Founder and CEO of InnoPsych Inc. Dr. Charmain Jackman

The CDC recently released data from a youth behavioral survey showing an increase in feelings of sadness and hopelessness among high school students of all racial and ethnic groups. There has been a growing concern about youth mental health, especially after a recent incident of bullying that led to a tragic outcome. On World Teen Mental Health Day, Dr. Charmaine Jackman, a licensed psychologist, discusses the importance of communication between parents and children regarding emotional well-being. She advises parents to listen and create a safe space for open dialogue. The Ad Council has created conversation starter packs to facilitate these discussions, and Dr. Jackman encourages parents to start early and build trust with their children. It's crucial to continue the conversation even if the first attempt doesn't go well. Resources and information can be found at SoundItOutTogether.org. Dr. Jackman's company, InnoPsych, aims to change the conversation around mental health and offers r It's a challenging time nowadays to be a teen or a preteen, and the CDC has just released some new data, a youth behavioral survey. It shows that between 2011 and 2021, in that 10-year span, percentage of high school students who felt persistently sad or hopeless increased across every racial and ethnic group in our entire country. And today happens to be World Teen Mental Health Day, and I have a special guest who is joining me just to share some tips and talk about some things and some new campaigns that are underway to help deal with this increasing issue. My guest is an award-winning licensed psychologist, 25-plus years of experience in child and adolescent mental health, and it's great to welcome Dr. Charmaine Jackman to the RNJ morning program today. Dr. Jackman, good morning. It's Burt Barron, RNJ Radio in New Jersey. How are you today? I'm doing well. Good morning, Burt. Good morning, everyone out there in New Jersey. Nice to be here. Nice to speak with you today. And a rather highly publicized incident that happened, Doctor, not long ago in one of our counties here in New Jersey, where a young girl in a hallway of a high school was bullied and abused and beaten by some classmates. A video was posted on social media shortly after she died by suicide, and it really raised a lot of attention to this growing problem. I'm sure you're familiar with what happened here, but the state of youth mental health on the overall picture. Talk about some of the things that you're observing. One, I just want to extend my condolences to your community because, you know, unfortunately, we're seeing more and more of these incidents. One of the things, as you pointed out at the top, is that we're seeing increases in depression and anxiety symptoms, and unfortunately, when things go unidentified, they can actually lead to fatal outcomes like suicide. And what we're really using this opportunity on World Teen Mental Health Day is to really raise awareness on the importance of parents and children to have communication about how they're doing, particularly around their emotional well-being. It's so easy to hide mental health symptoms, but what we know is that early identification of mental health conditions leads to better outcomes for young people. And so if you can get parents and kids talking, right, they're opening up about their feelings, it can actually be much better for them over the long haul. Yeah, and just sometimes, as you know, Dr. Jackman, just, you know, starting that conversation, what's the icebreaker? What is that perfect sort of lead in when you want to have a serious conversation with one of your kids or maybe someone that you're a guardian for? Just being able to open up that dialogue. What's the best way that a parent or a guardian should approach this and start this very serious and important conversation? You know, I think that is a question that's always on parents and caregivers' minds. How do I open them? How do I get them to talk? And I think the one thing that I ask parents to do is try to listen, right? If you ask the question, hold back and listen, which can be hard sometimes, but letting them talk, even if you disagree with them. One of the things that the Ad Council, in collaboration with Kibbit Ventures, they have created these conversation starter packs, and they actually have a really cool interactive tool that's available online. You can get it through your phone and have those conversations. But one of the things is it really gives parents and caregivers some opening questions, right? And so really it is, you have to treat it as a back and forth, right? You have to listen. You have to be willing to hear whatever they have to say to you. And you have to think about it as more than one conversation. And if you haven't had these serious conversations before, starting that first conversation is very serious and may not go well. So really invite parents and caregivers to start with more easy opening topics, right? You want to build that muscle of conversation. And so starting with small, not so vulnerable or risky topics first, and then you might be able to lead into those serious conversations as time goes on, because you've built that trust and that model for communication. They know that you're going to listen to them, whatever they have to say to you. Yeah, and I think it's important that if that first discussion, Dr. Jackman, doesn't go the way you want it to, don't be discouraged. You know what? Continue to revisit the topic because it's such an important one. It's a critical dialogue between parents and children that, of course, we're highlighting today on World Teen Mental Health Day. My guest this morning at the RNJ morning program is Dr. Charmaine Jackman. And you heard Dr. Jackman mention about this campaign that has been put together by the Ad Council. And you can get this pack, this conversation starter pack. There's free tips and there's some tools to help get the conversation going. If you visit SoundItOutTogether.org and you can go ahead and get the information that's here and having this conversation, which is such an important thing for parents and kids to have. Is there an age range, Dr. Jackman, that you would say that's an important time to have this conversation? Is it maybe someone who's in their preteen years, adolescent years, teenage years? Is there a good window to have this conversation? Yeah, I think, you know, one of the things that I always tell parents and caregivers, start early. Start young, right? Because it is like building muscle. You're trying to lift weights, right? You have to start, you know, with the smarter weights and build yourself up to those heavier weights. So start it early. If your child is already in the middle school, it's never too late to start. So just remember that. But again, really thinking about, you know, how do I start to build that model of having dialogue with my child or the child I'm taking care of? Because again, as we mentioned, having those conversations allows them to come to you as a trusted adult to share whatever feelings they may have. And the earlier that we can identify mental health conditions, the better outcomes for you. Yeah, no doubt about that. And again, the website for the information that is made available through the Ad Council, again, is soundedouttogether.org. And you'll find some really great resources in there for parents and for caregivers and for guardians as well. Dr. Jackman, thank you for joining me here today. You do some things on social media. You do some really, really interesting work. And I'm really honored to have you on the program today. Can people follow you and maybe get some more information about what you offer? Absolutely. Thank you for that. Yes. So I am the founder of a company called InnoPsych. And our goal is really to really change messages about mental health and how we have conversations. So having a conversation like this today, Bert, is really important. You can follow us at InnoPsych, like innovative, I-N-N-O, and psych, like psychology, P-S-Y-C-H.com. We're on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. I feel better. I'm glad we had this conversation today. You've helped me out a little bit today as well. But Dr. Charmaine Jackman, thank you again for the time today and for the critical and important work that you're doing in raising awareness on this World Teen Mental Health Day. And I thank you so much for your advice. And to hear your voice here in New Jersey today, it's going to make a tremendous difference. So I thank you again so much for your time this morning. Thank you. Take care, Bert.