~125~ TW “Teen Crisis Text Hotline: How It Saves Lives & How to Use It” with Elliot Kallen

#TeenDepression, #TeenSuicide, #ParentalGuilt, #GriefAndLoss,

In this raw, heart‑opening conversation, host Cheryl sits down with Elliot Kallen, co‑founder & President of A Brighter Day, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit created in memory of his son Jake (who ended his life in 2015).

Elliot shares:

• The painful truth behind his son’s suicide note and the crushing guilt many parents feel.
• How turning that grief into purpose birthed A Brighter Day – a crisis‑texting hotline, fast‑track counseling, and resources that now serve ≈ 3,000 families each month.
• The early warning signs that separate “typical teen drama” from a teen in crisis.
• Practical, non‑judgmental conversation starters you can use at the kitchen table, in the car, or on a walk.
• Real‑world strategies for parents who feel overwhelmed, single‑income, or juggling two jobs.
• Step‑by‑step guidance on what to do if a teen says they’re thinking about self‑harm (including the three critical questions from suicide‑first‑aid training).
• How schools, teachers, and community leaders can create stigma‑free environments for mental‑health help.

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Speaker 1
00:00 - 00:48
Hello listeners or viewers on YouTube of the Parenting Teens Advice Redefined for Today's World podcast. Prior to releasing the episode, I wanted to give you a trigger warning. I am talking to an incredible guest, Elliot Callan, who tragically lost his son in 2015. He took his own life as a university student, and we are talking deeply about what that means for a parent, the signs that we can look for in depression, and what the differences are between just regular normal teen behavior and the signs we need to look for that

Speaker 1
00:48 - 01:25
go beyond being regular normal teen behavior. I just wanted to make sure that you all had the opportunity to hear this trigger warning so you can make your own choice of whether to listen to this episode, Or pause listening until you're ready or not listening at all. Obviously making that choice for yourself, but it's very important, very vital conversation. And if you know of somebody who is struggling as a parent, or, you know, a teen who is struggling, it might be even just worth the share, even if you are not.

Speaker 1
01:25 - 01:35
ready to listen. So thank you. I am really grateful to Elliot for sharing his story with us. And here we go.

Speaker 1
01:37 - 02:34
Welcome to another episode of Parenting Teens Advice Redefined for today's world, where we have the real raw and very honest conversations about how to support you and parenting your teen and where it actually starts because as I've said, it's not them, it's you and that's where the magic happens. And today's conversation is both deeply important and incredibly hopeful My guest elliot callen is the co-founder and president of a brighter day a non-profit organization Dedicated to helping teens manage depression and stress elliot and his wife founded this organization in 2015 in loving memory of their youngest son jake Through A Brighter Day, Elliot is on a mission to turn pain into purpose, providing teens and families with tools, resources, and support to navigate depression, anxiety, and life's toughest challenges.

Speaker 1
02:34 - 02:44
This is an incredibly important and impactful conversation, and I'm so honored to have you here, Elliot. Welcome to the show. Thank you, Cheryl. Thanks for having me on.

Speaker 1
02:44 - 02:56
You know, I would love for you to so people get to know you. Why the organization? What is the mission for you? And what's the story on all things Elliott?

Speaker 1
02:57 - 03:18
Oh, thank you so much. Cheryl, let me give you, if I could, a little bit of background that brought it to today, if I could. And it's like so many other sad families. We have a tragic story that 10 years ago or 10 and a half years ago now, my 19 year old son at the University of Montana Walked up to the highway, no drugs, no alcohol, waited for a truck to come by and jumped in front of it, taking

Speaker 1
03:18 - 03:41
his life. And we were frantically looking for him all Friday because his phone was turned off and he had literally made his bed, turned his phone off, put everything out the way it should be, and took his life. Very organized, which was not like him at all, but he was super organized about it. And at 6.30 at night on that Friday, Federal Express showed up with a six page suicide note.

Speaker 1
03:41 - 03:57
He'd been dead already by John Doe for 17, 18 hours. And in this suicide note it read among the main paragraphs, it said, mom and dad, I've been thinking about this for a long time. I never would have told you how I felt. I never would have asked for your help.

Speaker 1
03:58 - 04:17
And I never would have taken your help. And I read that six page note all the way up to get his body and bring it back to Northern California for burial. But on the way back, I focused on that paragraph and turned to his mother and said, we have to start something, a charity. And we've always been a charitable inclined family.

Speaker 1
04:18 - 04:45
We have to start something to stop other families that are going to go through this devastation and destruction that we are now going to go through. Stop it. And she couldn't be any part of this, so I went to my wife, obviously second marriage, long-term second marriage, and we started A Brighter Day. And it had a very clear mission, create resources on stress and depression for teens and their parents with a goal of stopping teen suicide.

Speaker 1
04:45 - 05:00
That is the nine and a half year old mission that continues to be the mission today. And that's how we've evolved. We've started with music and teen band showcases. And then COVID hit and we went, we had to reinvent ourselves to use more of Zoom.

Speaker 1
05:00 - 05:25
And, you know, that's the best invention of COVID is Zoom. And we did that, but we know the world has opened up and it can't be a Zoom-based organization. That just doesn't work so much anymore. And so we now have multiple ways of touching families and teens to the point that we are touching almost 3,000 families every single month.

Speaker 1
05:25 - 05:44
and 60 new teens a month are going on our teen crisis texting hotline free 24-7 to get help. Wow. And it's free. And if that doesn't work, we get them live counseling in seven days instead of in some places it's seven weeks to get started.

Speaker 1
05:44 - 06:00
We can do that. We are, we're, we work really hard to get them counseling. We can't save everybody, but we just posted recently on the website about 150 messages of parents and teens that said from the crisis hotline that said, thanks for saving my life. Wow.

