Anxiety is Lying to You - Here’s How to Beat It
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It’s all about kids today
Parenting today is broken. There, I said it.
Not because parents don’t love their kids or care, but because the system—the relentless pressure cooker of modern life—has gaslit parents into thinking their job is to eliminate every possible discomfort from their child’s life. Enter the great paradox: In trying to protect kids, we’ve made them fragile.
I’m excited to share my conversation with Lynn Lyons, a psychotherapist, anxiety expert, and co-author of Anxious Kids, Anxious Parents. With over 35 years of experience helping families break free from anxiety and build resilience, Lynn offers deep insights into how summer camp can be one of the most valuable tools for childhood development. She has dedicated her career to helping children and parents face the worry cycle, and in our chat, she shares how camp shapes kids and staff in profound ways.
Overcome your child’s anxiety! Join Lynn Lyons' 2-part webinar for expert strategies. Register now!
The Real Risk is Avoiding Risk
Seth Godin calls it the difference between real risk and apparent risk. Real risk? Walking blindfolded across a highway. Apparent risk? Walking up to a stranger and introducing yourself. The problem is, kids today see both as equally dangerous. They don’t differentiate, because parents have smoothed the road for them so much that any bump feels like a mountain.
This is where camp comes in. Camp is one of the last places in America where kids can:
Fall down and get back up without an adult rushing in.
Solve a problem with their peers without a teacher, parent, or school counselor mediating.
Sit in a moment of discomfort without someone shoving an iPad in their hands.
Learn the actual skill of resilience—because resilience isn’t a mindset, it’s an experience.
Parents Are Not the Problem, But They Are the Solution
Let’s be clear. Parents didn’t cause this. The system did. The social media panic, the news cycle fear factory, the college admissions arms race. But if parents want to reverse the trend, they have to take a hard look at what they’ve been conditioned to believe.
Here’s what Lynn and I talked about:
Flexibility is the antidote to anxiety. The more rigid your expectations, the more fragile you become. Teach your kids that things go wrong, and that’s fine.
Normalize struggle. Ask your kids: “What was something unexpected that happened today, and how did you handle it?” Not “Did everything go great?”
Problem-solving is a skill, not a trait. When your kid hits a challenge, don’t swoop in. Guide them, don’t save them.
If camp directors want to win parents’ trust, be specific. Don’t just say “We help kids grow.” Say “We teach kids how to solve their own problems. Here’s how.”
The Hardest (and Most Important) Question to Ask Parents
I loved this insight from Lynn: When parents are considering sending their kids to camp, they should be asked:
“At the end of camp, you will say this was worth it because…”
What do they want? A confident kid? A kid who can handle adversity? A kid who isn’t dependent on them for every emotional bump in the road? If so, then camp isn’t just a luxury—it’s an absolute necessity.
We’re Either Growing, or We’re Dying
Here’s the bottom line: Kids are either growing or they’re shrinking. There is no neutral. If we continue bubble-wrapping kids, they will enter adulthood completely unprepared for real life. They will get crushed by the first serious challenge they face. They will struggle in college, in jobs, in relationships—because they never built the muscles for discomfort, uncertainty, and conflict resolution.
We have two options:
Keep pretending kids are too fragile to handle life, and watch them become exactly that.
Let them experience life, struggle through it, and come out stronger.
We know what works. We’ve seen it for generations. And yet, the culture is pulling us in the opposite direction. So, to parents: If you’re nervous about sending your kid to camp, good. That means you’re on the right track. Do it anyway.
Your kid needs it. And so do you.
Thank You!
Huge thanks to Lynn Lyons for this insightful conversation on how we can better support kids in developing resilience. Whether you’re a parent, a camp director, or just someone who cares about raising strong, adaptable kids, I hope this discussion challenges you to rethink what true growth looks like. Camp isn’t just about fun—it’s a powerful space where kids learn to navigate challenges, build confidence, and step into independence.
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It’s all about kids today
Jack Schott
Summer Camp Evangelist
Transcript:
Cabin Chat Ep 4
Jack: And we're back, baby. Welcome back to the Cabin Chat podcast with Jack Schott. Today, my guest is Lynn Lyons. Lynn is a psychotherapist and mom, co-author of Anxious Kids, Anxious Parents, Seven Ways to Stop the Worry Cycle. Also, Playing with Anxiety, Casey's guide for teens and kids. And most recently, The Anxious Parent. She's the host of the Fluster Clucks podcast. She's hilarious and...
Lynn: the pressure is on, Jack. If you introduce me as hilarious, now I feel like I got to bring it.
Jack: We're gonna jump right in. Lin... Oh!
Jack: Well, maybe you're having anxiety, which you have told me is the... Your definition of anxiety is anxiety is the overestimation of the problem and the underestimation of your resources to deal with it. Tell me how you got there.
Lynn: Yes. And that is not actually my definition. So I want to give credit where credit is due. There was a guy named David Barlow. He is retired now, but he ran Boston University Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders. Huge guru in the field, like tons of research. If you were to Google David Barlow anxiety, like all over the place. So that's his definition. And the thing that I really like about that definition is that when we're looking at anxiety, anxiety's job.
is to promote things to an emergency that are not an emergency. And it also is really good at disconnecting you from the resources that you have. So when people are experiencing something that really is dangerous or life-threatening, we don't say, they were anxious. know, like the boat started to sink and we had to get the kids off the boat. we're really anxious. No, no, you had a problem solved. Anxiety is when you're sitting there thinking, what if I'm doing this thing and then I say the wrong thing? Or what if I...
forget an appointment or what if this or what if that, and then you promote it to an emergency and you get caught up in that story. Anxiety is all about the story that promotes things to a place that they needn't go, but that's what it does. Yeah.
