Have you ever considered that perhaps you’re doing some things that could actually be making your teen’s behavior worse that it otherwise would be?

Are you able to imagine a world in which changing your behavior could cause your teen to change theirs?

Well, I’m here to tell you, that without a doubt, a lot of your teen’s undesirable behavior is a direct result of your behavior. I know – that sucks to hear.

Don’t go anywhere though – let me explain.

PODCAST INTRO

I went live in the Speaking of Teens Facebook group last week to talk about how our behavior can make our teen’s behavior worse.

And I can confidently say that I’m expert in this particular topic – just ask my son or my husband.

You can listen to me talk about my family’s story in episode 10 but let’s just say, I caused a lot of problems at home because I simply did not understand the relationship between what I was doing and what my son was doing.

In my mind, our son was causing all the problems – I was doing my best to make him stop, to get him fixed.

Amazingly enough – once I realized what was going on and learned some basic teen parenting skills, things began to change, and they ended up changing drastically.

5 years and thousands of study hours later, I’m here begging you not to make the mistakes I made.

Rather than spending years fumbling around in the dark like I did, trying to figure out why you can’t get your teenager to behave better or want to talk to you or to be kinder to you, or to feel better about themselves, I’m going to just tell you what you might be doing wrong.

First, let me just say that you’re not to blame for this. For generations our society has perpetuated this notion that we have to be tough on teens or they’ll run all over us, that we can’t let them “get away” with things, that we’re the boss and they should do what we say, when we say it.

So, it’s no wonder that we parent the way we do and that our teens act the way they do. No one teaches us how to parent a teenager.

So, I’m going to break this topic up into several short podcast episodes. Today I’ll talk to you about the first 3 of 10 mistakes we make, which causes our teen’s behavior to be worse than it needs to be: 1) we misinterpret our teen’s behavior, 2) we address their attitude and disrespect inappropriately and 3) we treat them with disrespect.

Let’s talk about how we misinterpret their behavior. What I mean is that we assume things about adolescent behavior that are simply wrong. There are changes that occur in their brain from around age 10 all the way up until their mid-20s that make behaving like an adult, almost impossible. And we want them to behave like adults, right?

We get it in our heads that because they’re now able to reason and learn and carry on adult-like conversations and even drive as they get older and look more like an adult – we assume they can behave like an adult and not do stupid, irresponsible, lame-brained things, don’t we?

We assume they can treat us with kindness and empathy and put other people first and do what they’re supposed to do without being constantly reminded and be where they’re supposed to be and not be where they’re not supposed to be.

Our expectations cause us to be frustrated, angry, annoyed, and upset with our teens and issue consequences, scold and correct them, which in turn causes a lot of conflict.

But our assumptions and expectations for their behavior are illogical and based on this fallacy that adolescents can think, feel, and behave like adults; they cannot.

The changes their brain is going through makes them raw with emotion, easy to anger, nervous, jumpy. They don’t have the full capacity to make good decisions, use self-control, regulate their emotions, plan ahead, stay focused…they don’t get sleepy until around midnight and never get enough sleep and are always playing catch-up.

They’re totally consumed with their peers, being liked and accepted, which means fitting in, having what everyone else has, wearing what everyone else wears and being with them any chance they get – to the exclusion of their family.

They are not doing these things on purpose – this behavior is neurobiological and it’s a necessary part of moving into adulthood.

Telling them to do better, thinking they could if they tried harder or really wanted to, or if you punish them enough, is like telling a toddler they could talk better if they just tried harder and punishing them when they mispronounce words or fail to speak in complete sentences.

They’re doing the best they can with the brain they have at the moment – period.

Quite often parents see their teen’s developmentally appropriate behavior and jump to a conclusion about their character - for example, that they’re lazy, entitled, narcissistic, materialistic, uncaring, egotistical. And again, these assumptions are just flat out wrong. But once you decide this, you start seeing confirmation of your opinion at every turn.

And when you think your kid is lazy, what do you do? It infuriates you when you see them lying on the sofa scrolling their phone or when they sleep until 1 on a Saturday, which in turn, causes you to constantly ask them if they’ve done their homework or their chores or reminding them what time it is, which causes them to respond, as teens do, in anger (again it’s a brain thing).

You have to understand how their brain works, what these changes put them through and how it impacts their thoughts, feelings and behavior – you have to develop empathy for what they’re dealing with.

Understanding better why they do they things they do, and can’t do some of the things you think they should be able to, will help you adapt the way you think and feel about them, the expectations you have, and temper your reactions.

This understanding and empathy will help you stop overreacting, correcting and punishing when you should be supporting, teaching, and guiding.