Speaker 1
06:01 - 06:17
Okay. I'm going to start with, I'm sorry for your loss. I can't even imagine, but to turn that into what you're turning it into. And as you were talking about the note, two things stuck out to me is it wasn't like him.

Speaker 1
06:18 - 06:39
That whole organization piece was not like him. But something else stuck out is when he said, I wouldn't have asked for help. I wouldn't have taken your help. How does that in some way, in some small way, does that remove Some of the I can't even imagine there must be some guilt.

Speaker 1
06:39 - 07:07
No, there's not some guilt. There's massive guilt That is one of that is one of the issues that all parents of suicide Children go through is a lifetime of guilt And so when you read that did it in any way even if you read it five years later In any way knowing that he would not have asked he would not have taken your help. Did that give you some kind of relief of the guilt that there is nothing you could have done?

Speaker 1
07:07 - 07:21
Or is there a gap there that needs to be filled? Well, there's a gap, Cheryl. And I don't believe there's nothing I could have done. because you look back on it and there are a hundred, a thousand things you might've done differently because you're normal.

Speaker 1
07:21 - 07:43
My father was a World War II, greatest generation kind of guy, born in 1915, lived through the depression, very traditional home in New Jersey. And he used to say, he was a very loving and good dad, but he was working all the time. He had to, very middle-class. And he said, look, you have two responsibilities.

Speaker 1
07:43 - 08:23
As a husband and a father those these are two responsibilities number one is to provide for your family and give them a quality of life That is worth something Measured by different standards, but quality of life and number two is you're in charge of their security their safety and security Whether they're in college or whether they're seven years old and you need them to hold your hand crossing the street, you are in charge of it. It's rarely a day that goes by when I don't feel horrible in some moment of the day or guilty that I was in charge of his safety and security, including protecting him from himself. because there were no drugs, no alcohol, it was pure depression.

Speaker 1
08:23 - 08:46
Been fighting it for obviously a very long time. Looking back at it, I could see signs that were around for a year or two that as a parent, I was ill-equipped to see and understand that. But now looking back and talking all the time as a parent, I'm not a psychologist, I'm a parent who probably has more experience on talking about suicide than any psychologist out there. So I know it intimately sadly.

Speaker 1
08:46 - 09:18
I know it intimately but that doesn't change the guilt and when I go to the cemetery every few weeks To cleanse my head clear my head to ground myself. I call it The conversation doesn't change very much. The scenery certainly doesn't change at all, but I still have an apology for my son And I have apologies to god because I I felt like I should have seen it So Here's what I want to ask you now Elliot, you have a parent sitting in front of you who just went through all of this.

Speaker 1
09:20 - 09:31
What would you say to them if they said to you the same thing? Well, my dad said I was responsible. I needed to be looking after their security and their safety. It was my job.

Speaker 1
09:32 - 09:51
After nine years of supporting parents and teens, what would you say to that parent now? What would you say to the Elliot nine years, 10 and a half years ago? I think we've all learned in life that there are certain characteristics that are self-destructive and guilt is on that list. Guilt will make you paralyzed.

Speaker 1
09:52 - 10:16
Moving forward it just it does and sadly it does it hasn't for me Because i've trudged through it and decided, you know, I needed i'm ceo of two companies and now a 501 c3 charity i'm ceo of that I have Hundreds of people that work for me. I cannot just sit here paralyzed But I did for 90 days. I can tell you that. I stared at my computer screen for a good 90 days.

Speaker 1
10:17 - 10:44
It's my screen saver. But I did learn through going through some counseling with a man, a male psychologist, that You're really not in charge of this, even though there's a big part of me that says I am. He would have been off to college on his own anyway, and then he would have been adult living somewhere, whether near us or where you are in Canada. He would have been living somewhere, and you can't be in charge of that.

Speaker 1
10:44 - 11:04
You can only provide a good foundation. My guilt isn't that I so much protected him from himself. is that I feel like I missed the ability to help him because I never saw it. I couldn't tell the difference between a depressed teenager and kind of a dumb teenager, because I was a dumb teenager but never depressed.

Speaker 1
11:04 - 11:17
I did stupid stuff all the time, acted goofy and all that, sometimes the class clown. And he was a little bit like me. As a matter of fact, there are a number of people that used to call him Daddy Junior. He was so much like me.

Speaker 1
11:17 - 11:25
He looked so much like me. But he was cooking on the inside that nobody could tell. He masked it very, very well. Yeah.

Speaker 1
11:25 - 11:57
So let's launch right into that. What are the differences between teen dumb behavior and something parents need to go, hmm, maybe this isn't teen dumb behavior? Well, I think you need to understand that I certainly do now that I did not then the traits of, uh, depression, teen depression, and I'm not sure they're any different for teen depression as they are for senior depression. I think they're, they're similar traits, but they're verbalized very differently because teens don't, teens are so uncommunicative.

Speaker 1
11:57 - 12:15
They answer like cavemen anyway. Hey, I have to remind my 31-year-old son who lives in Washington, DC, to answer me polysyllabically. I said, I paid a lot. You have two PhDs, a master's, and a bachelor's degree.

Speaker 1
12:15 - 12:22
I earned the right to be answered polysyllabically. Don't answer me like, how was your day? Fine. How's your week going?

Speaker 1
12:22 - 12:31
Good. I don't want to speak for 20 minutes and be dumber than I was in 20 minutes ago. Yes, yes. Hallelujah.

Speaker 1
12:31 - 12:41
Uh, but I, and I'm sure I was just like that. I'm sure you were just like that to show a hundred percent. Yeah. So, but I, what I, what I.

Speaker 1
12:42 - 12:56
Understand now is one of the first signs that teens do is they withdraw from things. They withdraw from things that bring them joy. Family events. If it's Christmas, they bug out at the Christmas event saying, I don't feel really good.

