Harvard Psychologist Shares 6 Words That Will Change Your Family

Mel Robbins 0:00 It sounds like what we're gonna learn from you today is an entirely different way to look at-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 0:06 Yes.

Mel Robbins 0:06 ... and approach-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 0:07 Yes.

Mel Robbins 0:07 ... a situation where someone's pissing you off.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 0:09 (laughs) You got it. What we've learned over the years is there's only really one reliable predictor of helping somebody to change their behavior.

Mel Robbins 0:18 What is it?

Dr. Stuart Ablon 0:18 People do well if they can.

Mel Robbins 0:20 It's true.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 0:21 Everybody wants to do well. There's just things getting in the way sometimes. If you're trying to motivate somebody when motivation isn't the issue, not only is it not gonna be effective, but it may- might make matters much worse. So when you shift your focus and you say, "People do well if they can," what you're saying is, "If that person could do well, they would do well, and if they're not, something else is getting in their way." And I personally don't buy that it's just a lack of motivation.

Mel Robbins 0:46 This is the simplest explanation, and the most empowering and encouraging explanation I have ever heard. Why does this get you so emotional?

Dr. Stuart Ablon 0:55 Kids being misunderstood and mistreated, and it doesn't have to be that way.

Mel Robbins 1:03 Hey, it's your friend, Mel. I am so fired up that you pressed play and that you chose to listen or watch this episode today. This is going to be extraordinary. And it's always an honor to be able to spend time with you and to be together, but today in particular, I am so excited that we get to spend time with the extraordinary Dr. Stuart Ablon. I'm gonna tell you about him in just a second, but I wanna also take a moment and welcome you if you're a brand new listener. And I suspect there's gonna be a lot of brand new listeners around the world that come in through this particular episode, because I know you're gonna share this. That's how incredible what you're about to learn is going to be. And so welcome. Welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast family. You have picked a winner to jump into the Mel Robbins Podcast. And you know what it tells me? It tells me that you're the type of person who values your time, and that you're also interested in learning about ways that you can improve your life and your relationships. And today, you're gonna leave a changed person. I know I am. I have been following the work of the extraordinary Dr. Stuart Ablon for years, and I am so thrilled that we finally have him here today so that you and I can learn from him. We can grow, we can become better people, and we can use his research-backed approach to help us deal with the challenging people in our life. Now, Dr. Stuart Ablon is an award-winning psychologist. He has over 30 years of experience and he is an expert on challenging behavior. He's also the founder and director of Think Kids, which is a program in the Department of Psychiatry at Mass General Hospital. He's a professor at Harvard Medical School, and he started all of his work and research with children, but has found that everything that he's learned about dealing with somebody who's exhibiting challenging behavior, you know, they're frustrating you or you're deeply worried about them, that everything that you're about to learn applies to any relationship. It applies to adults, it applies to coworkers, it applies to your marriage. You're gonna love this. And I love the title of his new bestselling book, Changeable: The Surprising Science Behind Helping Anyone Change, and that's what the conversation is all about today. How you can use science to help anyone in your life, no matter how challenging or scary the situation might be. Yes, you can help them change. Dr. Ablon, it is such an honor to meet you. Welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 3:27 It is a absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Mel Robbins 3:30 Uh, where I wanna start is could you just tell the person listening what they could experience in their life that would be different if they really take to heart everything that you're about to share with us and teach us today?

Dr. Stuart Ablon 3:42 Well, I think, in essence, people could find that conflict in their life could decrease substantially. People could find that they're able to repair relationships with people they care about, love, work with, raise, and people could build skills, uh, skills in areas like flexibility, and frustration tolerance, and problem-solving, and empathy. So those are some of the things.

Mel Robbins 4:11 I'm in.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 4:11 (laughs)

Mel Robbins 4:13 Um, this may seem like a hard question, but in the 30 years of clinical psychology experience and being the founder of the Think Kids program at Mass General Hospital, what are some of the biggest takeaways that you have from your career truly working with parents and kids specifically?

Dr. Stuart Ablon 4:33 I would say a couple of them. One is that still today, despite all the things that we've learned, which we'll talk about I'm sure, challenging behavior or concerning behavior is still tragically misunderstood and mistreated. And if we can just shift our thinking to better understand what causes it, there's so much opportunity to be helpful in a variety of different ways. So I think that's one of the things.

Mel Robbins 4:59 And when you say challenging behavior-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 5:01 Yes.

Mel Robbins 5:02 ... what do you put in that bucket?

Dr. Stuart Ablon 5:03 Uh, you know, it depends on, uh, the age of the person you're talking about-

Mel Robbins 5:07 Okay.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 5:07 ... and the setting, but we're talking about everything from tantrums to, uh, with younger children, to the kinda concerning behavior with teens that, uh, you know, keeps adults up at night, to the challenges that people have with their spouse's behavior, their in-laws' behavior, their colleagues' behavior.

Mel Robbins 5:26 And what would you tell the person who's listening right now who's either overwhelmed, or burnt out, or just tired of dealing with a person or a particular issue in their life and they're just like, "Is this ever gonna end? Is this ever gonna get better?"

Dr. Stuart Ablon 5:39 Yeah. Well, uh, the good news is we've seen it get better in the toughest of places. And, uh, you know, this is sort of a- a battle-tested approach that started with the most challenging behavior, again, in the most- the toughest of settings. I mean, we're talking about, uh, with kids with severe trauma histories in residential treatment facilities, we're talking about correctional facilities and things like that before we ever started using it in homes and other places. Uh, so, uh, you know, it- it's proven, but that's not to really diminish the fact that wherever you're experiencing concerning behavior from folks, it- you know, it's incredibly frustrating. Like it- it's really hard to deal with and it pisses us off.

Mel Robbins 6:20 (laughs)

Dr. Stuart Ablon 6:20 And it- you know, (laughs) so, uh, it's really hard to sort of keep our calm and be able to respond in ways that are effective, but I think we've got some ways to sort of reframe understanding the challenging behavior that can position people in a totally different place.

Mel Robbins 6:36 Well, that's cool. So it sounds like what we're gonna learn from you today is an entirely different way to look at-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 6:43 Yes.

Mel Robbins 6:43 ... and approach-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 6:45 Yes.

Mel Robbins 6:45 ... a situation where someone's pissing you off.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 6:46 (laughs)

Dr. Stuart Ablon 6:47 You got it. And, and, you know, your question before of sort of, uh, what have I learned over-

Mel Robbins 6:51 Yeah.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 6:51 ... 30 years, the other thing I've learned is that, uh, and this is probably one of the most, I think, important findings in social science research about helping people-

Mel Robbins 7:00 Yeah.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 7:00 And we're talking about any kind of person.

Mel Robbins 7:02 Okay.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 7:02 Who, you know, kid, adult, uh, if- if you're trying to help somebody with anything related to their behavior, what we've learned over the years is there's only really one reliable predictor of helping somebody to change their behavior, and the good news is it's also the most powerful one.

Mel Robbins 7:19 What is it?

Dr. Stuart Ablon 7:20 It- it's the degree of helping relationship between helper and helpee, the degree of helping relationship, and when I say helping relationship, what I mean by that is a collaboration born of empathy, of understanding, of non-judgmental acceptance. So it's sort of working together on, on hard things-

Mel Robbins 7:43 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 7:43 ... but coming from that non-judgmental perspective, and that's what we find whether it's in therapy or in schools or all kinds of places. That's the biggest predictor of helping somebody to change their behavior.

Mel Robbins 7:55 Well, what I immediately think about, and I'm sure we're gonna unpack this in great detail, is I think about situations in my life, whether it's dealing with our son, Oakley, when he was in the fourth grade and we were just figuring out that he had dyslexia and ADHD and he was super lonely and felt like an outsider and we were trying to help, but everything was a standoff and a fight.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 8:17 Mm-hmm.

Mel Robbins 8:17 Or when, another situation, my husband, uh, was going through a really bad bout of depression and I wanted to help, but I just couldn't find a way in.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 8:28 Yep.

Mel Robbins 8:29 And I can think about challenging people in my extended family where I'm like, "I'd like to help you be a better person 'cause you piss me off and annoy me."

Dr. Stuart Ablon 8:38 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 8:38 Where it almost feels like a deadlock in terms of the dynamic.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 8:42 Yes.

Mel Robbins 8:43 And it's as if they don't want help and you don't know what to do. And so are you saying it's possible for us to change our approach and that changes what happens?

Dr. Stuart Ablon 8:52 Absolutely. And also, y- you know what? Um, I- I've got a, sort of a philosophy that all of our work flows from.

Mel Robbins 9:00 Okay.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 9:00 And it's a pretty simple one. When we apply it to kids, it goes like this. Kids do well if they can.

Mel Robbins 9:06 Oh.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 9:06 Not kids do well if they want to, but kids do well if they can. And what that means is if a kid could do well, they would do well. And the reality is, you know, in all the years I've done this, I've never met a kid who prefers doing poorly to doing well. And now substitute that word kid with adult-

Mel Robbins 9:25 Okay.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 9:26 ... with spouse-

Mel Robbins 9:27 Yeah.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 9:27 ... with partner, with coworker-

Mel Robbins 9:29 Yeah.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 9:29 ... with mother-in-law, you name it.

Mel Robbins 9:31 Yep.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 9:32 People do well if they can.

Mel Robbins 9:33 It's true.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 9:34 Everybody wants to do well and wants to have healthy, happy relationships with others. There's just things getting in the way sometimes. And, you know, when you're saying, like, all, uh, you know, all these people that might piss you off, but how do I get them to change their behavior, I hate to say it, but they may be saying the same about you 'cause they're surely saying the same about me at times as well. And so it's really about how do we come to some mutual understanding and how do we collaborate with one another, and what we found is we've sort of developed a bit of a formula for how to do that. And we'll see that not only does it sort of have proven results, but it maps onto how our brains work, how our brains process information. And, you know, to boil it down a little bit, when s- somebody's pissing you off with their behavior, you wanna sort of tell them what to do, and the reality is they're never going to listen to you-

Mel Robbins 10:28 (laughs)

Dr. Stuart Ablon 10:29 ... unless you start by listening to them. And we'll talk about exactly what a formula of that looks like.

Mel Robbins 10:35 I love this, and, uh, what I, what I really wanna make sure that I highlight as you're listening is that sentence, "Kids do well if they can and adults do well if they can." And I am so, I guess, hopeful and I feel better knowing that we're starting from a position based on 30 years of research where you've seen over and over and over again everybody wants to do better.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 11:02 You got it.

Mel Robbins 11:03 And if you provide the right conditions, they can get better.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 11:07 Yes, and here- here's why though, okay?