Jack: just interviewed Seth Godin about camp and the power of camp. And we talked a lot about apparent risk and real risk. And he described apparent risk as like, it's risky to go up on stage and sing in front of camp or to go introduce yourself to someone that you don't know. That's the apparent risk. There's nothing actually, you you're gonna be fine afterwards.
Lynn: Right, right. So, so when there's some sort of vulnerability and this is like, like if we look at, if we look at, yeah, if we look at social anxiety, social anxiety is all about that apparent risk or that vulnerability that I'm putting myself in a situation where true, true risk is this will do harm to me. And so it really is, it really is just about the story that we tell.
And that's the interesting thing to me is, and I will ask kids this all the time. I will say, what's something that other people get anxious about that doesn't bother you at all? And they come up with things like, well, I love to get up on stage or I love taking tests or I have a pet snake and people hate snakes. Or one of my favorite things to do is to climb up to the tip top of the tree and hang out. And other people are afraid of heights.
once we begin to get out of the content of what you're worried about, the thing that makes you worry and really listen to the story that anxiety tells, that's what I'm all about.
Jack: Take that one step further. When you say anxiety's over here and we need to figure out what it's trying to do for us, like how do you do that with kids? What does that actually look like?
Lynn: So I would very rarely say what is anxiety trying to do for us. Cause a lot of people are like, you have to listen to your anxiety or your anxiety is an important message. And I'm like, no, really the anxiety is the freak out part of you. What we want kids to understand is that of course, right? I say this all the time, can't live without the two words of course. Of course you're going to feel this way. Of course you're going to experience this anxieties.
Job, and it's not really a great job, anxiety's job is to say, everything has to be certain and comfortable all the time. You have to be certain, you have to be comfortable. We don't want to live that way. What we want to do is, as Seth was saying, we want to differentiate between what's really something that's dangerous and what's something that feels risky in a variety of ways. And how do we help kids step into discomfort?
Because one of the things that's happening right now, and I know at camp they're trying to figure out how to manage this, but the camp experience from a anxious parent's perspective is, I want my kid...
to have a great time all the time. I want them to be happy. I don't want them to experience any discomfort. I want to make sure they love the food. I want to make sure they love their counselor. I want to make sure they're in activities all the time that they really love. If my child is at camp and he is uncomfortable, then this is a bad experience. That's anxiety promoting something that's really natural and normal to this place of can't tolerate it. That's where we get into trouble with this thing.
Jack: So I'm a direct middle millennial, but I used to go out and play until the streetlights came on and John shot, my dad was certain to, he had the sort of kids are to be seen and not heard mentality in the shot household. And so how do you think about this role of grownups in kids' lives to, you know, on one end of the spectrum, it's you're to be seen and not heard.
Lynn: Sure.
Lynn: huh, yeah? Yeah.
Jack: get out of my way that, know, John is a great guy, not the warmest guy. And on the other end of the spectrum, there's, you know, maybe overanxious parents who want to solve every problem for kids. How do we find the right spot on that spectrum or where's the spectrum that I'm missing?
Lynn: Yeah.
Lynn: No, it is, you we never wanna go to either side of the spectrum. So you don't want a parent that is completely out of touch with kids' emotional lives. You don't want parents that say, suck it up, buttercup. You don't want parents that say, there's no crying in baseball. But you also don't want parents that say,
If you feel something uncomfortable or if you feel a discomfort or if there's a problem, I need to swoop in and make sure that you don't feel these things. The very big sweet spot, and it is a very big sweet spot, is people feel things, people have experiences, people get through things, and what we want to offer our kids is support and love and empathy and validation so that they actually step in and
get through things that feel difficult. You can over-empathize, you can over-validate, you can over-support, just like John probably under-validated and under-empathized and under-supported. But we want to find that big sweet spot where we're saying to a kid, I know that this feels difficult and I get it and I bet you can get through it.
I was just talking to a mom earlier this morning and she dropped her six year old off at this little camp at school vacation week. So she went to this little camp and the little girl didn't love the camp and she came home and she said, and the mom was kind of surprised and she said, I didn't make any friends and my tummy bothered me and I didn't like what they serve for lunch. And so what we came up with that this mom could say to this child, this cute little six year old,
is, you know what, I'm sorry, this camp is, you know, I wanted you to love it. I really wanted you to love it. How do we get through things when we don't love them every minute? How do we manage things that don't go exactly the way that we want them to go? And I think if we're talking about the bigger picture of summer camp, how do we, of course, want to present and want to provide an experience for kids that they're having a great time, but the value of camp
Lynn: is that not everything is going to be great. How do we manage when we have a bunkmate that we don't like? How do we manage when norovirus goes through the camp? That happened to my son when he was at, he actually got mono and left and he was so disappointed. He missed the last two weeks of his one month at camp. But the day before he got sent home with mono, norovirus showed up.
