I recently posted a Note on Substack – by the way, if you’re not on Substack, you’re definitely missing out if you love to read – the Notes section is just the platform’s social media posts. I said, “No teenager in the history of the universe has ever been motivated by lectures, yelling, sarcasm, or punishment.”

In my line of work, this is a no-brainer, a settled fact, a truism that leaves no room for argument. But I still received several comments pushing back. Insisting this is what it takes to make teens respect us, or to get them to cooperate or to put the fear of God into them.

So, I’m here to disagree – vehemently – based not only on what decades of scientific evidence proves, but on personal experience with my son and teens in other families I’ve helped through Parent Camp.

Hang with me for the next few minutes and let me explain.

PODCAST INTRO

Many parents still don’t understand adolescent development, the psychology of adolescents; how they think and feel and operate, what motivates them and what makes them dig their heels in even more to defy parental authority.

Up until about 6 years ago, I was one of those parents. And you know why so many of us believe that it takes  punishment, “tough love”, intimidation tactics, and “putting the fear of God” into our teens? Because this type of parenting has been passed down for generations in Western societies. Our great grandparents were taught by experts of the day, that to show affection to a child was to spoil them. They needed children to be like mini adults back then, to work in the fields and factories. There was no time for treating children like children – there was work to be done. Period. Full stop.

Obedience was a necessity. They were told that was the way to go. You can hit them – whatever you need to do to keep them in line and act like adults. Break their will young so they’ll do what you say do. Children are to speak only when spoken to and to do as you say, when you say it, without question, AMEN.

Unfortunately, so many of our grandparents then ended up emotionally stunted, hard, mean, and treated their children, our parents, the same way. Because the bottom line is, our parenting is 100% influenced by the way we were parented – whether we try to do just the opposite or believe our parents knew best—the way we were parented has more to do with the way we parent, than anything else.

So, in general, most of our parents were also ruled with an iron fist by their parents, no one talked about feelings, no one was able to speak their mind or made to feel safe and secure. It was all about outward behavior and performance.

And whether we want to admit it or not, these ideas are deeply rooted in our society and in our psyches. Even when we want to parent differently and try to parent differently, there may still be that nagging thought in the back of our mind or our parents standing there shaking their head and scolding us for how we’re letting our kid run all over us.

The pervasiveness of this authoritarian mindset persists to this day, despite years of educational effort from researchers, the medical and mental health industries, parenting organizations...to try and explain how psychologically damaging this parenting style is to kids and to the parent-child relationship.

Authoritarian parenting is “obedience above all else”, parenting.

You might be an authoritarian if you have super-strict unilateral rules with harsh punishments for breaking those rules (like taking property or restricting privileges for long periods of time or for the slightest infraction), and psychological controls like shaming, threatening, yelling, intimidating – fear tactics really.

On top of that, parents who use this style of parenting are usually less warm and less emotionally responsive to their kids, when they’re not disciplining them.

The prevailing attitude is something like, I don’t need them to like me – I just need them to do what I say.

Now, I’m not blaming you if this describes your parenting style or if you resort to it now and then, but I’m here to tell you that while some would argue that it works (as in it gets kids to do what they’re supposed to do), it will not “work” to raise an emotionally healthy, fully functional, adult. And it will not work if you want to have an emotionally healthy relationship with your kid.

I’ve seen kids raised this way up close and I know the fallout for them has been crippling.

And I can tell you that I spent two years in an unhealthy spiral with my son, trying to bring him under control when he was acting out. I yelled, punished, shamed—I did everything I could to scare him into behaving the way I wanted him to.

But in my case, as it is with so many of us, rather than having that authoritarian mindset all along, it was fear that drove me to use those same tactics.

That’s what we often do as parents. Our teen does something risky like use substances or sneaking out to hang out with a wild bunch of kids and we start catastrophizing about their future “Oh my gosh, they’re going to wind up dropping out of school” or “they’re turning into a stoner and will never amount to anything” and all we can think about it making that behavior stop.

Fear can turn a rational parent into a screaming tyrant overnight – trust me. That’s why I teach parents to become more emotionally aware and regulated in Parent Camp. When we don’t understand what’s going on inside ourselves, we have no power to change it.