Speaker 1
12:56 - 13:08
Do you mind if I go lie down? And you as a mom say, of course. And they've left their 15, 20, 25 cousins in the other room because they don't want to be part of that. They've withdrawn, but you made the excuse of, he hasn't felt great all day.

Speaker 1
13:09 - 13:17
And I'm using he, it could be she, it doesn't make a difference. They withdraw from their friends. They withdraw from school activities. That's a big thing.

Speaker 1
13:18 - 13:34
They withdraw from food. Sometimes they do just the opposite. But you gotta be careful that withdrawing from food or eating a bag of potato chips every two to three hours can be an eating disorder, not necessarily depression. And I'm not an expert on eating disorders at all.

Speaker 1
13:34 - 13:46
But they're cousins to each other on that. So those who withdraw, they withdraw from their grades. They give up in certain classes. Maybe they were working so hard in chemistry, they just say, I'm done.

Speaker 1
13:46 - 14:06
And they're willing to get a C or D, and then they have to repeat it because they don't care. So I want you to imagine that a teen's world is a box that's six sided. It's four walls, the top and the bottom. And for most teens, the walls are blue or green, depending on how you want to describe a kind of upbeat life.

Speaker 1
14:06 - 14:29
And sometimes like we're human, they get gray with stress and a test coming up and they didn't get the grade they wanted or they disappointed their parents or their friends in some form. And they made the last out of a baseball game. Their world is gray, but it's not black. But in the press team, those walls are starting to turn black.

Speaker 1
14:29 - 14:45
They've gone from gray, which is very acceptable, to black. And at some point, if all six sides turn black, then that teen is going to look at that wall and say, well, yesterday was awful. Today sucks too. Tomorrow's going to be just as bad.

Speaker 1
14:45 - 15:01
No one's going to miss me anyway. And now we're on a path of suicide. And that is the phrase that almost everybody says in suicide, especially teens, no one's going to miss me anyway. because they've rationalized it out.

Speaker 1
15:01 - 15:13
That's the rational brain saying, what's the difference? And so you've got to understand that your team is entering. I don't want to call it a rabbit hole. Let's call it a trail that says I'm withdrawing.

Speaker 1
15:14 - 15:24
I'm not caring. I'm arguing with you because I don't really care about what your opinion is anymore. And I don't want to talk to you either. And so, you know, you're a mom who cares.

Speaker 1
15:25 - 15:53
And unfortunately we live in a world where two incomes are everything in a family and a one income for the most part, usually a mom, a one income parent, she's working sometimes two jobs. She's struggling. It's, it's a tough life to be a one income parent. And so you're coming home, you got food on the table, that food might be Stouffer's lasagna, it doesn't really matter, but you gotta get food on the table, you gotta get them to do their homework, you gotta get them in the shower, and you gotta get them to

Speaker 1
15:53 - 16:05
bed, and you still haven't had a life yet yourself. It's hard. And so you're really busy. How are you possibly gonna see what's going on in your teen's life when you're too busy to do anything about your own life?

Speaker 1
16:07 - 16:32
And so you've got to now create space that maybe you never had to create it for you because that was the generations have changed. And the way you and I grew up is so different today than it was then that you've got to take dinner and you've got to say, we're going to have a real dinner at night and we're going to take this cell phone and we're going to make it a cell phone free dinner. And we're going to put our cell phones in the basket over there.

Speaker 1
16:32 - 16:39
So there's no texting. We're not going to call your older brother in college, older sister at college. We're not going to do it during dinner. We'll do it before or after.

Speaker 1
16:39 - 16:47
We're not going to call grandma during dinner because everybody's here. Grandma wants to say hi. We'll do it before or after dinner. But at dinner, we're just going to talk.

Speaker 1
16:48 - 17:07
And then you as a parent have to do something that's really out of your ordinary thought process. And that is to create a non-judgmental atmosphere at your kitchen table. Or in your car, if that doesn't work, because you're a schlepper. Or taking a walk once a week, if that's the best, which is a really good thing to do, too.

Speaker 1
17:08 - 17:28
A non-judgmental atmosphere to give your team the opportunity to say what is really on their mind, or maybe what's on their friend's mind. Because sometimes it's easier to talk third-party about themselves than talking about their friend. but they won't talk if they think you're going to fix it. They don't want to be fixed today.

Speaker 1
17:28 - 17:36
That's judging. I'm a man. We fix everything. If there's one blade of grass out of whack, go get your toe clipper and fix that blade of grass.

Speaker 1
17:36 - 17:43
I mean, we fix everything. We're wired. But the teens don't want you to fix them. They just want to not be judged.

Speaker 1
17:44 - 18:04
You still have to fix the situation. First, you have to get an honest assessment of what it is so you can make good decisions. So I know a lot of parents are you know, they don't know What to say they don't know what questions are asked. How did how do we start this conversation?

Speaker 1
18:04 - 18:19
What if it goes what if I say the wrong thing? What what if i'm not? What if I'm not asking? And I know that parents can really beat around the bush and talk about so many things without nailing the target questions.

Speaker 1
18:19 - 18:28
So how do we start these conversations? What do we say? Parents are listening going, okay, Elliot, what do I say at the kitchen table? What do I ask?

Speaker 1
18:28 - 18:50
That is a great question because I get asked that a lot from parents. No teen ever asked me that question. But I get asked that question, and we put, that's on our website, abrighterday.info, hundreds of questions, because it is part of your personality, and my personality's going to be different than yours, and your approach is gonna be different. I tend to be very direct, because people from North Jersey are very direct.

Speaker 1
18:50 - 19:02
If you ask me if I like your hair, I say, no, you get all offended, because why do they have to say that? Can't he be nicer about it? Now, North Jersey people just say, you asked me the question, I gave you an answer. And I'm not talking about your hair specific.

Speaker 1
19:02 - 19:16
I'm just talking about whatever. It's very funny how direct we are, because my wife is from Nebraska and the Upper Peninsula, Michigan. And I brought her to New Jersey last week, and she said, boy, everybody's so direct, just like you. How do you get along with these people?