80 % of the camp was puking. They almost shut down the camp. Nobody planned for that. Nobody wanted that. How do we problem solve? How do we figure out what to do? Right? This is what we want to say to kids. How do we love, support, validate? And how do we give them opportunities to step into discomfort and uncertainty so they can get to the other side?
That's the position we want to be as parents.
Jack: And so how do we do that? How do we, what do you do with parents and with young people to help them step into that space?
Lynn: So for one is that we normalize it. So the more that we use language that we say, of course, of course, this isn't going to go perfectly, or of course there's going to be things that you don't like, or of course. So one of the questions that I have parents ask kids all the time is what was the unexpected thing that happened to you today and how did you manage it? Because just by asking that question, you're saying to them, of course unexpected things happened to you today. I say to kids all the time, I love when everything goes smoothly. I love when my day goes as planned.
It doesn't often happen. How did you manage that? So we start talking about the importance, the skill, the reality of things not going as planned. And we might even say to kids, tell me three things you loved about camp today. Like even camp counselors could do this in their cabins, or you could do this, if you're having kids write letters home. I want you to write three things that you loved about camp today.
and one thing that was disappointing or one thing that was unexpected or one thing that you did not like at all. And then we're just normalizing that life is a combination of these things. The way that kids learn that they can handle uncertainty or discomfort or conflict or disappointment is that they experience it and then you get to the other side. So even though John Schott told you to go out and manage things on your own,
You learned how to manage things on your own. So you were in a neighborhood. I was in a neighborhood. There was, there was a bully there in my neighborhood. he was probably 12. We thought he was probably like 25. there were kids that you fell off your bike. There were times when somebody cheated in a game. There was times when, somebody was mean to somebody else.
Jack:
WHA-WHOA!
Lynn: We figured it out. Our parents were there to support us and guide us, but they weren't watching us every minute. They weren't stepping in at the first sign of discomfort or conflict, and they weren't trying to stay ahead of it. So they weren't thinking all the time about what can they do preventatively to make sure that nothing bad happens. And I think that a lot of parents feel like that's their job right now, feel like that's their role.
and it's getting in the way of these kids learning experientially. So something bad happens and you say, I am so sorry that happened to you. I'm so sorry that happened to you. How did you handle it? What did you do? I I tell this story a lot when I'm giving talks. So was trying out for basketball. I don't think I told you guys this story. I was trying out for the basketball team, trying out for varsity basketball. was a junior in high school. I was not like gonna be in the WNBA.
I was, I'm a pretty good athlete, but you know, whatever. So try it out for the basketball team. We had practice the Friday after Thanksgiving. She had already made a lot of cuts. So she was down to 12 girls, which is usually what she carried on the team. I had to go and take my driver's license test the Friday after Thanksgiving. So I told her I was going to miss that practice. I go to take my driver's license test and during the parking at
part of the driver's test, I hit a car, which if you don't know in the state of Connecticut is an automatic failure, whatever. So I fail my driver's test. I come back to practice on Monday. She calls me into the locker room and she cuts me. She says she's only going to carry 11 this year. She doesn't need three point guards. The other two guards were much better than I was anyway. Like I totally did not. It wasn't like I was unfairly cut.
But nonetheless devastated. And she also said, you missed practice on Friday. So that didn't help your case. And I was like, um, did I tell, didn't I tell you I was going to get my driver's test? And she goes, oh yeah, yeah, you did tell me that. How'd it go? I go, well, not so good. I failed my driver's test. She's like, oh, that's sad. So I go home. Bad day for Lynn, like bad week for Lynn. My parents were sad for me.
Lynn: were like, my gosh, I could imagine as a parent, she tried so hard to make the team and she got caught and that she really wanted her driver's license and she hit a car. This is just terrible. Nobody called the athletic director. Nobody called the coach. Nobody tried to fix the problem for me. We went out for ice cream. I made another appointment to go back and get my driver's license, which I did three weeks later. And my dad said to me, hey, listen.
You play basketball for fun. I love to watch you play. I love to come to your games. If you're on varsity, you're sitting on the bench, sweetie pie. You're on JV, you're starting. Selfishly, I'm glad you're on JV, because I'm going to come watch you play. Like the sweetest thing. And this is the difference, I think, in being able to let a kid go through things.
I mean, there were a lot of tears. There was a lot of sadness. And he was right. I played a lot on JV. And then the varsity basketball team got a trip to, got an opportunity to go to a trip to Bermuda to play in some tournament. They could take 12 people. Guess who they took? Me. Right? Got to go. Didn't play, but got to go to Bermuda. Fun. It all was okay. And I think that when we're talking about this,
fear that parents have of their kids feeling uncomfortable, of their kids feeling uncertain, of their kids not having things work out, they step in and they get in the way of that really important learning that kids need to go through. And it's pretty common these days. And the more that we talk about it, the more that we catastrophize, this anxiety epidemic, this kid has anxiety, anxiety, anxiety. Yeah.
I get it, I'm not denying that it exists, but how do we address it and how do we prevent it? We're not doing a good job.
Jack: I'm sorry that that happened to you and I'm glad to hear that you had a growth moment that came from it. It was fun to hear.
Lynn: I did have a girl, and I have a great story to tell. So yeah. Yeah.
