The statistics are alarming. According to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 40% of high schoolers say they feel persistently sad or hopeless. About one in five reported symptoms of anxiety or depression, and just the past two weeks, and another one in five said they seriously considered attempting suicide in the last year. In this episode of Grieving Out Loud, we sit down with the researchers behind a powerful new book that takes a deeper look at what's driving America's youth mental health crisis. You know, a lot of people have been pointing to iPhones, screens you know, things like that. And we definitely have chapters in the book that talk about video games and online pornography and social media and things like. That. But we also sort of explore other topics in the book. Just you know, family breakdown, a loss of religious affiliation among young people. The authors of the book, journalists, researchers, and clinicians, want parents and policy makers to see the full picture of a complex problem. Too often they say experts point to just one cause when in reality there are many. I'm your host, Angela Kennecke. Today I'm joined by Naomi Schaefer Riley, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who studies child welfare and foster care, especially how the drug crisis impacts kids and families. Also with us is Dr. Ken Winters, a senior scientist at the Oregon Research Institute in Minnesota, and consultant at the Center for Indigenous Behavioral Health at the University of Iowa. His research focuses on how we can prevent youth substance use and give young people the tools they need to make healthier choices. They are two of the contributors to the new book, Mind The Children, how to Think about the Youth Mental Health Collapse. I. Let's dive into this important conversation. Well, I'd really like to thank Ken and Naomi for joining me today to talk about the extensive research they've done involving children and adolescents and child welfare and the, Substance use prevention and how we protect our kids from so many things that are going on in society today. You've got a new book out that you've both contributed to called Mind the Children, and it's a really important book because it brings so many experts together. Let's start off by talking about the importance of research in this area and, what we really know right now that can really help our kids. Sure. Well, thanks so much for having us. Uh, So I I'm one of the two editors of the book, the other co-editors Sally Satel, who's a, licensed psychiatrist who's affiliated with Yale. And Ken is one of the contributors. Um, So over the last couple years, I'm sure everybody's been hearing about the youth mental health crisis in this country. General has talked about it. I think legislators are concerned, teachers, parents and there's definitely a sense that this was all exacerbated. During COVID, during the lockdowns that happened. Um, We saw a spike in adolescent suicide attempts. We've seen rising rates of anxiety and depression. And so, you know, Sally and I sort of sat down and thought like, We need to understand really what the causes are. I think you know, a lot of people have been pointing to iPhones, screens you know, things like that. And we definitely have chapters in the book that talk about video games and online pornography and social media and things like. That. But we also sort of explore other topics in the book. Just you know, family breakdown, a loss of religious affiliation among young people. You know, things that are causing kind of a loss of meaning in people's lives and, you know, especially with family breakdown, kind of a loss of scripts like what young people are supposed to do. And then I think we have this. You know, very important chapter on the rise in cannabis use among young people, and some of the ill effects that we're seeing from that. So, I'll let Ken talk about that a little bit. Sure. Thanks Naomi and appreciate this opportunity. Naomi mentioned, I think a significant contributing factor to consider when we realize young people are having a tough time with mental health more so than. Prior years, and one of them is the social media factor. But another concurrent problem is this general acceptance. it's almost a mainstream acceptance in our culture now of cannabis use. it comes with a lot of misinformation. Unfortunately, I think that misinformation is, emanating from politicians, policymakers, and adults. And so young people are getting swayed believing that, well, it's not too uh, risky. It might even be medicine and it might even help my depression and anxiety. we're finding all of those things are, large misinformations. Well, we find that every time we do, whether it's we publish some research about cannabis and its effects on the brain and cannabis use disorder, or how it impacts the adolescent brain, or we do a podcast with moms who've had children experience psychosis after using cannabis, we get an incredible amount of backlash from. The pro cannabis people who say cannabis is for everyone. And what I always argue is it's not for the developing brain. And we know that. I mean, the science backs that up yet. It's so, as you said, socially acceptable. That is a new science that's kind of helped put an important perspective on all of this. the science about the developing brain. So the teenage years is a significant period of brain maturation, and it's