Hi, I'm Rina Ninean and this is Ask Lisa, the Psychology of Parenting Podcast.

It's a podcast to help parents better understand their kids. Dr. Lisa DeMore, a psychologist with three

decades of experience, and the author of three New York Times best-selling parenting

books takes your questions. Both of us are moms ourselves, and we're eager to hear from you.

So send us your questions to ask Lisa at Dr.Lisademore.com. And you can join our community by following

us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. The handle is at Lisa Podcast. And also subscribe to our

brand new YouTube channel, Ask Lisa Podcast. Episode 178, my son and his friends use slurs. Can I stop this?

How do you get kids to understand why racial slurs can have serious consequences? A mother writes in about her teen son and his friends, who despite coming from diverse racial, religious, and socioeconomic backgrounds jokingly use slurs. Can parents stop this behavior? Dr. Lisa discusses what's driving the rise in hateful speech and how adults can

address this behavior. Join us now for the Summer Encore episode 178. My son and his friends

use slurs. Can I stop this? You know, one of the things that's always surprised me that you

said, we did an episode once of a kid who kind of got canceled at school for something racial that he had posted. And you were like, he's going to just have to up and leap. And I was shocked. You said that. But I kind of feel it's often unfair when you talk about teens because they're so rash about things and not thinking

clearly and don't have the life experience that they can just get canceled over things like that.

They can. And when I think about that episode, you know, I don't think it was like the only thing

I thought could happen, but I thought it was something that could happen where he may need to

start over, you know, depending on the broader context of what was going on in that moment. So teens can be very

rigid with one another about acceptable and unacceptable behavior. But also your teenage years,

you should be able to have do-overs. And so much of what you tell us is about having

these conversations early and often and that you say, I promise you, it'll sink in.

It will. Never, I think, as fast as the adults involved wish it would. But I think we have to believe,

and we have research showing, the teenagers care what we say.

So I want to read you this letter we got. It's about slurs. It says, dear Dr. Lisa, I have an

amazing 14-year-old son. He's emotionally aware, gets straight A's, is the star of his wrestling team,

...