Speaker 1
19:16 - 19:28
I said, you always know where you stand. You just know. You may not like it, but you know. So we put a lot of questions on the website, but here are some simple questions that you can ask.

Speaker 1
19:29 - 19:44
Instead of asking the question, how was your day, that's going to elicit a good, fine, bad type of answer, ask the question where they have to answer. What was the best part of school today? What's your favorite class going on right now? What's your least favorite class?

Speaker 1
19:45 - 19:51
Who's your favorite teacher? Who's the teacher you and your friends can't stand? right? Why?

Speaker 1
19:51 - 20:02
Why is it that you don't like your chemistry teacher? I always felt poor chemistry teachers. I'm always picking up chemistry, but then why is it you don't? Well, he kind of picks on.

Speaker 1
20:02 - 20:12
I mix. He makes us feel stupid. Oh, he does, wow. So you just learned something that your child is a little bit under attack and it's hurting your self-esteem.

Speaker 1
20:12 - 20:35
That's something that could be fixed, but maybe it still could be your teen saying, well, he's making me feel bad because I never do the homework. You haven't found that out yet, but you have to get to that point. So you've got to ask questions that elicit non one-word answers, longer answers. Find out why this is going on.

Speaker 1
20:35 - 20:46
Why is it that I feel like you're done with your homework so quickly? Are you finishing it? My mother had a bad habit. She would say, when I was younger, she would say, okay, you got a test tomorrow in algebra.

Speaker 1
20:47 - 20:56
Great. Okay, I don't need you to be perfect, but I need you to be the best you can be. What does that mean? That means something different to everybody.

Speaker 1
20:57 - 21:19
If a C student is the best you could be, then that's a really good response. But if you get a C and you really should be getting a B or A, then something's off. You've got to find that out without judging your children for aren't you dumb to get a C. So ask better questions to get better answers.

Speaker 1
21:20 - 21:28
And the questions could be as simple as the food you're eating. You know, we're eating the stoker lasagna. I know I make that once a week. You guys actually like this?

Speaker 1
21:29 - 21:42
Yes, I know it's 15 minutes 350. I get it You like it or should I start shopping around and you might find you know, mom i've been bored of this for a year Totally for a year. Can you find anything else? Oh my god.

Speaker 1
21:42 - 22:00
I love it. I love it Okay, so now we're I'm gonna go into like the next level What answers that our kids give us? Should raise a flag That's another tough, that's a tougher question. That's probably the toughest question you've asked.

Speaker 1
22:01 - 22:08
The answers are the ones that don't feel right to you. You're the mother. You're the father. Something has to feel right.

Speaker 1
22:08 - 22:25
Something has to feel wrong. And if it doesn't feel right, then think about a follow up question that you can get better detail on. For instance, I think the chemistry teacher is a real jerk. Let's say, well, okay, what does that mean?

Speaker 1
22:27 - 22:36
Instead of saying, yeah, I had a teacher like that too. Now, empathy is really good. The way I understand, I had a teacher like that too. I'll tell you how I got through it.

Speaker 1
22:36 - 22:43
I don't know how you'll get through it, but you will get through it. It could be that has nothing to do with depression. You could have a bad teacher. You will.

Speaker 1
22:44 - 22:54
You have great teachers and you have lousy teachers. That's life. But you want to find out if they're causing depression or if they're just getting through it. I wanted to be a doctor.

Speaker 1
22:54 - 23:14
I had a terrible science teacher, two different science teachers that were just terrible two years in a row, and they turned me off to science for the rest of my life. And I went from a guy that wanted to be a heart surgeon to what I am today. That's not necessarily the worst thing in the world, but it did. Those two science teachers changed my life for the negative.

Speaker 1
23:15 - 23:19
And we should know that. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I knew it.

Speaker 1
23:19 - 23:30
And I knew in fifth grade, I wanted to be a heart surgeon. I worked around telling people I want to be a heart surgeon when I, when I, when I grown up and I wasn't, I wanted to be one until I hit ninth grade. And that was the end of my science career. Wow.

Speaker 1
23:31 - 23:38
What an impact. Hope you're hearing this educators. This is an impact. So ask better questions.

Speaker 1
23:38 - 23:52
Now, don't, I would not come up with a solution, but you may ask a question like, have you, is there a school counselor that you've ever reached out to at school? And they might turn, you know, mom, we have a thousand kids in our class for three counselors. They don't talk to us. She doesn't even know my name.

Speaker 1
23:54 - 24:12
That could be very true because most schools, they know two types of kids, the super smart, and the kids that need the most help. And then everybody else is in between that they really don't have enough time for because they're not requiring high maintenance. Yeah, you're so right. It's hard on that.

Speaker 1
24:12 - 24:22
But if that doesn't work, say, well, let me ask you a question about chemistry. I know you're struggling with it a little bit. And I wouldn't do this the first time. I would do this second or third conversation.

Speaker 1
24:22 - 24:37
Would it help if I hired a tutor in chemistry that came over once a week? Would that be a little bit of help? Would you like to try that? You know, I'm willing to try it if you're willing to try that to give that a really serious shot and doing that.

Speaker 1
24:38 - 24:50
But that's the social, that's the school, the class side. What if it's a social thing? Well, you know, my friends, they basically want nothing to do with me anymore. That's a lot harder answer, isn't it?

Speaker 1
24:51 - 25:02
Yeah. Yeah. Or, you know, hormones are raging, but a lot of kids that I was one of them didn't know what to do about that. And so I felt like a lion in a cage.

Speaker 1
25:03 - 25:19
I'll tell you something that happened to me that was really good that my dad was instinctively correct on. And if he was here today, I would tell him because I never told him that. I didn't have my mother my sophomore and junior year in high school. She got very, very ill, and she was bedridden for two years.

