Get Tickets to Jo's show at her website - Dr Jo Prendergast - Dr Jo Prendergast

Grab her book When Life Sucks: Parenting Your Teen Through Tough Times

Key Takeaways:

• Trauma Awareness: Understand the distinction between Big T trauma (life-threatening events) and Little t trauma (non-life-threatening but emotionally distressing events).

• Trauma Responses: Familiarize with the five F's of trauma responses: Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn, and Flop, and recognize how trauma affects teens differently.

• Parental Role: Emphasize the importance of being an askable and tellable parent, maintaining a calm demeanor, and providing consistent support.

• Four Foundations of Support: Focus on building strong relationships, equipping teens with necessary skills, managing unhelpful behaviors, and ensuring parents' self-care.

• Professional Help: Recognize when to seek professional support for trauma symptoms, particularly if they persist beyond a few weeks and significantly impact daily functioning.

Notable Quotes:

1. "Sometimes things that aren't on our bucket list suddenly appear in our lives."

2. "Parenting is messy. I am not a perfect parent telling you how to be like me. I am a real parent who's made mistakes."

3. "Trauma can bring on almost any mental health challenge in terms of something that triggers it."

4. "Am I being the rock or the ocean here? I think I'm being the ocean."

5. "PTSD can be very treatable, but it can become a chronic, very disabling thing if people get stuck with it."

Click here to contact Collett or ask her a question or Click here to contact the Raising Teens team.

Collett is a psychologist, qualified teacher, speaker, and internationally published author, with 25 years' experience working in private and public schools, as well as in private practice.

Visit Raising Teens for more resources, click here for Collett's books, or join the discussion on Facebook.

Listen to more from our Hope Podcasts collection at hopepodcasts.com.au. And send the team a message via Hope 103.2’s app, Facebook or Instagram.