Sean Grover, author of Shortcuts to a Happier Life, dives into the psychology behind teenage behaviors and how group therapy can significantly aid in their personal growth, offering insights into handling teen anger, breaking toxic patterns, and understanding parental roles in teen development.If you've enjoyed Talking to Teens, we'd love if you could leave us a five-star rating, and if you have time, a review! Full Show NotesRaising teenagers can sometimes feel akin to navigating an emotional rollercoaster; the highs are exhilarating, yet the lows can leave us questioning everything we thought we knew about being a parent. At times, we may unintentionally become an obstacle to our children's growth rather than a catalyst for their development. When teens repeatedly find themselves stuck or struggling, it might be the environment—including our own behaviors—that's keeping them from forging a path forward.Our guest this week, Sean Grover, a seasoned therapist and author of multiple books including "Shortcuts to a Happier Life," brings an illuminating perspective on how adolescents navigate their formative years. As an advocate for group therapy, Sean explains how it stands out as the most effective method for helping teenagers, with studies showing it to be 73% more effective compared to other therapies. Adolescents thrive when they have a community; group therapy provides a unique space where teens can relate, share, and learn from each other’s experiences, fostering personal growth.The Power of Group TherapyAdolescents naturally form groups as they search for their place in the world. Yet, not enough therapists focus on group work for teens due to its rowdy, sometimes chaotic nature. Sean discusses how group therapy can help teens identify and articulate their feelings by observing peers in similar situations. This peer interaction demystifies their perceived unique struggles, allowing them the emotional freedom to grow without the isolation that individual therapy may bring.Feeling physical pain or discomfort may often indicate emotional unrest among teenagers. Sean highlights how psychological struggles can manifest as physical symptoms in teens who might not have the vocabulary to express their distress. Encountering such signs should prompt consideration of underlying emotional issues.Balancing Expectations and GrowthSean speaks candidly about the importance of setting realistic dreams with teens. Encouragement is vital, but so is cautioning against creating pressure through high expectations. Praising teens with broad superlatives like "you're so smart" might hinder their motivation, as the fear of failure becomes daunting. Instead, fostering a growth-oriented mindset, where perseverance is emphasized over perfect outcomes, empowers teens to navigate life's inevitable roadblocks and adjust their paths as needed.Recognizing Parent BurnoutParental burnout doesn't receive the attention it deserves. The strains of parenting often result in exhaustion, irritability, and strained relationships. Sean shares personal stories and effective strategies for managing these stresses, emphasizing the importance of self-care and maintaining a healthy partnership with the other parent to ensure a balanced home environment.Addressing Anger and Toxic PatternsSean challenges parents to self-reflect before labeling their children with anger issues. Oftentimes, children reflect the negative emotions they see in us. Our task is to break toxic cycles by being aware of our behaviors, and understanding what might be behind a teenager's outburst—feelings of shame, hurt, or isolation.In the Episode…There's much more to discover in this insightful episode with Sean Grover. We also discuss:How group therapy normalizes adolescent emotionsThe role of physical activities in managing teen anxietySpotting and addressing toxic caretakingHelping teens navigate peer pressure and find mentorsBreaking free from toxic relationships and mindsetsTo explore Sean's profound insights further, make sure to grab a copy of "Shortcuts to a Happier Life." If you found this conversation enlightening, consider subscribing and sharing this podcast with others tuning into the evolving journey of raising teenagers.Follow us on Social Media! We're @talkingtoteens on Instagram and TikTok

