Ann

When your teenager is acting out, using drugs, drinking, sneaking out, lying, stealing, cutting, hanging out with the wrong crowd – whatever it is - it’s hard to think about anything else. It’s making your life miserable.

You’ve lectured, yelled, doled out consequences, rewards, and punishments, monitored, policed, argued, and maybe even begged.

Their behavior frightens and even infuriates you. You want it to stop. You want them to stop. And you may even ask other people to step in and do something - fix them for you.

Well, hang with me because my guest today is going help you see things in a totally different way.

This is Speaking of Teens, the podcast that helps parents who are struggling to find peace and connection with their teens. My name is Ann Coleman; I’m an attorney turned parent educator and a mom who has been there - and I’m on a mission to help you build a stronger relationship and decrease the conflict with your kid so you can help them grow into the young adult they’re meant to be.

Aaron Huey knows what you want as a parent, but he also knows what you and your teen and the rest of your family needs to make real change. He’s been on the front lines working with teens and families who struggle for over 25 years.

Listen up because if you’re going through a tough time with your teen right now you need to hear this, and if you’re not, you need to hear this so you can avoid it in the future.

We started out talking about how Aaron went from working with teens in martial arts, afterschool programs and weekend retreats to opening a residential treatment center.

 

Aaron

The main thing I learned about the rites of passage and these teen empowerment camps that we were doing that really struck a massive chord of change, not only for me, but for my wife, was realizing that there's a difference between motivation and therapy. See, motivation, the desire to change can happen in an instant, it can happen in a moment, it can happen at a seminar.

But that's not change. Change is what happens over the next 90 days. Change is the new neural pathways being developed. Change is the maintenance of motivation. And so we were doing these rite of passage programs and it was incredible to see the changes because of motivation that would take place in about 90% of the kids, but we would have this 10% failure rate.

And when we really sat back, when my wife and I really sat back and said, why, why are we getting calls from some parents in tears saying, thank you for changing my kid's life. And then phone calls from parents in tears saying, my kid came back from your camp and OD'd. Like there was no gray area. There was no middle ground. It was all, or it was, it was Armageddon or Nirvana.

And so we sat back and we did our own demographic, psychographic work, which we should all be doing before we ever start work. And the kids who were struggling after these incredibly empowering experiences were addicts. They were kids with mental health issues. And we just went, oh, they need therapy. And we had to ask ourselves, are we going to be the motivators? Are we gonna be agents of change? Are we gonna provide a weekend of excitement, adventure and motivation and which is absolutely required a rite of passage or are we going to help families heal trauma and addiction and learn to live with mental health issues, not suffer from them, learn to have a strength based attitude around the cards you're holding in your hand. And that's when we started the sober home model, which ultimately became a residential treatment program.

 

Ann

Oh wow. Okay, so when you first started that, I mean, I can't even imagine all the red tape and everything else that you had to go through to do it. I mean, I can't even imagine. But so what that was what? 09? Was that when you guys started that?

 

Aaron

Yeah, we start we started the sober living home in 09. It was a teen boys sober living home. We were working with Interns from a local university loved the interns had one guy kick in our front door practically saying I'm working for you. When do I start love this guy Aaron? Aaron Schneider is a Brilliant therapist works with the orthodox Jewish community and inner city kids in upstate New York and is just a brilliant we were utterly blessed to have him with us at the beginning because he was he was a true warrior for children.

 

Ann

Yeah, and you know, that's what you have to have is that it are the people who actually do care and aren't just being paid to provide services. You know, that's what you kind of see.

 

Aaron

You know, and I wanna say this to parents who are looking at, you know, their kids in an acute unit, their kids in treatment, their kids in wilderness, their kids going to a partial hospitalization. Look, 99% of everybody who works in this industry on the front lines as a therapist, they're doing it for the right reasons. They're not doing it for money. They don't get paid enough. It's like saying, you know, well, the teacher's in it for the money. No, they're not.

 

Aaron

That's not what teachers do. What teachers do is teach for the love of teaching. That's 99% of the staff. Of course you have bad apples, but find me an environment where there isn't a bad apple. Teah, so yeah, find me a bushel of apples without a bad one and any anywhere. But that's the truth of the industry. People don't have it out for your kids. They have it in for your kids. They really want to help.

 

Ann

I mean, that is so good to know because not, you know, as a parent whose child has been in residential treatment, I did see, you know, a few that I did not, you know, didn't love, but it's hard to know when you're choosing a place, you know, are there places where people really, really wanna be there and really, really wanna help? And what I'm hearing from you is that most of them do really wanna help. So that makes me feel better.