I. time because the brain gets to, to learn and take advantage of assets and grow and unfortunately can be a source of risk. introducing drugs as well as too much indulgence with social media can also negatively or disrupt that brain development. THC probably has a more negative impact on the way the brain develops than other substances. So it has a more insidious role in disrupting all kinds of facets that are important for, brain development. It impacts everyone, you know, with judgment, mood regulation, self-control. But a teen exposes too much of THC, or gets exposed to it their brain is getting negatively impacted in these important regions that can lead to a lot of downstream problems. Ken also points out that today's cannabis is nothing like what it was a few decades ago. Back in 1995, cannabis seized by the DEA averaged about 4% THC. By 2017, that number had jumped to 17%, and it's still climbing. And it's not just the plant. Now there's an entire lineup of high potency products like dabs, oils, and edibles with THC levels that can reach as high as 90% according to the Yale School of Medicine. It's incredible how more potent THC in cannabis products are these days compared to prior decades or generations. So parents typically would not have any exposure to the kind of level of THC potency that's current. And so kids are, are being exposed to things that are, just insidiously dangerous. and parents thinking about their own prior experiences is not helpful because they're under, you know, the misinformation that, well, it wasn't that bad for me and it's probably better than alcohol, as Naomi once mentioned as a misinformation and it might not be all that dangerous 'cause I didn't get addicted and I could drive and it didn't interfere with my mental health. All of that was fine if you were using, you know, THC products of five to 7% potency levels, but. typical stuff that's the leaf products, it's more like 20% potency, and then you can get the oils that's getting vaped. way up to 90%. So it's a whole different ballgame. It's, it's not marijuana like our grandparents use these days. Yeah. of the dangers that someone was talking to me about recently particularly with the gummies and the edibles it takes a while for , the high to kick in. So whereas, you know, if you're just sort of using a typical canvas product. You'll start to feel that immediate effect, and you might, you know, sort of decide how much more you wanna have. With the edibles, often it takes a little bit for that to kick in and you don't realize how high you are until after, for instance, you've gotten behind the wheel. Right, and maybe taking too much as well. I mean, dosing is also another huge issue, right? yes. Yeah. the, uh, marketplace doesn't help. They're not educating the public on Right. They wanna sell it. It's a business. let's be honest here, this is a multi-billion dollar business and it's advantageous to this business to be legal in all the states. And the cat is sort of outta the bag with the legality of it, right? I mean, it is. and I don't see it being put back in the bag. Just like we've never gone back to making alcohol illegal. Beyond the rise in teen marijuana use, the book also dives into a bigger picture, the cultural and technological changes that are making life more difficult for kids today. Things like families not being as connected as they once were and fewer kids growing up with the support of a faith community. And you talked about the breakdown of the family, and I often think about the breakdown of our communities. You know, we were meant to really be in small tribes, right? And our neighbors are supposed to watch after our kids and one another. And, and that doesn't happen in today's world. And so many people look at social media to fulfill. Those needs, those deep seated social needs that we all have. What is the correlation there for teens? So, yeah, I think one of the reasons that we decided to sort of frame this book in this way is that all of these different factors are sort of you know. Causes and effects. So you know, if you have a teen who is kind of feeling adrift in their family, feeling adrift in their community then they might, you know, turn to social media as a way to sort of feel more connection. Of course social media in many cases doesn't make you feel more connection. It makes you feel more lonely and anxious and you know more as if you know everybody is doing things without you. And then the anxiety and depression increase and then you might turn to something like cannabis as a way, you know, we know more and more kids are thinking about that as just a form of self medication. And you know, a lot of people talk to me when they talk to me about cannabis. They'll say, oh, you know, it's less harmful than drinking, for instance. And, you know, there's. Certainly an element of that. You know, when you kind of think about the overall health effects of alcohol in this country, there's certainly significant long-term impacts. But, you know, when I think back to sort of my younger years, I mean, I'm Generation X when people were drinking, you know, they were going out on Saturday nights with friends they were drinking, they might engage in dangerous behavior. What we see in these surveys is that more and more young people are using drugs alone. And I just find that disturbing on a whole other level. I mean, obviously there is a danger in using drugs alone. I