But let me back up just a minute and tell you about what the research says about parenting styles.

For decades, scientists have studied interactions between parents and kids, looking at parenting tactics used, patterns of behavior between them and the outcomes for the kids.

What emerged from all that research were 4 different parenting styles based both on the amount of control and the amount of warmth exhibited by the parents.

Authoritarian, authoritative, permissive and neglectful. If you look at these styles on an X and Y axis with 4 quadrants, put authoritarian in the top left quadrant with high control but low warmth shown from the parent.

In the top right quadrant is the authoritative parenting style with the high control and high warmth (this is where we’re aiming – this is balanced parenting – more on this in a minute)

The bottom left is the neglectful parent – low control and low warmth (they just aren’t there) and the bottom right is the permissive parent – low control but high warmth (they just want to keep their kid happy). They have few rules or don’t enforce rules and certainly don’t punish.

Back to the authoritative parenting style (which I know sounds way too close to authoritarian and people confuse it all the time). This has been determined by mountains of science to be the best form of parenting – it’s the middle ground – when parents are kind, warm, and supportive but also have rules, firm boundaries, and limits.

Authoritative parents don’t try to force kids to comply by using psychological controls like shaming, guilt, fear tactics, withholding love, attention, or affection; they discuss rules, explain the rationale, listen to their kids’ complaints, opinions and input.

Authoritative parents are not dictators and are concerned as much with their relationship with their kids as they are with their outward behavior. This type of parenting is shown to have the best outcomes for our kids.

 

 

Now, here’s the thing – we don’t usually fall into the same quadrant (parenting style) across the board on all issues. We’ve come a long way over several generations to move out of our authoritarian quadrant.

So, we may be permissive on some issues and more authoritarian on others or more authoritative on most issues…but when fear sets in, we become authoritarian and start controlling.

The goal is to move into the balanced, kind but firm, parenting style across the board.

But let me tell you about another area of research into parent styles based on the way a parent addresses their kid’s emotions.

In recent decades massive amounts of scientific research has shown just how important emotional intelligence is to a person’s overall wellbeing and life satisfaction. Emotional intelligence in a nutshell, is the measure of a person’s ability to understand and articulate their own emotions and regulate those emotions, to understand other people’s emotions and respond to them properly, use emotion to motivate themselves and to navigate social situations and relationships. Some people call these soft skills or social and emotional skills.

And because emotional intelligence is so important to us and to children, the research has also clarified how parents can help kids develop this type of intelligence. Of course, it’s strongly related to how you respond to their emotions.

A researcher named John Gottman observed parent-child interactions for years and determined parents tend to respond to their kids emotions in one of 4 ways.

There are parents who tend to dismiss their kids emotions by ignoring, trivializing or disregarding them (often because they simply don’t know what else to do – probably  because they were never shown by their own parents, or because emotion makes them uncomfortable, or they may have even been taught that emotions are unimportant in the grand scheme of things).

Other parents may even disapprove of their kids emotions, will criticize them for showing emotion of any kind, punish or correct kids for showing negative or unpleasant emotions like anger or frustration or even sadness.

Again, this could be because the parent is uncomfortable or learned growing up that displays or discussions of emotions are a sign of weakness or a waste of time. Or a parent may simply disagree that the child should feel this way – see no reason they should be angry or sad or frustrated.

Then there are parents who accept and acknowledge their kids emotions and empathize with them but then don’t give them any guidance on what to do with those feelings or set limits on how they behave when they’re experiencing those emotions. It could be because they just don't know how to help, don’t know what to say, or don't think they should interfere.

Then there’s the emotion coach parent, who also accepts and acknowledges their kids’ emotions but also understand how to guide them and help them learn to be more aware of what they’re feeling and how to manage those feelings so they’re able to become less dysregulated and gradually learn how to regulate themselves. These parents help their kids understand that it’s okay to feel any way you feel but not always okay to act any way you want to act because of those feelings.

So, just like the authoritative style is the perfect balance of control and warmth, the emotion coach has been shown scientifically, to be the perfect balance attention to emotion and guiding behavior.

