I’m going to go out on a limb today to declare that one of the most significant causes of stress in your home - the conflict, power struggles and animosity between you and your teens, is probably school-related...specifically, those dang missing assignments.

So, today I’m going to address the underlying problems here and give you some advice and direction to try and alleviate some of the unnecessary stress and discord in your home. If you’re keeping your eye on that parent portal or texting and emailing with your teen’s teachers, you need to hear this (and I’m dropping a little controversy on you at the end of the show so stick around).

PODCAST INTRO

I talk to parents just like you on a daily basis. Some of them are having major difficulties with their teens or tweens – issues like substance use or mental health disorders. But even with those added struggles, one of the main sources of contention always seems to be school-related. Specifically, missing assignments, bad grades, waiting until the last minute to catch up or do homework.

It’s universal. If you’re a parent who places value on hard work, academic achievement and overall life success, (and who isn’t) – your teen’s daily school issues and grades likely hang over your head like a big black cloud.

Let’s break this down. What’s really going on here and why?

I’ll take you back in time just a minute and talk about how things used to be (in the good old days)

I want you to think back to your middle school or high school days. Did you and your parents fight a lot about school, homework, missing assignments, or grades?

At the risk of sounding really old – let me just take you back a minute. And if you’re a millennial, this may not be true for you – but just hang with me.

Personally, I can say that I don’t think my parents and I ever had a cross word about school. I don’t remember ever being questioned about homework. My parents were working, they were busy, they didn’t have time to worry about MY work too. That was for ME and perhaps my teachers, to worry about. It was up to me to do what I needed to do and if I made a bad grade – well, that was on me. I don’t even remember them ever scolding me about a bad grade – and there were a few. Maybe they were the exception. They didn’t go to college, so they really had no set expectations.

Parents, way back then (I’m talking the 80s), used to our physical report card, signed it and sent it back to school with us – I still have all of mine – and they are not that impressive.

If there was a really big problem with a kid, the parents might get a call from the school (mine can tell you all about that too) and there were parent-teacher conferences and open-houses. That’s it. No parental micro-management. We did what we did and we managed just fine.

I don’t think there’s any doubt that the issue of parents and teens being at each other’s throats over homework, schoolwork, missing assignments – has gradually become more prevalent over the past 30 years increasing in intensity over the past 15 or so.

So, what’s changed?

Why is this issue such a problem for this generation of parents? I think you know the answer - the ubiquitous parent portal…or as some have called it – the portal to hell.

I mean who on earth thought it would be a good idea to give parents full access, 24-7 to what their child is doing at school? I’ll tell you who – software companies who understand how obsessive parents can be about their kids. And they hit a gold mine. An easy sell to the schools, I’m sure. “Let parents help the teachers get those papers turned in on time” “The parents will help your students keep up with assignments and make your job easier”.

The software engineers or the companies they work for certainly don’t care about the underlying psychological impact this transparency has on the parents or the negative effect on the parent-child relationship. And I’m sure the schools see it as a great tool to keep kids on task.

These portals have created a situation where a generation of parents have unwittingly become helicopters and the teens have become stressed out, anxious as hell and far less able to manage school work.

Your ability to see, real time, what your teen or tween has or has not accomplished at school today or this week creates fear and anxiety in you, which in turn causes you to be constantly on top of your kid, which causes conflict, anxiety in them, disconnection between you…and ultimately does much, much more harm than good.

I’ve read commentary from college professors who blame all this parental monitoring on college students who may make good grades, but are, quote, “more anxious than their peers, …deferential to authority to a fault… desire …an unreasonable amount of guidance and are desperately eager to please”.

And of course, it’s not only the portals, I hear now more and more than teachers are emailing the parents, “tattling” on their students and enlisting the parent’s help to get their kids to do those assignments, study harder, and on and on.

Are they teaching this tactic in schools of education these days? What’s the play here teachers, please tell us.

Because here’s the problem, it seems that teachers and parents are now in this never-ending battle to prevent kids from making mistakes. Does that sound about right? Think about it a minute.

