The Power of Teaching Self-Compassion to Teens

I'm Holly Wehmint, and this is Pediatrics Now, cases, updates, and discussions for the busy pediatric practitioner.

Click on the link in this podcast for free credit that may include CME, MOC, or ethics credit, depending on our topic or podcast. Today, I'm thrilled because joining me here on Pediatrics Now is Dr.

Karen Bluth. Dr. Bluth, you're an associate professor emerita, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and the author of Self-Compassion Workbook for Teens, The Self-Compassionate Teen, Mindfulness and Self-Compassion for Teen ADHD, Self-Compassion for Girls, A Guide for Parents, Teachers and Coaches, Mindful Self-Compassion for Teens in Schools.

All of these topics I know our listeners have patience where it's just and a lot of us who have teenage kids myself included I'm just kind of blown away like oh I want my daughter to know all of this I want to read all of this you've been doing this for 50 years. What do you want pediatric practitioners to know, first of all? What's the most important thing in that exam room? Yeah, I think the most important thing, well, actually, first, I'd like to say that thank you for having me, Holly.

I'm happy to be here and happy to talk about this subject that's so important to me and that I've spent so much of my life learning about and learning with teens. So what I really want clinicians to know is that their clients, these teens, do not have to struggle as much with things like anxiety, depression, and stress as they do.

That there is a way out, that there are solutions for teens to become more resilient, to become less stressed, less anxious, to be a better support to themselves, and to be able to be there for themselves when things are hard, when they're encountering things in their lives that are difficult, which, as we know, this is not an easy world to live in right now.

There's a lot of things out there that are very fearful and hard to deal with for adults, let alone for teens. So, you know, I think that's the main thing that I really want clinicians to know is that there are skills that teens can learn to be more resilient. And Karen, you've been in this compassion space for 50 years, and you have so much experience, obviously, in this.

And how would you identify a teen who would be right, where you go right to the, let's look at self-compassion, where there's so much pediatric practitioners are seeing, as we all know, there's this epidemic of depression and anxiety. What would be some signs to look for where self-compassion could help? Yeah, well, I pretty much assume that most teens, if not all teens, are struggling at least somewhat with things like anxiety and depression.

I think it's really rare to find teens who are just, you know, feeling great about themselves. It's part of what goes with the territory. So I just make that assumption. Of course, there are degrees and, you know, some teens obviously struggle a lot more than others. But some of the things to look for, I think, are teens who are isolating themselves, who are in their rooms, on their phones, not spending a lot of time hanging out with their friends.

I think that's, you know, that's some of the main things really to look for. And what would you suggest? What would be some good things to say to try to help that teenager who's going through that? Yeah, I think one of the main messages that we try to get across, and this gets into the definition of self-compassion, but one of the main messages we try to get across is that they're not alone in their struggles. And most teens really feel like they're the only ones.

They're the only ones who are struggling with anxiety. They're the only ones who feel lonely or feel sad or feel like they're an idiot. And when we teach teens about self-compassion, and we do have an eight-week class where we teach teens about self-compassion, that's one of the most eye-opening things for teens is when they realize that they're not alone in their struggles. So it might be helpful if I talk about the definition of self-compassion as it was defined by Krista Neff.

She is the pioneer and self-compassion. At UT Austin, right? Right, at UT Austin. She's no longer at UT Austin, but you can find out all about her from her website, which is selfcompassion.org. You can also join as part of her self-compassion community. There's a small monthly fee.

I think it's like $14 a month or something like that. But there are a lot of resources that you can access without joining. But anyway, that's all on the website. And I guess those emails, too, they're very helpful. And I didn't realize, though, she's not with the University of Texas at Austin anymore. But she was there for a number of years, right? Yes, she was there for a long time. I think at least 20 years, something like that.

And yeah, she has retired from the university. and so that she could really put more of her time and energy into developing other resources for people who want to learn how to be more self-compassionate. So, you know, and we know that self-compassion is tied to less anxiety, less depression, less stress, most recently less suicidal thinking, particularly among teens. And so just to offer you the definition of self-compassion.

