Meet Dzung Vo, Author of The Mindful Teen

Interviewed by Diane Cyr

When he wrote The Mindful Teen: Powerful Skills to Help You Handle Stress One Moment at a Time, adolescent medicine specialist pediatrician Dzung Vo couldn’t have envisioned the Zoom classrooms, social isolation  and ferocious college competition of today’s pandemic era. Then again, he didn’t have to. Today’s stressors may be unprecedented, but for teens, the path to mental-health resilience—mindful self-care and self-compassion--has always been clear. That’s one reason Vo’s book has continued to sell strongly since its publication in 2015, and no doubt will gain more adherents in the post-pandemic era to come. Here, Vo talks about what he’s witnessed among his teenage patients over these rough times, and what he hopes for in the years ahead.

WHAT DREW YOU TO WORKING WITH TEENS?

I think adolescence is such a wonderful time of life. There’s such opportunity for growth. And the tools and skills that teens develop at this age can last their entire lifetime—whether they lay a foundation for a positive life trajectory, with healthy coping skills and connections, or whether they go in a different direction, with unhealthy coping skills. So it’s a tremendous time of opportunity as well as risk, and as a physician it’s a key time of life to make a difference.

WHAT ARE THE MAIN CHALLENGES TEENAGERS FACE TODAY? 

There are a lot of questions about what social media is going to mean long-term in this generation’s ability to make in-person friendships and connections, and to look into and learn deeply in the world.  On the one hand, social media was the only way that teenagers had a chance to socialize, so it was a lifeline during the pandemic. But it’s also important to help teens have real-life experiences. We don’t want to demonize the digital world; it’s just a fact of life and the way teenagers live. So the question is how can we help guide them to use it in a healthier way.

I’ve also seen that teenagers have a lot more pressure to be perfect and achieve external outcomes. I think that’s cost teenagers their ability to practice self-compassion, which is an important part of mindfulness. They’re feeling challenged to believe that they don’t deserve to be loved and cared for unless they reach some external metric. That makes it hard for them to deal with stress and failures and to take risks, because those things are not rewarded in the way they’ve been brought up.

Teenagers have always been stressed: emotional turmoil and difficulty are part of adolescence. But stress has been increasing, especially since the pandemic. We’ve seen rates of mental health, anxiety, depression, and eating disorders skyrocket. 

OFTEN OUR KIDS USE THEIR PHONES OR OTHER DISTRACTIONS AS A QUICK FIX FOR THAT STRESS. AS A PARENT, HOW DO YOU GET A TEENAGER INTERESTED IN TRYING A MINDFULNESS PRACTICE INSTEAD?

The book is one tool, but the most important thing is for parent to have their own mindfulness practice and live it in their lives. What a teenager sees an adult do is way more important than hearing what an adult says. I experienced that in my own life: My dad introduced me to mindfulness and meditation when I was a teen, and I was not interested at ages 14, 15, or 16. But I saw that it was a value that went very deep for him, and that planted a lot of seeds for me. So when I got a bit older, in my late teens and early 20s, those seeds were able to manifest and blossom and help me to find my own practice.

There’s always something that brings people to mindfulness, but most of the time it’s some kind of pain or suffering. That was certainly true for me, and it’s true for teenagers too. When they’re experiencing some painful experience or episode, and they’re looking for a way to cope with it, mindfulness can be one potential avenue for them. And I’ve been surprised to hear this, but some parents and teenagers have told me they actually enjoy reading the book [Mindfulness for Teens] together. It can be a shared experience, like a bedtime ritual.

DO YOU SEE MORE FAMILIES ARE SEEKING OUT THESE PRACTICES?  

I do think that society as a whole--at least in the communities I work with—is much more open to mindfulness and self-compassion right now. I see it in medicine, in mental health, in education—in so many of these fields where young people are served. But I also think the challenge has been in sharing this work in a way that has integrity and healing. 

Adults have to be walking the walk. Whether it’s a counselor, a teacher, a parent or caregiver, they have to be practicing mindfulness themselves; they can’t just be telling kids what to do. And the key attitudes of mindfulness have to be embedded in it: kindness, self-compassion, non-striving. There is a danger when mindfulness is considered a technique to fix a problem. Mindfulness is really a way of being present, of living your life. It’s not a quick fix to solve a problem or to get rid of an emotion or to even feel better.

IT CAN BE HARD FOR ADULTS, LET ALONE TEENAGERS, TO TRUST THAT LONG-TERM PROCESS. 

I think we as parents and caregivers are looking for a quick fix too, because it’s hard to suffer, and it’s hard to see our kids in pain. So I think we all need to reorient our intentions, both when we’re practicing and when we’re teaching. When we are working with our own emotions--with being present, with acceptance, without trying to do a quick fix for ourselves--that can be a foundation for the way that we can interact with our teens. But if we haven’t practiced that ourselves, I don’t think that we can expect kids to learn it, and we’re not going to be able to teach it to them in a way that’s authentic.

HOW DO YOU RECRUIT PARENTS INTO PRACTICING AUTHENTICALLY?

There two ways. One is when the parents see the difference that it makes in their kids. I’ve had many experiences where the parent sees their kid learning mindfulness, and say, “My kid is different now; something has really changed in them, and I’d like to learn more about what that is.”  The other avenue is through suffering and pain, the same way kids come to mindfulness. Being a parent is extremely stressful. Parents need a tool to be able to cope with this in a way that’s healthy and leads to growth and wisdom. It’s not just about getting my kid to practice mindfulness; it’s realizing I need this for myself. When we put it that way, parents are very open to it and very interested. 

WHAT ARE YOUR HOPES AND WORRIES ABOUT TEENS TODAY?

I’m hopeful that teens, along with the rest of society, have learned some important lessons with this time of crisis. We’ve learned that being able to go for a walk, enjoy nature, or just spend time with someone you care about is such a precious gift.  We’ve also seen how interconnected we all are—that one person’s choices can influence everyone else’s well-being and health, even life or death. I hope we can maintain this insight because that is an essential truth, with coronavirus, with climate change, and with social justice. Remembering this experience of being deeply interconnected is going to be the way forward for us as a society, and our young people recognize this. They’ve historically been the ones who have helped make positive social change.

My worry is that the mental health consequences of the pandemic are going to be long lasting. Eating disorders, depression, anxiety—I don’t expect these to go away quickly. Even if the pandemic is under control, these things could still last many years, so I think we’re going to need big investments in mental health in order to support our young people, because the mental health system had been challenged even before the pandemic.

SO, SIMPLY “MOVING ON” IS NOT AN OPTION.

We may wish to forget difficult experiences with our minds, but the body does not forget. If we try to move on without allowing our bodies and nervous systems to heal from this trauma, then it shows up in other ways—as physical pain, as emotional pain, as unhealthy behaviors. We have to be able to recover and heal from that if we’re going to move forward. There’s a quote used in mindfulness [from Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh]: “The way out is in.” We’re not going to be able to move forward unless we take care of what we’ve experienced.