Jack: So, I'm not a parent, and I think parents get thrown under the bus on this often. Every parent I talk to really cares about their kid, really wants to make sure that their kid is taken care of and grows, and then they hear all of these messages. They're hearing from, you know, one group of people, like, need free-range kids, Lenore Scanasius standing on tables and yelling and jumping up and down, huge fan, by the way, and then...
Lynn: Mm-hmm, me too.
Jack: On the other end of the spectrum, they're hearing that you should spend $250,000 as an 11-year-old to help your kid make the perfect resume to get into college and check all these specific boxes. How do we, I don't think parents, I don't think it's fair to just say parents are the problem. I wanna be here and say, what can we do to be useful, to help kids be more successful and happy, and by successful, I don't care where you go to college or anything about that. So how do we help parents
Lynn: No! Mm-mm.
Lynn: Yeah, yeah.
Jack: make a transition to being less anxious themselves, not raising anxious kids? Like, what do do?
Lynn: Yeah, so that's a great point. And I agree with you completely that parents didn't do this. Parents didn't create this environment. The group of people that I hold the most responsible for this is my profession because they espouse many of the things that are the opposite of what Lenore would say.
So it's a real, above all else, we love our intellect, don't we? We love what we can create. We love how we invent things. We love that we can have self-driving cars, although I don't think we really love those. We love that we can have this, you and I can have this discussion on this computer with this software, right? Pretty amazing.
But we are above all else, social and emotional animals. The incredible social push that parents are experiencing to make sure that their kids are doing okay, to make sure that they're successful, to make sure that they get into the best school, to make sure blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They are not creating this. And a lot of them, when you ask them, they say,
We don't know how we got here. We don't want to be this either. This is what we thought we were supposed to do. It's sort of like what Jonathan Haidt talks about when they do the research on kids using social media and you ask the kids, do you want to have social media? And they're like, no, we're trapped. That's kind of how parents feel about this environment. It takes a lot of courage for a parents to push back against what they are hearing from all these supposed experts, but also just what they're hearing from a bunch of Yahoo's
on social media because the people talking about parenting, the people who are espousing this idea that kids have to feel comfortable and that you're damaging your child, they aren't up on the research. They don't have clinical knowledge, but a lot of people in the mental health field are doing the exact opposite of what we really need to be doing for kids. So I think that's a really, really important thing.
Lynn: I'm not blaming parents, but it is the job of parents. It is the job of parents to be discriminating about where they're getting their information and to be able to tolerate their own distress as their child is learning. So if this sort of global approach to parenting is that my children need to feel okay,
They need to feel loved. They need to feel validated every moment. If you buy into that, that means that you also are not capable of tolerating your own distress when you set a limit with your kid and your kid is pissed at you. When you say you can't be on a screen 12 hours a day, or you can't have your phone in your bedroom, kids will get upset about it.
And I'm sure that when kids go to summer camp, there are rules that are really important to follow because there are circumstances and situations in which safety is dependent upon kids not doing the stupid things that kids would do. If you were to say at a camp, we want our kids to feel loved and validated and safe and supported and comfortable all the time.
That means that when a kid threw a temper tantrum because they weren't allowed to go off the deep end, weren't allowed to go off the high dive because they hadn't passed their swimming test yet, that you guys have to tolerate that. If the goal is to make sure that kids feel a certain way all the time and parents have really been fed this, then you are not equipping your kids
and it actually makes them worse. So when Lenore says, when Lenore Skanezy says, we know what helps kids, increased autonomy, a sense of independence, being able to experiment with things, being able to go off and do things that your parents aren't supervising. There is decades and decades of research about how that is a part of normal development.
Lynn: And what we have now is some pretty powerful research that's saying, it's not working when we take that away. So it's not about blaming parents, but it's about parents really having to look hard at what they are promoting as the immediate outcome for their kids. Which is why we, when we...
We wrote Anxious Kids, Anxious Parents in 2013. I wrote it with Reed Wilson. The publisher was a little nervous about that title. Like, do you really want to say Anxious Kids, Anxious Parents? Yeah, we really do. But you're saying that parents have a lot to do with this. And it's like, yeah, that's the whole thesis of the book. And it's not in a blaming way, but it's, you've got to own your own stuff. You've got to see how these patterns show up.
And we can't keep buying into the very things that are making kids worse. So not about blame, but it is about responsibility and it is about learning. Yeah.
Jack: Well, and it becomes very clear that as camp directors, like I have a job to do in this, right? And a big part of my job is to earn the trust of the parents that are going to take this, what feels very risky to them, what feels like a really big decision, which is to take your child and say, go away to camp for a month, for two months. Like that is for most parents sending their kid to sleepaway camp is the first time.
Lynn: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jack: that their child is going to be away from them for any extended period of time. And it's my job, it's my job to earn their trust. And I do that in all the same ways that it's my job to earn the trust of the young people in my care, to build rapport with them, to be supportive, to be clear about what my objectives are. Like you're describing is we need to be, I believe as a camp industry, we own some of the, we need to be critical of ourselves too, is we need to say more loudly.
Lynn: Yeah. Yeah.
Jack: this is what really happens at camp and bring parents into the understanding, not necessarily bring parents more to camp, but more into the understanding of what's happening.