Mel Robbins 11:09 Okay, tell me why.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 11:10 Well, 'cause if- if you believe kids do well if they can-

Mel Robbins 11:13 Yes.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 11:14 ... or, uh, you know, people do well if they can-

Mel Robbins 11:16 Yes.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 11:17 ... what you're doing is you're embracing a mindset shift because that's not the most common way of thinking about people and their behavior, especially when they're behaving in ways that piss you off-

Mel Robbins 11:26 Right.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 11:26 ... or are very concerning.

Mel Robbins 11:28 Right.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 11:28 The more common way of thinking about it is kids do well if they want to.

Mel Robbins 11:32 Yes.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 11:32 And if you believe kids do well if they want to and a kid's-

Mel Robbins 11:35 Right.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 11:35 ... not doing well, you're gonna-

Mel Robbins 11:36 Right.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 11:36 ... assume the reason they're not doing well is because they don't want to.

Mel Robbins 11:40 Yes.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 11:40 So then what are you gonna do about it? You're gonna try to-

Mel Robbins 11:43 Pressure them.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 11:43 ... make them want to.

Mel Robbins 11:44 Correct.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 11:45 And we start this very early on with kids with rewards and consequences and things like that, but in essence, as long as we sort of have more power over somebody, we never quit trying to do that, motivating people to behave better, which is all fine and well-

Mel Robbins 11:59 Yeah.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 12:00 ... if what is standing in somebody's way is a lack of motivation. Well then-

Mel Robbins 12:04 But that's not what's normally standing in someone's way, is it? I think that's-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 12:07 Correct.

Mel Robbins 12:07 ... where this is going.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 12:08 And if you're trying to motivate somebody when motivation isn't the issue, not only is it not gonna be effective, but it may- might make matters much worse, and we can talk about what I mean by that. So when you shift your focus and you say, "Kids do well if they can, people do well if they can," what you're saying is if that person could do well, they would do well, and if they're not, something else is getting in their way. And I personally don't buy that it's just a lack of motivation. And now here's where the research comes in.... because we have about 50 years of research in the neurosciences-

Mel Robbins 12:40 Okay.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 12:40 ... that has shown, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that people who struggle to manage their behavior, they actually don't lack the will to behave well. What they lack are the skills to behave well, skills in areas like problem-solving, flexibility, frustration tolerance, and I can give you fancier names for those things-

Mel Robbins 13:03 Please don't.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 13:03 ... clinical names. (laughs)

Mel Robbins 13:04 Please don't because I- I, 'cause this is un- like, my- my, y- y- if you're watching this podcast on YouTube, you're seeing my mouth slowly open wider and wider as my jaw is hitting the ground because this is the simplest explanation and the most empowering and encouraging explanation I have ever heard for how to change the way you look at other people in your life, whether, like me, you're a boss, and you're trying to motivate, you know, your team, uh, or you're a parent, like we both are, and you're trying to motivate your kids, or you're dating somebody, and you're like, "Boy, I wish you'd take better care of yourself," and you're trying to motivate them. And you jump so quickly to the judgment and the frustration, or the, and I'm focusing on frustration and people's behavior that pisses you off because it feels accessible and lighter-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 14:04 Mm-hmm.

Mel Robbins 14:05 ... because it can quickly go to the serious stuff where somebody's really struggling, and you feel, like, super hopeless. Like, that becomes very, like, scary to think about, but it's gonna be the exact same model-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 14:18 You got it.

Mel Robbins 14:19 ... because we're starting in the exact same place with either kids or adults, which is kids do well if they can, and if you start there instead of judging a lack of willpower or discipline or motivation, you go, "Okay, well, what are the conditions for doing well?"

Dr. Stuart Ablon 14:34 And it sets you up to sort of collaborate, to help, to be a helper because when you sort of define this as a lack of motivation-

Mel Robbins 14:41 Yeah.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 14:42 ... then what it sets you up to do is to try to sort of use power or control to try to motivate somebody.

Mel Robbins 14:50 What, if you've been in the car rides with me and my kids-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 14:52 (laughs)

Mel Robbins 14:52 ... or at the kitchen, Dr. Avalon? Come on now.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 14:55 A- a- and I wanna point out something 'cause you said something really important a moment ago. You know, there's a difference between just being aggravated by somebody's behavior-

Mel Robbins 15:03 Yes.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 15:04 ... and being aggravated but also really concerned and hopeless and worried.

Mel Robbins 15:10 Yes.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 15:11 And, uh, as a parent, there is no

Dr. Stuart Ablon 15:14 worse feeling.

Mel Robbins 15:15 Now, I see you brought something.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 15:17 Yes.

Mel Robbins 15:17 What i- what is that letter that you have there?

Dr. Stuart Ablon 15:20 Well, so thi- this is a girl I worked with in the Boston Public Schools who, um, was having a really hard time both at home and at school-

Mel Robbins 15:28 Okay.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 15:28 ... managing her behavior, and she both was a, sort of what I call an exploder and an imploder.

Mel Robbins 15:33 Which, g- what does that mean?

Dr. Stuart Ablon 15:34 So, exploder means, like, she would scream. She, uh, turned over her desk. Uh, she would, you know, throw things. Uh, she'd hit other people. An imploder means she would quietly put her head down and cry. She would sneak out of the room and ask to go to the bathroom and not come back. She would shut down.

Mel Robbins 15:53 Mm.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 15:53 Um, and to me, by the way, all these are, these are different flavors of saying, "I'm having a hard time handling something with the skills I have."

Mel Robbins 16:03 Yeah.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 16:03 W- why would a kid choose to do any (laughs) of those things if they could handle the situation better? You know, kids do well if they can. So I-

Mel Robbins 16:09 Why does this get you so emotional?

Dr. Stuart Ablon 16:11 C- 'cause just, uh, kids being misunderstood and mistreated, and it doesn't have to be that way. We know better, you know? We know better.

Mel Robbins 16:21 We have to do better.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 16:21 We have to do better, and, and I don't blame us because, like, this is how it works in history. We learn. We un- uh, conventional wisdom gets overturned, and we, we learn better, and that takes a while until we change our practices. And we're in that period now, which is why I'm thankful for you helping spread the word here because w- we can shift our thinking and do better here. We don't have to lose kids, and, and I'm, I just looked at this girl's letter and that, it, I- I've seen this a million times, and it still makes me emotional every time 'cause this girl was struggling so much-

Mel Robbins 16:51 Mm.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 16:53 ... and they used a sort of classic sticker chart to try to motivate her to behave better-

Mel Robbins 16:58 Right.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 16:58 ... you know, like, get stuff if you behave well.

Mel Robbins 17:00 Yeah.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 17:01 And it wasn't working great, and I asked her, you know, when I was meeting with her, I asked her, "Wh- what's happening with it?" She's not great at letting people know what's bothering her and things.

Mel Robbins 17:10 Yeah.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 17:10 But she would write for me.

Mel Robbins 17:12 Yes.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 17:12 She could do it in written form, um, and she could draw things, and so I- I asked her, you know, how the thing was going, the sticker chart, and she wrote this for me. And it says, "My brain is idiotic. I make stupid mistakes. I mess everything up. I always make a mess and get hurt and ruin everything." And that's a kid we're trying to motivate to behave better? You gotta be kidding me. I mean, how we missed the mark. This kid, more motivated than anybody on the face of the Earth to behave well. Why? 'Cause she don't wanna feel this way.

Mel Robbins 17:54 Yeah.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 17:54 So, she already has all the internal motivation in the world, and the last thing we wanna do is send her the message, "We don't think you're trying hard enough."

Mel Robbins 18:02 And what is available to the person who's listening to you right now? And if you could speak directly to them, whether they are a parent who has a child, like, just spiraling from an eating disorder or spiraling with behavior issues at schools, and they're getting kicked out, and they're lost, or you have somebody in your life that's spiraling with addiction. What, what do you wanna say to that person directly about what's available to them in this conversation?

Dr. Stuart Ablon 18:28 Well, so what I- I wanna say to them is that it starts, most importantly, from this place of mindset-

Mel Robbins 18:34 Okay.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 18:34 ... and that we've gotta take ourself out of this position of wanting to make somebody change, impose our will upon them in some way, whether we do that harshly or nicely, and what we need to do is remember, this person's doing the best they can.... to handle what the world is throwing at them with the skills they're able to bring to bear in that moment. And so what we wanna do is we wanna try to help figure out, what are they struggling with so much? Which skills are they having a hard time accessing and how can we help them with those things? How can we help problem solve? How can we help them build skills? And I, and I have good news here too, is the skill-building process, it's not something where you're gonna send your kid or somebody, uh, out to have somebody else build their skills. I- you can help them do that and it's not by some sneaky process, it's just by collaborating with them and practicing problem solving, but using the real-life problems that they are confronting. And I just wanna be clear that it's not like I don't reach moments where I... that sh- that faith gets shaken because I get so upset, bothered, pissed off, et cetera-

Mel Robbins 19:41 Right.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 19:41 ... and both in my own life personally, but also in my clinical life and-

Mel Robbins 19:44 Yep.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 19:45 ... and, um, you know, I just try to hold tight to that philosophy. And when you were saying that, uh, uh, you know, uh, a memory came up, uh, years ago in my practice of working with an adolescent who was really, really struggling.

Mel Robbins 19:57 Okay.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 19:58 And his behavior was really obnoxious too, so it, it was-

Mel Robbins 20:02 Like what?

Dr. Stuart Ablon 20:03 Um, well, he just would be really disrespectful to his parents, uh, to most adults, authority figures-

Mel Robbins 20:08 Yeah.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 20:08 ... and it seemed like he just didn't care, so it was so easy, it was so frustrating-

Mel Robbins 20:14 Right.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 20:14 ... 'cause you sort of couldn't engage him much and it seemed like he didn't care. And I remember the day where his mom, who, who's n- never lost hope, um, and she brought in, you know, he was, uh, about a fif- 15-year-old at the time and, uh, you know, he, he was a pretty rough kid, and, uh, she brought in a picture of him asleep as a two-year-old, uh, on the backseat of the car-

Mel Robbins 20:40 Hm.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 20:41 ... and he was just the cutest little thing and it's giving me goosebumps right now just talking about it. And I saw this and I said to myself, like, "That kid's in there somewhere." Like, this hardened, tough kid who's really hard to access, that, that, w- there's this little adorable guy and, you know, things have gone wrong in the interim, but I, I, I gotta believe that that kid who, you know, everybody looked at and said, "This, what a lovely, cute kid," he's, he's in there.

Mel Robbins 21:07 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 21:07 He wants to do well and h- how do we access that? And so, and actually, sometimes I give parents that advice with little kids. I say, "Do you know if you're losing faith, just watch them sleep for a little bit."