So the first, there's three different parts to self-compassion as Kristen Neff defined it. The first one is mindfulness, and mindfulness is just simply having the awareness of what we're experiencing, the feelings and the emotions that we're experiencing as we're experiencing them. So this might seem kind of obvious, but often when we are really struggling emotionally, we tend to not want to face those feelings.

We tend to, you know, for some people, you know, bury them under the rug or push them away in some way. Or alternatively, we tend to overemphasize them or exaggerate them. So. Mindfulness is having a balanced perspective and looking at the emotions that we're experiencing in the moment that we're experiencing them.

And then the second component is common humanity. And this is what I was just talking about, that this understanding that these difficult emotions that we're experiencing, like sadness, loneliness, frustration, anger, anxiety, depression, that these are part of the human experience. It doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with us. It doesn't mean that we've done something wrong.

And this is not the message that we get, right? This isn't the message that we get from our culture and our society. The message that we get is that we're supposed to be happy. And if we're not happy, then we're doing something wrong. And we need to examine our lives or we need to improve or, you know, we need to look at self-improvement, you know, ways to self-improve. It's just not the way things are, you know. And I think we all really know that.

Anybody who's older than age 20 has gone through things in their lives that are really hard, that are stressful, that are sad, that cause anxiety. And this is the human condition. But often, although we may know that on some level, often when we're the ones who are going through that, we don't recognize that.

We don't acknowledge that to ourselves. And so we feel lonely. We experience shame. We experience isolation, particularly for, you know, teens. So it's part of that. Or sorry, go ahead. I didn't mean to interrupt you. So go ahead. You can ask. Well, I was just going to ask, is part of the problem that on social media, so many of us look so happy in every single post that it kind of adds to that societal pressure for happiness? Yes, absolutely.

So social media, we know, definitely exacerbates this, right? Because people post images that are curated, that have filters. Of course, they're not going to post their most painful moments or when they felt, you know, isolated or left out. They're going to post those images of when they're having fun and having a great time and everything's going well. And yeah, so social media definitely exacerbates this feeling of like, I'm not good enough. Or I'm not worthy.

Or everybody else's lives are going great. I'm the only one who, you know, feels like an idiot. So yes, so social media definitely... Weighs heavily, particularly among teens in this regard. And so then the third component of self-compassion is self-kindness. And self-kindness is about taking an active step to do something supportive or kind to yourself when you're having a hard time.

So we readily do this for other people. We readily support our good friends or say kind things to our good friends when our good friends come to us and they're struggling. But we don't do that for ourselves. So one of the things we teach people when we're teaching self-compassion in either workshops or courses or talks, we teach people specific tools on how to be kind to themselves and how to support themselves.

And so we know that, first of all, that this is possible, that people can learn how to be more self-compassionate. And then second, that it's through many research studies at this point. We know that those people who are more self-compassionate have experienced less anxiety, less stress, less depression, have better outcomes as far as academic stress, as far as getting along with others. Their friends and partners see them as being very kind and giving and understanding,

et cetera. So there are a lot of positive outcomes. What would you say to the teen? And this probably won't happen ever in the exam room, but it's kind of more for the parent in the exam room who may be saying this to the pediatrician. But my daughter says, let's say her name is Allison. Like, how could you be so stupid, Allison? That was so dumb. I hate myself. Like, what do you do? You know, something like that. Is that something to be alarmed about? How do you address that?

Yeah, so we know that this actually is pretty common and not just among teens, but adults do it also, right? Are they learning from us? Sorry? Are they learning from us? I hope I've never said anything like that to my kids, but I don't know if I try to think back. We're hiding ourselves. Yeah, so as adults, we have lots of opportunities to model self-compassionate behavior in front of our kids, right? So, because we make mistakes as adults.

So one example I like to give is, you know, a parent who's cooking dinner and they burn whatever, they burn the food that they're cooking, right? So instead of saying to themselves, oh, I'm such an idiot that I shouldn't have done this, so stupid, or even just like that kind of tone as that happens, like, you know, whatever it is, you have the opportunity as an adult, as a parent to say, you know what, I just burned the rice.