And you can learn more about how their brain causes them all sorts of issues in episodes 130, 131 and 132. I’ll link them in the show notes.

 

The second way we cause problems with our teen’s behavior is by addressing their attitude and disrespect inappropriately. First of all, because of how we’ve been conditioned through generations of authoritarian parenting to demand our kids behave a certain way or else – we tend to have a very low threshold for “disrespect” and “attitude”. Meaning, we get our ass on our shoulder’s over things that we should, instead, be ignoring.

We shouldn’t feel indignance over an eyeroll or huffing and puffing when we’ve asked them to do something. Again, their brain’s emotional center is hypersensitive right now, and scolding them for getting angry and saying something or using a tone in the moment that might be inappropriate for an adult, is only going to make matters worse.

You might accidentally get an apology or get them to reword what they said, but you’ve built animosity and distance between you as well.

You have to first make a distinction between when they’re being rude or impolite when they’re in the middle of a true emotional meltdown or emotionally dysregulated or just every day, run of the mill “disrespect”.

When a teenager is upset, angry, anxious, or throwing any sort of fit, stopping them mid-sentence to correct their behavior and tell them they’re being disrespectful, is only going to cause a complete catastrophe. They will become more upset, which will make your angrier and then the gloves are off.

Think about this – what’s the emergency in addressing their behavior right in that moment? Why do that? When the storm has passed, you can then address the words they used or the thing they said. The tone they have when they’re emotionally dysregulated cannot be helped – the emotional part of their brain has taken over and remember, the rational part of the brain is still slow to help them calm down and use self-control.

So, you have to learn to help them calm down first. They cannot hear a word you say when their emotional anyway – you are wasting your breath. And very often you’ll find that if you don’t mention it, they will come and apologize to you later on anyway.

You can learn more about emotion coaching in episode 135 – and again, I’ll link to it in the show notes.

Now, if we’re just talking about biting remarks and attitude, I want you to remind yourself that this is also a brain-based behavior. They are individuating during adolescence, trying to figure out who they want to be and where they fit into the world, they’re being nice and trying to fit in at school all day long and as soon as they get out, they feel this “Thank God that’s over” because they just can’t do it another minute.

Being at school and in front of peers and trying to do everything right is very stressful for teens. By the time they get home they’re stressed out, tired, sleepy, hungry (all things that cause the emotional center of the brain to be even more on high alert).

And a lot of times, this is when you get the snarkiness – they’re finally back in the safety of your presence, they can breathe again, and you’re the one that catches it all – you’re their safe person – they know you’re not going anywhere. And because they’ve not yet fully developed their empathy, it can feel especially uncaring and cold to you. They don’t seem to care that they’ve hurt your feelings.

And if your feelings are hurt or you’re angry, you’re also likely reactionary – you pop back, scold them, say something sarcastic, punish them in some way, sulk or give them the silent treatment.

These are natural reactions…but they’re the wrong reaction in the moment. You have to be able to not take their comments personally. And I know that’s a big hurdle because it can really sting. But knowing this is brain-based and that they have a hard time regulating themselves, can perhaps help you to take a breath in that moment and decide whether this is the best time to say something or let it go for now.

Most of the time, letting it go for now and discussing it later is still going to be the best option to make sure there are no blow-ups.

Take them aside later and say, “you know when you said, ABC, it really hurt my feelings. I really wish you wouldn’t say things like that to me – do you think you can try?” Sometimes just calling their attention to it can help them stop and think in the moment next time.

You don’t have to give them a big ole’ long lecture about it, but you can throw in a bit about the things you value in your family like being kind to each other, not saying things you could regret later, learning to say you’d rather not talk right now if you’re in a bad mood – but do not belabor the point.

Now, there are circumstances, when things aren’t that emotional, when you could say something in the moment that would not cause things to spiral out of control. But you know your child better than anyone so you have to be able to gauge the situation and decide in a split second if that’s the right move or not. Is it worth a possible blow up or conflict to say something now or just wait?

So, what would you say? If it’s something hurtful, you can draw their attention to it without scolding – something like, “Boy that stung” or “not sure  my ego can take much of that” – try humor if you can. And if you asked a question and got a snarky comment, you might say something like, “not exactly what I was looking for – want to try again?” But, again, keep their mood in mind - you know your child and the point is to decrease the possibility of things going off the rails in that moment.

Just remember, there’s never a reason to raise your voice or punish them over “disrespect” – a quick conversation after the fact will usually help. And if the issue continues, you can always say something like, “you know, when you talk to me that way, it makes me want to be around you a lot less and doing nice things for you gets really hard when you’re not treating me kindly”.

Show them their treatment of you does have natural consequences like this. But you can explain it rather than giving them the silent treatment.