Mel Robbins 21:18 (laughs)

Dr. Stuart Ablon 21:18 'Cause they're really cute then and they can't be obnoxious when they're sleeping or difficult-

Mel Robbins 21:22 True.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 21:22 ... and it'll restore a little of your faith and remind yourself kids do well if they can, and then come back at it the next day, although we're gonna get into specifics about exactly what to do. I wanna be clear, this is not just about mindset. I- it's about shifting your mindset and then shifting what you do to match that new mindset.

Mel Robbins 21:40 Could you... you were talking about skills.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 21:42 Mm-hmm.

Mel Robbins 21:43 Can you just list off-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 21:45 Absolutely.

Mel Robbins 21:45 ... some of the skills that people that we may be dealing with in our families or at work or in life are missing-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 21:52 Absolutely.

Mel Robbins 21:53 ... that create challenging behavior?

Dr. Stuart Ablon 21:54 Absolutely. So, you know, I, I gave you some sort of, uh, big categories that they fall in, problem solving, flexibility, frustration tolerance, but I also told you there's 50 years of research that shows exactly where those skills are, okay?

Mel Robbins 22:08 Yeah.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 22:08 And in essence, what we found is in their, they're in five different areas.

Mel Robbins 22:11 Okay.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 22:11 And if we wanna use fancy language just for a moment-

Mel Robbins 22:13 Sure.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 22:14 ... they're what we call neurocognitive skills, which is a fancy way of saying thinking skills, in essence.

Mel Robbins 22:19 Okay.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 22:19 Okay? They're largely what, you know, happens in the prefrontal cortex of your brain-

Mel Robbins 22:23 Okay.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 22:23 Okay? Uh, so there's five areas. One, language and communication skills. Now, really easy to think about with a kid because, you know, like, most two-year-olds are very poorly behaved, right? We call it the terrible twos, not 'cause they're evil little beings, but because they lack a lot of skills, including they're not great at knowing what's bothering them, using words to tell somebody what's bothering them, engaging in a back and forth to solve a problem. Those are language and communication skills. Now, most four-year-olds are better than that, uh, than two-year-olds at that. Most eight-year-olds better than five-year-olds. Most 20-year-olds better than 10-year-olds at that. But notice my language, "most." So you may be, you know, working with a 15-year-old who's got six-year-old language skills.

Mel Robbins 23:07 Hm.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 23:07 And, and l- let's be clear, this does not just apply to kids because you may be in a marriage with a 45-year-old who really struggles to identify what's bothering them, communicate it to others, engage in the back and forth to problem solve. So that's one category, language and communication skills.

Mel Robbins 23:26 And you know what else I just kinda got as I'm listening to you? I, I need to manage my face because I think I, I look like I'm in a state of shock the entire time I'm listening to you.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 23:34 (laughs)

Mel Robbins 23:34 So I'm like, "Where were you 30 years ago?"

Dr. Stuart Ablon 23:38 (laughs)

Mel Robbins 23:38 Um, I, uh, you're here now-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 23:41 (laughs)

Mel Robbins 23:41 ... and we're all gonna learn from you now. Um, is that as you were explaining the two-year-old, then if you don't have the language and communication skills, it would be completely age-appropriate and normal for you to exhibit challenging behavior-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 23:55 Yes.

Mel Robbins 23:55 ... because you don't have the language and communication skills-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 23:58 Yes.

Mel Robbins 23:58 ... to express what you need.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 23:59 Well, that's what I always say. What do two-year-olds do when they're upset? They don't calmly express what's going on-

Mel Robbins 24:04 (laughs)

Dr. Stuart Ablon 24:05 ... right? They bite, they scream, they flop, they run, they hit. You know, they do all those things, and that's what they've sort of got in their bag of tricks, in their toolbox. Uh, so if they don't develop other skills, that's what they're gonna resort to. Uh, you know, there, there's a, um, a, a good analogy, a precedent that, that I like to remind myself of 'cause I think we've made a ton of progress there and I know this is gonna, this'll resonate for you.

Mel Robbins 24:28 Yeah.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 24:29 Um, you know, like, when you and I were in school, uh, we didn't know much about learning disabilities.

Mel Robbins 24:37 True.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 24:37 Right? So if you had dyslexia, w- when you were our age growing up and you were struggling to read, people didn't say, "I wonder what she's having a hard time with." They thought that you were either lazy-

Mel Robbins 24:53 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 24:54 ... or dumb.

Mel Robbins 24:55 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 24:56 And if they thought you were lazy-... what would they do? They would try to motivate you to work harder to read, which, you know, the sad reality, the ironic reality here is, who's working harder than anybody else in the classroom to learn how to read? The kid to whom it's not coming naturally.

Mel Robbins 25:14 Yeah.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 25:15 A- and honestly, I think we, we lost a lot of kids by sort of teaching them that we thought they weren't working hard enough when actually, they were working overtime, and what they were struggling with was skill, not will.

Mel Robbins 25:30 Wow. The- the- the opportunity for all of us to look at any challenging behavior or any frustrating or scary dynamic with another human being as a skill issue is incredible. You've covered one of the five skills-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 25:45 Yes.

Mel Robbins 25:45 ... and that was communication and language.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 25:47 Yes, let's get to the others.

Mel Robbins 25:47 So, what are the other four?

Dr. Stuart Ablon 25:48 Right. Okay. So, the other has to do with attention and working memory skills. That's number two.

Mel Robbins 25:53 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 25:53 Okay? And it's a big category, but, uh, you know, attention skills are like, can you focus on something not that's enthralling to you, but something that isn't that interesting or you don't exactly feel like focusing on right now, but can you sort of marshal enough attention to focus on it?

Mel Robbins 26:10 Yep.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 26:11 And can you shift your attention from one thing to the next when needed? And as a kid, by the way, you're told all the time, but even as an adult, we're told, "Stop paying attention to that and start paying attention to that."

Mel Robbins 26:19 Right.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 26:20 Okay?

Mel Robbins 26:20 And then also what's confounding, whether you have a child who's a gamer or you have a young adult in your life or a significant other who's a gamer, you look at the fact that they can focus there-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 26:31 Yes.

Mel Robbins 26:32 ... and then you're like, "Why the hell can't you pick up your shoes or pay attention-"

Dr. Stuart Ablon 26:36 (laughs)

Mel Robbins 26:36 "... or keep a job?"

Dr. Stuart Ablon 26:38 Well, and this is a, a, you know, this is a big misconception, for instance, about attentional issues as a whole.

Mel Robbins 26:42 Okay.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 26:43 Uh, you know, people think that if somebody's diagnosed with attention deficit disorder, ADHD, it means they can't focus at all. It's just not true-

Mel Robbins 26:49 What does it mean, Doc?

Dr. Stuart Ablon 26:50 ... at all. Well, it means that they have a hard time focusing on things that are not intrinsically all that interesting to them. In fact, most people diagnosed with ADHD will tell you they have the ability to hyperfocus, which is an incredible skill and strength, on something they're super interested in. But it's when somebody says, "Well, could you pay attention to this now?" that is really hard to focus your attention on, which by the way, for kids in school, there's a fair amount of school they're like, "I gotta force myself to pay attention to this."

Mel Robbins 27:18 Right.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 27:19 So, uh, y- you know, it's-

Mel Robbins 27:20 And that's a skill.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 27:21 It's a skill. Absolutely.

Mel Robbins 27:23 Gotcha. And what's the third one?

Dr. Stuart Ablon 27:24 A- and, well, so hold on, uh, just to-

Mel Robbins 27:25 Oh, we're already done? Oh my God. Okay.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 27:26 Well, I- I- I snuck in attention and working memory-

Mel Robbins 27:29 Oh.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 27:29 ... because it's an, it's related to attention.

Mel Robbins 27:31 See, I have both problems-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 27:32 (laughs)

Mel Robbins 27:33 ... obviously, and I'm exhibiting it in the middle of this interview.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 27:36 Well, you know, most of us humans can only remember three to five things at one time, and there are five of these, so-

Mel Robbins 27:41 Well, Dr. Ablon-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 27:42 (laughs)

Mel Robbins 27:42 ... I, my- my memory not working right now.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 27:44 (laughs)

Mel Robbins 27:44 So, I ... (laughs) Okay, so keep going. (laughs)

Dr. Stuart Ablon 27:46 Working memory just means keeping a bunch-

Mel Robbins 27:48 (laughs)

Dr. Stuart Ablon 27:48 ... of stuff, ironically, in your head at one time and balancing it together.

Mel Robbins 27:52 Got it. Okay.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 27:53 Okay? But the reason that's relevant is all problem-solving requires working memory. Y- y- you don't realize, but when you're solving a problem, you have all these files open in your head, and you're toggling back and forth between them all at one time. "What's the problem? Have I seen this before? What did I do about it? How did it work out? Have I seen anybody else handle a problem like this? How might I do it now?" I, y- and you're juggling all those things.

Mel Robbins 28:15 Yep.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 28:16 And if your sort of hard drive crashes trying to juggle all those things, it gets in the way.

Mel Robbins 28:20 Yep. Okay.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 28:20 All right. So, that's attention and working memory skills.

Mel Robbins 28:23 Okay.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 28:23 Let's go to number three.

Mel Robbins 28:24 Yes.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 28:25 I'm gonna use jargon for one second. I'll translate it, okay? Uh, n- number three is emotion and self-regulation skills. Regulate is a word that's thrown around a, a lot these days.

Mel Robbins 28:37 What does that mean?

Dr. Stuart Ablon 28:38 Well, here's the thing. Just translated into plain old English, it means to manage or to control.

Mel Robbins 28:42 Okay.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 28:43 So, when people are talking about emotion regulation, they're talking about-

Mel Robbins 28:46 Right.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 28:46 ... your ability to manage or control your emotions.

Mel Robbins 28:48 Okay.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 28:49 Okay? And, uh, self, self-control, what are they talking about there? They're talking about (laughs) things like, uh, perhaps the most important human skill we have, which is impulse control. Okay? Uh, all day, all of us basically keep our impulses in check, and we say to ourselves, like, "Uh, uh, uh, don't say that. That's a bad idea. Uh, don't, don't do that." Um, you know, we sort of check ourselves.

Mel Robbins 29:12 Yeah.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 29:12 And I- I always tell people, "If you wanna know how important impulse control is, spend a day..." We should not do this today on the podcast, but spend a day where you imagine what it would be like if you did or said the first thing that came to your mind all throughout the course of the day. And I'll have a-

Mel Robbins 29:28 I'll see ya in jail.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 29:28 (laughs) You'll have a, I was gonna say you'll have a blast.

Mel Robbins 29:31 (laughs) Yeah.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 29:32 But yes, uh, it would be ugly, okay?

Mel Robbins 29:34 Yes.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 29:34 'Cause most of the time, we're checking our impulses.