Speaker 1
25:20 - 25:40
So was my dad, just my dad and myself, because my two other siblings were in college. And he said to me, listen, I'm working my butt off trying to keep the roof on. Your mom's sick, and I have to work extra hours to pay for eight, 12 hours of care, 10 hours of care in the house, whatever it was. I just need you to not blow up.

Speaker 1
25:40 - 25:52
Don't ruin your grades. Don't do something stupid, which I did lots of stupid things, but don't do something stupid. And I won't bog you, I won't bog you. So he would come home and he would say quickly, how was school today?

Speaker 1
25:52 - 26:05
And I'd probably answer something like, fine. And that was it, that was the end of our conversation for the day. And I did that my mother, so I got no parental conversation for 18 months, two years of my life. Now I'm not a victim here, so I'm not gonna say that.

Speaker 1
26:05 - 26:36
But it was my sophomore year, beginning of my sophomore year, and my friendships were changing. I had the kids that I went to elementary school with, that I was still friends with, Who want we got together on friday or saturday nights at one of the guy's houses and we played pool and ordered pizza Or pinball or something like that and occasionally we head on over to ice cream pretty harmless stuff That was that group, but that's the group. I was pulling away from because I was starting to like girls Didn't know what to do about that.

Speaker 1
26:37 - 26:47
I knew I liked her. I didn't know what to do about that And I was on the football team, and they weren't all on the football team. And I was on the hockey team. So I was very physical, and they were much more cerebral.

Speaker 1
26:48 - 27:13
The new friends I had that I met in junior high and now in 10th grade, the beginning of high school, were what was going to evolve to the real friendships for life, some of those kids. but I didn't know what to do about it. I didn't know that how to make that transition. And I had a really good friend starting in seventh game, Richard, and we were just good friends, but Richard had joined a social group that I wasn't part of.

Speaker 1
27:14 - 27:23
And he was going to these parties. They call them social parties all the time. And he had invited me and I, I said no. And, and I, I don't know.

Speaker 1
27:23 - 27:36
I don't know why I said no, but I said no. And it was a Saturday night and I was pacing the house like a lion in a cage. And I'm looking out the kitchen, and we had a small house, 1600 feet. You can pace a lot of that house really fast.

Speaker 1
27:37 - 27:48
And I'm looking out the kitchen window into the darkness, probably at nine, something at night. And my father walks in the kitchen and goes, so what's going on? And I said, I don't know. I couldn't answer him probably.

Speaker 1
27:48 - 28:02
I said, I don't know. I'm just, I'm going out of my mind, dad. And he said, well, where's your friend Richard? Now we knew enough to know that Richard's name because he had taken us to school dances and Richard's father drove or my father drove up the drop off.

Speaker 1
28:03 - 28:09
And we got drunk at some of those dances. We're doing stupid stuff. That's what I mean. So he knew the name Richard.

Speaker 1
28:09 - 28:23
He had met his father and who was kind of his, an older father. Like my father was already, by the time I was in high school, he was in the sixties, early sixties, older dad. And he said, so what's Richard doing tonight? Oh, Richie is we go.

Speaker 1
28:24 - 28:32
And I said, he's at this social event called this. And he said, well, what are the, what is it? And I didn't know enough to tell him, but I knew it. Well, it's this and they go to parties.

Speaker 1
28:32 - 29:02
Well, and he said, how about you call Richard up this week and tell him you want to go next weekend and check it out. So really it's yeah, you said you should get out of the house check out that place and see maybe it's something you like it Maybe it's something you don't like and you come back. We'll talk about it. Mm-hmm And I did I went to the party the next weekend and there was a life-changing party for me everything changed new social creatures new things happened my world opened up and I began the the road of getting out of my own skin and self-confidence and I'm getting

Speaker 1
29:02 - 29:19
out of my way with self-confidence. Yeah, but I had to join that group to do it and a whole leadership thing happened with that It was but my dad instinctively and that was a message. I'm saying my dad instinctively said time to do something different in your life Mm-hmm, and you'll be okay doing it. Yeah.

Speaker 1
29:19 - 29:44
No, I doubt he understood he did that I doubt Yeah, but he did And so that's what you have to do as a parent. You don't know the impact you're having on a child's whole long time from now, but you have an impact every single day. Yeah. So I want to kind of, I don't know, go down in my training.

Speaker 1
29:44 - 30:04
I've been trained for suicide first aid. We call it here. And there are, if someone is, really in the depth, like you're really concerned. In my training, it is the three very direct questions.

Speaker 1
30:04 - 30:12
Do you want to hurt yourself? Do you have a plan? And do you have a time and a method? Um, that sounds like four questions.

Speaker 1
30:12 - 30:26
So I did it wrong. But anyway, I don't see a parent ever getting an answer for those who are asking that stuff, but you're trained as a professional. Yeah. As a teacher, I have asked that question and I have gotten answers that were like, no, I'm just pissed off.

Speaker 1
30:27 - 30:32
And I've gotten that. Yes. A rope tomorrow. So for you for that.

Speaker 1
30:33 - 30:47
Yeah. So Now we have a parent who's got all these, using their intuition, something doesn't feel right. Now it's time for next steps. Is this a resource like a brighter day?

Speaker 1
30:47 - 30:59
Is this like, we need to get you to crisis? And what if our kid's going, no, I don't wanna talk to anybody, I'm done, I'm not talking to anybody. How do we manage that? Well, that's the withdrawal thing.

Speaker 1
31:00 - 31:14
So of course there's a national hotline, 988 in the United States. I know there's one in Canada too. Yeah, I'll put it in the show notes for sure. That's going to give you, if your team doesn't want to make that call, you can make it and get some ideas too.

Speaker 1
31:15 - 31:27
We do things, there is no one answer, by the way. We do on a website, we have resources for the parents on this. Teens don't read, they text. That's just what they do.