 

Aaron

Yeah, even at these big corporate owned acquisition firm programs, you know, up at the top, they may be in it for the insurance money, but down at the bottom, you most likely have some 20 year old who had a really crappy childhood. And they found that proverbial 12 step, you know, give the gift of hope to those who have none. And that's who's working with your kid. And regardless of what wilderness PHP, IOP.

 

Aaron

residential, there's someone like that working with your kid. And this is a desperate, vulnerable time. This is a life-changing moment, an opportunity that your kid may not take. And it's costing you an arm and a leg. It's already cost you mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, not just financially. And so all the cards are on the table and you don't have your best hitter on the plate right now. Right now they're high, they're traumatized, you're fatigued, exhausted and infuriated. And then yeah, somebody at the treatment facility screws up. They say the wrong thing. They do some make some jackass move. They yeah, they're a bad apple. And it undermines everything. Yeah, undermines it all.

 

Ann

And yeah, and then your kid doesn't want to be there. Yeah, it does. That's the problem. Well, okay, let's talk about this then. I did one episode last year about trying to figure out what level of care your kid needs and going from counseling to maybe a partial hospitalization or an IOP, which there's so few and far between across the country for adolescents. It's just so hard to even find something in a lot of places, you know, in rural areas and that kind of thing. When parents ended up bringing their kid to you, to a residential facility, I mean, what's the decision-making process or what would you tell parents that the decision-making process should be? You know, how do we know we're to that point and that we can't do what we need to do at home?

 

Aaron

This is a phenomenal question that I don't get asked enough. And the answer for our program was very simple. And I'm very proud to say that while we were in operation, again, we closed down two years ago because of the fires in Estes Park. The insurance company moved our property insurance from 20,000 a year to $450,000 a year. It ran us out of business. It was heartbreaking.

 

Aaron

And I still own the property. Like it's now a place where people live. I cannot have children in a residential program. Yeah.

 

Ann

Oh my Lord, a facility. Oh my Lord, that's awful. I hate that for you. And for all the kids that you were helping.

 

Aaron

Yes. Now the work continues and there are programs, treatment facilities that you can find. Question is, as you asked, what level and how do parents know? How do you find out if this is the right one for you? If this is the right one in general? A person in your situation, that happens more often than not. You're told you got to go now. You found a program that takes insurance. You look online, the reviews horrify you.

 

Got to remember a lot of those reviews are left by past graduates who didn't want to be there in the first place. But there is a due diligence to do as parents. Now our high success rate came, we had an 89% success rate. The national average is 23% for adolescent recovery. We had 89% success rate.

 

Ann

Yes, yes. Now, how is that measured? How is that measured of success rate?

 

Aaron

by how a child acts when they go home. The problem with that analytics is that it's usually measured by interviewing the child. We interviewed the parents. We wanted to know from the parents, six months, 18 months, two years, how are things going? So that's how we track. What do the parents say? Because trust me, as a parent, if you don't like your kid's results, you're gonna tell the treatment center. You'll have no problem expressing exactly what you think of these people. So that's how we had that's how we gained our reputation is by how parents responded to the treatment. The second thing is we put parents through their treatment. We didn't just take the kids and say you go do all this really cool stuff. And parents you can come for parent weekend. That doesn't work. And I need to say that again, it doesn't work if you are speaking French at home as a French speaking household and your kid starts to struggle. So you send them to a facility where they are immersed into Spanish. And they live Spanish daily. They do Spanish groups and they do one-on-one Spanish with a Spanish roommate and Spanish teachers. And they come home to a French speaking household. Tell me what language they're gonna speak. And that's the truth of social culture. That's not your family's got a problem. That's everything we've done as a family got us to this point. And so this is our result. If we're going to change, the family changes. The family recovers, not this one kid who's cutting on themselves, running away, stealing your car, hooking up with strangers from the internet, using dope. Yeah, they need to stop. But to what end? What are they going to come home to? And I know that puts the impetus of change on the adults. But let me say that again in a different way. This puts the impetus of change on the adults, not the children. If as parents, and I'm a parent too, if we are going to base our happiness, if our happiness is predicated on our child's behavior, we're screwed. We have to make the change first. We have to initiate the change. We have to facilitate the motivation. We have to hold the discipline of 90 and 90, 90 days of change in a 90 day timeframe to make those permanent changes.