Mel Robbins 29:36 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 29:36 Now, again, who, who's not very good at checking impulses? Two-year-olds, four-year-olds, but guess what?

Mel Robbins 29:41 Teenagers.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 29:42 Some teenagers, but also adults.

Mel Robbins 29:44 True.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 29:44 Okay? Um, and, uh, you know, if I could just point out really quickly, uh, uh, again, a sad irony here.

Mel Robbins 29:50 Yeah.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 29:50 People who are very impulsive do stuff without thinking about the consequences of their actions. It's the definition of impulse control. Think about the likely consequences of what you do before you do it.

Mel Robbins 30:01 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 30:02 So, if you have poor impulse control, you do stuff without thinking first. Then you get hit with the consequences typically. The reason this is sadly ironic is guess what consequences require to be effective in the first place?

Mel Robbins 30:16 Impulse re- control.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 30:18 You got it. 'Cause you've gotta be able to stop in the moment and say, "Okay, if I do this, what will happen? Oh, gosh, if I do that, there's probably gonna be this consequence or this bad outcome. I probably shouldn't do that. Let me reel it back in." So, in other words, consequences only work if somebody has good impulse control.

Mel Robbins 30:33 Because, and I just wanna make sure we unpack this 'cause I think this is really important because a lot of us get in this loop, especially with kids or even with people in our lives that are adults where you literally, like, let's- let's give an example 'cause I'm thinking about, like, a- a- a- a kid who is not studying at school, and you start hammering them about, "You- you gotta get more motivated, get your grades up, or else you're gonna get on academic probation, and then you're gonna get kicked out." Well, if you have poor impulse control-... you're gonna go party all weekend, or you're gonna blow off class 'cause you don't have the ability-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 31:09 Yes.

Mel Robbins 31:09 ... to think about the fact that this is going to happen, and then when it happens, it's not really that motivating because you still don't have the impulse control to think about the consequences if you don't get your act together to get back into school.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 31:22 You got it. So consequences, in essence, don't work for the people to whom they are most applied, is basically what you're saying.

Mel Robbins 31:27 A- a- and that's why it's so frustrating to the rest of us because you can see the consequences, and you're like, "Why is this idiot-"

Dr. Stuart Ablon 31:35 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 31:35 "... not seeing what's about to happen? Do they not care about their family, or their life, or their future, or my feelings, or all that?" So I can see how not seeing impulse control as a skill that could be developed creates this real, like, almost toxic situation between you and another person, where you just lose your power, they lose theirs, you're now in this weird standoff-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 32:00 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 32:00 ... and it spirals.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 32:01 Absolutely. Well, a- and, and we should be clear, Mel-

Mel Robbins 32:03 Yeah.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 32:03 None of these skills that I'm talking about are correlated with intelligence. Okay? So this is not like if you're struggling with any of these skills. Just like dyslexia-

Mel Robbins 32:12 Right.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 32:12 ... if you can't decode words, that doesn't make you not smart. In fact, some of the most brilliant, innovative, interesting people had a hard time decoding words. Their brains worked a little differently.

Mel Robbins 32:21 Right.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 32:21 Right? Same is true with these skills. You, you can have poor language and communication skills but be brilliant. You can, uh, poor attention and working memory, emotion and self-regulation skills, and we still got two categories to (laughs) go through. Uh, you can struggle with those skills and be brilliant.

Mel Robbins 32:34 Well, and what you als- what you know that I think would be helpful for the person listening to hear and understand is that the majority of people that end up in jail actually are missing these skills, or have a learning disability, or have-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 32:49 Yes.

Mel Robbins 32:49 ... impulse control issues, so it is not ever that you're dealing with a, quote, "bad" human being. You're dealing with somebody-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 32:56 You got it.

Mel Robbins 32:57 ... who would do well if they can-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 32:59 (laughs)

Mel Robbins 32:59 ... and they didn't have the conditions or the skill-building-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 33:02 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 33:02 ... that would've helped them.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 33:03 I, (laughs) I remember when I, I first presented these ideas at one of the prisons we were working with. One of the senior guards there, uh, that everybody sort of r- respected the most, he said after, he said, "This is really interesting." He said, "You know, I, I think this might apply to, like, say, 10%, maybe 5% o- of the young people we have here, but the rest of 'em, you know, uh, uh, they're actually criminals, and what they lack is the motivation to not behave this way." And a couple years into our work together, it was amazing when he was like, "You know, Doc," (laughs) , "got to tell you, I, I still think there might be a couple of, like, sociopaths here, but, like, 95 or more percent of these people here are struggling with the exact skills you're talking about."

Mel Robbins 33:47 Yeah, and that, and it makes it heartbreaking. And, and that's why I'm thrilled that you're here, because I think seeing these five skills that are things that anybody can learn, but when you're missing it-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 33:59 Right.

Mel Robbins 33:59 ... creates challenging behavior. This is the heart of what we're talking about because it allows you to approach any dynamic with any human being in a very different way.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 34:09 You got it.

Mel Robbins 34:10 What is skill number four?

Dr. Stuart Ablon 34:11 Cognitive flexibility. Cognitive, fancy word for thinking.

Mel Robbins 34:15 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 34:15 So we're talking about flexible thinking.

Mel Robbins 34:17 And what is flexible thinking?

Dr. Stuart Ablon 34:18 Well, i- it, you know, there is a lot of, um, people out there who struggle with flexible thinking. What I mean by that is that they, uh, tend to be more sort of rigid or-

Mel Robbins 34:27 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 34:27 ... concrete or literal or, or we call black and white in their thinking. It's sort of, like, all or none.

Mel Robbins 34:34 Yeah.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 34:34 And sort of the, the grays of the world are harder. Uh, you know, as, as kids, you can spot these kids because, uh, they're the kids who, if everything goes according to the rules, the routine, the structure, uh, the, the template they had in their head, life is good.

Mel Robbins 34:48 Yes.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 34:49 But any change, any unpredictability, ambiguity, uncertainty, entering a situation they don't know what it's gonna look like, uh, they don't have the template for, um, and sort of winging it.

Mel Robbins 35:01 What's interesting is, uh, is I, I don't know if, as you're listening to Dr. Ablon, you're like, "That's me, that's me, that's me, that's me. I'm checking all five, and I'm missing all of them." But what's interesting to me is that I can say that I definitely default to that all or none.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 35:18 Mm-hmm.

Mel Robbins 35:18 Like, things are absolutely fabulous, or they're horrendous.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 35:22 Uh-huh.

Mel Robbins 35:22 Or it's gonna be amazing, or this is the worst.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 35:24 Uh-huh.

Mel Robbins 35:24 Or... And my husband and kids often feel like they're on this emotional roller coaster with me because they're not quite sure, are we gonna get the Mel who's at level 100? Are we gonna get her at zero?

Dr. Stuart Ablon 35:37 Mm-hmm.

Mel Robbins 35:38 And I work at this.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 35:41 Yes.

Mel Robbins 35:41 So I hear what you're saying is a skill.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 35:43 Yes.

Mel Robbins 35:43 Like, I have to practice these tools of catching my own thinking-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 35:47 Yes.

Mel Robbins 35:48 ... and wanting to have a mindset that is more flexible. And over time, I've absolutely become way more flexible.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 35:58 So this is the thing. It's, you know, uh, uh, kids' brains are very malleable.

Mel Robbins 36:02 Yes.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 36:02 So you, uh, you know, changeable-

Mel Robbins 36:03 Uh-huh.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 36:03 ... you can help them learn skills more easily. But sometimes people think that, like, once you're an adult, you know, you can't develop these skills. That's nonsense. You can, uh, change the adult brain, but as you're saying, it takes repetition and, and practice, but you can become a more flexible thinker, just like you can become better at regulating, controlling, managing your emotions. You can become better at using your language and communication skills. And, uh, y- you know, so these are, uh, uh, this is the power of thinking skill, not will, because if it's about skill, not will, skills can be built. And I have to say, I have never seen anyone, at any age, with any level of skill where they couldn't improve that skill incrementally. So I'm talking about the most severe cases. I- there's always opportunity to improve our skills, always.

Mel Robbins 36:51 Absolutely. Th- this is so empowering. What is the fifth?

Dr. Stuart Ablon 36:56 The fifth is a big category, social thinking skills.

Mel Robbins 37:00 And what does that mean?

Dr. Stuart Ablon 37:01 So it means all the types of skills that go into managing social interactions, like...... basic ones like how do you start a conversation with somebody? Um, how do you join a group of people who are doing something smoothly without sort of butting in or upsetting things-

Mel Robbins 37:16 Mm.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 37:17 ... um, to w- more subtle complicated skills like knowing how you come across, how your behavior impacts other people. Uh, I call it your feedback loop-

Mel Robbins 37:27 Got it.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 37:27 ... which we are all so reliant on in the world. Uh, basically, we do stuff and say stuff and look around and say, like, "How's it coming across?" And we adjust our behavior, if all's going well.

Mel Robbins 37:37 Mm.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 37:38 But some folks don't have a feedback loop-

Mel Robbins 37:41 Right.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 37:41 ... or keep it open for a very short amount of time-

Mel Robbins 37:43 Right.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 37:43 ... or misjudge the feedback.

Mel Robbins 37:45 Right.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 37:45 Uh, so, you know, tho- those are more complicated skills, and probably empathy and perspective-taking is one of the most complicated of all social thinking skills, you know, which is, in essence, can you try to understand where somebody

Dr. Stuart Ablon 37:58 else is coming from? And all these skills can be interrelated too. So these five we talked about, they're not mutually exclusive. It's not-

Mel Robbins 38:05 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 38:06 ... I have a hard time with this and nothing else 'cause you can imagine, you know, if, if, uh, you're a very concrete literal thinker, it might be hard for you to step into somebody else's shoes and empathize.

Mel Robbins 38:16 Right.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 38:16 Or if you tend to, uh, think in a very black and white way, your emotions may spiral pretty quickly if you start to catastrophize, as you said a moment ago.

Mel Robbins 38:24 Right. And I can also think of things like, especially in the social behavior, like if you're somebody that just doesn't have the skill of the, the cues-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 38:35 Yes.

Mel Robbins 38:36 ... you're the awkward kid or the awkward person at work that just stands a little too close to everybody-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 38:40 Yes.

Mel Robbins 38:41 ... or-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 38:41 Yep.

Mel Robbins 38:42 ... a clo- like close talker or you follow somebody too closely into the bathroom, and you just don't know-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 38:47 Yes.

Mel Robbins 38:48 ... that that then becomes its own thing that makes you start to wonder, "Why don't I have friends? And why do I feel like I don't belong here?"

Dr. Stuart Ablon 38:56 Yep.