Speaker 1
31:27 - 31:42
That's why we created a teen texting crisis hotline for them that's free. So the middle of chemistry class, when they want, when they're checking out, they can get help. In the middle, at two in the morning, when they can't sleep, they can get help. On Christmas day, they can get help.

Speaker 1
31:42 - 31:49
We did that- Who's answering them? Who's answering them? Trained professionals around the country that we've subcontracted with. Beautiful.

Speaker 1
31:49 - 32:19
Yeah, and then we've done that. So these are people that are state certified that do that But not necessarily state specific to that state because they're texting it's a different set of laws then, you know live or zoom But they're asking questions every team by the way asked the same question within five minutes And that is am I the only one feeling this way? Oh They've totally isolated themselves Wow So it's amazing, Cheryl.

Speaker 1
32:20 - 32:36
So your child wants to hurt themselves. If you think your child's going to hurt themselves right now, you might have to 5150, we call that in the US, put them in 48 hours in a hospital. But that might not do anything. Obviously, nothing is going to be better than one-on-one counseling.

Speaker 1
32:37 - 32:48
And you might have to do that or inpatient counseling. I put my daughter in inpatient counseling. She was in two sessions. came home and said, I'm still thinking bad thoughts.

Speaker 1
32:48 - 32:57
I put her in a third one, changed her life. So that does work. But my younger son would never have gone into inpatient counseling. That was never been for him.

Speaker 1
32:57 - 33:19
He might've done the texting. That would have been all he did because that would have been impersonal enough for him to do that. So not everybody you can put in from somebody who's trained like yourself because they don't want to be there. But in, I don't know how it is in Toronto where you are, but in the U S in most suburban places and urban places for you, for your team to get counseling could take seven to eight weeks.

Speaker 1
33:20 - 33:23
Yep. Minimum here. Minimum. All right.

Speaker 1
33:23 - 33:33
So now your team comes home to you and says, mom, I'm thinking about hurting myself now. Seven weeks is eternity. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1
33:33 - 33:59
Oh, I wish all 37 million high school teens had our Teen crisis texting hotline information, but they don't we're not that big yet, right getting there So we t we tag teamed up with better help Oh, okay online to offer zoom counseling to teens and parents And instead of it taking seven weeks, it is Zoom. It's a little bit different. And these are state-trained.

Speaker 1
34:00 - 34:19
In the US, they're state-certified. These are state-certified counselors that they can talk to your teen or to you for an hour at a time, once a week. And we pay, it costs about a hundred dollars a week. We pay for 12 sessions at the charity for your team.

Speaker 1
34:19 - 34:33
Wow. So, and we do that because we don't want you as a parent having to decide, do I put food on my table for the other kids or they get my other kids in trouble, some counselor, cause I can't do both. Oh, I got goosebumps. That's incredible.

Speaker 1
34:33 - 34:54
That's where we raise money for it. And the reason we do 12 of these is because when we checked with BetterHelp and did market research, we found out that the average team is out of crisis in three months or less. That crisis has passed for the moment. Doesn't mean it's not coming back, but for the moment.

Speaker 1
34:55 - 35:08
So we don't, we do that. So we think nothing beats live counseling. I mean, yeah, in person, but it's so hard to get it. It's so difficult and so hard to get the teen interested.

Speaker 1
35:08 - 35:17
That's how we came up with the hybrid program of texting and Zoom counseling. I love it. I love it. That's so amazing.

Speaker 1
35:18 - 35:45
I love that whole so the team gets the number now Is everything anonymous? I mean if so, they're texting somebody and they're like i'm at the bridge How do we get to them like how what happens there um That's an issue. That's an issue because they are designed to not ask those kind of questions. We do ask, are you out of reach?

Speaker 1
35:46 - 35:53
Are you thinking of hurting yourself? Let's call 911 together. Okay. Okay.

Speaker 1
35:53 - 36:01
That's an answer. But they don't have the technology. there to track that person. Right.

Speaker 1
36:01 - 36:09
We're talking about tracking a minor most times. Exactly. Yeah. This is why my question is like, oh, if a kid knows that you can track them, they're not going to text.

Speaker 1
36:09 - 36:15
Right. So they just suggest, let's call 911 together and pick this up next week. Can we do that? Yeah.

Speaker 1
36:16 - 36:27
Now they could talk, by the way, for 45 minutes to that same person. Yeah. and then a person has to take a break. But they can, so they have to hang up, but they could text back, 10 seconds later, they'll just get somebody different.

Speaker 1
36:28 - 36:43
And they could do this literally 24 hours a day if they had to, they don't. They do it once or twice, and then they're kind of done with it for the day. But we do have lots of teens that text every single day until they're over their crisis. And a lot of our teens are like, my parents don't understand me.

Speaker 1
36:44 - 36:52
I hate my mother, I hate my father. Did I tell you what happened? today, you know, on that, you know, nobody gets me. Yeah.

Speaker 1
36:53 - 37:15
Yeah. Well, I mean, even as even as an adult, you know, if something's really stressing me out, sometimes just talking it out loud, puts it into perspective, allows me to hear myself saying what I'm saying. just that release. My girlfriend could be sitting there just nodding and not saying anything, but as soon as I get it, I was like, okay.

Speaker 1
37:15 - 37:29
And my daughter's done the same thing. My son says, okay, I feel better now just talking about it. It's so impactful. And because kids aren't having conversations, they're texting, you're just nailing them exactly where they love to be and where they're comfortable.

Speaker 1
37:29 - 37:56
And I love that. Yep, so good. So very interesting because I in the u.s a little bit different in the u.s Psychologists psychiatrist not psychiatrists because there's more medicine involved in psychiatric work. Yeah, the colleges and counselors Are taught one of the three h's are so important And that is to help You're taught to help Help the person with but in essence at least in the u.s.