Lynn: Yeah. And I think that one of the ways that camps can do this is, and one of the things that's really helpful for parents to hear is being very specific and very concrete about the skills that you're teaching kids at camp. So there's the skills of like, they're going to become a, you know, a dolphin and go from a minnow to a dolphin or whatever, or they're going to learn archery or they're going to learn how to ride a horse. So they're going to learn how to play tennis or they're going to learn how to get along with kids in their bunk.
But I think that when camps talk about their values and when families talk about their values and when schools talk about their values, the language we use, in my opinion, 35 years into this profession, way too vague, way too mushy and squishy. You've got to say.
Here's, you can say, here are the things that are important to us at that camp, know, respect and blah, blah, blah, blah. Here's how we're going to do it. And in fact, we have an opportunity in this environment to focus very concretely on how we are going to help your child be able to blank, be able to develop autonomy, be able to feel more confident stepping into new things.
be able to solve conflict, be able to get along with people in all sorts of different ways, be able to ask for blah, blah, blah. The more specific that camps are about these skills, I think that's a great way to earn parents' trust because what parents want, I think, when they send their kids off to camp is to have a kid come back at the end of the summer or the end of the two weeks. They had a great time. They were outside.
They were moving their bodies. They had to do things that maybe they hadn't tried before and they were able to do them. They came up against some bumps and some obstacles and isn't it great that they discovered their way through them and that they come back from camp saying, that was so great and I have made a step forward in my growth as a kid.
Lynn: Right? Maybe I've even gotten bigger physically, maybe I've even gotten stronger physically, but I learned how to meet challenges. I learned how to fall down and get back up, literally. If you can be really direct with parents about those skills, because that's all prevention, all this mental health prevention talk, that's prevention. Be specific, be clear. This is what we're going to do. Yeah.
Jack: And I constantly feel this tension that I, as I work with kids and spend time with young people, but also adults, just in the whole world, because the reality is kids are just little adults. Adults are just big kids or whatever, is this tension between sort of kindness and taking kids seriously. Warped and taking kids seriously. And there's this tension that I believe our job...
Lynn: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Correct. Yeah.
Lynn: Mm-hmm.
Jack: at camp and likely much of being a parent is finding the right balance between that warmth and support and that kids are strong and tough and can take on the world. We've been doing it for millennia.
Lynn: Yeah. So the warmth and the kindness is a way to say, I think you got this and I'm going to be here to support you. I'm going to be here to cheer you on. I'm going to be here to even teach you when you don't know how to do this. I'm going to model this for you. And isn't it going to be great? I mean, this is the question I ask when I'm meeting a family for the first time. I always say to them, so here you are meeting me, Lynn Lyons.
six months, a year from now, if you're going to say that was really helpful, talking to Lynn was really helpful because, and I want you to finish that sentence. I want you to complete that sentence for me. That would be a really great question to ask parents when kids are coming, when they're entrusting their kids with you, which is a huge responsibility, just like it is when they bring their, when they come to therapy with me, huge responsibility. At the end of camp, you say,
Parents, we would love you to say that you came to, you know, Camp Fluffy Puff. You came to Camp Big Cliff, whatever you want to. At the end of camp, you will find this experience helpful and successful for your child because what do you want to see? What do you want to get from this? You're spending a lot of money. You're making a lot of effort. What do you want to see? That would be a really, really
interesting question to ask parents these days. And it would be very telling, I think.
Jack: I love that. I'm talking to two parents this afternoon. I'll be asking them exactly that question. I'm nothing if not ready to take stuff and put it into action. Sometimes too fast. Lynn, what kind of questions, those are questions that we as camp directors can ask parents. If you were a parent of a camp aged kid today, I know you sent your kids to camp and they spend camp time. What would be the questions, what questions would you ask a camp director?
Lynn: Okay.
Jack: to know that it was a good fit for your kids.
Lynn: such a good question. So I think the basics, I would ask, how do you guys solve problems here? What do you do if there's a problem? How do you manage a child's discomfort? Or if my child is upset, what do you guys do about that? I would certainly want to know what the training and experience of the counselors is.
which I think like the camp that my son went to old camp established path of, you know, camper to counselor, very selective process, which made me feel good. Like these, these young men know what they're doing. I would say I would ask, how often are you in touch with us? And I would, I would want the answer to be only when necessary. I think there's a lot, I think technology, we've talked a lot about it.
technology at camp, phones and no phones and that kind of stuff. I think the technology of the access that parents have to the camp staff is something that really needs to be addressed. I personally, I was looking for a camp for my child, I would be hesitant if the camp, I would, I know a lot of parents wouldn't, I would be hesitant if there was a lot of access to the camp.
the staff, to the directors, email, et cetera, while my child was at camp, I would say that would be an indicator to me that this camp is really about making sure that the parents are okay. And I think that's a problem right now is dealing with the parents' anxiety more than dealing with the growth of children. So I would ask that question. And I would say, like, what do you hope campers will...
experience while they're here at camp? What is a successful camp experience for you? At the end of my child's camp experience, what are you hoping comes out of it? I'd really want to know that question and see what they have to say.
Jack: And you said, how do you solve problems here? What would be the home run answer for a camp director to give?
Lynn:
another good question. I would say the home run answer would be that our first goal is to help kids learn how to be better problem solvers. So the very first thing we're going to do is let them see if they can figure it out on their own. The second step would be to bring in their counselor and see if they can model solving a problem. The third step
would be that maybe we have to have a more formal meeting with the kids about what the problem is. And the last step would be to bring the parents in.