Mel Robbins 38:57 And so how does missing those skills create this dynamic that is challenging for us with other people?

Dr. Stuart Ablon 39:05 Y- Well, the way it happens is because you struggle with these skills, you have a hard time meeting people's expectations. You end up doing things that, uh, people don't like, that they don't want you to do, and not doing things people want you to do. People get frustrated with you.

Mel Robbins 39:22 Yep.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 39:23 And then people default to assuming this is a lack of will-

Mel Robbins 39:27 Yep.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 39:27 ... and they try to motivate you through incentives, rewards, consequences, to try to behave better, and that doesn't work because you're already trying hard. You're trying harder than anybody else to behave well. I mean, this is one of the, the, the secrets. People think sometimes people who struggle with their behavior aren't trying hard to behave well. No. You know who's not trying hard to behave well? Well-behaved people 'cause it comes naturally. The people who are really working hard are the folks who, for whom it doesn't come naturally. And then I, I gotta say what gets really dangerous is not only are rewards and consequences, incentives, things like that not effective, but they can cause real harm. And if I can talk about two ways they cause harm.

Mel Robbins 40:13 Please because I think where, where we're going now is, especially if you think about it from a parenting context-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 40:20 Yep.

Mel Robbins 40:20 ... that when you get frustrated, you then discipline-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 40:24 You got it.

Mel Robbins 40:25 ... and you punish, and you either spank or scream or yell or-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 40:30 Yep.

Mel Robbins 40:30 ... timeouts or whatever it may be.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 40:32 Yep.

Mel Robbins 40:33 And what is the impact if-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 40:35 And b-

Mel Robbins 40:35 ... we're dealing with a skills situation?

Dr. Stuart Ablon 40:37 Yeah, and, and by the way, that word discipline is an interesting one because people somehow have equated discipline with punishment-

Mel Robbins 40:44 Yes.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 40:44 ... where actually the origins of the word don't involve punishment at all. Uh, the origins of the word discipline, uh, revolve around teaching, really means to teach.

Mel Robbins 40:55 Huh.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 40:55 And punishment is a very poor way to teach. Now if you think skill, not will, now you're in the business of teaching 'cause you know what you're teaching, which is skills. But to go back to the harm, two ways, okay, that I think classic discipline, rewards, consequences, things like that cause harm. One is that when you try to motivate somebody with some external motivator, some, like, tangible thing, that you'll get this, um, if you do this-

Mel Robbins 41:24 Right.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 41:24 ... or you won't get this if you don't, uh, there have been thousands of studies that have shown, not just with kids, but with adults too, that when you use external motivators to try to get kids to do stuff or people to do stuff, it actually decreases their internal drive to do what you want them to do. They do become more motivated, but what do they become more motivated?

Mel Robbins 41:47 To get the thing.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 41:48 Get the stuff. They actually become less motivated to achieve the goal you want them to achieve, which is ironic. So not only does it not work, it makes matters worse. And, and this, Mel, is not a small correlation. This is a strong, what we call in research negative correlation. The more used external reinforcers, the less internal drive developed. And it actually can cause even more problems because what ends up happening is people, uh, end up behaving in unethical ways also because they're just trying to get the stuff.

Mel Robbins 42:18 Mm.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 42:18 I wanna talk about the second way that I think rewards and punishments can really be harmful 'cause not only do they decrease internal motivation-

Mel Robbins 42:27 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 42:27 ... okay, intrinsic motivation-

Mel Robbins 42:29 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 42:29 ... but for kids and adults, they can do real damage to self-esteem because here's the thing. You know, if we're constantly using rewards and consequences, we're sending the not so subtle message that we think at least part of the problem here is you're not trying hard enough, or why would we smart adults be trying to motivate you? And my grandfather, who I was incredibly close to, and, uh, he lived til he was 106.

Mel Robbins 42:59 Wow.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 43:00 Um, yeah, my, my grandmother just celebrated her 107th, uh, birthday.

Mel Robbins 43:04 We call that a Smucker's grandparent.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 43:06 (laughs)

Mel Robbins 43:06 You know how they used to put them on TV?

Dr. Stuart Ablon 43:08 Yes, yes.

Mel Robbins 43:08 Yes, with the Smucker's jam.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 43:10 So my, my grandfather, I was really, really close to, uh, grew up in Tupelo, Mississippi at the beginning of the 20th century, and what he saw in his life is amazing, but he had all these, like, great grandfatherly say- sayings, these, like-

Mel Robbins 43:21 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 43:21 ... pearls of wisdom he would impart. And one thing he would say to me all the time is he would say, "You know what, Stuart?"If you give a dog a name, eventually they'll answer to it. If you give a dog a name, eventually they'll answer to it. And what I realized w-with the kids we're talking about today is that if you treat a kid like they're lazy, unmotivated, don't care, aren't trying hard enough, we shouldn't be surprised when over time, guess what? They start to look like and talk like and act like-

Mel Robbins 43:54 Mm.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 43:55 ... kids who are lazy, unmotivated, don't care, aren't trying hard enough, because if you give a dog a name, eventually they'll answer to it. And I wanna be clear, us parents, you know, we would never set out to make our kids feel that way. Of course, teachers never, of course, try to make people feel that way, but with every reward and consequence, again, comes the not-so-subtle message, "Hey, if you tried harder, this would go better." It's unavoidable.

Mel Robbins 44:24 I'd love to have you talk a little bit about that sentiment that some parents have or some people have that's like, "Well, you know, I... Nobody talked to me about that and I turned out okay." Like how you address that-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 44:38 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 44:38 ... sort of generational pattern-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 44:41 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 44:41 ... and cynicism that has been passed down through families and in our society.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 44:46 Yeah. Well, I mean, typically when people say to me, you know, "Nobody ever did this for me and I turned out okay," they're saying that with a... an edge, because there's parts of them that maybe didn't turn out okay. And, uh, y- you know, if you can get to that part with them, which is what do they wish was different about-

Mel Robbins 45:06 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 45:07 ... their life and their skills and how they operated, opens up a lot of doors there. I... Uh, you know, (laughs) m- my feeling about that is each generation... There's actually been research on this. Each generation feels like the generation that comes after it has it easier, um, isn't learning the right skills, uh, is a more spoiled generation than the previous one. This is... H- If you go back hundreds of years, this happens. And look, the world changes and, uh, you know, we need to adapt with it. I mean, look, w- when people say, "We wouldn't do this w- that way when I grew up," we used to think that corporal punishment, that actually injuring kids, hurting, traumatizing kids, that that was a good form of, of, of discipline, right? We learn things, okay? We learned that actually that causes harm, it doesn't help, and we need to change with the times. And you mentioned that, you know, trauma... Uh, since we can image the brain, one of the clearest things we found is expose somebody to trauma or to chronic toxic stress in childhood, guess what it does? It delays... It changes the brain. It delays skills in those five areas we talked about before.

Mel Robbins 46:17 Mm.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 46:17 It's one of the primary reasons for very challenging and concerning behavior. Kids who have trauma histories, that trauma has getten- gotten in their way of their skills. So if you wanna be sort of really trauma sensitive, you r- need to read- realize behavior is about skill, not will.

Mel Robbins 46:34 I'm really glad that you said that, because when you go back to the five things that are skills that are missing if somebody is exhibiting challenging behavior, and now you're connecting the dots to any form of trauma, is interfering with your ability (laughs) to have those five skills, whether you're talking about, uh, racism or poverty or having a parent going through a struggle or financial hardship or a parent that's absent or mental illness or abuse. Like all of these things-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 47:05 Yes.

Mel Robbins 47:06 ... impact your ability to develop these skills which then impact the behavior that then becomes seen by the outside world as challenging.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 47:14 And then to make it worse, the outside world typically, uh, reacts in punitive ways, which what does that do? It adds stress. So it further gets in the way of skill development, it only escalates the behavior, and then when we have escalating behavior, we tend to up the ante on the discipline. So it becomes this cycle of sort of chronic stress and punitive discipline that just keeps making matters worse and worse and worse. And the good news is we don't have to respond to that behavior punitively. We can respond in a different way, a way that I call r- with relational discipline, discipline that doesn't leverage power and control, but leverages relationship. 'Cause remember, the biggest predictor of helping somebody change, helping somebody build skills is the degree of helping relationship. So we can respond with relational discipline.

Mel Robbins 48:09 So Dr. Abellen, I'm totally bought in.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 48:12 (laughs) All right.

Mel Robbins 48:12 Give me the step by step.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 48:14 All right. So-

Mel Robbins 48:14 Let's go. What do we do?

Dr. Stuart Ablon 48:15 Uh, you know, here's a simple way to think about things.

Mel Robbins 48:17 Okay.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 48:17 And I always say to people, "Don't confuse simple with easy," okay?

Mel Robbins 48:20 Yeah.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 48:20 But simple as this. Pick any problem that you have with anybody, literally anybody in your life, okay? In other words, anything they're doing you don't want them to do or not doing you want them to do, anything.

Mel Robbins 48:29 Okay.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 48:29 And at the end of the day, you really only have three options for how to handle those. And, uh, just to be clear, we didn't create these in collaborative problem-solving, we just put labels on them, okay?

Mel Robbins 48:40 Got it.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 48:40 We call them your three plans, okay? Which is, in other words, saying, your options for how to handle a problem. You need a plan, what's your plan? Okay?

Mel Robbins 48:48 Okay.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 48:49 There's only three.

Mel Robbins 48:51 Okay.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 48:51 We call them plan A, (laughs) plan B, and plan C.

Mel Robbins 48:55 So give me an example. So th-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 48:56 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 48:56 So you've got somebody in your life-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 48:58 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 48:59 ... that has a problem.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 49:00 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 49:01 And it could be anything-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 49:02 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 49:02 ... from somebody who has a mental health issue and is not taking their meds or using their tools.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 49:07 Absolutely.

Mel Robbins 49:07 It could be somebody who is not looking for a job. It could be a kid who is oppositional.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 49:12 Uh, it could be as simple as, as a kid not getting out of bed on time to get to school or-

Mel Robbins 49:16 Let's use that one.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 49:17 ... it could be much, much, much more complicated than that.

Mel Robbins 49:21 Okay.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 49:21 So, uh, you've got three options, okay? Plan A is when you decide to impose your will-... to try to make the person do what you want them to do.

Mel Robbins 49:31 Okay, so plan is, A is, "I'm getting them out of bed."

Dr. Stuart Ablon 49:34 I- I- I'm gonna impose my will. Now there are different ways you can try to impose your will.

Mel Robbins 49:37 Okay.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 49:37 And if the kid's small enough, you could physically try to impose your will-

Mel Robbins 49:40 Yeah.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 49:40 ... by getting them out of bed. But the other way we try to impose our will is, no surprise-

Mel Robbins 49:45 Reward and punishment.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 49:45 ... rewards and consequences.