Speaker 1
37:56 - 38:17
My experience has been but we want to help you help yourself That's kind of the American way of psychology is, I want to help you help yourself. A little bit different in Europe. As a mother, I can tell you, you're trained, and even if it's instinctive, but it's tens of thousands of years of instinct, you're trained to hug. The other H, hug.

Speaker 1
38:18 - 38:32
I wanna hug you. And that's, I'm talking it out, and I feel better because you emotionally hug me, if not figuratively hug me. And lots of people, that solves a lot of problems. I just need to talk it out versus I need to be helped.

Speaker 1
38:34 - 38:54
What we don't do in the United States is we don't heal. Healing is where I can give you specific advice as a counselor, because you know to say, listen, I'm telling you now, if you don't spend an hour a night doing chemistry and getting caught up and let your mother get you a tutor, you're not going to like it at the end. They don't give that advice.

Speaker 1
38:55 - 39:08
And that's, I think, the big shortfall, at least in the United States, is we don't give specific advice. We're trying to help the person help themselves. And sometimes people just want to be told what to do. And sometimes you need to be told.

Speaker 1
39:09 - 39:19
I went through four divorce counselors, marital counselors in my first marriage. One of them gave specific advice. OK, you guys need to have date night. You guys need to have sex a certain amount of times.

Speaker 1
39:20 - 39:37
You guys need to you need to help out in the kitchen. They were all specific advice. See, the other three didn't give any, they just talked it out. Well, Elliot, why aren't you helping out when you come home from 10 hours of work in the garden more to help your wife garden more?

Speaker 1
39:37 - 39:44
Why don't you do that? Well, because I'm tired. I've just been working 10 hours. You say that because you sound like a real caveman to say that.

Speaker 1
39:44 - 39:46
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1
39:46 - 39:58
So you just say, well, I guess I'll try better. But you know you're not. And so you don't really solve any of the problems because all those problems die when you're done. And that's the problem with helping but not healing.

Speaker 1
39:58 - 40:25
Yeah, yeah, yeah those those tangible steps exactly kind of we've even been going through here like what do they say? What are the questions? I think that's really helpful and So I just want to flip it around because as you know, i've been in the school system forever not anymore, but was I want to know What you would say to an educator a teacher regular classroom teacher? What signs would they be looking for?

Speaker 1
40:26 - 40:41
Is there something they can look at and say, oh, I think it's time to call the parent. Oh, I think it's time to call the counselor. What signs in classrooms would you say, and I'm specific for teenagers, would you say, oh, that might be a little worrisome. We should not overlook this.

Speaker 1
40:41 - 41:01
I would look at signs of withdrawal of different things, if you could see them, and a personality change. because a personality change would include withdrawal. If I used to be a fun guy and talk to my neighbors and now I'm quiet, something's going on. If I'm quiet, and now I'm highly disruptive, there's a change there.

Speaker 1
41:02 - 41:19
There's the opposite change. If I'm getting a little bit more argumentative than I used to be, you can see it. I would look for personality changes, and I would look for, if you could, because you can't see everything, you're really in your class all day, and I would look for some form of social withdrawal, because that's all included in that. Yeah.

Speaker 1
41:19 - 41:46
Yeah, I think that, especially as a teenager, I think probably one of the first things to really be impacted because we don't have, I don't know, I'm politically correct to say tribe or your people or your, you know, if you don't have that anymore, that's gotta be so impactful for a kid. Friendships are everything at that age, you know, they're social beings. So if you withdraw from that, you withdraw from society.

Speaker 1
41:48 - 41:55
Now you have nothing to lose. Nothing's going right. Yeah, true. So I just want to ask one more question.

Speaker 1
41:55 - 42:12
about schools. How can we, there's such a stigma and you know, we throw around, we throw around these diagnoses like they're just a joke. Oh my gosh, he's so depressed. Oh, he's, he's this, he's, you know, he's narcissistic.

Speaker 1
42:12 - 43:00
Like we throw around all these labels so loosely that I think it really reduces the integrity of those who really need a diagnosis, who really, you know, um, really would be helped by a diagnosis as opposed to all this terms. But I mean, I hear even teachers saying, oh, it cancer still is ADHD, always like making these like loose term accusations, labeling. How do we, Bill, as a school, what would you say to a school, if you were standing in front of the Ministry of Education, say, listen, here's one or two things you can do to proactively create a stigma-free environment so kids feel like they can be encouraged to speak up and ask for help?

Speaker 1
43:00 - 43:33
That's a really, boy, that's a supposing type of question. We get 100 people in there with 100 answers. I think that kids need to be kids and not fit into a box. We have in the last maybe generation and a half put that ADHD or ADD level label before that on kids because it made it easier for teachers if the kids were on a Ritalin type of product and didn't do weird stuff.

Speaker 1
43:33 - 43:50
I grew up, you grew up also, there were certain kids in your class that were just disruptive. Mm hmm. You know, and as and they're that's what they were. So when I was in kindergarten, first grade and in nursery school before that, I was punching a lot of people.

Speaker 1
43:51 - 44:00
I go around punching today. I definitely would get a diagnosis of A.D.D. or ADHD. And so they pulled my mother in there and said, hey, something's wrong with him.

Speaker 1
44:00 - 44:07
He's punching kids. He's got all this aggression built up. And she said, well, he's a boy. You have to let a boy be a boy.

Speaker 1
44:08 - 44:23
And they said, no, you need to put him on some kind of medication, bring him to a doctor. We can't have him in our school if he's punching people. And so my mother put me in football, PAO football. And I became, as soon as I started to hit kids, you can't hit at age six anymore, but in those days you could hit the day you entered.

Speaker 1
44:24 - 44:53
And all the wrong ways of using your neck, all the things they shouldn't have taught you. But as soon as I started to hit people on a field, I stopped hitting kids in class. I stopped, I became a normal, calm kid, because I now had a vent. And so we've got kids that, outside of soccer, that every single kid seems to play it, maybe at five years old, or six and try it.

