Question. Sarah ray is the author of field guide to climate anxiety and fought hard for Environmental Issues during this time and madeline levine, long leading voice in thinking about wellbeing and anxiety in youth today and has new book out ready or not, preparing our kids for a really uncertain future and Christine Carter is a leading voice in science of happiness for children and application of wonderful new book the new adolescence. Thank you for joining me and joining the conversation. This is such an extraordinary time, really, transformative and transcended and, i mean, everybody sees you in your living rooms and i want to take wherever you guys are. [laughter] how is it going for you guys right now during the covid19 pandemic, madeline . For me its not that different because im in my office 90 of the time so and im an introvert so i dont mind being in my office. The thing i learned is i have a lot of stuff in my life that i dont need and thought i needed but i really dont, that would be a change when this ends, but life thank god is good for me and my kids and my husband. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting how we start to look upon our life in a new way. Christine, how about you . How has it been . Its been humbling. My life has changed quite a lot and and things about it have been really wonderful. I have all four of my kids home and 3 out of the four of them were had were away at school and they are back and thats wonderful. I thought a lot about how we sort of psycho in cycle in and out of struggle with these things and and it has brought a lot of humility in my life. [laughter] but ive learned that the latin word of humility is humilita which is grounded from the earth and its been kind of an interesting thing how this experience has been really grounding for me personally. Yeah, you know, funny to talk to people out in the world and, you know, go on social distancing hikes and people appreciating the grounding and looking at materialistic life in a new light, feeling like time is slowing down, its interesting. Sarah, how are you doing . Well, i would say that its very different, madelines comment, i have two kids and working partner and we both had to figure out how to juggle home schooling with 2 kids. 6yearold and 9yearold. Oh, no. I say the grounding aspect referred to christines point, the things that can get cut, realizing how much can get cut and all of a sudden i had to put fastforward and figure how to implement the practices that i write down in my book in my own life, you know, some things to write them down aspirationally for people who might benefit from it and entirely different thing to open up the book and put those things into practice asap, right now. [laughter] its been ive been really grateful to have and apparently i had one day, a while ago. The perils for being an author, held accountable. I can only imagine home schooling. Social science or history would have been quite an adventure. So i wanted to start with kind of a broad question for all of you and all 3 of your books takes stock of where young people are today, teenagerring heading into this world, 21st century and we know from a lot of, you know, data that many of you cite, you know, stress has risen dramatically not only in general public but in particularly young people and the times are transformative and changing. I think, you know, fair to say in some way its an age of anxiety and so i just wand wanted to get your impressions, impressions where young people are and where we are as families, parents and teachers. Madeline you write about anxiety and a fundamental word right now uncertainty. Theres not a lot that we know at some level. Tell us what you learned in thinking about this and also in clinical practice . So i had no idea we were going to have a pandemic and the book came out days before it was declared a pandemic and it was clear that things were changing rapidly in the world, jobs were going to be changing, the training was going to be changing, education was going to be changing and frankly i was really interested, youre right, ive been doing this for 30 years, i was interested in the fact that in spite how much is known through christines work, sarahs work, the rates of anxiety were escalating, rates of suicide were escalating and depression was Holding Steady but requester every completed suicide 50 to a 100 that arent. What people know and the pressure we know that the pressure on kids around grades and College Acceptance and parents, by the way, for clarity, adults rates of anxiety are up to the same extent to the same way kids rates of anxiety are up. Everybody is more anxious and because we are anxious i think we are feeding our kids and and protecting our kids from what we see as anxiety in all the wrong ways. We tell them they dont have to but we dont, we dont march for less pressure in the schools which is something we should do, so are we anxious, absolutely yes, more so than we were when we write the price of privilege which was not in the last century, it was this century, yes, i wrote it then because one out of four kids were impaired and now one out of three kids that were impaired and we have a crisis and so a lot of the kids that were kind of stable not great but stable are having a very hard time now. Im going to ask you about covid19 and i think that this will impact young people in the dimensions that youre interested in. Christine, raising happiness the first book and now the new book new adolescence, you keep returning to a central theme in the science of happiness which is community and connection and social connectivity and interconnectiveness and how do you take stock where the kids are right now in terms of their relationship, their friendship, you tackle sexual relationship, what do you think our teens are up to and where are they going in terms of community . Well, we know that they are spending a lot of time on screen, even before they were all on lockdown at home, right, they are spending just a ton of time on screens and that is affecting how they relate to one another and so screen time is despite my protest is a game, the more time you spend on screens, the more time youre spending not doing things like that we used to do or fashion thing like working for pay from behind