Mel Robbins 49:46 Right.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 49:46 Right? Either way, you're sort of leveraging power and control-

Mel Robbins 49:50 Yes.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 49:50 ... to try to make somebody do what you want them to do.

Mel Robbins 49:53 Okay.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 49:54 That's one option.

Mel Robbins 49:54 Okay.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 49:55 Plan A, okay? Second option, call it plan B. That's our code for collaborative problem solving.

Mel Robbins 50:01 Okay.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 50:02 That's when you're gonna collaborate to try to solve the problem, work together to try to solve the problem, and this is an important phrase, in a mutually satisfactory way. So you're gonna work together to solve it in a way that works well for the both of you.

Mel Robbins 50:15 Okay.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 50:15 And we're gonna need to go into detail about that option.

Mel Robbins 50:17 Okay.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 50:18 Third option, plan C. Plan C is when you decide to drop it, drop your expectation, or in essence, solve the problem the way they want it solved. Not-

Mel Robbins 50:30 When they want it solved.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 50:31 Not forever-

Mel Robbins 50:32 Right, okay.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 50:33 ... but just for now.

Mel Robbins 50:33 Yeah. Okay.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 50:34 Uh, and what's really important about that is it's a strategic choice.

Mel Robbins 50:38 Yes.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 50:38 Okay? It is not giving in. Giving in actually most of the time is when you try to use plan A and make somebody do what you want them to do and they don't do it, and then you throw up your hands and say, "F- fine, forget it."

Mel Robbins 50:49 Right.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 50:50 Uh, that's failed plan A leading to bailing, okay?

Mel Robbins 50:53 Yes.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 50:53 Plan C is being strategic. Plan C is saying, "You know what? We got like 10 problems to solve here. Can't solve them all at once. I'm gonna just drop this one for now."

Mel Robbins 51:02 Yes.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 51:03 So those are your three options, impose your will, plan A-

Mel Robbins 51:05 Yep.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 51:05 ... collaborate to solve the problem, plan B, drop it-

Mel Robbins 51:09 Got it.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 51:09 ... plan C.

Mel Robbins 51:09 Okay.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 51:10 And the first thing I tell parents or anybody, this could be a manager in a workplace, is, all right, list out the problems you have with- with as much specificity as possible. Be as specific as possible which problems you're talking about, like your kid won't get out of the bed, won't get out of bed, et cetera, okay? Um, and just decide, how do you wanna handle it, A, B, or C? And that should be informed by what you're trying to accomplish.

Mel Robbins 51:32 That's basically step one.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 51:33 It is step one.

Mel Robbins 51:34 Is you have to choose the approach and choose it powerfully.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 51:37 A- and it depends what you're trying to accomplish because plan A, imposing your will, it may get your expectation met-

Mel Robbins 51:43 Right.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 51:44 ... but it might get very ugly on you.

Mel Robbins 51:46 Right.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 51:46 It might harm the relationship.

Mel Robbins 51:48 Yep.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 51:48 And there's no skills that are being developed by imposing your will upon another human, okay?

Mel Robbins 51:54 Got it. Okay, I, this is, so I just wanna make sure that as you're listening, you get step one, is you're going to list out everything that's frustrating you and then you're going to choose between these three plans?

Dr. Stuart Ablon 52:07 Yes, but let me make-

Mel Robbins 52:08 Okay.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 52:08 ... one clarif- clarifying comment here.

Mel Robbins 52:10 Yeah.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 52:11 Uh, l- list out those things that are frustrating you, that's gonna look like a list of behaviors-

Mel Robbins 52:15 Okay.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 52:16 ... okay, that are frustrating you, and then just sort of put that aside. Get it out of your system. I want you to really make a list of the specific situations in which those frustrating behaviors are happening, okay? So d- your list should not look like, uh, disrespect, um, screaming, crying, running out of the room. It should look like when's that happening? Over what?

Mel Robbins 52:40 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 52:41 What are the triggers, the precipitants, the situations, okay? Uh, 'cause that's really what you wanna prioritize with these three plans.

Mel Robbins 52:47 Got it, okay.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 52:48 Okay, so plan A-

Mel Robbins 52:49 Yep.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 52:50 ... we talked about that. Plan C, when would you choose plan C? Plan C i- is gonna keep things calm, so if you just wanna avoid-

Mel Robbins 52:56 Yes.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 52:56 ... a meltdown or avoid a challenging situation for now, it'll do that. The problem is the problem lives on, right? Your expectations haven't been met. Skills aren't built by just avoiding something temporarily.

Mel Robbins 53:07 You know what I love about this conversation is that, you know, all of this work that I'm doing about saying, "Let them," and then saying, "Let me." Let, when you say, "Let them," you're choosing plan C, but then when you say the second part, which is, "Let me," you come back to your work, which is, "Let me actually follow what works when I'm ready to do it."

Dr. Stuart Ablon 53:26 Correct, and I was thinking about that as well because you talk about, in the book, how, uh, you know, "Let them" i- is not giving in.

Mel Robbins 53:34 No.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 53:34 It's not sort of seeding. It's actually a very mindful decision. It's strategic. You, and, and for parents, by the way, when we talk about plan C, I always a- ask people a trick question. I'm like, "With plan C, who's in charge?" And they usually say, "The kid." And I'm like, "No, no, no, no, no. You are still every bit as in charge as the parent 'cause you're deciding not to pursue this."

Mel Robbins 53:57 Yes.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 53:57 "For now."

Mel Robbins 53:57 'Cause you're recognizing the way you've been doing it isn't working, it's just backfiring, and this is out of your control at the moment, and so you're choosing not to stress yourself out about it.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 54:09 You got it, and you're choosing not to, uh, if you're not gonna pursue an expectation that's been leading to challenging behavior, you're gonna reduce challenging behavior.

Mel Robbins 54:17 So let's say you, and again, I think what's fascinating to con- continue to remind you as you're listening is that this applies for any situation, whether you can't get your kid out of bed or whether you have somebody spiraling with an eating disorder-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 54:32 You got it.

Mel Robbins 54:32 ... who is, who is refusing treatment.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 54:35 It, it, it really involves any form of challenging or concerning behavior. I always go back to anything somebody's doing you don't want them to do or not doing you want them to do. We talked about in depth about plan A and plan C. We didn't talk in depth about the most important plan, which is plan B.

Mel Robbins 54:47 What does that look like?

Dr. Stuart Ablon 54:48 So that's when you're collaborating to solve a problem together with a kid and-

Mel Robbins 54:52 So let's say you're in a really challenging situation with somebody, whether-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 54:56 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 54:56 ... I was, you know, I was in a situation with my husband who was struggling with depression-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 55:00 Yep.

Mel Robbins 55:00 ... did not wanna seek treatment.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 55:02 Mm-hmm.

Mel Robbins 55:02 I have a number of friends that are dealing with situations with adult kids-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 55:08 Yep.

Mel Robbins 55:08 ... who are struggling with mental health or struggling-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 55:11 Yep.

Mel Robbins 55:11 ... with an eating disorder, also mental health.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 55:13 Yep.

Mel Robbins 55:13 And it's a wildly frustrating dynamic.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 55:16 Absolutely, and so what you say to yourself, let's say the problem, the specific problem was that somebody you love is really struggling and not seeking help, okay?

Mel Robbins 55:25 Yes.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 55:25 And again, that's a much more challenging one than perhaps the kids not getting out of bed to go to school.

Mel Robbins 55:29 How do you get them to, how do you get them to collaborate?

Dr. Stuart Ablon 55:29 But you say to yourself, "The first thing I gotta do is decide, okay, am I gonna imp- try to impose my will and make them get treatment?" Well, first of all, it's not gonna work, okay, but it's gonna have all those other downsides. "Am I just gonna drop it so that we're not having all this conflict? But of course the problem's not solved," or, "Am I gonna try to collaborate to solve the problem because that option has you pursuing the thing you're worried about."... trying to actually solve the problem so it won't keep rolling on, but there are other benefits. This is the only one of the three options where you're actually building that helping relationship I mentioned earlier that is the number one predictor of whether anybody's gonna change their behavior anyways. And, here's perhaps my favorite thing about this, the ingredients to it, which we're about to talk about, if you just follow those ingredients, that's where the skills training happens. That's where people practice and develop their skills because, this is gonna seem really simple, but if somebody struggles with problem-solving skills, what's the best way to help them develop those skills?

Mel Robbins 56:35 To help them figure out how to solve a problem?

Dr. Stuart Ablon 56:38 Practice problem-solving with them, and not some hypothetical problem like in a workbook or something, but take a real problem and problem-solve using a structure that's proven, an evidence-based structure for solving

Dr. Stuart Ablon 56:51 problems. And that's what I think we should go to next-

Mel Robbins 56:53 Yes.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 56:53 ... which is, okay, what do those ingredients look like?

Mel Robbins 56:55 So how do we do that?

Dr. Stuart Ablon 56:56 Okay. Three ingredients to this process.

Mel Robbins 56:59 Okay.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 57:00 Okay? The first ingredient, the hardest, the most important, we call it the empathy ingredient, okay? And the reason it's so hard is, I think, most of us misunderstand what the word empathy means.

Mel Robbins 57:14 What does it mean?

Dr. Stuart Ablon 57:15 It means understanding. And we th- think that empathy means sort of expressing, you know, that we care by saying something like, you know, "I can tell you're really struggling." People think that's empathy. It's actually not really empathy. Empathy is really trying to understand somebody else's perspective, point of view, concern, what's hard for them. So the first ingredient, the empathy ingredient, is not coming in with your perspective, your point of view, your solutions, which is the mistake we make all the time. Instead, it's starting with, "Let me understand where you're coming from. So there's a situation I wanna talk to you about, let me understand where you're coming from." And empathy is the most powerful human regulator we have. You wanna calm someone, make them accessible, it's all about empathy. It is the most powerful way, and I ho- I'm sure, Mel, you've experienced this, I've experienced this, if somebody really empathizes with you, really tries to understand where you're coming from, it is incredibly calming. And it's calming upon your whole system. I mean, this is why, y- you know, you can... Your words can literally change the person across the table next to you, thousands of miles away. They, it can change their blood pressure, their skin conductance, their heart rate. Empathy regulates, and when people are regulated, they're much more able to express what's going

Dr. Stuart Ablon 58:43 on for them.

Mel Robbins 58:44 I don't know who said this, but when I heard this, I was like, "Oh, I think I understand what empathy, especially as a parent, but also truly in any relationship means." They said, "It's not your child's job to help you understand them."

Dr. Stuart Ablon 59:06 Yes.

Mel Robbins 59:06 "It's your job-"

Dr. Stuart Ablon 59:09 "Your job..."