 

Ann

All right, so let me ask you this. When I sent my son off to residential, I had no clue that anything had anything to do with me. I had been...you know, focused on his behavior, his behavior, his behavior. And, you know, we were fighting and we were arguing and I was lecturing and, you know, I was punishing and I was doing all the things. But no one we had been to counselor after counselor and had psychologists and psychiatrists and talked to a million people. Not one single person had ever said, Ms. Coleman, Mr. Coleman, we need to talk about what's going on at home and how are you treating your child?

What are you saying to him? And never, never. So how do we educate parents and when they bring their kid to you and they say, here, fix him, I mean, how did you explain to them that this is not just all them being fixed? This is the family that needs repair. How did you explain it?

 

Aaron

We said we won't work with you if you don't change. We did it, there was no BS, there was no cup caking, there was no beating around the bush. This is a parent program, your child is watching your results, your child is grading you on your phase movements. In the same way we know you're grading your child, expect that. You wanna know when you're gonna trust your child, when your child learns to trust you. You wanna know when your child is gonna change, when they trust that mom and dad have changed, mom or dad have changed and that those changes are going to become permanent changes in the household when they come home. Because that yelling, screaming, crying, consequencing that didn't work, it's still not going to work when they come home. What's going to work, really, what's going to work is parents making a list of everything they wish they had done differently and never do it again, in the same way that we expect the kids to. What's going to work is the parents start eating healthy, getting good sleep, drinking enough water, moving their bodies and start breathing on purpose.

 

Just like the holistic changes we make at programs like this, parents have to do the work. Parents have to do the work. If they don't and the kid changes, now still, the kid is the center of the house. The kid is the identified patient. The kid is the black sheep who, now that they're holding it together, the whole family can finally get some sleep and have a decent meal together. That's not how families work.

 

It can't be predicated. And the moment it all becomes focused on one person's behavior, mom, dads, two year old, here's the key, the strongest nervous system wins. I didn't say healthiest. I said strongest, right? Some of the best athletes who are the strongest runners and the strongest throwers and the strongest shooters have the worst personalities, but they are Super Bowl champions because they have the strongest nervous system in those moments.

Strong nervous system means you're in control of the house. Now when parents call and say, my 14 year old is running the house, how did this happen? It's an easy conversation to say they're going to keep running the household after as well unless you're ready to change.

So there were families we didn't work with. But, and I want to make sure that we answer the question that I know parents are probably still waiting for is which IOP, PHP, OP, residential, wilderness, which one do I choose and how? I'm gonna tell you that the how is more important than the what. How you choose it is more important than what you choose. You see, you revealed the primary problem with the industry and that is you had to make a decision while you were fatigued, furious, and afraid. And our best parenting, when we are fatigued, furious, and afraid is our worst parenting.

 

It's survival parenting. No great decision is going to be made accidentally. Accidental decisions will be made accidentally. Purposeful positions, purposeful decisions are made on purpose. That's what we have to get a parent to. Yes, even if we only have a moment, and this is why calling for support. The truth is, IOP probably got 5% of the attendees sober. Maybe 5%.

 

Ann

Explain what that is real quick, just because a lot of parents, you know, I didn't know all these acronyms when we first started down this road, so.

IOP is intensive outpatient. It's three hours, three days a week. If your child fails at that, they'll go to PHP, partial hospitalization. That's five to eight hours a day, five days a week. If you want insurance to pay for residential, your child needs to fail at both or one of those for the psychiatrist or psychologist at the acute unit or the IOP or PHP to say your child needs residential. Those programs are created for insurance companies to prove that your kid doesn't need more coverage. So it starts as a money making opportunity that is supposed to help children. All of these acute IOP and PHP are supposed to be assessment programs.

 

What we don't want, but what happens more often than not, and you may not be able to avoid this, is the same company to own the IOP, the PHP, and the residential program. But that's a very popular model. If you can imagine that whether the child succeeds or loses as a company, you make money, you're still making money. Off of insurance, and if the insurance doesn't pay, family's pony, and that's it. That's just the way it goes. What about wilderness? Insurance does not cover wilderness.