mean, especially with the, levels of overdose rates that we're seeing. But I also think that it is a. Symbol of what is going wrong with these young people? The idea that you are using, you know, say cannabis or other drugs, you know, in the morning before you go to school. I mean, we see increasing reports from teachers that just, kids are showing up already, you know, having used cannabis in the morning before they even got to school. Now, I don't know about you, but there were very few kids in my high school, even if they drank on Saturday nights, they were rarely drinking before first period math class. So I just think there are a lot of different ways that kids are engaging in substance use now, and some of those are more worrisome. And I think the, the loneliness that you're talking about, the disconnection from family and community are definitely contributing to that. Right. That's really interesting. I, I think you're right. Just from what I've observed or what I've heard is that the way that kids are using drugs is different than the way their parents did when they were teenagers and the use has been really considered a rite of passage, and I always say with fentanyl, it is a game changer. Now. we had really good news. Recently that overdose deaths among people under the age of 35 or fentanyl related deaths are down by 40%, which is wonderful and that people in their early twenties are using less. Now, I dunno if teenagers are using less, I, I hope that they are. But just to get the word out to parents and to teens and anything in your research, uncover the best ways to. Really educate teenagers and prevent this from happening. weigh in with one key. It's the role of parents and families. School-based prevention programs are a great start, but if that's the sole setting or the sole avenue of getting prevention messages, it probably doesn't have as significant impact unless it's also concurrent with parents and, the family unit providing good modeling. and offering their important healthy perspectives, and having a good healthy environment, which is communication, spending time and not letting teens get too isolated. I think there's reluctance among parents to um, interfere with teens who might be spending way too much time in the room. Like Naomi said, they're getting involved in a lot of social media or even using. And that can, you know, lead to you know, a lot of indulgence by being with oneself and being solitary and of course all kinds of emotional issues can arise from that. Parents I think, are reluctant to perhaps, you know, break through that thinking that they'll just get a pushback and that gets, you know, a lot of anxiety with with parenting. But that's something parents should not let be a barrier. they need to make sure that there's just a, you know, a significant large social network within the family. I just wanna echo that I think parents tend to underestimate their influence over kids. There is a, a large longitudinal, study that comes out of Notre Dame of sociologists, their name Christian Smith, and I think it's called the National Survey of Youth and Religion. But they followed thousands of kids over actually a couple of decades now, and they've done these very extensive interviews with them and it's really fascinating to. See, like how much over time the kids really do echo their parents' values. And it's not to say that no kid is ever gonna rebel and do anything wrong, but I think parents today just think, oh, you know, they've heard this before. They know they're not supposed to do it, they're gonna do it anyway. But really like reinforcing that message as. Parents is really important and finding a community of like-minded people. I mean, if you go back to kind of the, the early days of the just say no campaign took off it was kind of thought of as like a parent power movement where parents suddenly realized like how many of their kids adolescents. We're using marijuana, you know, on a regular basis. And this launched, you know, all over the country. There were groups of parents that said like, we need to do something about this. And people think about like the Just Say No campaign as something that, you know, just came out of the White House that was actually like a groundswell movement from parents across the country that said, you know, this is getting out of hand and we need to do something about that. And, you know, frankly, I think we're in a similar moment now. Are you ready to protect the next generation from the dangers of substance use? Emily's Hope has created a comprehensive K through 12 substance use prevention curriculum designed to educate, empower, and equip students with the tools they need to make healthy choices are age appropriate lessons, starting kindergarten and build through high school using science, real stories and interactive learning to help kids understand their bodies, brains, and risk of drug use. We're already reaching thousands of students across multiple states, and we're just getting started. Visit emily's hope edu.org to learn more and share our curriculum with your school administrators and counselors. At Emily's Hope, we believe prevention begins with education. Let's work together to keep our kids safe. a lot of people question whether the just say no campaign ever really worked. In fact, research has shown that kids in some of those dare style programs were actually more likely to use alcohol and