Jack: And all of this comes back to something you like to talk about a lot, which is that flexibility is the core skill for reducing anxiety.
Lynn: Yeah, it's the core skill for being a decent human being in general, right? Like when you think about the most rigid person you know, that person is kind of a jerk, right? I mean, they're just like, and even if they're not a jerk, they drive you crazy. Like everything has to be a certain way. That's not the person that you're gonna go on vacation with. That's not the person that you wanna have over for dinner. So flexibility, just to define this, is not...
no rules, no expectations, no schedules, et Particularly when we're looking at taking care of kids, that would be crazy. When you're parenting, that would be crazy. Flexibility is the ability to manage when things don't go as planned, which is very clear in saying there's a plan. So how do we manage when things don't go as planned? I think life, think camp, I think school, I think vacations are all
really good opportunities to manage when things don't go as planned. So when you have schools or when you have camps, when you have families who believe the goal is to make sure that everything goes as planned or else my child gets upset or my child is triggered or et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, then you are doing exactly what the anxiety is hoping that you do.
So the more rigid we are, the more we try and make sure that kids never experience certain emotions, certain situations, then we are doing exactly what the disorder wants. anxiety wants certainty and comfort. That's its game. So flexibility is tolerating when things don't go as planned, which I am a very flexible person. you know, I mean, I know what my strengths are and I know what my weaknesses are.
I am very good at managing when things don't go as planned. Does it annoy me? Yes. Do I wish that things went smoothly? Of course. Do I lose my mind? I do not. Do I demand that other people give me what I need right now at the exact moment? I do not. But there are people that are like that. And socially, that makes it difficult to get through the world. Yeah.
Jack: And as a parent, there's so many things to balance that people are trying to balance. And now they're going to hear this advice from you, right, after hearing from all these other people. How do we get 80 % of this flexibility growth mindset for the young people in our care for 20 % of the effort? Like, what's the few small things that we can start to do now to start this coming in?
Lynn: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jack: You've said already, help kids reflect back on the day on what was something that was challenging that you overcame or something that was unexpected, sorry, unexpected that you overcame or that you were flexible around. How did you handle it?
Lynn: Unexpected, unexpected. Yeah, no. Uh-huh. How did you handle it? Yeah, how did you handle it? Yeah, so I love how questions. So what was the unexpected thing that happened to you today and how did you handle it? And then I think it's really, really, really helpful for, and I talk to families about this all the time, to be very upfront about the value of flexibility.
So I said earlier, like lots of times there's values that are kind of mushy squishy, you know, like we, we value, you know, respect or we value love or whatever. mean, I love respect and love. Don't get me wrong. But if you start talking very directly to campers, very directly to camp staff, very directly to families about flexibility as the ability to tolerate or manage when things don't go as planned. If you
put that up there is one of the things that you really are going to pay attention to and promote. Huge, huge changes happen. It happens in families. It happens in organizations. The more that you can start talking about figuring out, problem solving, managing, getting through, tolerating discomfort, all of that is under the heading of flexibility, the better kids do. Right now, the way that
flexibility isn't taught or the way that rigidity comes in to take over is that we are paying a whole lot of attention to feelings at times when feelings are not the priority in order to solve a problem. Just because you think it doesn't make it so and not every feeling you have is worthy of dissection and discussion and promotion.
I mean, we feel what we're going to feel. Somebody was talking to me the other day and they said something that was categorically inaccurate. Categorically inaccurate. And then they said to me, well, that's my truth. And I said, and they said, you can imagine how this pushed a big button in me. My truth is my truth. I go, no, you may feel a certain way.
Lynn: and you may have a certain belief, but if somebody tells me that the world is flat, I don't say, you know what, your truth is your truth. That's inaccurate. The goal now is to come up with a explanation or a story or a narrative, whatever you want to word, which actually validates that that made you feel bad, but doesn't violate the facts of the situation. And the more rigid people are, the more we...
kids that the way they feel, the way they think is the most important thing there is, the more we're creating kids that aren't able to tolerate when they feel things or when they think things or when they're wrong. Because guess what? Sometimes kids are just wrong, right? It's okay. We're so afraid that we're going to hurt somebody's feelings or that we're going to say something that violates their truth, right?
My truth is my truth. think what we really need to say is my opinion is my opinion. Got it. Yeah.
Jack: Well, part of, you know, back to taking kids seriously, part of taking kids seriously is that they're wrong sometimes. Because if I don't take you seriously, I don't care what you have to say. if you're talking to me about your truth is your truth and I just don't care about, you know, I'm not taking you seriously, it's like, okay, whatever, I'll just scroll past that on the internet. But if I'm gonna be with young people and take them seriously, then they're gonna be wrong sometimes. And so am I.
Lynn: Mm-hmm.For sure. Yeah.