I've had a really hard day. I've had so much going on, you know, a lot of pressure at work, you know, lots of things happening. What I really need is just to take a moment for myself and take a couple of deep breaths, sit down, even for 30 seconds, and just relax for a minute, and then go back to cooking. So you can have this outward dialogue with yourself in front of your teens.

Your teens may seem like they're not listening, but what we know about teens is that they might appear like they're not listening, but they really are listening. So we have ample opportunities to model self-compassionate behavior in front of our kids. And I've done it in the classroom with teens. So for example, I remember one time specifically where I forgot to turn off my phone and, you know, my phone buzzed or something during class.

And I used it as a teaching example. And I said, look, I have the, you know, I have the choice right now. I can say to myself, oh, Karen, that was so, you know, you should know better. You've been teaching for a long time. You should have known better. You should have turned your phone off. Or I could say to myself, whoops, I'm human. I made a mistake. Next time, I will make a point to check my phone.

Maybe I'll even write a little note to myself, a Post-it note, and put it on my desk or someplace that I can see it so I'll know to turn off my phone. So what we're demonstrating when we do that in front of teens is that, first of all, you're not off the hook, right? You've made a mistake. You have to take responsibility for it.

You can learn from it. But you don't have to beat yourself up so much. Because we know that really is not actually helpful.

Well, and I love how in the food example too, where it's not like this, I don't know if toxic positivity would be the right word, but like, hey, now it's a great opportunity to order out or something, but to really kind of talk about like, it feels bad when you burn the rice and you're trying to, you know, and it has been a long day and I have this pressure at work and then like doing that for yourself, it's okay to take a moment for yourself kind of thing.

Right. And to acknowledge that it doesn't feel good, you know? Yeah. It doesn't feel good to make a mistake. And that's okay. It's okay, first of all, to make a mistake. And second of all, to not, not to feel good. You know, I mean, discomfort is also part of being human. And I think what we've seen a lot lately is this kind of disdain for discomfort. Oh, we're not supposed to feel discomfort. We have to kind of bypass that. And that's not healthy either.

Discomfort's part of life. And what we need to know and learn and experience is how to deal with discomfort and not to push it away. Not to push it away. And I don't know if this applies, but it, It seems to be like for a lot of parents now, it's that they want to, like, if this will make my child happy, then he or she can do this. And like, I just remember an example, my daughter was having a sleepover and she was allowed to have a certain number of kids.

And then when it came down to it, this one friend, I asked her mom, like, we just need to know by today, because if you can't make it, if your daughter can't make it or doesn't want to come, then we'll invite someone else. And then she said her daughter was not able to make it, couldn't go or whatever. And then last minute, right before the party started, the mom contacted me. She's decided now she wants to go and spend the night.

And then I told her, well, now we invited someone else, so let's get together another time. Something like that. But then she still brought her daughter over and dropped her off and said, this will make her too sad.

So she needs to come and spend the night here and just let you know she can just mingle in with everyone and she dropped her off so like you know I hear things like this a lot I heard a story actually just yesterday similar kind of thing you know it's of course we want our kids to be happy it's the hardest thing in the world to see our kids struggle you know of course but But I just don't think it's teaching them how to deal with difficulty and challenges if we smooth

everything over for them and we make it easy for them.

Because guess what? These difficult things are going to arise again at some point in their lives, and we may not be around to help smooth them over and to make it work for them. So the best thing that we can do as parents really is to teach them how to deal with when things are hard and when you've made the decision not to go to a party, well, that was your decision. And now, unfortunately, you're going to have to deal with the consequences of that decision.

Right. I think that that's really good advice. Is it important that we intervene as parents and say something if we hear our kids being hard on themselves or say something not necessarily saying that's not true? Or what do we say? Or do we say, that sounds so hard. It sounds like you're in such pain. I'm so sorry. Or what do you advise there? I think the first thing that I would do is validate their feelings.

Like, wow. You know, just like what you were saying.

