this in a session with a client right now, right? You would facilitate them expressing this with using the Five Secrets, right? Yeah, but just for the listener who doesn't know what Five Secrets are and what this would even sound like, like what would I disarm? What do these things even mean? If I was to play the role of this teenager and I said to you this statement, could you try replying to me using Five Secrets? And you can see what that sounds like. Is that okay?

  Ryan Moeller: Yeah, I can give it a shot. I do want to kind of disclaim that when we practice the Five Secret, so we give a lot of trial and error, right? Very rarely do we have that great, wonderful response in one goal. Sorry, one go.

  Kevin Cornelius: Yeah.

  Ryan Moeller: But yeah.

  Kevin Cornelius: So no pressure, Ryan. I'm not expecting a, you know, we don't need an A+ response off the bat, but I think it would be really interesting for people listening to hear what it would even sound like to even try to use five secrets to respond to this person who's lying in bed, not getting up over and over again. So I'll hit you with my statement and then see what it's like to use some five secrets with me. "You know, dad, what's the point? I'm not going to do well in school anyway."

  Ryan Moeller: Oh, gosh, son. My heart really goes out to you when you say that, and I feel so sad hearing you. I can only imagine what it's been like for you with the situation for school, you know. I'm guessing you might be feeling pretty hopeless and discouraged. And not only he's been struggling so much with this and so many troubles with the teachers and with some of the other students. Like, I totally don't blame you if you're feeling really down and unhappy with what's been going on. And like I said, I'm a bit feeling unhappy hearing that and feeling a bit worried, worried about you, because I'm seeing you falling so far behind and I can't help but feel some concern. And I'm only really expressing this because son, I really love you so much and I really care about you and I just want the best for you. And I realize I've been kind of on your case lately too, as I think about it, I've been really just nagging you and not really hearing you out. And I've probably been a little bit dismissive of what you've been telling me. You know, telling me your concerns and frankly, son, you wouldn't be that surprised if you're a little frustrated with me too. And I totally get it. This is kind of a long-winded, but I'll love to kind of hear little more about what you're going through and what this has been like for you. And I really wanted to help you and support you, and I really want to know bit more about what your struggles have been like and what I can do to help.

  Kevin Cornelius: Okay. Thank you for doing that, Ryan. I think you did that really well. And I think you've given us all a lot to think about, you know, about what is helpful to somebody when they're in a situation like that, and to use empathy and respect and your own "I feel" statements and all that so beautifully. I think this would probably go a long way towards building a better relationship with someone. There's more for us to think about and explore in another podcast and at another time. But of course, it strikes me that if I was a parent listening to this, you know, I would be thinking, but what about the problem of him not getting up and going to school on time? And it's a real tricky thing, because as a parent, you do have to kind of help problems solve.

  Ryan Moeller: If it may. So a few endpoints here, you know, using the five secrets and practicing ii is a lifelong journey. No one's going to be perfect. It takes a long time, but you do bring up the good point about the consequences, you know, perhaps implementing some behavioral changes on your own, you know, accountability, right? Things like that, and this is especially helpful for younger kids, right? Of course you have to have limits and impose consequences and boundaries for what you do, right? And that's a whole nother kind of worms. But I think one of my main teaching points I give, I give parents is that empathy, you know, being able to be empathetic and supportive and use the Five Secrets is not at all inclusive with setting specific boundaries, and implementing consequences if need be and things like that.

  So I just want to kind of bring that out there is that by using the five secrets and being warm empathic and connecting, that doesn't preclude the use of your own parenting basically. You bring up the point about people not going to school; you know, what I often see is they would end up playing video games instead, and it's like, 'Well, gosh, this is a great reason for me to be depressed or anxious.. I get to play video games all day instead of avoiding the actual things they have to do." And parents have, you know, I'm not saying every parent should take away video games at all times. Its a whole nother story, but parents have the right to impose natural consequences based on the kids' behaviors. And that's a whole nother, you know, intricate dance of how that works. But I think the main message I want to give as we close is that these two things, empathy and accountability, they're not separate from each other. You can do both at once.

  Kevin Cornelius: Okay. So, in other words, I might even have more success having a better relationship with my child if I can set boundaries in a way that's understanding and uses empathy and warmth and respect like that.

  Ryan Moeller: And again, every everyone's situation is different, right? But yeah, just want to kind of give that.

  Kevin Cornelius: Okay. Well, Ryan, this hour went by so fast, I feel like I need another hour with you to talk about this topic. Maybe I'll bring you back again for a future episode. I want to make sure for people who are looking for a therapist that they understand a couple of things about how to reach you. So I'm wondering, by the way, do you have a website that you use for introducing yourself to people?

  Ryan Moeller: Yeah. Gosh, so currently it's down. I'm rewriting it, redoing it, but I do work under the Feeling Good Institute. So if you contact the Feel Good Institute, my contact information is on there. Alternativley, you can just email me at ryan@feelinggoodinstitute.com.

  Kevin Cornelius: Okay. Great. And yeah, that's a good point that you're on the Feeling Good Institute website, so feelinggoodinstitute.com, there's a directory where people could look up Ryan. And Ryan, your last name is M-O-E-L-L-E-R.

  Ryan Moeller: Correct.

  Kevin Cornelius: And somebody could put that in and then they would see some great information about you and how to contact you and get started with you if they were interested in working with you. And I think it's good for people listening to know that you work with, of course, teenagers adults, parents, and sometimes together.

  Ryan Moeller: Right, right.

  Kevin Cornelius: What a treat to have you here today, and thanks for going with the flow and having me throw some crazy role play ideas at you. Yeah. And I think that people listening to this got to get a great sense of some of the things that you have to offer parents and teenagers and how we can listen to people and use effective communication, so I really appreciate that, Ryan. Thank you.

  Ryan Moeller: Yeah, thank you for having me on.

  Kevin Cornelius: You're welcome. Okay. Until next time.

  Ryan Moeller: Right. Take care. Bye.