The New Edition of Untangled by Dr. Lisa Damour

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Reena Ninan:
Episode 205, The New Edition of Untangled by our very own Dr. Lisa Damour.
So how many books have you written now at this point?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Well, three commercial books Untangled, Under Pressure, and the Emotional Lives of Teenagers, but Reena you know in a past life I wrote academic books, also textbooks and books about teaching and those have gone into a bunch of editions. So just a lot of books at this point.

Reena Ninan:
Can I just say you are, which most of our audience knows a fabulous writer.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Oh, thank you.

Reena Ninan:
You have decided to revise and update Untangled. Tell me when you first wrote it and why you wrote it.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
So it published in 2016, which means that I turned it into my editor in 2015. So it’s been 10 years since I worked on this manuscript. And Reena, at that time, I was doing two things. I was caring for a lot of teenagers in my practice, largely teenage girls. And I was an instructor at Case Western Reserve University’s clinical psychology program. I was teaching graduate students how to be psychologists. I kept running into two problems, one in each category with the families in my practice, I kept thinking, gosh, you know what people could really use, they could use a book about typical and expectable development in girls and I can’t find it. So I started thinking about writing it and then with my graduate students, I was running into the problem that is as is often the case. Their training cases were very complex. This is just the nature of how we do graduate training. You end up caring for families at a very, very low fee clinic, which usually means their lives are challenging and there’s a lot going on. And it creates this terrible irony both for the client and the clinician of the most junior clinicians caring for the most complex cases. And so I was trying to help my graduate students wrap their head around teenagers and know what to focus on.

Reena Ninan:
And that’s how it started?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Yeah.

Reena Ninan:
I was trying to figure out what it was like a decade ago because so much just happened in one decade of parenting. And I found this statistic from Pew Research Center. It said 61% of parents in 2015 said parenting was harder than they expected.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I bet that would be a lot higher now Reena.

Reena Ninan:
Totally. I actually think so. But I also feel like we weren’t really talking about parenting 10 years ago, were we?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
We weren’t actually not garden variety parenting so much when I was looking for the book, I wish existed, there was a book if your kid is very depressed or there was a book if your kid is self-harming. And those were all incredibly important and needed, but I just couldn’t find like, but what about the book that just tells you what’s going to happen, what to expect when you’re expecting an adolescent girl? That’s not easy on its own, but there wasn’t a lot about that.

Reena Ninan:
Yeah. So it’s been 10 years. What do you think has changed in those 10 years that made you decide, you know what? I think we’re going to do sort of a revamp and a rewrite on this.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Some things have changed and we will come to those. I will say much has not changed and much of the book is exactly as it was before. People like that book, it’s had a very, very strong follow

Reena Ninan:
Following is really what it’s had. People love that book.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
People do. And so I was like, I’m not going to mess with it all that much. Mostly what I have done is add things, but the core of the book, which is that it’s organized around these seven developmental tasks of being a teenager, that is unchanged. The chapter structure is unchanged and most of what’s in the chapters is the same.
Here is what has changed in the time since I wrote that book, algorithmic social media has come on the scene, vaping has come on the scene. The social lives of kids were very much changed by the pandemic, the way kids socialize, their anxieties about socializing. The legalization of cannabis was not even a thing 10 years ago and is now very widespread and has real implications for teenagers. Fentanyl has come on the scene. So there are some very new and real forces that parents of teenagers need to be thinking about.

Reena Ninan:
So interesting. I remember us talking about doing the first episode on marijuana being legalized in states and you said, this is going to be a big deal. This is going to be a big deal, it’s going to change norms. And we ended up doing a whole episode, but now you’re walking me through all the changes I get now why you really want to rewrite this book. Take me back though, to the original. How did you structure that? What did you want parents to get from that book?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
So the way the original is structured is that it’s guiding teenage girls through the seven transitions into adulthood. And the way I built it was that there are seven jobs that teenagers have and they have to do them in order to have a healthy adolescence and do all the tasks of adolescence. And each job is a chapter in the book. And here they are in order: parting with childhood, joining a new pack, harnessing emotions, contending with adult authority, planning for the future, entering the romantic world, and caring for herself. If you do those things, you’ve got an adult on your hand.