Wow it sounds like you're you know that that's that's really hard that you know what you're experiencing right now is really tough that's really hard yeah i can i can see that you know and and and asking them and and this is you know we teach this we teach self-compassion in a pretty extensive class so there's a lot of steps to this and there's a lot of tools so what i'm doing right now is kind of jumping to the tools without having the intervening steps because obviously the

you know the teen or you you know haven't taken the class but but you know is there something that you can say to yourself right now that can be supportive or if your friend if you have a good if you had a good friend who is going through what you're going through right now what would you say to them? You know, what would you say to your friend who was struggling with this same kind of thing, whether it was, you know, getting a bad grade and on test or whatever?

What would you say to them? And then whatever they said, you know, can you say those words to yourself? Can you support yourself in the same kind of way that you supported your good friend? Yeah, because we would, we would never say that to a friend that's going through something. They then they wouldn't want to be friends with us. Right, right. I was going to say in the first class that we teach in our program, we do an activity around how would I treat a friend.

And this comes actually from the adult. There's also an adult course, and we've adapted it for teens. But it basically teaches just that. It's like, you know what? We don't talk to our friends the way we talk to ourselves. We're much harder on ourselves than we are on our friends. And we don't have to be, you know? We don't have to be. We can speak to ourselves in the same kind of supportive way that we speak to our good friends.

Dr. Bluth, is the workbook, the self-compassion for teens, is that the class or does that go along with the class? Or can you tell me more about this? Yeah, so the workbook, there's a lot that's in the class that's in the workbook. And then there are things in the workbook that aren't in the class. There are things in the class that aren't in the workbook. So they're overlapping, I guess, is the best way to see it. Yeah.

But there's a lot in that in the workbook and also in the other books that come from the class. But then there's also new things in the class too. So where can we find your class? Where can our teenagers find your class or patient teenagers find the class? Yeah, so my website is OneWay, and that's just my name, dot com, KarenBooth.com. We are in the process of developing a website specifically for teens, which I'm hoping will be launched in the next few weeks.

I'm being very optimistic about it. We've been working on it for quite some time, and it will be selfcompassionforteens.com. And yeah, so that one will have lots of, you know, kind of easily accessible things for teens so that they can learn more about self-compassion. So they can go to the, but your website, parents or pediatric practitioners who want to know more can go to karenbluth.com and, and you can take the course.

And is that where we could, and can we find the workbook, the self-compassion workbook for teens?

You can find that wherever you would get a book, Amazon or somewhere.

Right so right so yeah so all the books are available at barnes and noble or amazon or wherever you buy your books your local bookstore on my website on the on the landing page there is a link directly to the courses a page in the website where there are some of our teachers have, little have their bios and information about the courses that they're taught that they're teaching So we've trained teachers, I don't know how many at this

point, probably close to, you know, four or 500 internationally in this, to teach this program. I just came back from teaching, training teachers in China. And I, earlier in the year, in February, I was in Korea training teachers there. Wow, how did that go? Great, great. It was the third time I was in Korea, second time I was in China. I was in China last year also, training teachers.

And so, yeah, we've been lots of places, Australia, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland, lots of different places to try to get, you know, because teens are struggling everywhere, right? Are you teaching teachers of self-compassion or teachers in general how to teach self-compassion, like school teachers? Some are school teachers, some are clinicians, some are therapists, school counselors, parents, really anybody who wants to learn and is willing to take the course.

We do have some prerequisites. One is to have some experience teaching teens. So if you're a clinician or an educator, you have that experience or a Girl Scout leader or some experience teaching teens. The reason for that is that sometimes people feel like they want to teach teens, but they really don't have a sense of what all of that is about and what it involves. And so we'd like people to have some experience with teens in groups.

And the other prerequisite is taking the mindful self-compassion class for adults, which is a fabulous class, which I think anybody and everybody should take. And that's available now online it's available in person lots of different places one place to find out about that is the center for mindful self-compassion and the website for that is.

Centerformsc.org and they have a listing of people taking that class for adults all over the world And also, I'm sure Kristen Neff has it on her website, which is the selfcompassion.org website. I admire Kristen Neff's work. And I remember one of her exercises, it says to say to ourselves, if you've been lucky enough to have had a kind mother, have or have had to say to yourself, it's okay, darling. And if you haven't had or don't have a kind mother, to imagine having that.