not behind a computer like i work in a fastfood restaurant when i was a teenager, right. And we have seen that they are spending much more time on homework, in fact, they are not spending more time on those things. They are spending more time on social media and we know that more the more time they spend on their screens, the more time they actually spend alone which has been such an interesting finding, right, like for me this has been surprising to me as starting where i did as a sociologist with my work in raising happiness was all about Building Community and look at the data with this generational and see how, wow, this is the loneliest generation of kids we have ever seen. Of course, they are depressed, of course, they are anxious, they are spending a lot more time alone, half half as many today spend time every day with some of their peers, this is before lockdown, of course, right, and, you know, those are just like half as many do and theyre down on average an hour a day, just like hanging out with their friends in person, so, i mean, this is really interesting, theres factuality and heavily influenced and through a whole new world and, of course, affecting wellbeing and the way they socialize and whether they perceive as connection and what their connections do for them and whether or not connections make them happy or improves there wellbeing is an interesting thing. Yeah, we will dig deep into social media. Madeline, did you want to Say Something . I did. Something thats really interesting to me along the lines, christine, for years when i met in a auditorium full of kids i asked them to rank orders 3 issues of adolescence and its only been loneliness, identity and friendship and for 20 years ago it was always identity. It isnt anymore. To the last 25 years or so without fail, when i asked them to rank order wherever i am in the country, loneliness comes in first. Yeah. Its an epidemic. I remember i was actually making almost a facetious retoll rhetorical point in the question. How many are you in a Long Distance relationship and never seen partner in the last 2 years. 60 raised their hand. What kind of romance, strange. Added to the cocktail what sarah adds about in climate anxiety and madeline talking about enormous pressure kids feel and then the pressure and complexity on social media. I want to press you on that christine and all of you, i think its anxiety about the environment. I worry about nuclear stuff, but this is really unprecedented, you know, berkeley, resources, theres a clinical phenomena of students who have environmental despair or apocalyptic environmental anxiety. Its no surprise to me. Ive been leading environmental studys programs, environmental studies for quite a few years now and i noticed the change probably about 6 years ago where where before its not students will contact any degree that they would be taking, material, think about it and going on with lives, it didnt seem like the contact was to fundamentally shift and rethinking of their futures. About 6 years ago, 5 or 6 years ago things started to change and emotional despair was going ramped and i start today figure out names for these. I didnt have the background in psychology, so when it started to intrude on my classroom, emotional engagement, despair, i realized i had to reckon with hit and thats the product of that, a lot of changing and teaching young people. It is so intense that it has changed so much in the classrooms and i think that one of the interesting things about it is theres a positive here too. Before that, i think people couldnt imagine being environmentalist without radical change and grief and anxiety people are feeling is feeling to have to change and i think thats a good thing and adaptation is a good thing and resilience building in the pandemic like fastforwarding through Climate Resilience right now is probably a good thing. Its not going to be great for everybody and its going to be unevenly experienced across a lot of different demographic factors but theres a potential here for something good to be happening for this generation and overwhelmingly this generation feels strongly about Climate Change. People are upset, confused, grieving, students talk about grief because they lose part of their education, uncertain. And then we start to land in a place and thats about where we are right now, which is rear kind of landing on our feet, we have a raw sense of what this is and where it may go and im curious, just for you guys to reflect on what covid19 will be doing for young people through the lens with which you look at young people, madeline . Agree he were landing in a new spot. Were some of us are done with hoarding or terror or watching the news 24 7, those behaviors are stopping to some degree and for everybody its a terrific opportunity to think about values and i feel like very like im going back toe a very old parked place but that was in the book anyway because were going to depend on community, depend on a sense of agency, which is the opposite of mourning, and mourning you dont have that you get over the mourning and i think kids by the way its not just they missed their graduation. The missed their prom, the night, the job they thought they would have, missed the city they planned they have missed major milestones of adolescence and young adulthood. So, i have a particular feeling which is this is awful and i think there are things we can do to make is less awful for kids but i also think theres the opportunity to sit to learn to sit in uncertainty, which is what is hard for every one of us, and in life in general you learn that kind of discomfort in small increments. So, you didnt get invited to at the popular kids party and then you didnt get the guy you wanted to go to the prom with, and its like increments. This is not incremental. This is all at once, and the last talk i gave i asked the audience how many people had never had a broken heart. One person raised their hand out of 600 people. One person never had a bren how did you survive senate you survived it exactly because you didnt get to go to the popular kids party or the sleepover or whatever. So i think thats the better way to build resilience, is incrementally. What were asking kids to do is jump in feet first into launching to sit with