 

Wilderness is long, very expensive, unbelievably effective to change a child's brain chemistry and really get them out of the environment, out of their comfort zones, which are very chaotic crisis situations, that's their comfort zone. But it gets them out of there, it puts them in an environment that they have to expand and go to a gamma state of brain or flow state where they're truly learning. Therapy has the highest. results in a flow state wilderness is amazing and unbelievably expensive and the moment that you are talking to the intake specialists They're telling you about the 18 months of boarding school. You're gonna have to sign up to for afters, which is stupid expensive and Personally, and I'm not gonna say I'm the expert on this. I've been doing this for 25 years. I Think anything past seven months for an adolescent creates attachment issues. Some kids need it. I think anything after seven months creates attachment issues. We were a four-month minimum program. Our average stay was five and a half months. We hit the seven-month mark with four kids in 15 years. And all of those kids, we were day by day evaluating, is this better for this child and this family? Or is it making it worse? You have to. These are developing psyches.

 

Ann

Yeah, yeah. That therapeutic boarding school, what's your opinion about that? Have you ever worked with or seen a therapeutic boarding school that was truly therapeutic?

 

Aaron

Yes. And I have seen some amazing results.

 

Aaron

I have a I have a client who's now in college, who was one of those video game addicts 18 to 20 hours a day of video games for us asleep, no school started working with me one on one, we got him into a wilderness program, he went to a therapeutic boarding school, loved it changed his life gave him the management tools. After that he chose to go to a college prep boarding school and is now in college doing engineering and had been accepted into the School of Mines in Golden, Colorado, which is a very difficult engineering school to get into. It worked. So again, we're really talking about your child, your family, your finances, and the program you find. Here's my bottom line for how do you know? If you sleep better, you know because there is nothing good that comes from not sleeping. Nothing. So if you make a decision and you sleep better, that was a good decision. I don't care what your decision was, as long as you are not causing bodily injury or threatening somebody's life or wellbeing. I don't care if you take your kid's cell phone and their bed as a consequence, I care how you took it. Did you do it out of spite, anger, fury, fatigue, or because you're afraid?

 

Aaron

Or did you do it from a settled nervous system, empowered, confident, loving? Is this the right thing to do? Did it help you sleep? Because if you're sleeping well, you're going to do better with your kid. If you're doing better with your kid, your kid's going to do better. Does that mean they're going to stop doing drugs on Thursday? Probably not.

 

Ann

Probably not, yeah. Well, the question, what you were saying a while ago about the families have to change, that there's no point really in sending your kid off to learn Spanish, to learn a new way of living, and then come home to the same old family, doing the same old things in the same environment. So what was it, from your experience, what is it that families are doing incorrectly or not as well as they should be, where, because a lot of us still, and I know

 

people listening would have a hard time sometimes believing that they have any role in this. That you know, what did I do? My kids acting out and my kids doing all these horrible things. I didn't make them do that. I didn't. So what is it? How can you explain it to parents? How is it us that is, you know, at least exacerbating the problem?

 

Aaron

So I'm always very careful to get into the therapeutic question of, tell me about your mother, right? Like, that's the source of problems. And there's some rooting into the past that needs must is so relevant that if you ignore, you'll never really fix the problem. So that's a key component. But now let's go back to your question. What are we doing wrong? We are reacting to the results. The results are not the problem.

 

Here's what I mean by that. You get the phone call, you call me, you want me to work with your family in crisis, you want me to work with you as a family crisis coach or help you find a program. And the first thing I get, and I ask for it, I want your vent, what's going on? And I get, my kids have been kicked out of school, they got busted with a bag of pills, they now have a minor in possession charge, they've been self-harming, they've ran away a bunch, they snuck out last night.

 

I went looking for him found him at a party. They were blackout drunk. All of those are results. At some point in the conversation, I'm going to hear, yeah, my son was molested at summer camp, I I'm going to hear my daughter has been sexually assaulted. I'm going to hear they're adopted. I'm going to hear they have ADHD. I'm going to hear they're bipolar. I'm going to hear there was a horrid divorce and they don't see their mother. I'm going to hear something that goes okay, there's the adverse childhood experience, right? The ace. I'm going to hear one of those. Now we're getting closer to the truth. So let's look at it like an iceberg above the waterline up at the very top. The thing we see from far away is the results.

 

Up at the top are the results. The thing you see on the iceberg from farthest away. Underneath the results are actions. The things we did to achieve those results. Underneath that are feelings. You see feelings lead to actions. We act based on how we're feeling. But what creates a feeling? Well, a thought. Thoughts about how life should or shouldn't be creates the feelings that we have. Underneath that are experiences. Why do we think this? Because we've had an experience that fill in the blank. But who created those experiences? Well, that's prime influence. That's prime influence. Is that mom? Is that dad? Yeah. Is it absence of mom or dad? Yeah. But it's also genetics. It's also epigenetics. If great, great grandma lost her husband to a snake bite, great, great grandma raises great grandma to be afraid of snakes who raises grandma to be rated, raises mom and now mom's got a kid and the little kid goes, Mom, look a snake. And mom goes, you're great, great. And it has changed our DNA. That's epigenetics and it actually does change our DNA. So it's in there and that needs to be recognized. So that's the first thing. But what we do is we focus on the results. If only my kid would stop smoking pot and playing video games and get a job. No, those are all results. The question is, why are they still using their crutches? I'll tell you why they work. So I was an addict.