cigarettes. Critics also argue it did real harm by fueling stigma, painting people who use the drugs as bad, and those struggling with substance use disorder as if they simply made some kind of immoral choice. Whether or not just say no made a difference. One thing is clear. We need better tools to help protect our kids from substance use. That's why we've launched our Emily's Hope K through 12 substance use prevention curriculum. You can learn more about it on our website, Emily's Hope dot charity. We've also included a link in the show notes of this episode. And I think that the message that's being sent with legalization is very much like, it's okay. You know, even if we're saying like, you can't use it if you're under the age of 18, legalization sends a message Yeah. that this is something that's acceptable. Well, yeah, it certainly does.'cause we know that alcohol has been acceptable for a really long time, right? It's a legal drug. So then when cannabis is legal, it becomes really acceptable. And Ken you really try to prevent cannabis from becoming legal in Minnesota, right. Yeah, it was quite a struggle. It's no fun working with uh, policymakers when they've got other agenda besides health and welfare of young people. I understand a lot of them were under the gun thinking they would get primaried if they didn't go with a certain vote. Believing that there was I guess a majority of their constituents that were wanting to approve cannabis. And while they might have been worried about the health factors, I think they looked inside and realized, well, maybe I need to go a certain direction in the hopes that maybe we'll do enough good prevention and public awareness downstream. But as we all know, that can be real tough when something gets legalized. Usually prevention, uh, efforts, make an impact later, after, unfortunately, a lot of, um. Uh, honeymoon period has passed where there's the celebration and the liberalization of, the drug and a lot of drug use occurs, and, some people are already, you know, becoming victims. Right. Now we mentioned Naomi, you mentioned that you were talking about how it can't just be in the schools. There has to be backed up by families. But what happens when those families are using drugs when the parents are drug users or alcoholics and the kids see that and they grow up with that in their homes? How do you get to those kids and how do you help those kids? Yeah, unfortunately in the work that I. Done on child welfare in the foster care system, I see just an enormous amount of intergenerational substance abuse. Up to 90% of the families who are involved with the child welfare system are suffering from a substance abuse issue. So I don't think people realize just how significant a factor that is. In child abuse and neglect. As a side note, it's really fascinating. I've gone back and read some of the literature about the Temperance Movement and that was actually one of the major factors in the Temperance Movement was high levels of child abuse and domestic violence. That were being perpetrated as a result of people's very high levels of drinking. And, and they were higher back then than they are now. But just understanding this connection between family instability and dysfunction and drug use. and how that impacts kids growing up. How they're more likely to use drugs as a result. But particularly for young children. I mean, I think we have this narrative in this country now that. you know, if an adult chooses to use drugs, that's their own business. And, you know, need to really police that very much. At very least we could decriminalize that. I think you could, go along with that logic up to a point. But in the same way that we say, you know, it's not acceptable for airline pilots and surgeons, you know, to be engaging in substance use. I think that should be true of parents, particularly parents of small children. Like I mean, trying to parent a small child, even while you're perfectly sober um, is an exhausting and very challenging enterprise. And trying to do it while you're suffering from addiction is really, really hard. And you see, you know, every year parents fail at this a lot as a result of the addiction problems they Well, and you see it encouraged um, wine time, you know, mommy's juice. And you see now these cannabis. Parties for moms. I mean, those, those kinds of things have sort of become a cultural fad. It is a concern and, and we know when our, Emily's Hope curriculum is being taught in schools, a lot of these small children come forward and talk about what's going on in their homes and what they're seeing. And it can be really alarming. Mm-hmm. don't do a good job in our culture with parent education. become parents without a lot of formal training. common sense and modeling from the parenting they might have learned when they were growing up obviously can have a role. But it's interesting. We, we've grown to realize with research and common sense that parenting is so important the family unit is so important but we don't perhaps take it as seriously when it comes to educating our culture. I, challenge parents with a teenager about this kind of question we're talking about. What would it be like I asked them if you decided, well, I'm just gonna withhold, using any legal or illegal substance in the home while my teen is growing up, know, they're gonna leave the house eventually. What would it be like if you just waited four