Day 4 Don't Quit In The Dip Uprooting Bitterness The Bible describes bitterness as a bitter root. Have you ever looked at your backyard and seen some weeds growing? You think to yourself, I should deal with that, but you don’t. The weeds are so small anyway, but after you procrastinate for a week, it seems like they’ve grown to be six feet tall. What started off as something that could have been easily dealt with has now become Jack and the beanstalk in your backyard. The longer you let a weed grow, the harder it is to get rid of. If you’ve ever tried to pull out a big root, you know it’s backbreaking work, and many times you end up breaking it off and you think you’re good. You think, Phew! Glad that’s over. I’m done with it! Outta sight, outta mind. But, if you don’t get the entire root, there’s a whole lot more going on beneath the surface that you can’t see—and when it grows back, you’ll have to dig up more than you were anticipating because now you have a jungle of overgrowth to tackle as its roots have spread. If you don’t completely uproot bitterness now, those roots will go down so deep they will latch on and interweave their way into every relationship you have. Bitterness will affect your view of everything you see. And it will keep you from the destiny God has for you to walk in. Offended people never make it to their destiny. It’s a trap! Why give somebody or a particular situation that much power over your life? It’s been three years. It’s messed with you for ten years. It’s kept you from enjoying life for twenty years. It’s stolen your joy for thirty-two years. It’s kept you from so much in life, and now you feel like you can’t move on. Why not determine today not to allow it to rob you of one more day of your life? Better yet, refuse to get offended ever again. It’s not saying what they did was okay. It wasn’t. That’s why it hurt. With God’s help, you can do this. Most of us have a hard time forgiving because we don’t want to give them anything. I want to share with you a picture God gave me to help me think differently about forgiveness. I’m on top of a tall skyscraper in San Francisco. I have a long, thick rope tied around my waist. At the other end of the rope is a piano that has just been pushed off the side of the building. It’s only a matter of seconds before all the slack is gone and the piano pulls me over the edge. I really want to hold on to the piano, but I’ll die if I do. See, most of us have a hard time forgiving others because, in our minds, we don’t want to give them anything, but forgiveness is not about giving them something. It’s releasing something. It’s me, untying the rope from around my waist, choosing life over death, because if I don’t, that piano will pull me over the edge. That might be where you are. That bitterness is pulling you over the edge. It’s killing you. It’s hindering you. It’s keeping you from living the life Jesus came to bring. You might say, “But they don’t deserve it!” Well, neither did we, but I’m really grateful God didn’t wait till we deserved it. You can’t focus on living when you’re just trying not to be pulled over the edge. So, untie the rope and release it. Release the offense. Release your pain. Release feelings of revenge and experience the freedom that comes through complete forgiveness. Hebrews 12:15 offers us this command: “See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.”

Thinking About Thinking Learning to capture our thoughts matters. Because how we think shapes how we live. Lies such as I’m helpless, I’m worthless, I’m unlovable, shape our thinking, our emotions, and the way we respond to the world around us. They trap us in their cycle of distraction and distortion and pain, preventing us from recognizing the truth we should believe. Most detrimentally, they change how we view God. Every lie we buy into about ourselves is rooted in what we believe about God. Let’s say I tend to feel worthless and invisible. And let’s say I read Ephesians 1 and learn that God because He deeply loves me, chooses me and adopts me. Even if I don’t overtly deny the validity of that premise, I still doubt it is true for me. I nod at the truth, but I never fully absorb it and let it shape my identity. Then let’s say I am married to a spouse who is typically distracted with work. I don’t feel seen in our marriage, which confirms my deep-seated fear that I am indeed worthless and invisible. So even in the most inconsequential of arguments with my husband, I feel anxious and start to spin every time he’s short with me. I can’t see all that he has on his shoulders, I can’t empathize with his stresses, and my needs exceed his ability to ever meet them. Before long we are fighting constantly, and we don’t even know why. My husband now has become the enemy in my mind and can’t ever seem to say what I need to hear or be whom I need him to be. And the spiral of my thoughts has now invaded my relationships and robbed me of joy and peace. Until I throw off the lie that God’s love isn’t for me, my emotions, decisions, behaviors, and relationships will remain twisted up in the mistaken belief that I’m worthless. When we begin to think about our thoughts, perhaps for the first time, we can stop the downward spiral. We can reset and redirect them. That’s our hope. Not that we would wrestle each and every fear, but that we would allow God to take up so much space in our thinking that our fears will shrink in comparison. Lord, I want You and Your truths to reign in my mind! Amen.

Every Thought Captive—Really? We once thought of the mind as an immutable thing. The brain you were born with and the way it worked—or didn’t—were just “how it was”; no sense fretting over what can’t be changed. We now know that the brain is constantly changing, whether or not we intend for it to. With this in mind—and in hopes of discovering how we can break free from our spiraling thought patterns—I started studying the brain. I began to see a pattern at work in many of us. Our emotions were leading us to thoughts, and those thoughts were dictating our decisions, and our decisions were determining behaviors, and then the behaviors were shaping our relationships, all of which would take us back to either healthy or unhealthy thoughts. Round and round and round we go, spinning down, seemingly out of control, our lives becoming defined by this endless cycle. Depressing. Unless. Unless there is a way to interrupt it. What if, instead of spending our energy trying to fix the symptoms, we went to the root of the problem? The reality is that our emotions are a byproduct of the way we think. What’s good about this news is that we can change our thinking. The apostle Paul understood the war that takes place in our thoughts, how our circumstances and imaginations can become weapons that undermine our faith and hope. The Bible records his bold declaration that we are to “take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5, ESV). Take every thought captive? Is this even possible? Because honestly, my thoughts run wild a lot of the time. But my deep dive into the inner workings of the brain confirmed what the Bible says: we can take every thought captive. Not only can our thoughts be changed, but we can be the ones to change them. God, help me break the cycle of my out-of-control thoughts. I want Your truths to invade every decision, every emotion, every thought I have. Amen.