 

 

Aaron

I've been an addict in recovery for 25 years, completely sober 25 years now, I do my sobriety work every single day. I hope people really heard me say that because you don't get away from that. Your son has the opportunity to choose this unbelievable thing he's created or using every day he has that choice, especially in that environment, right?

 

Aaron

It's like being a chef, you go into a kitchen of a restaurant, there's drugs. Like, you know, I'm sorry, folks, if you don't know that surprise, there's drugs back there, the cooks, somebody's doing cocaine back there. So if you work in a restaurant, it's there. So you got to make the choice every single day. I want parents to start thinking about this. When you call, when you finally go to get help, you're talking about the Grand Canyon, the results, the source of it.

 

Aaron

is that frozen mass on top of a mountain somewhere. When the sun comes out, that little drip, starts to carve a path down the mountain. What path? The easiest path to the bottom of the mountain. And every drip that follows that path reinforces the path. And that path turns into a small creek, which turns into a stream, which turns into a river, which turns into...

 

the Grand Canyon and then you put your kid into treatment and hopefully in 28 days, 28 days never works. Hopefully in this amount of time, we can dig an irrigation ditch to the Grand Canyon and divert this energetic flow to somewhere healthy. That's not how it works. You gotta go to the drip. You've gotta go to the very, very top of the mountain and make the changes where the ice is melting. And that's all the way to the source.

 

And moms and dads, we're the source. Our parents were the source. The family luggage that's getting passed down on and on. That's a source. Is it your fault that the kids that the teen is using? No, you've made different choices. But this is their lane. And they've got to make this choice. And if they're going to change your daily choice, show them how. Don't tell them.

 

They've they've known you and your value system for 15, 16, 17, 18 years, you want to know what parents do wrong that exacerbates the issue, we lecture, tell me, parents who are listening, tell me one life change you made, because of some lecture your parents give you, go on, I'll wait, go on, go ahead. But tell me a life change you made or a decision you made based on what your parents did, or did not do. Now we got a list.

 

Ann

Yeah, most of them. Yeah. Well, and you know, in my situation, what I didn't realize, and I've heard you talk about this before, how parents who are afraid, you know, of what their child's future looks like and afraid of what they're doing, and you know, you have all this fear and that it's so much better just to let your child know that, look, I'm afraid and blah, blah. But you know what? I did not know.

 

Aaron

So that's where the change begins. Yeah, that's where it begins.

 

Ann

that it was that fear that was driving my behavior at all. I was completely unaware of my own emotions. And I think a lot of parents are in that same boat. We react and we act out ourselves by punishing and trying to control and do all these things, but we don't even know why until somebody helps us reflect on it or we read a book like I did or whatever. So talk to me about that a little bit.

 

Aaron

Well, we're talking about emotional intelligence, right? There's a commodity and a value to that gets undermined and it's an ever-growing stock that has compound return on your investments. Like, this is a huge thing. I remember sitting with a parent one time, I was like, well, how do you feel? And they go, I feel like I'm being lied to. I'm like, that's not a feeling, that's a thought. And they're like, huh.

 

Aaron

That is a thought. I was like, what does it feel like to be lied to? And they're like, I hate it. It's hate a feeling. I'm sad. And it's like, there you are. And now we can talk about what you're feeling. You're sad. What else are you feeling? I'm scared. Okay, what else are you feeling? Oh, I'm pissed. I'm so sick and tired of this kid's crap. I'm so ready to just, oh my God, what is wrong? Why don't they understand? It's like, okay.

 

Aaron

How are these feelings creating your actions? And that's where it's the light bulb, the one-handed high five, you know, where you slap yourself in your head and you're like, I'm terrified my child is gonna die. Well, that makes sense. Your child is cutting themselves and they've attempted suicide twice. I would be too. Now, let's identify what you do as a parent who's terrified of losing their child. Let's list it. Can you say the decisions that you would, your value system has been compromised?

