Dr. Clare Crowe

Yeah.

And trust is tested in those hard moments.

And I know the impetus is to put in a consequence straight away.

But actually, what we know again, I'm going to shock you a little bit now, but it's to say, if you put in a consequence, they're less likely to tell you again.

So really, if we want to come away from secrecy, which is a normal part of teenage development, we really need to manage our emotions and also manage our reactions.

So not this consequence, not this big, you've lost your phone, which tends to be the automatic consequence.

But actually, if we can pull that back and say, actually, I'm, you know, react like my regulate my emotions, take, you know, four deep breaths.

And then kind of say, I'm glad I've learned this about you or I'm glad you've told me if they have or if they haven't told you to say, look, I found this out and I'm curious about what happened there.

If we can stay in curiosity, we're less likely to be in rage or panic or alarm.

So, again, that facilitates a conversation and to name it.

So one of the problematic things that happens is for teenagers particularly, they think they are their behaviour.

So if we say, I can't believe you did that, I thought, you know, I raised you better.

What happens is they move into shame instead of guilt.

So guilt is I did something wrong.

But shame is I am something wrong.

And from a clinical perspective, that is a really difficult emotion to work with.

Yeah.

No, it really is.

I remember working with a teenager.

I worked with diabetes for a long time and he was drinking alcohol.