or five, six years, you know, during those core teen years and pulled back? you can go back to your habits. Hopefully they're good habits, you know, when they leave and parents don't often think about that and realize, you know, it's a short amount of time. I might be extremely influential, as Naomi has said, parents really can influence teens a lot, even though they might feel frustrated by it. and so for parents to realize they have an opportunity to be a good role model is significant, but perhaps undervalued by too many. Yeah. and I also think, you know, in terms of like the public conversation about what's going wrong in these families, like, I think, you know, people often point to poverty or sort of material deprivation as what's underlying these problems. you know. There's a chicken and egg problem here, but I really think people are underestimating the extent to which substance use is actually driving a lot of intergenerational poverty. And it's not just, you know, I lost my job and so I, you know, had to use drugs or it, it, it really is. If you do not have at least one sober adult in the house who can kind of look out for you as a child, make sure you go to school. Make sure you go to bed. Make sure you're not running the streets at night. You know, your chances of success are very small, but if you are living in a family, even a poor family. Where you have that one adult who is in your corner who can make sure that you're going to school and make sure that you're doing some of the right things that you need, your chances of success are much higher. And I think sometimes we talk so much about economic inequality and money and kind of material things that I think we have lost sight of some of the drug conversation that needs to be had. Right, because it is very multi-generational and it is very insidious the way it perpetrates every. Area of someone's life, right? So of course it's gonna affect your family and if people are using drugs and your children are more likely to use drugs, and it's hard for people to break those cycles. So what hope do you have for people? Out of all this research that went into mind the children, what direction do we need to be taking? How do we tackle some of these really big and also complicated problems? I am encouraged at one level. I've seen policy makers start to realize we should allocate more resources. To youth health we have in the past, that youth are, uh, perhaps more depressed and feeling more suicidal than ever before, given that most adult mental health issues usually begin during the youth years, one realizes why aren't we spending a lot more money on prevention and focusing on, on the young people in our culture, and we don't allocate most of our. No. I called state or federal resources when it comes to health to young people. We allocate it more to adults. I know that the youth population is a smaller proportion than adults, but when you think about the bigger prevention it's not logical to under fund and under resource, that age group. I'm really alarmed, Ken, to tell you the truth. As someone who works in prevention day in, day out about the proposed cuts right now to all of the federal prevention programs, I think we have to invest in our children in order to change and, turn this bus around, so to speak, in order to prevent more of these overdose and fentanyl poisoning deaths and to continue. I mean, we've made some strides. I just. Listed off some stats to you a few minutes ago. That's because of some of the investment that has been made into programs like the ones we're doing at Emily's Hope. But I am alarmed to see massive cuts proposed for prevention efforts. So one thing that gives me hope is something that's not exactly sort of in the realm of drugs, but this whole movement that we're having now to get phones out of schools, I think it's really an interesting development. I mean, I've been yelling about this for a long time and I'm, I'm happy that it's sort of finally caught on. You see now that it has, this has sort of become something all over the country that parents and teachers, you know, and legislators have sort of come to agree on is what a distraction they are, is how bad they are for kids' mental health. and you're sort of seeing finally this movement along these lines. You know, I do think as. Ken said, you know, maybe we're sort of coming to some kind of realization about the cannabis problems that we've created. you know, I wish we could have come to this realization a little bit sooner, but I do wonder whether you could see a similar phenomenon here where once. You know, the cat's outta the bag once it's okay to say this creates a real problem, especially for developing brains. And once that message gets around, I think maybe you'll see like, you know, fast movement on the subject., What responsibility do you think social media companies have to protect kids? Boy, they're getting some uh, attention along those lines, aren't they? they have a major responsibility. I understand the uh, free speech and, the capitalism being forces that they're siding with. and they got the bottom line to look at, et cetera. But it's, the wild, wild west in many ways when it comes to the ability for teens to use social media in very destructive ways and for the systems to pull back and restrict, and monitor it. I mean, it's analogous to parents deciding, well, I guess whatever the teen wants to do, as long as