uncertainty, learning to be adaptable and cultivating resilience that should have been done over a decade. Its been dug in a short period of time. Die think most my kids are grown, so i have three millenial sons. Theyre working, trying to figure out with their wives how to manage it. Their cohort and were so fortunate because were not worrying about food on the table and were educated and were the luckiest people in the country right now. But its a crash course in adoptability. Ive worked with young people my whole life. I enn general think theyre an adaptable group, especially the young people right now. And i think most of them will manage this crash course, and some wont. And kids who were vulnerable, just like adults who were vulnerable to start with, will be the ones to watch out for, and i do think well have a Mental Health crisis when this is over. Not even when its over. I think were having it right now. I know you in your book you really its almost as if you arrive at a similar insight that madeline was talking about. Environmental news is grim in many ways. The laws, collapse, et cetera, and you really arrive that with point where you feel like part of how we move first, especially young people, i who spend so much of their lives ahead of them, is to set with uncertainty and make the most of it. What kristine im are so madeline was talking about, resonated with what i found with any students, too, which is that becoming idealistic, come in fairly not spirally protected from trauma but fairly protected from trauma, although i think as increasingly we have first dimension students and more Diverse Group of students, were starting to educators are starting to figure out how to teach with traumainformed practices. So one of the things i find fascinating about environmental studies, students or young people who are conscientious put the Environmental Issues, they have been thinking about the uncertainty on the horizon for some time and have been worried pout that for some time and thats climate anxiety. And so in a funny way what they called me to do six years ago or so when this started happening what to rethink the skills they would need to teal with this uncertain future. And he kills were not just Technical Skills to build something or innovate or lead a political or legal situation to change policies around environmental issue. The skills they would need what is called geek adaptation skills and that was a real wakening moment for me and we have been thinking about that in the field now for quite some time. And i think what are the deep adan station skilled. Thank you. Deep adaptation. Rather than thing can about how do you fix problems in world. Looking inward and think about the interior skills well need to grapple with this after the long term and this where is start to look at really into thinking how people have been looking at religion, virtual, and mindfulness, tools people will need to stay engaged in this work for the long haul and one of the aspects of that has been to kind of have a move against the kind of dominant American Perspective that were supposed to be happy,. And so you all know that happiness is this a redding her and that grief opens up all kinds of opportunities for thing and especially the interior work that people need to go for the long term. Itself is horrifying and theres not there isnt hope isnt going to keep news it for the long time. The work we have to do to feel cope with uncertainty, cope with that anxiety and we with it and okay with it is there. I think ive been really encouraged by the fact that my students are suffering exactly as madeline was talking about, really suffering. Im not just going to deny it but they kind of enough this was coming and they had been planning for and make the connection and know that Climate Change coronavirus is Climate Change and thats way it will be perceived. Its fast forward for them. Its something that the science of happiness is informative. When we encounter suffering it engages nurturing parts of the brain and its actually a very empowering pathway, so its good to kind of broad our think not nature of suffering today. Christine you have a lot in your writing but the network of friendship that kids find themselves in and how important those are and now theyre sheltering at home with mr. Mom and dad. What could be worse. Oh, man. We have personal stories for those who have been at have kids at home i get calls, people the tonight, well never be able to touch a fellow human being again. That will change but what do you think will happen to young kids friendships and adolescent dating and there are now spending 24 hours a day next to mom or dad. Yeah. I have been asked this a lot from kids ive been teaching, high school classes, trying to hundred out with zoom education and the kid themselves are asking me, what is going to become of us in this whole thing . Because the social distancing, of course, goes against their every developmental instinct, and against our instinct as hums, humannans, clannic mammals. Teenagers are atoward to peer groups and feeling separated from them has is devastating to them in a way that is sometimes hard for us to even imagine. So, ive been spending a lot of time explaining to them about grief. One of the silverlings here is that kids have the opportunity to actually name what theyre going through as grief and im actually talking about griff with a lower case g. Some teenager are grieving actual deaths of family members because of this. Thats not what im talking about. Im talking more about what madeline was talking but and what sarah has been talking about. Its really for helpful for the kids to understand the physical presence of their friends is a major loss for them and so they might be experiencing the five stages of grief. And in our household its hilarious. ll say thats denial when they talk about not or when they start negotiating to see their friended. Im like i see your entering the bargaining stage. And just helping them name their sadness. We have come around to this idea that acceptance is the fifth stage of grief it and actually has some benefits over resistance to Something Like this. So, it can be a really meaningful thing for them to learn about and to really experience that discomfort, and at the same time