Lynn: Right, right. And what you want to teach them is the ability to be critical thinkers. So let's give this a concrete example. So you're in a cabin with a group of nine-year-olds, and they all, or at least maybe half of them, begin to believe that zombies come out at night at your camp. And they begin to search for evidence for that. And they come to you and they say, Jack, we...
have evidence that there are zombies coming out at night. Here's our evidence, right? And if you were like, you know what, your truth is your truth. So what we need to do then is to put some, you know, zombie mitigation practices in place because this is a terrible problem. You feel very distressed about this and it's our job to take your distress seriously. That doesn't mean that you believe in zombies. Now, taking them seriously, as I think you just defined, is saying,
All right, let's figure out how you guys came to this conclusion. Because there aren't zombies and we need to help you be better critical thinkers. Cause you're doing this thing now where you're collecting evidence, that's called confirmation bias, to support the belief that zombies exist. And if you weren't, you could say like, all right, well, there are zombies. Maybe we better do this or this or this. Well, that's not being respectful of a kid's.
ability to be a critical thinker or to help them grow and learn, that's just buying into the narrative of a bunch of nine-year-olds that isn't helpful. And I think that that's, I agree with you, that taking kids seriously means that one of your jobs is to help create critical thinkers, for sure.
Jack: Something that I love that you have said is that you ask families what will be true in six months, so it's worth investing the time with you. And I love clarifying that role. And at camp, we can do that. And I think with our counselors and with our campers that have that honest discussion as a bunk, as a cabin group, and say, my role at camp is, and your role at camp is, so that it's much more clear.
Lynn: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep.
Jack: Because kids have so many adults in their lives that have all of these different opinions about what an adult's role in a kid's life is. And so if we're not taking the kids seriously enough to say, here's what my role is, and here's what your responsibility is while you're in our care.
Lynn: Mm-hmm.Right? Right. And the thing, just back to flexibility, that's a really good example of flexibility because different adults have different roles and different adults have different roles depending on the context that you're in. So if your grandmother is coming for a visit, she can come and she can bring chocolate and she can play with you and blah, blah.
But if your parents go away for a week and grandma is coming to take care of you, then her role isn't just to give you chocolate. Her role is to get you up for school and to make your lunch and to make sure you're in bed on time. There are different roles that adults have based on the context and based on their position. I think that's really helpful to talk to counselors about and to talk to campers and families about for sure. Yeah.
Jack: And so you started this conversation by saying something like, the people who have messed this up the most are my profession, your profession, are mental health professionals.
Lynn: The mental health, yeah, right. Well, and let me just say this, right? So I've been doing this for 35 years and I do feel like at this particular juncture, I'm sort of like the grumpy man out on the front lawn screaming at people driving by. I totally own that. I actually am a pretty pleasant, optimistic person, but the last few years have really made me a little bit cranky about the nonsense that comes
at parents and at kids that is oftentimes from my profession. It's certainly from other sources. mean, social media is a huge source of mental health information and the inaccuracy of that information is very well documented. But yes, so I am grumpy. So that's my disclaimer. I'm a very nice person who's grumpy right now.
Jack: Well, so one of the things that I love about you is that you are displaying this kindness and warmth and support while also trying to take people seriously. And I think that balance is really, challenging to strike and then you're trying to speak truth in a situation where maybe it's not something that people want to hear. But how would you...
How would you steel man or give the other side credit here? If they were to say, no, Lynn is off her rocker, she's the grumpy old man sitting on her front lawn, and the reality is, and that they're gonna say something about feelings and, you know, what would they say to push back in a reasonable way? Not in a caricature of this, but they would say, Lynn, you're wrong about this, and here's why.
Lynn: Yeah. They, here's what they would say. They would say, you know, we've really made a lot of progress in being able to understand the emotional lives of kids. And we don't want to go backwards. We don't want kids to feel ashamed of who they are. We don't want them to feel like they have to be seen and not heard. We don't want their opinions about things to be diminished and dismissed because we know that also
has grave consequences for kids. And so Lynn Lyon sounds a little too grumpy because the mental health field has done a lot to promote really positive ways that we relate to kids and that we can help kids navigate through things for sure. So I'm not gonna go way over on the other side. And look, I have a ton of friends that are therapists. I hang out with some incredibly
wonderfully creative and competent and amazing therapist. So I'm not saying like I alone speak the truth and the mental health field is wackadoodle do. I am just saying again, back to being a critical thinker and back to being able to differentiate between the good stuff from the nonsense. Cause there's a lot of good stuff. And historically, I'll just say this. Historically, the mental health field has moved through phases
that are really, really helpful and really, really destructive and sometimes a combination of the two. But it's just about being a critical thinker. So I get it. mean, again, I have a ton of therapist friends, but there's just a lot of nonsense out there. I just want you to sort through the difference. Yeah.
Jack: You would say something like when Kevin Love in 2008 or 2012, whenever he came out as basketball player that said, suffer from depression, that there's value in acknowledging that this is a reality of a situation. And then we may have gone, you would say we definitely have gone overboard on elevating depression and anxiety as too big of a focus, as opposed to a focus on growing tangible, durable skills like flexibility.
Lynn: Yes!
Jack: or a focus on what we can do, not what's holding us back.