What’s the whole point of being able to see exactly what’s turned in and what’s not, every pop quiz grade, every assignment if not to head off trouble before it happens? Missing assignment today? “What the heck happened Justin? Where’s that assignment? Turn it in tomorrow or no phone the rest of the week.”

What would have happened had you not known that Justin hadn’t turned in that assignment today? Maybe he would have turned it in tomorrow or maybe he would have scrambled to get caught up at the end of the week, or maybe he wouldn’t have gotten it turned in and it would have caused a B to become a C by the end of the 6 weeks. Guess you’ll never know. And I guess Justin will never have the opportunity to learn cause and effect – natural consequences, learning from his mistakes and learning how to manage schoolwork for himself.

By using this parent portal as much as I am certain that you do, you are literally degrading your child’s chance at success in life, not enhancing it. I know that sounds dramatic and extreme, but it could not be more true.

What if you weren’t being shown grades in the portal, but you were watching their social interactions, were actually able to see and hear how they interacted with friends, classmates and teachers at school. Can you picture it? “Why didn’t you sit with Sam and Arlo today at lunch? I thought you really like them.” “You know, the next time you talk to Carly about going to the football game, it would be a good idea to look her in the eyes.”

Micro-managing any aspect of your teen’s life will make them more anxious about it, make them less likely to be able to make their own decisions without you – it keeps them from learning through their own experiences, their mistakes. Without mistakes there is no learning – period – end of story. You’re enabling them to become dependent on you and doing them a disservice in the long run. The research tells us that when we don’t let our teens learn through natural consequences, they’ll have all sorts of problems later on.

They’ll have difficulty making decisions, setting goals for themselves, they’ll lack confidence and likely have a lower sense of self-worth, they’ll avoid trying new things and putting themselves out there, or stepping outside their comfort zone because they can’t cope with that fear of failure.

The natural consequences of our actions is how we grow into the people we are. I know I’ll never place a glass casserole dish on top of my car ever again. I know I’ll never buy another sweater again without looking to see if it’s lay flat to dry. I know to not wait until one hour before my flight leaves to get to the airport. But I didn’t learn any of that without breaking the dish, shrinking the sweater or paying a dude $20 to rush through the airport with me carrying my luggage.

Do you hear what I’m saying here? Sure, intervening may prevent a bad grade, but what’s the ultimate goal here? If it’s just grades, then keep up the good work. But if you want your teen to be self-sufficient, self-motivated, resilient…and you want to have a more peaceful life and a better relationship with them, you need less information and more space between you and your kid’s schoolwork.

You are awash in unnecessary and even dangerous information and it’s taking its toll on everyone.

That data you’re privy to in the portal is far, far from perfect. Teachers make mistakes, get behind in posting, don’t always see the homework that’s been turned in and on and on. If you’re looking at this portal on a daily basis, you are seeing a snapshot in time that may be a completely false representation of the work your kid is doing and turning in.

So, when you start questioning, accusing or nagging your teen or tween about missing assignments, you may be doing so based on flawed information.

Our emotions

What’s going on in us – why do we get so caught up in our kids and teen’s assignments and grades? Why is it so hard for us as parents to take a step (or three) back and stop paying so much attention to the data we have at our fingertips?

One word - fear.

And you know where that fear originates? The movie reel we created in our head the day our kids were born – perhaps even before they were born. You know what I’m talking about. The ideals and hopes and dreams that we have – the pictures in our mind of how things will be – that perfect world we conjured in our brain. They’ll be good-looking and popular and athletic and smart and funny and have tons of friends and love me and we’ll have talks like they do in the movies and on TV – it will be a sparkly, beautiful picture of family life over here in this house.

And then bit by bit reality sets in, personalities develop, issues arise, and glitches appear in the celluloid. Some of us are better able to adjust better to those glitches than others.

Others of us hold on for dear life to the fallacy that our kids can be all we want them to be and that we have the power to make it so. How very dangerous an idea that is.

It’s usually not a conscious decision – it’s just a lingering fear in the back of our mind that keeps us on alert for any potential diversion from the “best path”. Those little diversions like missed assignments send us into a tailspin of dread and worry. Are we failing as parents? What if I don’t do something and then they fail? Why do they have this information for me if I’m not supposed to act on it? And in some cases, the teachers are even reaching out to ask you to act on it – I know!