Speaker 1
44:54 - 45:04
We don't really put them in a lot of stuff anymore. And so we don't let the kids vent. We give them two or three hours of homework. They're buried in homework, buried in homework.

Speaker 1
45:05 - 45:25
Um, they're buried in pressure. Yes Every kid is expected to go to college. Can you imagine cheryl as a mom? You're you got a senior and and you've got a son i'll pick a son because i'm a boy And you got a son and you go to the party and with all the parents of seniors And they start having this conversation of where your kids are applying to

Speaker 1
45:25 - 45:39
college Right. They're all talking about the same thing And they go to you, Cheryl, where's little Jimmy going to apply to college? He said, well, actually, he's going to become a plumber. He's been dying to be a plumber, like his grandfather.

Speaker 1
45:39 - 45:52
Everybody in that room thinks you're a loser. You're a lousy parent, and little Jimmy's a loser. And those are the expectations we put on our kids. And you and I both agree the world needs more air-conditioned people, more plumbers.

Speaker 1
45:53 - 46:03
They also make a six-figure income. Let's tell it like it is. They make more than computer programmers do nowadays. We need auto mechanics.

Speaker 1
46:03 - 46:16
We need airplane mechanics. We need a world of blue collars to keep the world going. Or it's going to be replaced by AI because of the fingers and the toes that we work on. That's what has to be accepted.

Speaker 1
46:16 - 46:21
We're not there in United States. We're not there in North America right now. Yeah. So true.

Speaker 1
46:21 - 46:29
So true. I know I get kids coming into grade nine and. you know, parents, even some teachers saying, Oh, they have to do this essay. They got to get ready for university.

Speaker 1
46:30 - 46:44
Like they got to get ready for semester two. What the hell are you talking about? No, but, and you know what, truth be told, I was a hairdresser. I went right from high school to hairdressing and had a couple of salons.

Speaker 1
46:44 - 47:03
And I did all of that before I started teaching. And I'll tell you something that gave me exactly what I needed to be able to Work with people and talk to people and listen to people So I what a gift that I got into that trade. What a gift. So you're right.

Speaker 1
47:03 - 47:45
We all need these blue collars a hundred percent So I just want to want to wrap this up. I don't want to wrap this up, but sadly we have to wrap I you know, thank you first of all for you know, your vulnerability but for the work that you're doing and that just came from a tragedy that I can't even imagine, but look what you're doing. I mean, I'm just so honored that you're sitting here and doing this kind of work. We need to even put in the show notes, we're gonna put everything in the show notes, but I just wanna say to parents, if this is resonating with you, if you are worried about your teen, if you are, You need to know that help is available right now.

Speaker 1
47:45 - 48:04
And I'm going to put everything in the show notes. If someone you love or you are in crisis, there is numbers in the show notes for Canada and U S and together as we are doing today, we can break the silence. We can offer hope. We can see that every team can have a brighter day as possible.

Speaker 1
48:04 - 48:40
And you know, This has just been an incredible conversation and I've said this a couple of times, you know, if you've never shared the show, if you've never shared an episode, this is the one to share because this is the one again might not pertain to you, but. You probably know a teen, love a teen, or know somebody who loves a teen or teaches a teen, and this could change a life. And the fact that this whole texting program, I think, is absolutely brilliant, and I'm so glad you're on here. I'm so grateful, Elliot.

Speaker 1
48:40 - 48:55
Tell us where we can find you. Great, the best place to reach me is Elliot E-L-L-I-O-T at Prosperity Financial Group. Excuse me, let me say that again. Elliot at abrighterday.info, abrighterday.info.

Speaker 1
48:55 - 49:06
The website is abrighterday.info. Elliot is two L's and one T. Don't ask me why my mother didn't put two T's on there, but it is one T. That's the best place to reach me.

Speaker 1
49:06 - 49:14
My cell is 510-206-1103. I'm on West Coast time. Please don't call me at three in the morning. That's amazing.

Speaker 1
49:14 - 49:35
Thank you so very much. And, uh, you know, I might just have to have you back and talk a little bit more about this whole texting thing and see how many people we can get donating to this amazing charity, because that's just incredible. Thank you for listening to Parenting Teens Advice Redefined. I am so grateful for your time, your ears, and your energy on the show.

Speaker 1
49:35 - 49:47
Again, share it. And I'm so grateful. And I will see you next week. Thank you for listening to another episode.

Speaker 1
49:47 - 50:13
I hope you loved this one as much as I did. And I just wanted to share something with you because, you know, parenting teens is not just about managing these challenges that we talk about on all the episodes. It's also about evolving alongside them. And I'm Cheryl and not only the host of this podcast, but I'm also the creator of Insight to Impact, coaching and consulting.

Speaker 1
50:13 - 50:33
And I help you moms of teens reconnect with your true selves so you can lead with purpose, you can parent with clarity, you can create stronger, more meaningful relationships with your kids. Because here's the truth. The transformation starts with you. Together, we will break free from the stress and overwhelm.

Speaker 1
50:34 - 50:48
We will rediscover your power. We will create the life and the family dynamic you always dreamed of. If you're ready to start this journey, let's do it. You might just not recognize your life in the next 90 days.

Speaker 1
50:49 - 50:56
It all starts with a call. There's no pitch. There's no pressure, just a call to see if I can help. We'll talk about your goals.

Speaker 1
50:56 - 51:16
We'll talk about what's making you feel stuck and what might be getting in your way. And everything you need to connect with me is in the show notes. Again, I'm Cheryl. Thank you so much for joining me here on Parenting Teens, advice redefined for today's complex world and the creator of Insight to Impact Coaching and Consulting.

Speaker 1
51:17 - 51:18
Have a great day.