it's not uh, illegal. Even though it might be bad, as long as it's not illegal, I'm gonna allow it. Well, would most parents, you know, accept that as a principal? Probably not. There's all kinds of things teams do that are over the edge. Improper, illegal, unethical, et cetera, that they shouldn't be engaging in and for sure not doing to the point where it might become a habit. but social media seems to have a very open door policy that's um, quite problematic. Yeah, I mean, look, I would like them to take responsibility. But I'm just skeptical and as a parent, I would say waiting around for that to happen. not for, just for appropriate legislation, but there's always going to be a company or, some way around this that you know, parents really can't let their guard down. one of the reasons that I put off giving my kids phones for as long as I did was. I didn't wanna have to keep track. Like I knew the responsibility was gonna be on me. I was gonna have to look at their phone. I was gonna have to figure out what they've downloaded. I was gonna have to talk to them about the importance of this. And, for a parent who has a lot going on, like trying to monitor that is a lot. And so I would just say to parents, like, as long as you can put this off you know, until your kids are more mature and until you have a chance to give them these messages, you know, the better. And so how long did you hold your kids off for? Because I bet you were under a lot of pressure when all their peers I think, I think parents give into the pressure, right? Like their peers are all getting them a. Like eight. Or nine or 10. Right. they all, I signed the wait until eighth pledge. I'm actually on the board of wait until eighth. and they all had to wait until eighth grade Mm-hmm. they got a smartphone and, and they have had to wait until 16 to get social media. 16 for social media, But I'll say like, even that, like, the social media is bad, but you know, even the basic text chats are bad. even having a, something with a camera that is on you at all times is bad. Like, I think people underestimate the harm of the camera, by the way. Like they just, they think, oh, as long as, you know Instagram is not on there, or Snapchat or something like that. Like, no, it's the camera. The camera causes enormous amounts of problems. No. Naomi, will you have a restriction of how late at night They can access your I mean, everybody's suppo, you know, when they put their phones in the kitchen. right now I, just to give you a range, I have an 18, a 16 and an about to be 13-year-old. So, you know, we're navigating this still. But I feel like, you know, they know the expectations and even when they're sitting on their phones, like doing things that are harmless, I'm like. Couldn't be doing something more useful. Couldn't you be doing something better in our family with the teen, well now my kids are all in their twenties, but when they lived at home, they had to plug their phone in, in the kitchen. It was off at night. They didn't get to have it in their rooms in bed with them at night. And I can tell you, most of their friends did. Most of their friends were texting them or sending them messages or on social media at two, three in the morning. I, I got a lot of pushback from my kids for that, you know, and it didn't obviously protect them from everything, me taking their phones away at night. But you know, it, it's a hard thing sometimes to do as a parent, Yeah, and we have a chapter in the book that not only talks about the effects of all that screen time but I think one of the little noticed problems of that is. Sleep deprivation, right. that kids are up until all hours a night. And just to get back to our earlier conversation about depression and anxiety and things like that if your child is only getting like two or three hours of sleep a night, or their sleep is constantly being interrupted by things pinging at them, that can be the root of the mental health problems, right? There is the lack of. Sleep. And I think a lot of parents are not making that connection. They're just thinking, oh, their kid is, you know, a teenager and they're depressed and they're brooding, whatever. No. Like how much sleep is your teen actually getting if they have that screen in their rooms? a, a big problem. the influence all kinds of, forces, it's peers, it's social media. It's unfortunately parents, they all can conspire to um, work against the young people's health and wellbeing. but it does, it does take parents to be on top of it. It, it's an extra challenge. There are some software options for parents to help a little bit, but of course, there's ways around most of these things these days parents are, it's a chance for them to model in a good way. there's that hilarious commercial where the family of three, two parents and a teenager are chatting. downtime in a home on a couch, and they're chatting by just texting each other. And of course it's poking fun at the fact, Hey, wait a minute, why don't we put our phones down and actually talk face to face? So parents are getting a little too, um, in social media as well, and that can be a go down a bad road. This discussion reminds me of a, drug abuse researcher when asked, what is he doing to try to prevent drug abuse in his teenagers? So I'm, I'm kind of switching topics a little bit, but it was, how much can parents influence on what strategies? And he said, I've decided to bribe