You can learn more about attitude and disrespect in episode 117

Now this leads nicely into the third issue – something that causes a lot of disconnection with our teens and drives the arguments and meltdowns up several notches – it’s our disrespectful treatment of them.

And, before you say, “Why should I treat them with respect when they treat me so badly.” Well, here’s a couple of reasons: a) you’re the one with the fully-grown brain and it’s a whole lot easier for you to modify your behavior than it is for your teen to do so.

1. b) have you ever heard the saying, “you have to give respect to get respect”? That applies here and since you’re the adult, again, you have an easier time giving that respect than your teen may have.

And c) your kid is in this stage of life where respect and status and wanting to be treated like an adult, is greater than any other time. They’ve learned so much in the past few years and their brain is now allowing them to think more analytically and logically and understand more about the world around them. This is new and exciting and makes them feel enlightened and aware – and very much like an adult.

Yes, they feel they know everything you do – actually they know a lot of things you don’t. Of course, they have so much more to learn, a lot more life to live, but they don’t yet know what they don’t know. So, they don’t understand why you can’t just treat them like the adult they feel they are.

At the very least, they don’t want to be talked down to, talked to like a child, teased like a little kid, talked about while they’re standing right there, yelled at, lectured, embarrassed in front of friends.

You’re not the only one who wants to be treated with dignity – they do too. And when they’re not, they balk, they might give it right back to you. This is what you’re trying to avoid remember – conflict and disconnection.

Your tone, your body language, your words matter. Their emotional brain interprets much around them right now as negative, threatening even. Something as simple as crossing your arms can cause them to feel attacked. Sarcasm or lectures feel like an onslaught of torpedoes. And they will react. Then you’ll react to their reaction and there you go – another argument.

If you can just remember to talk to your teen the way you’d talk to a friend or colleague, you can keep the conflict down and maintain a good connection with them.

What I mean here is your tone, words, inflection, way of talking and interacting with them. I don’t mean you treat them like an adult and let them do what they want. I simply mean, if you wouldn’t say something to a friend or colleague in the same tone and manner that you talk to your teen, you need to rethink the approach with your teen.

We do not have to talk down to them, we don’t need to yell or raise our voices or be smart aleck know-it-all. We can treat them with dignity, like they’re our kids and that we love them.

I know anger takes over quite often and that’s another area where we mess up. But if you can just picture yourself talking to one of your best friends when you talk to your kid and stop and think about how to say what you want to say, things will go much better for you.

The point of all of this is to say, parenting teens does not have to be a combative process – it doesn’t have to be this us against them mentality. Parenting teens is about collaboration and connection. It’s about earning their trust and respect, showing them you deserve their confidence.

You want the sort of interactions that allow them to feel good about coming to you when they need help. You want the interactions you have with them to make them feel safe and secure and that you have their back.

You want them to feel that sort of deep connection with you that allows them the courage to tell you things because they want your advice.

You want them to see you as someone in control of your emotions, not likely to fly off the handle and punish them when they need you.

If you want them to let you into their world, you have to show them you’re worthy and that takes work. It takes an awareness of your emotions and the ability to regulate them. It takes restraint and the ability to think on your feet and to be willing to take a breath and step back, and to show respect when you don’t feel you’ve gotten it.

It takes an adult perspective on the behavior of an adolescent. You can learn to look at things differently. You don’t have to stay stuck in this mindset of “I’m the boss” and “because I say so”.

If you’re arguing with your teen all the time, if you struggle with how to discipline them, if you worry about their behavior, I can tell you, you’re not alone.

And I can tell you that you can learn how to modify your behavior, so your teen’s behavior improves.

I’m not going to tell you it’s easy, but it’s absolutely doable – this is totally doable. It’s never too late.

These are the types of things I teach in Parent Camp. And I’m working right now to take Parent Camp to a whole new level and invite you in so you can change the dynamic between you and your teen.

We’re going from a monthly membership to a cohort-based, in-depth online course where we’ll meet weekly for several weeks to learn together, to practice and role-play and really get the hang of things with other parents going through it at the same time.

I’ve helped parents find their way back to their kid and I can help you do the same.

The next cohort launches in September so put your name on the waitlist today. The link is at the bottom of the episode description right where you’re listening. Registration starts at the end of August so make sure you get early notification – get your name on that list.

Alright, that wraps up another Speaking of teens, I’m so glad you were here with me today and I would be ever so grateful if you’d go into your Apple app and rate and review the show. It really does help other potential listeners to decide whether to give it a try. I would really appreciate your support.

And if you want to continue the conversation, ask questions with other parents, you can come join us in the Facebook group – the link is at the very bottom of the episode description.

And, until next time, remember, a little change goes a long way!