Mel Robbins 59:09 "... to figure out who they are."

Dr. Stuart Ablon 59:11 You got it. Now I think though that is really hard to put into practice, and so I actually (laughs) spent, this is gonna sound ridiculous, but I-

Mel Robbins 59:19 No, it doesn't. But wait for it.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 59:20 (laughs) I spent like five years-

Mel Robbins 59:22 Yeah?

Dr. Stuart Ablon 59:23 ... intensively studying the first ingredient of our problem-solving process. (laughs)

Mel Robbins 59:27 Well, thank God, because we all need to know how to do this 'cause I don't think any of us really, I think we do it performatively-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 59:33 Yes.

Mel Robbins 59:33 ... where we want to try to understand, but we don't know how to step into someone else's shoes-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 59:39 Yes. You got it.

Mel Robbins 59:40 ... and, and really attempt to understand what it's like being them.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 59:45 You got it. And so I, I spent these years, we, we have all these recordings of people doing this, um, from, uh, different places and people we work with, and I basically pored over them, my own work, and basically said, "When this first ingredient, empathy, goes well, what are people doing? And when it goes off the rails, what are people doing?" And I'm pleased to say, like the result, it, it's not rocket science. When we do a good job of empathizing with another human, we're doing four things and four things only.

Mel Robbins 1:00:12 Okay.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:00:13 And any time we do anything other than those four, (laughs) it tends to go off the rails. So here are the four. I promise they're not rocket science, okay? Two of them are information-gathering tools. Asking questions, you know, clarifying questions, like any good detective would do-

Mel Robbins 1:00:28 Yeah.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:00:28 ... trying to understand what's going on. Okay? 'Cause that's your job. You're a detective trying to understand the other person's point of view. Ask questions, number one. Okay? If they're having a hard time filling you in, take some guesses, educated guesses. Do it tentatively 'cause you're not the expert on them and their experience, but educated guesses. Questions and guesses, those are the information-gathering tools. The other tools are what I call the regulating tools. They are what calm someone down if they're getting upset, shutting down, and those two tools are reflective listening and reassurance. Reflective listening simply looks like when I ask you questions or take a guess, anything you communicate back to me, I let you know that I heard you. Okay? And I try to tell people, especially with adolescents, but with anybody, you know, avoid the sort of rote, just like saying exactly back to you exactly what you said, 'cause that's, th- that's cheesy, it upsets people, and it doesn't show that you really heard them.

Mel Robbins 1:01:30 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:01:31 Instead, in your own words, reflective listening is l- saying something like, "Okay, so let me see if I got this straight. What I hear you saying is," and then in my own words.

Mel Robbins 1:01:39 Yeah.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:01:39 And other people call this active listening, et cetera.

Mel Robbins 1:01:41 Yeah.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:01:41 Crucial.

Mel Robbins 1:01:42 Okay.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:01:43 Fourth one, okay, 'cause we got questions and guesses-

Mel Robbins 1:01:45 Yep.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:01:46 ... we've got reflective listening. Last one, reassurance. And reassurance, what I mean by that is reassure the person that this is not some tricky form of plan A where you're about to try to impose your will.... 'cause too often what we do is we say, "Let me try to listen to you, and now let me-"

Mel Robbins 1:02:04 Tell you what to do.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:02:05 "... tell you what needs to happen."

Mel Robbins 1:02:06 (laughs) Yeah.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:02:07 Okay? (laughs)

Mel Robbins 1:02:07 Yes.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:02:08 Uh, and by the way, kids are onto this, like unbelievably. And- and we do it so much that I have to say one of the biggest impediments to getting this off the ground is kids are skeptical. Like when we start this, they're like, "Oh, ha, ha, ha, yeah. What new form of plan A did you learn?"

Mel Robbins 1:02:23 Yeah, "Now you had your session with Dr. Ablon-"

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:02:26 (laughs) Exactly.

Mel Robbins 1:02:26 "... and now you're gonna come check the boxes and then drag me back to therapy. I gets where this is going."

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:02:31 I've had kids say, like, "What did you do to my mom? She doesn't even sound like herself anymore." But, um, so, uh, reassurance, to be more specific, the way to do it is to say something like, "I just wanna understand," or one of my favorites is, "I know there must be an important reason that..."

Mel Robbins 1:02:50 Hmm.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:02:51 Fill in the blank with the behavior you're not so wild about 'cause I always remind myself, I may not love somebody's behavior. I'm sure there's good concerns behind it, and that's what you're trying to uncover with empathizing. So you're asking questions. If need be, you take a guess. If you hear anything from them, you reflect it back to make sure you got it, and if you need to, reassure them. So it looks like, you know, "Hey, I wanted to talk to you about how you've been feeling, and I- I know I've been on you to get some help, but obviously there's good reasons why you haven't, and I- maybe I haven't done a great job listening. Ca- ca- can you fill me in, like, wh- what's going on? Why are- why do you think that's the case for you? And I'm sure you got a good reason." And then-

Mel Robbins 1:03:30 Wh- that is so disarming.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:03:32 Right?

Mel Robbins 1:03:32 Like even as I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of somebody-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:03:36 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 1:03:37 ... because what you've probably experienced is the tension and the pressure and the judgment and the standoff, and the only way that you can feel some semblance over, of control over your life is to resist what somebody's trying to make you do.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:03:51 You got it. You got it. And I- I promise you, you can't go wrong. If you stick to those four things, you... I'm not saying it's magic, but it won't go badly. And it's almost impossible for somebody to get really worked up or shut down when all you're doing is trying to understand patiently, and if they're looking frustrated at all, you're reassuring them. And, you know, sometimes you have to press pause and come back to it later, sure, but y- you won't go wrong with those four things.

Mel Robbins 1:04:20 Just to recap to make sure I'm tracking-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:04:21 Yep.

Mel Robbins 1:04:22 ... the first thing is for you to really sit down and take a look at what is the specific dynamic and when does it happen-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:04:29 You got it.

Mel Robbins 1:04:29 ... that is bothering you.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:04:30 Yep.

Mel Robbins 1:04:31 And then you have to make a ch- conscious decision-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:04:33 Mm-hmm.

Mel Robbins 1:04:34 ... about whether you're gonna go with plan A, which is imposing what you want, which we know doesn't work, plan B, which is the kind of collaborative approach based-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:04:43 Yep.

Mel Robbins 1:04:44 ... in the research and the neuroscience and all of the- the work that you do, which is about you activating this helping relationship.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:04:53 Yep.

Mel Robbins 1:04:53 Or there's plan C, which is just use the let them theory and make a decision and say, "Let them," and, "I'm going to say let me, come back to this when I'm ready to follow Dr. Ablon's approach."

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:05:05 (laughs)

Mel Robbins 1:05:05 And now we're at the part where you have sat down and you have really led with empathy.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:05:11 Yep.

Mel Robbins 1:05:11 And we have asked the open-ended questions. Uh, I forgot the second part because I'm missing skill number two where you have the ex- the- the ability to have-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:05:20 (laughs)

Mel Robbins 1:05:20 ... a working memory, so I'm gonna be in there as I'm listening going, "What was part three?" (laughs)

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:05:26 (laughs)

Mel Robbins 1:05:26 So what's the next step?

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:05:27 So- so I'm gonna do this with my hands here, okay, 'cause basically what you've done in that first ingredient, the empathy ingredient-

Mel Robbins 1:05:33 Yep.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:05:33 ... is you've gotten their concern or perspective on the table.

Mel Robbins 1:05:36 Got it.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:05:37 Only once you feel like you've got that on the table and they're reasonably calm, and why are they calm? Because empathy is regulating. Then you move to the second ingredient, which is where you are going to share your perspective, your point of view,

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:05:50 your concern.

Mel Robbins 1:05:51 Now let me ask a question about this, though-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:05:53 Yes.

Mel Robbins 1:05:53 ... because you've just reassured them you're not doing anything, so should you do it in that-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:05:56 Well-

Mel Robbins 1:05:56 ... conversation or how do you set this up so it doesn't feel like a bait and switch?

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:06:00 Well, no, no, but notice what I said. You're not sharing your solution-

Mel Robbins 1:06:04 Oh.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:06:04 ... to the problem. If you were, that would be what I call tricky plan A. You're sharing what you're worried about, why you're having this conversation in the first place, not your solution, and this is the heart of collaborative problem solving.

Mel Robbins 1:06:18 You know what I've just, I just had a huge breakthrough. This is one of the skills that I need because I think whenever I get worried or frustrated, I default immediately to problem-solving mode.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:06:30 Yes.

Mel Robbins 1:06:31 And-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:06:31 Yes.

Mel Robbins 1:06:31 ... that creates a tremendous number of problems in my life-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:06:35 (laughs)

Mel Robbins 1:06:35 ... because I'm either running people over-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:06:37 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 1:06:37 ... or I'm frustrated-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:06:39 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 1:06:39 ... because I see a solution that I think works, but now somebody feels like they're being minimized or micromanaged.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:06:45 Yep. Yep. I mean, l- look-

Mel Robbins 1:06:47 Wow.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:06:47 ... the reality is people want advice far less often than we think, and even when people seem open to advice, uh, they're typically not gonna follow the advice- (laughs)

Mel Robbins 1:06:57 (laughs)

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:06:57 ... if they haven't been co-authors of the solution where their concern and perspective is accurately represented.

Mel Robbins 1:07:03 Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:07:04 So after you understand what's going on with them, you just share your perspective, your point of view, what you're worried about-

Mel Robbins 1:07:10 Yep, what you're worried about.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:07:11 ... not your solution. So if you had a solution in mind, you said, "I think they need to do this," right? Like if you said, "They have to go see a psychiatrist and get medicine."

Mel Robbins 1:07:18 Right.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:07:19 I would say, "Slow down, Mel." (laughs) Um, "So you're saying they have to get medicine. Why- why do you think they need medicine?" "Well, they're- they're horribly depressed. They can't get out of bed." "Okay, so your concern is how depressed they are and that they're not able to get out of bed. Fill me in more about what you're worried about." "I- I just, I- I feel like I'm losing them. I feel like I'm, you know-"

Mel Robbins 1:07:38 Right.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:07:38 "... sort of they're slipping away from..." "Okay, good. I've got your concerns on the table."

Mel Robbins 1:07:41 Yeah.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:07:41 So instead of saying, "Okay, I heard you. You need to go get medicine," you're saying, "Okay, I- I heard where you're coming from," and I- I- I like to teach people, say the word and, not but, 'cause but is, "I heard you, but here's the real deal."

Mel Robbins 1:07:54 Yeah.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:07:54 And is, "I heard you, and I'm worried that it's hard for you to get out of bed and I feel like I'm losing you and I just see how much you're struggling."... now we have two sets of concerns on the table.