In Parent Camp I teach a blend of the authoritative parenting style and the emotion coach with a lot of other methods for emotional awareness and regulation, communication, connection and discipline to round it out.

…………………………..

Let me explain what has been found as far as the outcomes for kids who are parented in a more controlling, obedience-focused matter. Decades of scientific evidence show that being harsh, using fear or tough love with kids and teens is detrimental to them – and it simply doesn’t work the way you’d think.

Over the years researchers have found that harsh punishment and psychological control (shaming, yelling, threatening), is linked to kids having lower social competence (meaning they lack the ability to interact well with other people), they have lower levels of empathy, they’re less resourceful, less helpful, and less popular with teachers and peers.

Other issues caused by this “put the fear of God into them” parenting? Low self-esteem, lower life satisfaction and overall happiness, they’re more likely to become bullies, more likely to develop anxiety, depression symptoms, have poor self-regulation, and poor academic performance.

Research also shows that kids raised by authoritarian parents feel less socially accepted by their peers, are more likely to stop listening to their parents, more likely to engage in delinquent behavior and less likely to confide in their parents.

In 2017, researchers analyzed over 1,400 other published studies and found that when a kid is punished and more controlled, they’re more likely to be defiant, disruptive, throw tantrums, and be emotionally dysregulated—they’re more likely to exhibit bad behavior the harder you try to demand obedience. This is the exact opposite outcome of what we’d expect, right?

You want to know why exerting more control over your teen--demanding and commanding and punishing and threatening, will simply backfire.

I say this often--by the time your kid reaches puberty, the “telling them what to do” is over.

They’re individuating, figuring out how the fit into the world, have a strong, evolutionary-based need to be accepted by their peers, they’re able to think more abstractly and they feel like adults—they feel they know as much as you do (I don’t have to tell you that).

The neurobiological changes they’re going through make them think, feel and act completely differently from how they did as a child. They’re quicker to anger, to get upset or have a meltdown, they’re very focused on being respected by you and others, and they need more control over their lives, to make their own decisions and mistakes, need to be acknowledged as someone with an opinion that counts—they want to be heard and seen and even have a little privacy and trust—they need their autonomy.

So, why would we ever think that going in strong with the “you will do what I say or else” would work with them? Wait – I’ll tell you why—it’s all we know to do! It’s what our parents and grandparents did. It’s what the neighbor told us we needed to do and we’re afraid if we don’t they’ll end up dead in a ditch!!!

But what happens when we threaten their autonomy by taking away their phone when they talk back or ground them for a month when they come home late two nights in a row or yell at them about not doing their homework? They get pissed. They feel unseen and unheard (I’ll bet they’ve even said – “you don’t understand” “you don’t listen to anything I say”). They’re not going to let you tell them what to do. They’ll show you – they’ll just hide it better, lie better, sneak off in the middle of the night.

And the more they do that, the more you’ll decide to punish and control their every move, to which they will respond with more lying and more sneaking around!

It’s a spiral that we don’t mean to start—yet there we are.

This is when I hear parents say, “She doesn’t care about consequences and does what she wants anyway” or “I just don’t know what to do anymore—they don’t listen to a word I say.”

This is the mess I got myself into with my son. Too much fear, too much control, lots of rebellion, lots of mental health problems, nowhere to turn.

And it’s why I do what I do now. I learned. I worked on my emotions and my behavior and I changed my parenting tactics and I turned things around with my son. From rebellious and out of control to compliant and emotionally regulated behavior. From antagonistic and disconnected to a close, loving relationship.

I want to help you get there too. Whether you have typical teenager issues or off the rails teenager issues, what I teach in Parent Camp will help you and your family.

Consider registering for Parent Camp – I hold it twice a year beginning in March and in September. Go to speakingofteens.net/parent-camp to learn more and join me for the next cohort. You can also find the link at the bottom of the show description where you’re listening now.

On that page you’ll find all the information you need including testimonials and an FAQ. I’d love to see you in Parent Camp.

That’s it today for Speaking of Teens. Thank you for being here until the end! Please share this episode with a friend that may need it. I’m sure they’ll appreciate it )as will I!)

Until next time, be sure to connect with your teen in some small way, each and every day.