them. Each of them have been promised $3,000. If they make it through the teen years or it doesn't look like they got into trouble with substances. I'm not sure what line of evidence he had, but he basically said, I'm gonna pay them. he said with one, the older teenager, it's worked so far. He is got teens, uh, kind of in the age range. Naomi is dealing with the mid to young teens. I thought it was interesting 'cause he's a, prevention researcher and he thought, you know, sometimes parents gotta weigh in in a significant manner. I think with the dangers in the illicit drug supply now, whatever it takes, right? Whatever it takes to keep our kids healthy and their brains healthy is so important. And if you have a loved one who is struggling with substance use disorder, remember, help is available with Fentanyl and the illicit drug supply. You do not have time to wait. We have a list of helpful resources on our website, Emily's Hope Charity. Again, you can find a link in the show notes. So what do you wanna leave our listeners with? A lot of whom? Our parents and what kind of glimmer of hope do we have for our children, their mental health and, and keeping them free of substances. Parenting matters. Even when you have a teenager, that's a, a big message. You hang in there, it doesn't last forever. There's the teen years, Thanks, Ken. limited. I also kiddingly say adolescence is a time-limited disorder period. So they'll grow out of any disorder you might think they have. All kidding aside hang in there a parent and, and there are resources. There's a lot more resources than ever before. and take advantage of that. Yeah, and I would say, you know, a lot of the basics, again, these other factors that we talk about in mind, the children. The basics of sort of family and community um, religious institutions. Like, we don't think about this as much anymore, but trying to make intentional decisions as a parent about the, you know, family and the community that you wanna raise your child in. Those have big impacts. We look at long-term studies, big impacts on the likelihoods that kids will engage in substance use. I mean, there is a, you know, significant correlation between kids who are raised in strong religious communities and kids who don't use drugs., And so, you know, there's no automatic formula, but a lot of the things that you think about that promote stability in a child's life turn out to be the things that prevent them from using drugs later on. Well, and I would say on a personal note, you know, I raised my daughter in, she went to a private religious school, went to church, yet still began using marijuana at too young of an age against. All of my efforts to stop her and still die from fentanyl poisoning. So I think people, parents can do everything right. I think sometimes we're up against a huge battle of society, of peer influence, of societal influence, the influence from the phone and social media and their peers. And so it can be really tough for parents, even those who are trying to do everything the right way. You've reminded me of a principle. I try to tell parents 'cause you brought up a good point. The influence by peers sometimes just trumps the influence. Any parent good parenting can do, but a parent can try to steer their teen to good peers. one way at least you can try to, I guess, mitigate to the fact, yeah, you might be losing the battle against some friends, but can you get your, your team to be affiliated with a very uh, you know, pro-social healthy peer network. Oh. Well, I wanna thank both of you for taking part in this discussion today. It's really interesting and thank you for the book. We will put a link to the book in our show notes for people that would like to get a copy of that. It's on Amazon and have that available for you and appreciate the work that you do. We need research in this area. We need people advocating for children and for speaking out against the harms that happen. To our kids. Thank you. Yes, thanks for the opportunity. Thank you. And thank you for listening to this episode of Grieving Out Loud. Join us again next week for a new episode where we sit down with an award-winning mental health expert who is focused on grief and loss along with resilience and aging. But what makes Dr. Ken Drug's perspective especially powerful is personal. He lost his own daughter nearly 30 years ago, and that experience has shaped. Everything he does today, Not only do we lose somebody we love in, in yours, in my case, a child, but we lose the world. We lose the perspective, the ways that we've constructed everything from how all of this works and we need to reconstruct where, for me it was, where's my daughter? She's not here anymore. Yeah. Where is my daughter? So our picture of. How all this works after death. Our picture of a God or a higher power, or a creator or karma or whatever it is that we formally believed were the operating principles of how life works and what death is. We have to push the reset button.'cause all has to be redone. And so we're not only in a crisis of sorrow, we're in a crisis of profound confusion. Because everything has to be rethought and reconsidered. Recalibrated, that's next week. On Grieving Out Loud. You can also check out hundreds of previous episodes anytime on our website, Emily's Hope Charity. Until then, wishing you Faith, hope and Courage. This podcast is produced by Casey WonnenbergKing and Kayli Fitz.