And kind of talk to yourself so sweetly like that. Yeah, and you can, you know, and it doesn't necessarily have to be a mother. You know, it could be, you know, some imagined figure. When we teach this to teens, we, you know, we offer, you know, it could be a grandparent. It could be a teacher. It could be a coach. It could be somebody who you just imagine, you know.

You know, you can create this person in your own mind. Or you could be a character from a book you've read or comic book or a movie or whatever. But some imagined being that is, you know, that cares about you and wants the best for you. And yeah, you know, and they can be your compassionate friend.

And is it good to say things out loud or is it more of an internal voice or does it not matter? It's whatever feels comfortable? I would say it's whatever feels comfortable for you. You know, I think for some people, you know, some people like to do it silently. Some people like to say something out loud. You know, I've taught adults for a long time as well as teens. And what I hear, you know, I wouldn't say consistently, but, you know, not inconsistently, is that it can feel awkward.

So if it feels awkward to you to say these kind words and kind messages to yourself, have no fear it's simply because we're not used to doing it and what we know is that when we're not used to doing anything it's going to feel uncomfortable or awkward at first right so you know even think about the first time you know if you play a musical instrument the first time we sat down at that musical instrument, it felt really uncomfortable and awkward.

Or the first time, you know, you played a sport, it's uncomfortable or awkward. You know, things are always awkward the first time you do them. So it's only because we're not in the habit. What if, say, in the exam room, a teenager or a teenager at home, you know, the parent or the pediatric practitioner asks, like, have you been taking your medication? And she says, like, I'm so stupid. I forget to take it sometimes. Is that an opportunity? What do you say there?

I would say something like, you know, we all forget at times, right? You know, we're all human, and part of being human is, you know, we can be forgetful. So, again, that's that common humanity message. You know, this is part of being human. It doesn't mean that you're, you know, that there's anything wrong with you. So, you know, so you're human. You forget. What are some steps that you can take right now so that you can remember, so that you can remember to take your medication?

So again that's you know the self-kindness piece so medication you know you need to take the medication medication is good for you so what can you do that will help you remember what are some actions some steps so it could be you know whatever it could be tying it to you know you know anything from you know putting a string around your wrist you know it's an old kind of a old-fashioned kind a way to remember or tying it to something that you do every night,

you know, if it's a medication that you have to take in the evening. When you go to brush your teeth, you know, put a note on your toothbrush to take your medication. You know, tying, what are some steps that you could take that will help you remember? Your class that's on your website, is that a recording or do you do live sessions too? And is there a cost or can you tell us more about that?

Yeah, so different teachers who we have trained offer the class, and there is generally a cost associated with it. The cost is, you know, up to the teachers who offer it. You know, there's a kind of a range that we suggest. And some teachers teach in person, some teachers teach online, some do both. So it varies, you know. Prior to the pandemic, it was always offered in person. Since the pandemic, things have changed, and it's now offered online as well as in person.

Okay, great. Karen, tell me about Self-Compassion for Girls, a guide for parents, teachers, and coaches. Yeah, so this is an Audible original that I wrote. I was approached by Audible to write a book specifically for girls. This was maybe 2018, 2019, and I believe it came out in 2021. And it's one of the few books that I wrote that's specifically for adults. So I'm saying book and quote because it's not in print. It's only on Audible if you have a subscription to Audible.

And it's free offering through Audible. So it's all different ways that parents, teachers, and really anybody who works with teens, specifically teen girls, although there's a lot in there that's also applicable to teen boys, to help support them. You know, and to help teach them some self-compassion tools. It sounds great. And what about your mindfulness and self-compassion for teen ADHD?

Can you tell me about that? Yeah, so I worked with Mark Burton, who is an ADHD expert, as I am not the ADHD expert. And so we wrote this book specifically for teens who are struggling with ADHD, Because what we know is that teens who experience ADHD tend to be really hard on themselves. They've experienced a lot of negative feedback in their lives from teachers, from their school experience, from, you know, sometimes from parents.

And so how they can be kind to themselves and how they can support themselves in spite or maybe even because of their ADHD so that they can manage their ADHD experience with, you know, greater kindness and greater compassion and, you know, manage their lives in a way that they can be successful and not so hard on themselves. That sounds wonderful. For our parent listeners and our pediatric practitioner listeners, can you go through some things?