Reena Ninan:
I mean it sounds great, and it is a great book, but now that I’m thinking about it, I’m like, well, how did you come up with those chapters and this is what you need to master?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
It’s funny, I think I was just so, and I still am to a degree still so immersed in teenagers. That I took all the things that are hard and that I’m watching them work their way through. And those chapters sort of revealed themselves to me. But Reena, it’s funny actually, now that you say it, I remember when I was working on it with my editor, I just adore my editor. I’ve had the same editor the whole time and she kept saying, now these developmental transitions, are they happening in an order or are they happening all at once? And I kept saying to her, yes, yes to both, right? This is the order of the chapters. It’s as clear as day in my mind and elements of this run all through adolescence and Reena, it was so funny, only after it published did I stand back and go, oh my gosh, look at that Chapter one, parting with childhood, fifth or sixth grade, chapter two, joining a new pack, sixth or seventh grade, chapter three, harnessing emotions, seventh or eighth grade, chapter four, contending with adult authority, eighth or ninth grade, chapter five, planning for the future ninth or 10th grade, right?

Reena Ninan:
Wow.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Chapter six, entering the romantic world can show up anywhere. We’ll come back to that. And chapter seven, preparing, being able to care for themselves. You got to be able to do that by 11th or 12th grade if you’re going to go on and leave home.

Reena Ninan:
That was unconscious.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
No, weirdly it was not. Even though I had,

Reena Ninan:
I just think it’s a testament to how good you are and how you know your work inside out.
The concepts of this book, I just sort of feel having a boy and a girl. I know what you’re focused on, girls, adolescent girls. But I feel like so much of it applies to boys as well.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
A hundred percent. It’s funny, Reena, after it published, it’s so funny to take something like this, it’s so closely held. It’s like my own intellectual and emotional diary is pressed into these pages and then you put it out in the world. And to have people then talk to you about your book, it’s like having people talk to you about your kids, right? I mean it’s really powerful. And so many people have said to me, 80% of this book applied to my son or 80% applies to kids of all genders, which I completely agree with. And as you hear the tasks, these are the same tasks you and I were doing. These are the kind of timeless tasks of adolescence. This is how what kids need to work their way through.

Reena Ninan:
It is pub date, as they call it in the book world, Publishing Date for Lisa. It is a brand new revised edition of Untangled, a book that Lisa published 10 years ago. Can you believe it?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Well published nine handed in 10, but basically it’s 10 years old. And it was time. It was time.

Reena Ninan:
What do you feel those 10 years really hasn’t changed?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I think most of it. I think most of it.

Reena Ninan:
Really?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Yeah. And I’m glad about that. I think in some ways Untangled may be more useful now than it’s ever been. And the reason for that is I think people are so anxious about the impact of the pandemic on their kid’s development.

Reena Ninan:
Yes, big time.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
So like, oh my gosh, did the pandemic break my kid? Did the pandemic change the course of their development? And I can tell you, it was so wonderful to go back and I don’t read my own books. I don’t go back and look at them, but of course,

Reena Ninan:
Well, lemme tell you, some of us do. We’ve got it earmarked and not in good shape because of that.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
But to revise it, you have to reread it. And there was something so heartening to be like, oh, this is all still true. It’s been challenging forever to have a teenager. It’s been challenging forever to be a teenager. And so I think in many ways the value of Untangled now, given that I really only changed some pieces of it and mostly added to it, is that I hope parents take comfort in reading my description of typical adolescent development that is literally 10 years old and being like, oh, pre-pandemic teenagers did X and Y and Z. And it’s not that there’s something wrong with my kid or not that something got knocked off course. This is the normal and expectable bumps along the highway of being a teenager.

Reena Ninan:
Is there anything from the first edition book that you feel still stands a test of time? I mean you do so many speaking engagements. Do you hear one thing from the book that parents keep saying over and over again?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I do actually. And I can tell from their face what they’re about to say to me.

Reena Ninan:
No way. What is it?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
So I have a metaphor in the book that I almost didn’t include because it’s kind of long and belabored. It’s the swimming pool metaphor.
So here it is. So, this metaphor is about how kids become increasingly independent over time
And the fact that they don’t do it in a linear fashion, that it’s a back and forth, back and forth. So the metaphor which truly Reena it is belabored.

Reena Ninan:
Genius.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Not how I like to do things.