Mel Robbins 1:08:06 Mm.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:08:07 Then, and only then, do we move to the last ingredient, the one everybody's really eager to get to, which is where you're inviting the person to problem solve together, to brainstorm solutions. But you have to tee it up like this, the reason I keep using my hands like this, if you only have one set of concerns on the table and it's Mel's, which plan are you using here?

Mel Robbins 1:08:25 Well, and also mine.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:08:26 (laughs)

Mel Robbins 1:08:26 And, uh, also when you got the one hand up, it looks like you're about to get smacked, so-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:08:30 (laughs)

Mel Robbins 1:08:30 No, I'm serious, like, I, I, f- the visual's really good because if you think about it, like, the whole three-step approach is about getting their worries-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:08:40 Yep.

Mel Robbins 1:08:40 ... and their experience on the table, and your worries-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:08:44 Yep.

Mel Robbins 1:08:44 ... but zero solution right now.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:08:45 And then you're working-

Mel Robbins 1:08:45 Just like, "Let's talk about what we're both concerned about."

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:08:48 You got it, and then you're working together. And I tell parents all the time, if you want a little tricky reminder here, a little, uh, trick to help you r- remember things, i- i- if you only have one set of concerns on the table and it's the adults, you're headed for plan A. If you only have one set and it's the child's, what plan you headed for? Plan C. How do you know you're doing plan B? You must have both sets of concerns on the table.

Mel Robbins 1:09:09 Oh, adult-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:09:11 Child.

Mel Robbins 1:09:11 ... child, both.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:09:14 Both.

Mel Robbins 1:09:14 That's why, so it's adult, both, child. I got it, that's why there's three plans. You're a genius.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:09:19 And here's the other thing-

Mel Robbins 1:09:20 I think gonna remember that.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:09:21 Okay, good. Well, it's only three. Here's the other thing that's, that's really important here is there's in- this order is intentional. Notice we don't start with the adult concern, then try to clarify what's going on for the child and then invite them because they will shut down. And there, there's a reason for that, because o- our brains work in a certain way, okay? We, y- we, information doesn't hit the smart part of our brain first, which is why you can't just start problem solving. You've got to regulate a child before they're gonna be able to relate to you, before you can reason with them, and that's a, that rubric is a rubric it was, uh, coined by a good friend and colleague of mine, Dr. Bruce Perry, who does a lot of work with very traumatized kids. Regulate, relate, reason.

Mel Robbins 1:10:06 Mm.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:10:06 And the reason I'm doing this is this is how you move up the brain. Regulation, low down in the brain, move up the brain so somebody can relate to you, and then finally get to the cortex and reason with them. And the three ingredients I'm sharing with you, those operationalize that. It turns into an a- action. First ingredient, empathy, let me regulate you. Second ingredient, let me ask you to relate to me by sharing my perspective-

Mel Robbins 1:10:28 Which makes you a helper not a solver.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:10:30 Third ingredient, let's problem solve. And if at any point in that process they get upset with you or shut down, just go right back to the bottom of the brain, the first ingredient, "Let me reregulate you. Let me remind you. He- here's what I heard from you." Okay? Got it. Um, regulate, relate, reason. First ingredient, second ingredient, third ingredient, okay?

Mel Robbins 1:10:48 Incredible.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:10:49 And, and it-

Mel Robbins 1:10:49 Absolutely incredible.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:10:50 And it's not easy, let me be clear, uh, but-

Mel Robbins 1:10:52 Well, 'cause you gotta keep yourself regulated, which is a skill.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:10:56 It is, although you know what the interesting thing is? Uh, uh, uh, dysregulation is contagious, right? Like y- y- you're, the person you're working with getting dysregulated or trying to help dysregulates us.

Mel Robbins 1:11:07 Right.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:11:07 I mean, there's nothing like being disrespected or things like that that dysregulates us, but if you can just start with that first ingredient, empathy, you regulate the person in front of you, y- you're gonna see what we call co-regulation happen. You're gonna start to regulate as well. We humans, we can dysregulate each other, we can also regulate each other.

Mel Robbins 1:11:25 And I think that's a critical thing here is it's one thing to understand somebody, it's a completely different way to go through life and want to actually understand-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:11:34 Yes.

Mel Robbins 1:11:35 ... what somebody's going through and where they're coming from.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:11:37 Yes. To be curious. I mean, you, you don't wanna make assumptions.

Mel Robbins 1:11:41 Yeah.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:11:41 Be curious. And, you know, th- and there's so many places this matters. I mean, a- a- as parents right now these days, I gotta say one of the biggest concerns we have is social media use and screen time for our kids.

Mel Robbins 1:11:52 Mm.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:11:52 There's so many battles that happen over that. This is tailor-made for it, and it's a great example of-

Mel Robbins 1:11:58 Let's walk through that one 'cause I think that's a huge concern. Yeah, I was talking to somebody who is actually very worried about their father.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:12:06 Mm.

Mel Robbins 1:12:06 So he's our age and his father is now retired and-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:12:11 And he's just scrolling on reels all day.

Mel Robbins 1:12:13 ... on his iPad all day.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:12:15 Yep.

Mel Robbins 1:12:15 Goes to bed with it.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:12:16 Yep.

Mel Robbins 1:12:17 And his mom is upset about it. I mean, there's a real addiction there.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:12:22 Yep.

Mel Robbins 1:12:23 And he's very concerned, he doesn't know how to address it-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:12:26 Yeah.

Mel Robbins 1:12:26 ... and so I think it's probably the same conversation whether you're talking to a 10-year-old or you're talking to-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:12:30 It is.

Mel Robbins 1:12:31 ... an 80-year-old.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:12:31 It is, and it's just really hard because the algorithms of these things are meant to addict. I mean-

Mel Robbins 1:12:37 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:12:37 ... let's be clear that the, they are built to addict, so there's a very powerful force going on here, but it's still the same three-step process. And what I find doing a lot of work with kids and adolescents around this is that, you know, what's interesting is kids share our concerns a lot of the time, so we don't actually need to come in barging in with our concerns and solutions. If we listen first, what we'll hear from kids is they're worried about a lot of the same things, and if that's the case, it opens up the door to collaboration where you're now working together against these addictive algorithms-

Mel Robbins 1:13:11 Right.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:13:11 ... as opposed to sort of, you know, working against one another, but it, it's all starts with listening. You know, people, um, we actually created a series for how to talk to your kids about social media, and-

Mel Robbins 1:13:22 Well, we're gonna link to it in the, in the notes of this episode 'cause I'm sure people are really interested in that.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:13:29 I mean, it's the biggest parenting challenge of our generation, I think. Um, but y- the funny thing about it is we call it how to talk to your kids about social media. It's not how to talk to your kids about social media, it's actually how to listen to your kids about social media, and it's exactly what we talked about before. Pick up, pick a specific instance-

Mel Robbins 1:13:48 Mm.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:13:49 ... you know, maybe it's you pick your child up at school and they're glued to their phone when you're wanting to talk to them.

Mel Robbins 1:13:57 Right.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:13:57 Pick a specific instance, okay? Decide which plan you're gonna use. If you're gonna try this collaborative problem solving, you're gonna start by getting their concern, their perspective, their point of view on the table.

Mel Robbins 1:14:06 Right.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:14:06 You'll express your concern, you'll collaborate.

Mel Robbins 1:14:10 I'm, I'm so excited to try this. I am curious what you're seeing in your work when it comes to young adults because-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:14:17 Mm-hmm.

Mel Robbins 1:14:17 ... it seems, at least, maybe it's just what my friends and I are talking about, but it seems like there's-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:14:24 It's everywhere.

Mel Robbins 1:14:24 ... a tremendous amount of challenges with, with parenting kids-

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:14:29 Yes.

Mel Robbins 1:14:29 ... in their late teens and into their 20s.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:14:32 Yes. You know, it's really interesting, I've noticed, I've typically worked with children, adolescents, occasional young adult. I work with more young adults now than I ever have. And there's a reason for that, because in essence, young adults aren't looking like what young adults used to look like. And what I mean by that is, thanks to the pandemic, there's a gap between where we expect people to be at certain ages and skill level. Kids' skills did not develop at the same rate, despite heroic efforts from teachers, from parents.

Mel Robbins 1:15:08 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:15:09 Which is why, like, fifth graders now, when I work with schools, look a lot more like third graders. Twelfth graders look a lot more like tenth graders. And yes, 22-year-olds look a lot more like 19, 20-year-olds, things like that. So things that were already challenging are more challenging.

Mel Robbins 1:15:25 Mm.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:15:26 Um, adulting is harder than it used to be because a lot of the kids don't have the same skills.

Mel Robbins 1:15:31 How do you think about this in terms of the challenging dynamics that you're seeing?

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:15:35 Yeah. Well, so basically, and I have a lot of families that are very frustrated because they're like, "My kid is not launching here."

Mel Robbins 1:15:42 Yes.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:15:42 "And I'm supporting them and this is unsustainable."

Mel Robbins 1:15:45 Yes.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:15:46 Now, where do parents typically go with that? Um, (laughs) I'm working with a few right now, where they go with that is, "So here's the plan."

Mel Robbins 1:15:52 Yep.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:15:53 "Here's what we are willing to do to support you."

Mel Robbins 1:15:56 (laughs) Have you been in my house?

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:15:57 (laughs) Um, "By X date, you must have at least a part-time job and contributing this amount. By X date, you will have secured an apartment and have a full-time job to..." And, you know, at best what you get is, "Okay, yeah. Uh, uh-huh. Yeah, yeah, that, that, that sounds good. Yep. I, I'm good." Which, you know what I call that? I call that dissociative compliance, which means the kid is basically checked out, saying exactly what they think you wanna hear-

Mel Robbins 1:16:24 Yep.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:16:24 ... so that they can get this over with-

Mel Robbins 1:16:26 Yep.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:16:26 ... 'cause their concerns aren't on the table.

Mel Robbins 1:16:28 Got it.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:16:29 So it's the same (laughs) three-step process, unless you wanna do plan A or plan C, it needs to look like, 'cause that was plan A, what I just said before.

Mel Robbins 1:16:36 Which is, you're doing this, yes.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:16:38 It, it needs to look like, um, "So let's talk about how things are going, what you think, uh, about how things are going, your perspective, your point of view, what you're looking for, your goals. I'll share some of my concerns and let's see if we can figure out a plan together, at least in the short term, that's gonna work for the both of us."

Mel Robbins 1:16:56 And what is your advice about the financial piece? Because I think it's a very tricky dynamic.

Dr. Stuart Ablon 1:17:02 Yes.

Mel Robbins 1:17:03 Because the fact is, you know, when I look at the City of Boston, where we're sitting right now, I saw