Because as parents, we know, you know, it's, I like to say, I like what Oprah says, it's the hardest, best job in the world. And we know that being a general practitioner, that's also really hard. They have so much coming at them. What are some things we should be saying to ourselves for self-compassion. Can you give us some more examples?

Yeah, I'm so glad you're asking this question because, as I said earlier, I think the best thing that we can do for kids, and I'm saying kids generally of all ages, is practice self-compassion ourselves and to learn self-compassion ourselves. And as I mentioned, there's a lot available out there for that specifically, the two websites that I mentioned, selfcompassion.org and centerformsc.org.

And, you know, to learn how to be, how to support ourselves, because it is really, really hard to be a parent.

I'm a parent of two adults. I can't even say young adults anymore. They're 30 and 33. And so.

It's still You know it still has its challenges Certainly it's not as hard as it Was when they were teens but it's It still has its challenges so Parenting is The hardest I always say it's the hardest job ever So we too To Be kind to ourselves and supportive To ourselves and there are people Working with In pediatric clinics also, working with pediatricians to teach pediatricians how to be kinder to themselves.

Up until I retired early January this year, and before that I was working with residents and some pediatric residents in hospitals teaching self-compassion to residents because, as you know very well that it's, it's, it's hard. It's very, you know, being a clinician is very hard and people look to you often with answers and it's, and sometimes the answers are hard or they're hard to come by or sometimes they're, and we worked very, very hard, you know, it's a hard job.

So, so learning how to be kind to ourselves, learning how to be compassionate to ourselves and how to support ourselves when things are hard, knowing that they will be hard. I find that when I go through a self-compassion exercise, if I'm having trouble sleeping, I fall right to sleep. Does that help? I do the same. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. Yeah, I do the same.

So one of the things, and this is just one tool, one quick tool that we teach and we teach it in the first class, are self-compassion gestures, or we call them supportive gestures. And we readily do these gestures for other people. When other people are, you know, our friends are struggling, we would think nothing about giving them a hug or patting them on the back or putting our arm around them. But we don't do those kinds of things for ourselves.

Although we know that they elicit a release of oxytocin, which of course is the feel-good hormone. So I do this for myself in the middle of the night. I wake up and I can't sleep. I will just cross my arms and maybe stroke my upper arms, or give myself a hug, or just rest my hand over my heart.

There's a whole number of supportive gestures that we teach that people can do to just elicit a little bit of this physiological response, this release of oxytocin in our systems when we can't fall asleep or when we're struggling. Easy. When we teach teens, they tell us that they use them frequently because it's easy. We can do it at any time. Very portable. Yeah, it's very helpful.

Well, Dr. Bluth, this has been so wonderful, and it's such an honor to talk to you about this important topic of self-compassion. Is there anything else you want to mention regarding self-compassion for teens, kids, adults before we wrap?

Yeah, I think the only thing that I want to mention is that to remember that this is a really hard world that we're living in right now. And I think it's really easy to forget that. It's a lot easier. Harder than it was a couple decades ago, certainly when I was a teen, but even in generations since then, it's particularly tough. And what teens and young adults report to us is that they really struggle with undue pressure around academics.

Around the divisive political discourse around, you know, the issues around climate change and violence and school shootings. I mean, there's a lot going on there that causes a lot of fear in young people that hasn't, that wasn't there in previous decades. So in social media, of course, we talked about that. And so just to remember that and to keep that in mind is that this generation is growing up with a lot of pressure that we didn't have previously.

And also, of course, that there are tools, that there are tools and there's things that can really help alleviate some of these stresses. One clinician, when I was talking to her in the clinic where she works the other day, she was just saying, the biggest thing is just it's screens.

What do we do about all the screens? they're constantly on screens even when they're like i saw i was on a a walk the other day and out in nature but the i mean i and i can also understand the situation when kids are little it's it's hard to even be able to go on a walk but the child was holding a cell phone watching a video while they were walking through the forest you know and the child the it was a big like one or two year old in a stroller Sure. Like glued to the phone.