Our fear is enhanced by comparisons. I just talked about this in the last episode. We compare our lives and our kids lives to others. “Where’s your kid going to college” What do they want to do? Did you hear Bennet got into Dartmouth? I heard Ida got a near perfect on the SATs”

And Social media is as horrible for us parents as it is for our teens too – all those glowing pictures of acceptance letters. It’s just too much. We want the best for our kids and seeing any hint of failure terrifies us. It takes us out of the present moment with our kids and causes us to fear for the future and it may even be fueled by your own perceived past failures or regret.

But when you run on fear, you overreact. It’s just like when someone’s driving down the road and their tire goes off the edge off the pavement, they panic, overcorrect and send themselves into oncoming traffic or off the other side of the road.

When you get nervous about those missing assignments, or them not doing homework or not studying for a test, you overcorrect. You ask too many questions, you may even lecture or threaten or punish. All of which will cause both you and your teen to go careening over the embankment together – lots of conflict and achieving the exact opposite of what you want to achieve.

So, that’s a lot of what’s going on in your head and why you feel and act the way you do about your kid’s schoolwork…but what’s going on in them?

What’s going on in your teen’s mind when they’re missing assignments, not doing their homework and seemingly unbothered by bad grades?

Do they just not care about getting into college or doing their best? It sure doesn’t look like it sometimes, does it? And the more we fuss about it the less they seem to care. What’s going on here?

Let’s start with how important your teen’s autonomy is to them. By the time puberty hits, your kid feels like an adult – they believe they think like an adult and know what adults know – because they do actually begin to think very differently. They understand more – they’re able to think about their own thinking and understand that other people don’t think the same thoughts they do – this is revelatory to them and makes them really feel different from that little kid they used to be.

And if you even try to parent them the same you did when they were that “little kid”, you can expect major blowback. You have to learn to parent your now, “big kid” much differently.

Parenting is now a joint effort between you and your teen. They want to be spoken to and treated with the same deference and respect you treat other adults. They want more control over their life.

Talk to them like you would any other adult, you ask their opinion, you listen to every word they say and treat them with the respect they need and deserve. No, I’m not saying you let them do whatever they want – I’m saying that you give them as much space as is safe and healthy.

Your job is to hold the line on anything dangerous, unhealthy, unethical, illegal, or likely to close some door to an opportunity in the future. Of course, school or academics fall into that last category – flunking out of school could certainly close many doors for them in the future. Will a few zeros or a bad grade in a required course? Maybe – maybe not. If their goal is Harvard, certainly. If not, there’s a way to go to college no matter your grades – even if they get a GED instead of a high school diploma. Of course, I know you’d prefer them to land somewhere in the middle at least. I get it. But what I’m saying is, grades do not have to feel like life or death…because they simply aren’t.

But let’s look at the other issue at play here for your teen – their inner motivation and control. The more you fuss, lecture, threaten and punish regarding their schoolwork, the more external control you exert – the less likely they’ll develop the inner motivation to do it themselves.

As I said earlier, the more you micro-manage and prevent them from making mistakes, the less likely they’ll be able to learn how to manage things on their own. It’s the same as swooping in and making sure they’re never disappointed or get a trophy for everything they try. It’s teaching them that mistakes are not okay, that they can’t do things without you, that everything always needs to be just right, or the world falls apart.

So, being on top of them and constantly pointing out what they need to do and what they haven’t done and preventing any possibility of a zero or a bad grade or of getting in trouble with the teacher…it makes them doubt that they are capable of handling things on their own. It cripples their self-confidence, their inner motivation, tanks their self-worth and sets them up for worse failure than you’re trying to prevent.

You’re missing an excellent opportunity to allow them to learn some of the key skills they’ll need as an adult – many of those executive function skills that they don’t quite have yet: like making good decisions, using self-control, focusing better, organizing, planning ahead...

To help them with these skills, the focus should be on building their internal control and internal motivation rather than using external controls like threats, punishment, rewards, or manipulation.