Reena Ninan:
Genius. I know, I love it.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
So the metaphor is this, which is think of the water is the world, the swimmer is your girl and the pool is you holding it all together. Okay? Where do swimmers want to be? They want to be out in the water, they want to be splashing around, they want to be playing with their friends, they want to be working out, but then something goes wrong, they become exhausted, they get dunked, something disrupts them and they feel like they’re drowning. And so they come to the wall and they clinge to the wall to get their breath back. What this looks like in family life is your kid who has not acknowledged your existence for days is suddenly upset about something and close to you often literally with a physical draping, cuddling, being nearby and telling you things and trying to get their breath back.
Okay, the kid’s upset. Usually the parents’ experience of this is this is fantastic, you’re talking to me. I remember I was like with my older daughter, I was like, I get to touch your hair under these conditions. This is really special. So the parents living it up, here’s the kid’s experience. They get their breath back and they’re just like that kid at the edge of the pool where they’re like, oh wait, nevermind. I’m fine. I felt like I was drowning. Turns out I’m fine. I got my breath back. And then for the teenager they’re like, oh my gosh, this feels so baby-ish. I’m clinging to the edge like a baby. I am out of here. And so they shove off and often they do it in a not nice way. They might be like, is that really what you wore today? Or your breath? It doesn’t smell bad, but maybe weird. And then they’re gone.
The experience of the parent is my kid has been ignoring me. My kid just got really close and it was wonderful. And then my kid kicked me in the stomach. Not a good experience. Feels really bad.
The goal of the swimming pool metaphor is not so that I teach you how to then not have this happen. This is going to happen. Your kid needs to come and go and suit their needs. It is number one so you’re not too surprised. Number two, so it doesn’t feel personal. And number three, to also empower you to say, you know what? That was mean, that was rude, but to not make it bigger than it has to be. So I will tell you Reena, that metaphor I’ve had so many people come up and say, that got us through. That really got us through. So I sort of feel like I could have retired on that metaphor.

Reena Ninan:
It is so good. But it’s so funny as you’re repeating, it’s coming back to me. And I remember exactly how I felt when I first read it because my kids were very little. They were actually probably just learning how to swim. And I think that’s why it was so resonant to me. But I was nowhere near the teenage years. And now hearing you say it, I have a totally different reaction to that metaphor now.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Isn’t that funny? And I’ll tell you something else I hear, it’s funny that you ask what do I hear? There’s two more things I hear all the time. One is that people reread it, that they keep it on a loop either in their car or in their lives. And I think it’s the same thing. Your kid is changing all the time. And so you’re coming to this all the time with a different sense of who you’re raising. The other thing, and this is related, is that it lives on their bedside table.

Reena Ninan:
Totally.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
It’s just there.

Reena Ninan:
Yes. I think part of the reason is there are so many pieces that are relevant just now hearing you say that, then I’m like, oh my gosh, I can really use that now. But my kids were really little when I read it. And so I understood the clinging to the, but I don’t think I understood the being mean and going back and swimming yet.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Well, and this is funny, Reena, I had a mom come up to me once. She was like, oh, that swimming pool thing, my 17-year-old son does it. So here’s what she said. She said, here’s how my 17-year-old son does it. She said he will ignore us for days and then my husband and I will be watching television in our den and he will come in and he will lay his head in my lap and ask me to rub his back. And of course she’s like in heaven. So she’s rubbing his back and then she said, and then he will stand up and leave without a word. And she said, I used to be so hurt by this and so bothered by this. And now when he comes and I’m rubbing his back, my husband looks over me at Wordlessly, he mouths swimming pool.

Reena Ninan:
Oh no way.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
And she said, and what it means is, and this is also the value of that metaphor, I savor it, right? I take what I’m getting in terms of the closeness with him knowing that in any moment he will feel restored. This will suddenly feel regressive to him and he’s going to need to be out of there.

Reena Ninan:
It’s so interesting because I’m just processing this in such a different way with middle schoolers and the coming and going, I really thought that you rewrote this book because we had gone through the pandemic and so much change. So when you told me you were doing this, I go, yeah, of course it is. You’re going to update it with. But to hear you say that you really feel like the basics of parenting really haven’t changed in 10 years. Tell me more about that.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Yeah, no, I would say that basics are very similar and the construction of Untangled, it’s funny. I will tell you Reena, I look back and I’m like, wow, I’m sort of surprised that I built it as well as I did across the seven different developmental tasks. And then also within each chapter, the way it works is it’s a whole bunch of sections of all the rich and spicy business that is totally normal. All of the things your kid’s going to do that are going to rub you the wrong way or seem strange with a rationale for why they are important to that developmental phase. And then at the end of every section there’s a when to worry section. And I had somebody, another clinician, say to me, this is really helpful way to construct it because it’s like this is normal, this is normal, this is normal, this is normal. All this stuff you’re worried about, this is totally normal. Here’s where to worry. And it was so freeing in writing it to come up with that construction because then I was like, oh, this is actually the most reassuring thing I can offer people is to tell them exactly when I want them to worry.
Because if you know that you can relax. So the structure, the big structure is the same. Much of the typical and expectable stuff is the same. The window worries are largely the same. The thing that is different is the landscape of some of the risks for kids algorithms, Reena, those are game changers.