Yeah, it's, you know, it's, it's really hard. It's hard. And it's something I think that we'll be dealing with for a long time. When we teach teens, I'll tell you what we do around social media is we don't tell them don't use social media, because of course, that would just be, we just get a lot of backlash from that. And we know that that wouldn't work anyway. So what we teach them is to be aware of how they're feeling when they're on social media, you know, and to notice their feelings.

And, you know, if they're feeling, you know, joy, or they're feeling connected, or they're feeling something good, then great. But notice how they're feeling and know that they have a choice.

So we empower them with making the decision that we let them know that they're capable of making the decision to limit their social media use if that's what they so choose or not you know but to notice how they're feeling when they're on so ask that question how is this making you feel how does it make you feel afterward yeah notice notice how you're feeling when you're on social media we actually have them take out their phones and scroll on their favorite social

media platform and notice how you're feeling. And and then also after and if you were not feeling good how can you support yourself we don't give them the answers right because they're capable of answering it for themselves how can you support yourself how can you be a better friend to yourself if you're not feeling good when you're on social media.

And could your workbook, could that help a child on his or her own, or is it important to take the class too? What I've heard is that the book helps on its own. Absolutely. So, you know, depends on the kid. You know, sometimes they just want to work alone. I think the one really huge benefit of working in a group is the common humanity piece. So teens see, oh, wow, I am not alone. I'm not the only one. Who feels really badly about myself, you know, all these other teens do also.

And it's really hard to convince teens of that if they don't see it for themselves.

And it sounds like this self-compassion could really help the child who doesn't just say harsh things about his or herself, but then in addition to that might hit something or break something or hurt someone else like is saying that first the precursor to that sometimes and the self-compassion could help be the anecdote to all of this the anecdote to to kind of like teenager wanting to hurt themselves or others or just slamming something down you know after

when they're mad or they or something like that or hitting a wall or slamming a door, Well, what we know is that teens who are more self-compassionate are less likely to self-injure when they're depressed. So, you know, we just know that from a research study. So that we know depression, of course, is tied to self-injury. But teens who are more self-compassionate are less likely to make that jump from depression to self-injury.

And that's true. So, you know, self-compassion we know is a protective factor, is a buffer against a lot of those negative outcomes. And we know that from various different research studies. Well, this has, it's all been so great. Any parting thoughts or do you want to mention how it helps you in your life being an expert? Every day. Every day.

It helps me every day, you know. And, of course, with all my work over the years, being with not just self-compassion but with mindfulness, that I'm constantly—I'm much more self-compassionate than I was 10 or 20 years ago. But it's always a work. I, like everybody else, it's a work in progress. And you're never done. It's a lifelong journey, actually, to be kind to yourself. But you develop the awareness. You develop more awareness of when you're not

feeling good about yourself. And so you can bring in those tools more readily. And I would imagine this can help the teen. It can help all of us to be more compassionate to others if we have that self-compassion, if we're practicing that regularly. Right, because we're more resilient and we have more to give. You know, when our own cup is full, we're more able to give to others.

Mm-hmm well thank you so much dr karen bluth professor and expert in self-compassion and author thank you for being here on pediatrics now and pediatrics now for parents well it's my pleasure to be here thanks so much holly. Music.

Um is it important to say things to yourself like i'm doing the best i can or stuff like that or or like is there another like running line to say like in times of, instead of i think the main running line would be when i say this to a friend no what would i say to a friend and can i say that to myself okay that's good because, sometimes we're not necessarily doing the best we can we can't can we always do the best we can maybe always i don't know but right right but you know when

i say that you know and it's okay hate sometimes to not do the best you can. You're human, you know, it's going to happen. But yeah, same. Yeah. I mean, how would I, when I say something, it's just somebody else. No, then don't say it to myself. And then do you, is there anything like in internally in your mind that you like a go-to line, like whatever, say like, it's okay, darling, you know, it's going to be okay. Or something like that. My go-to line is everything's going to be okay.

Everything's going to be okay. Even if it doesn't turn out the way that you expect it to, it will turn out. Something will happen. That's nice. And it often does.