External controls set them up for failure by teaching them to ONLY do something if there’s a carrot or a stick (a reward or punishment).

When teens feel the intrinsic satisfaction of a job well done or the pain of natural consequences when they make a mistake – they incorporate that internally – it changes how they think and feel about themselves and the way they interact with the world.

But when someone is trying to change them externally, they resist, and they focus on that external manipulation – it becomes all about fighting that external force – you. There’s a place for consequences done right but it’s really easy to step over the line and it will build resentment, animosity, disconnection and you’ll lose their respect – because you’ve trampled all over their autonomy. So, they completely tune you out, and do just the opposite of what you want them to do.

Okay, so this is all philosophically righteous Ann but what do I do about those dang missing assignments?! And what do I do if my kid seems like she couldn’t care less about the natural consequences of a bad grade?

Here are my suggestions:

1. Stop looking at that parent portal on a daily basis, allow yourself one look every couple of weeks, or lose your password altogether. Because you’re going to work with your teen differently now anyway, so hang on.
2. Change your “I’m the boss” mindset and determine to work with your teen to resolve any problems they may be having getting work done or studying.
3. Change your goal – rather than trying to make sure your teen is “doing everything they need to do”, your goal should be to make sure your teen is learning the skills they need (organizing, planning ahead, focusing) to be able to accomplish what they need to.
4. Change the way you approach the issue – instead of nagging, lecturing, threatening – learn to state the problem and your concerns, listen and validate how they feel about it then ask them to brainstorm with you to come up with a reasonable solution. Maybe you two agree to do a check-in every two weeks where you sit down and look at the portal together and see where they may need help. Maybe you agree to executive function coaching or a tutor or testing to see if there’s a learning issue or ADHD.

Maybe you agree to let them have an entire month without looking at the portal, asking any questions or saying a word and then look at their grades at that point to see how they’ve managed.

Whatever you agree to, write it down and agree to have a look at it at some point in the future to see if it’s going well.

And kids who don’t seem to care about bad grades are to that point because they likely feel no ownership over those grades – for them, you may have to back off for quite a while and let them really take a nosedive before you see any change in the other direction. That can be tough to watch but it may be the only way for them to realize what they really value.

And one last thing I’ll add that may be a bit controversial, but I firmly believe that by high school at least, that teachers should NOT be emailing or texting parents about little Johnny’s missing assignments. I think it’s complete BS and serves no proper purpose at all because you can already see what’s going on in the portal to hell! These types of parent reminders are more likely than not causing arguments, and major discord between you and your teen.

But here’s the deal, scientific research shows that students whose parents are nagged to death by teachers about missing assignments, complete those assignments, make better grades and increase their GPA. And that’s what schools ultimately want (and I won’t ignore that it may be what you want as well).

As one article I read noted, that students “are much more likely to thrive academically if their parents support them and stay on their case. But quarterly report cards don’t give parents what they need to properly engage.”

Now see, this just pisses me off because “staying on your kid’s case” is great for the school and it makes them look good when they get their “grade”, but it absolutely obliterates the relationship you have with your child.

I beg you to consider this, ask those teachers to take you off the text and email list, tell them you have enough information to work with and that you don’t need anymore poking and prodding that will ultimately just cause an argument between you and your teen.

It’s not in the school’s interest to protect your relationship and teach your teens the underlying skills they need – they just want those grades to look good. But you’re in this for the long haul. You need your teen to trust you and want to listen to you, to ask for your advice. But the more your fear is triggered by that damn portal and additional psychological pressure is applied via texts and emails, the less likely your teen’s going to learn what they really need and the more likely those arguments will continue.

How do you feel about that? Let me know – leave a comment on Spotify or drop me a line at acoleman@speakingofteens.com.

Alright, that’s all for this episode of Speaking of Teens – I’ll have several related episodes linked for you in the Show notes. And if you’re new to the show, thank you so much for listening all the way through – I hope you found it valuable and will share it with other parents you think could use it.

If you’d like a little support with your parenting, you can join us in the Speaking of Teens Facebook group – the link is at the very bottom of the episode description right where you’re listening.

Until next time, just remember to connect in at least some small way with your teen each and every day.