Reena Ninan:
And you talk about that in this book.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I do. Those were not on the scene when I wrote this book and the peer stuff. So in terms of the pandemic aftermath, and I don’t really talk a lot about the pandemic because I think we have moved on and I think there is a wish to move on and we should move on.

Reena Ninan:
Yes.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
But one thing I will tell you, and I’m pretty cautious about saying here’s something that I think is at work in the field, I really don’t like to get out ahead of my data. Kids are more brittle in their peer relationships than they were. You’ve seen this, right? More anxious, less tolerant of one another. And so I did add quite a bit of content around helping kids manage a sense of being left out or a sense of not being or being pushed away or longing to be part of something that they’re not invited into. I hear that so much more.

Reena Ninan:
A little secret into our podcast that Untangled played a huge role because when to worry chapter was what always stood out to me in that book. And so much of our approach in this podcast, you might notice when we talk about topics, it comes from this very book about we kind of work in so okay, this is the issue, but when should we as parents really worry about this? When is it an issue.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
And isn’t that what we need? We need both. You are not alone in the challenging garden variety of raising a teenager. And it’s scary at times to raise a teenager. And so you’re not alone in having to figure out when you need to bring on extra help. And I think Reena, it’s so fun to just sort of step back with you and think about the book and think about the podcast because the other way, I think part of why this book gained the traction it did is that parenting a teenager is a terribly lonely thing. Your kid is changing. Your kid is not as kind to you often as they were. You feel more at a distance right at a moment when you feel like you actually want to be closer than ever so much that can go awry and you can’t talk about it with your peers. You used to how when your kid was little and potty training was not going well.

Reena Ninan:
Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
You could be on the playground talking about it with everybody.

Reena Ninan:
That is such a good point. In the teenage years you feel alone. Not everyone’s going through the same stuff you are.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Right? Or you’re like, I can’t tell if this is a problem and I don’t want to feel ashamed and so I’m not going to bring it up. And this is the real difference between toddlers and teenagers. You are appropriately respecting your kids’ privacy. So with your toddler you can be like, we’re having major problems with toilet training because the toddler doesn’t care if you talk about their toilet training here, history. But if it’s your teenager, you can’t be like my kid’s in a fetal position on the kitchen floor three nights a week. Is this normal? Right? Because you feel appropriately protective of your kids privacy.

Reena Ninan:
What a great point. I want to talk to you a little bit about technology though. Parenting today undeniably, there’s so much technology involved in a way that there wasn’t before. Recent research shows 95% of teens now have access to a smartphone, and in 2015 it was 73%. It’s a pretty significant jump. What would you say, what is your advice with teens and technology? Because boy, I thought I did it well. And then we have moments of eight hours a day on our phone and I’m just like, what could you do? And then they pull my phone and show that I was on 13.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Exactly. Well actually that is interesting, Reena, that you mentioned that because one thing, I mean I’ve been caring for families for 30 years, so I got to be there from the very beginning of digital technology coming into everybody’s lives and there was, and when I wrote the original Untangled, there was more of a gap between kids’ use and parents’ use. So I remember when MySpace came on the scene, I don’t even know if you remember that the kids found MySpace and they were using that and their families did not have any, social media did not use it. We have the advantage now that today’s parents themselves are social media users.
We’re not quite at the age where they are native social media users. They came to it in adulthood. Soon, Reena. And I’m hopeful we can be around to help these families. There will be parents who themselves had social media in adolescents who are raising teenagers with social media. That will be a really interesting shift in the landscape. But this has changed. The adult use of it has changed. I think in many ways we can be more empathic and aware of what kids are up to because we ourselves use it. And also it has gotten so much more forceful. When I think about the algorithm and I think about its impact on teenagers, words like forceful, sticky, but more like forceful feel really important to recognize that in 2015 when I submitted this manuscript, your feed was what your friends put up I think in order. And now feeds are a completely different ballgame that are driven by the social media platforms need to make money and putting in front of us wildly gripping content, whether it’s good or bad for us or good or bad for our kids to make that happen.

Reena Ninan:
There’s so much in here and you’re telling me all this new stuff that now you’ve added in the book. Then I’m like, okay, I got to now and it’s going to be another one by the nightstand table. I want to ask you though, if parents have the first edition book, should they also buy this book?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Not necessarily.

Reena Ninan:
You’re telling me all this stuff. I’m like, yeah, I need to know this.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I’m sure my publisher’s like, please don’t tell people to not buy your book.