Lynn: Right. even more so, what Kevin Love comes out and says, I struggle from depression. Naomi Osaka says, I need to step away from this crazy pressure cooker of professional tennis because I'm a socially anxious person and this is just overwhelming to me. Like, cool. Put it out there. The problem has become the language of permanence and identity. So if Kevin Love came forward and said, I struggle with depression,
And he said, there's nothing I can do about it. This is a disease I have, and I'm going to always struggle with this. And I'm just a passive person in dealing with this. I would have a problem with that. And that really, unfortunately, is a lot of the messaging right now when we're talking about kids and anxiety and depression. If you ask them, which I talk to a lot of them,
what they know about this and what they believe about this, they really are unfortunately getting the message that this is who they are, that this is the part of themselves that is the most defining, and that there's really not much that they can do about it. And so the rest of the world needs to figure out how to manage their anxiety, not them manage it, but the rest of the world, because they have this thing. And that we know from the research is
is the exact opposite of what we want kids to hear about their incredibly malleable, flexible, adaptable brains. So that's where the messaging of let's all talk about this is fabulous. But sometimes, even more than sometimes, often the message is this is who I am, this is who you are, and now we need to figure out how to make you okay.
rather than saying, let's figure out what we can teach you or what skills you need to develop. Yeah.
Jack: And so Lynn, have one more question and then I want to hear about this awesome webinar that you're about to do for parents. My last question is, you've dedicated 35 years to this. It clearly matters so much to you. Why, why you could, you're clearly smart and thoughtful and charming and you could go off and do 10,000 other things. Why bother for you to do this?
Lynn: okay, okay. Mm-hmm. It does.
Lynn: well, thank you for saying that. I'm Spartan charming. My mom agrees. So does my dad. Why did I decide to do this? Well, I can tell you why I chose anxiety over all other things. I can tell you that because I didn't start out specialized in anxiety very early on in my career. I think I like anxiety because it is very tangible.
that we can do very concrete things that I feel like progress is made. So a lot of people in my field deal with stuff. I had a friend, I still have a friend actually, she's still my friend, who's an internal medicine doc and she works with elderly people. And she said to me once, we're on a bike ride. And she said to me once, you know what, you actually fix people. I just like sort of wait until they die. I was like, I know, like she can't cure any of these problems. So I think that's why
I chose anxiety. I think the thing, I mean, I'm definitely, I'm definitely like a helper person for sure. That's the role in my family. And so that appealed to me. The thing that keeps me in this field, I think, is because I love the creativity of it. My job, when a family comes in and they've got a problem, I've got to come up with
a way to help them solve it. Now anxiety is super redundant. It does the same thing all the time. But if I can come up with a good story, if I can come up with a good metaphor, if I can come up with a good assignment to give them that helps them see this through a different lens and gets them unstuck, that's what keeps me in this. To me, it is an incredibly creative, interesting, I can use my humor. That's the other thing too, is that
You know, when you work in some fields, I remember a school had me come and do this bullying workshop. my God, it was terrible. You can't make jokes about bullying, but you can totally make jokes about OCD and anxiety. So I think that's what kind of drew me to this. I think that that's what keeps me in this. I've been working for myself in private practice since I was in my late twenties. I like being in charge of my business. So that's just another.
Lynn: thing about it that I like. Yeah, I mean, I like writing. Well, I don't like writing books. I like when books are done. I hate writing books. It's so, so hard. I feel so sorry for myself when I'm doing it, but I love doing trainings. love, I love speaking to people. So yeah, that's probably what keeps me in it. Anxiety demands that we treat it seriously. Anxiety demands that we're like very, you know, furrowed brow.
And I love sort of looking at anxiety and saying, not playing your game. I think that's what keeps me in it. Despite my crankiness. Yeah.
Jack: Thank you.
I haven't seen the crankiness yet. I've seen the vigor maybe to make a change, but cranky is not what I've seen.
Lynn: All right. Well, good. I'm glad to hear that. I'm keeping it well enough under wraps so as not to turn people off. Yeah.
Jack: And so you're doing this awesome webinar for parents. Tell me what it is, how it works, and how can folks get to it?
Lynn: Yeah, so it's for parents. This one is for the littles. So this is parents of kids age about 4 to 12. And then I'm going to do another one after that for the middle school, high school. It's April 1st and April 8th. It's going to be a live webinar, but it's going to be recorded. So two and a half, no, two hours on April 1st, 6.30 to 8. Two hours on April 8th, 6.30 to 8.
Interactive, I'm going to give people assignments between sessions so when they come back, they can have things to work on. It's not up on my website yet. Maybe it will be by the time this comes out because somebody else does my website for me. But if you go on my Facebook page or Instagram, you'll find the links there. yeah, I try all of the trainings that I do because I do a lot of them.
I am focused on giving really concrete information, sort of cutting through the BS and saying, this is what works and this is what doesn't. And that's what I'm going to do for this four hours I'm with parents.
Jack: Well, I love that and we'll put in the show notes so that there's a link and make sure, and we'll make sure that it's up on the web. We'll make this go live once it's up on the website, we can coordinate that. And wait, Lynn, because I know you love summer camp, will you do me a favor and just say 60 seconds, why should parents send their kids to camp?
Lynn: okay. I'll send you the link. Yeah. It is probably one of the last places in this country at least, where kids can be in nature, where kids can be off their devices, because I think most camps are still requiring that. I hope that stays the same. Where kids can be away from parents in an environment in which parents are tracking their kids, know where they are, schedule. I think that summer camp gives kids the opportunity.
to get dirty, to skin their knees, to meet other people, to try new things. It really is one of the best doses of all the things I talk about for prevention that kids can have.
Jack: Thank you so much, Lynn Lyons. You are incredible. Appreciate you.
Lynn: my pleasure, Jack. Thank you so much for having me.