Reena Ninan:
I know no author has ever words spoken by no author ever, but this is what I love about you. You’re always so straight. You give it to people straight

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Well, so here’s what I would say. If you are anxious about things like vaping, algorithms, fentanyl, the legalization of cannabis, peer relationship, and you want to see how I am thinking this through in the book, it’s worth maybe buying the book. Also, Reena, our listeners know these are things we cover very, very well here on the podcast. And so the buying the book is not the only option. And the only thing I will say is if you don’t buy the new book, which is a hundred percent fine with me, just don’t be surprised that every once in a while when you’re reading the original, there will be a bit of a clang. Something that you’re like, oh, that feels old. And it’s a little bit, I really try

Reena Ninan:
Buy the book people, Gail, long-term publisher who I love, Lisa, go buy the book folks. Gail, I’m going to save this for you because you were just telling me all this great stuff on technology and

Dr. Lisa Damour:
There’s good stuff in it. I feel very proud of the revision and I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t think it needed to happen. But I also feel very aware that people have a lot of things they can buy and I’m not sure they need two copies of this book.

Reena Ninan:
Yes you do. Yes you do.
No, I’m just curious, when you decided to revise it, what was that process like? I mean were there moments when you were stumped?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Well, so what I, first thing I did is I just sat down and I read through the whole manuscript and I just caught stuff like little things. There’s things that people won’t even pick up where I’m like, oh, I don’t use that language anymore. I used to use crazy as a way to talk about things and I just don’t anymore. I just don’t feel like, I just feel like it can feel unkind. I think this is a standard I hold for myself as a clinician. I don’t react strongly if other people choose to use it, but I don’t use it in the book anymore. And so I took that out and replaced it with other things unless I was quoting somebody. So places where just the way we use language evolves over time. And so I caught those things and made some adjustments. I had something about going to the mall. Kids don’t really go to the mall.

Reena Ninan:
That’s a good point anymore.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
So it was sort of fun. These

Reena Ninan:
Anthropological as well.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Exactly like these itty bitty things that I was like, yeah, that’s a clang. I’m going to fix that. And then I sketched out what I knew needed to be added. And then in some places I added whole new sections and in some places what needed to be added actually replaced what was there or was integrated with what was there. But it was really kind of a wonderful process. It was a wonderful process and I don’t see myself doing it again.

Reena Ninan:
You never know because I’m really embarrassed to tell you I came down today and this is a book that I have Under Pressure and how embarrassed you can see if you’re watching our YouTube channel. It’s got all sorts of gunk on it.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Yeah. To death. I love it.

Reena Ninan:
It’s just really beat down and I’ve got something bookmarked in there that I don’t even know what. But I mean these are how your books are used. I will tell you, and not just as someone who loves to produce your podcast, but I just feel like this is food for the soul of parents who don’t know when we should be worried or even just putting it on their radar. Like your kids need sleep. I know that. But to hear you say it over and over and over again in our episodes makes me then realize I also need the sleep. So I feel like it just, you are untangling family life. What more can I say? That’s it.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Well, that is very kind and what I will say above all is this is not the career I thought I’d have. I thought I would be taking care of people in my practice and teaching college and that would be the sum of it. But I’m very, very, very grateful that my path has taken me in a way that I get to be of use to more people. And I get to do that with you through our podcast and from time to time through a book.

Reena Ninan:
Well, we are all grateful and I just got to say thank you for updating it because it was fun to sort of hear from you how you did it in the process and what is new in there. And I want to tell everyone, go get the book. It’s the new revised edition of Untangled, out today.
And lemme tell you, it is like my favorite gift to give people. I did a lot of under pressure, but I just have an Amazon cart where I’m just constantly sending people and they’re like, they love to get it in the mail and especially people who haven’t discovered it yet. It’s great. So what about Parenting to Go?

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I’ll focus on the book since that’s what we’re talking about. One thing I want people to know is it’s built in sections. You don’t have to read the whole thing. I tried to make it sort of just in time for people. And so every chapter is divided into a whole bunch of sections with headings that tell you what that little section’s about. If you’re interested in reading it, you can dip in and dip out and get just what you need. And the point here being it’s really hard to raise a teenager and you don’t always have the time and the leisure to sit down and just take in a whole book and see what’s there. And so I hope that through our podcast and through our social media and all the ways we do things, that we put things in front of families that are what they can ingest at any given time and gets them what they need when they need it in the scale that they can integrate in that moment.

Reena Ninan:
Well, the book out today, thanks so much, Lisa, it was great to hear the backstory in all of this.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
Fun to share it.

Reena Ninan:
And next week we’re actually perfect timing. I’m going to talk about whether you should be worried about social media. Again, we tell you when to be worried and when not to be.
I’ll see you next week.

Dr. Lisa Damour:
I’ll see you next week.