 

Aaron

You know who else's values are compromised? People who've been traumatized. They compromise their values. So guess what, mom, dad? Your kid's suicide threat attempt has traumatized you. Now they were just looking for attention. Yeah, that's right. Did you give it to them? Did you give them the attention they were looking for, right? It's a cry for help. Great, did you help them? Now listen, I know parents might be listening and being like, F you, dude, I'm doing my best. I agree.

 

Aaron

I don't believe in enabling. I hate that concept. I hate that term. And I don't like that facilities, treatment, and care providers use it. And if anybody's listening and you're one of those, you do it, I'm sorry. But to try to develop a relationship with a family by going down the cul-de-sac of our past parenting decisions and telling me what I did wrong and how it's enabled my child's suicidal behavior, now I hate you too. I don't just hate myself.

 

Aaron

Codependency, enmeshment, these are things no parent is going to openly and willingly embrace. You know what they're going to embrace? This. Everything you did as a parent has gotten your child to this point. Your child's alive and you're looking for treatment. You're worried. Your child's struggling and you're listening to a podcast that's supporting you. You started to go to Al-Anon. That's amazing. Thank God for you.

 

Thank God that you're listening. Thank God that you're doing this work. Thank God that you are. And yeah, thank God you're willing to look past and go, I probably shouldn't have done that. Great, never do it again. Because that's what we want our kids to do. But what are you doing next? You see, I'm someone who's been sexually assaulted. It happened to me when I was 18 years old. My best friend did it to me. He had the same name as my biological father who I never met. There you go, there's my psyche. There's the trickle.

 

Aaron

that I was telling you about, right? That's the bottom of my iceberg right there. Now, that trauma, that experience to look at a parent to look at a child and say, Oh, you manifested that is like telling a girl that they need to check what kind of clothes they're wearing because you know, guys can go jogging without a shirt on but girls know you need to wear a sweatsuit that hides your body otherwise you might write.

 

The truth of the matter is things happen to us. We all have internet and sometimes we get hacked. The dragon shows up to our loving peaceful village and wreaks havoc. So what happened to us? I don't care if you take responsibility for it or not. I don't care. I don't believe it's actually necessary. But if you take responsibility for what happens next and what happens tomorrow, if you take responsibility for your healing, for your willingness and your capability, because those are very different things. But if you take responsibility for right now, for the next five minutes, what does life look like if it's yours again? What if all of a sudden, I'm not gonna give 40 more years of my life to the family member who touched me, or the parent who abandoned me, or the kid at the party who said that thing that I still stay awake at night thinking about, or losing. What if I don't give it another 40 years to it? Then it becomes a story. And the story and the storyteller, those are two different things. I live life as a storyteller, not my story. I hate my story. I regret my story. I was a drug dealer. I sold drugs to kids. I was violent. I caused and was the cause of violence in my community. I abandoned my daughter and my first wife because I wanted to keep using drugs. I hate my story. The moment I took responsibility for what happens next, that wound became my way. That pain became my path. The tears became my trail. The wreckage became my resume. That mess turned me into a messenger. So yeah, when our kids using and abusing and running away, we're terrified of their future.

 

I was told as an ADHD child, oh drugs, you'll never do well in school, relationships are gonna be hard, good luck. And then when I got older, I heard, oh Richard Branson has ADHD, so does Elon Musk, so does, and I'm like, so which is it? Am I destined for greatness or am I set for the poor house prison? Which is it? You know what, it's however you parent your kid.

 

Aaron

If your kids bringing home problems, do you take them and go fix them? Because now you're raising a lazy goalie and that goalie is going to get scored on. And you're going to have to play goalie for your kid to or do you say you got this? I know it doesn't seem like it because I'm so scared that things aren't going the way that are going to work out for you because I have some experience you don't about life. And I can see the results of this type of continued decision making. And I've watched you solve problems, kiddo. Big problems, you got this. You will figure this one out too. Ask me for support. I love you no matter what, but I am not going to pay for your court fines. I am not going to pay for your internet when you're looking at porn. I am not gonna pay for your cell phone bill when you're using the money that I'm putting in and investing in you to buy drugs. I'm out. I'm in recovery. I hope you join.

 

Aaron

But you'll fix this. You got this. You are actually a pretty good problem solver. No, it doesn't work, but welcome to life. It never always works.

 

Ann

Yeah. You know, just reflecting back, you've said so much that resonates with me because those wounds, we don't really even know we have them until someone brings it up to us that we should even be looking for them. I mean, most people walk around with a walking wounded and we don't realize that the things that have happened to us are reflected in our behavior and in our parenting. And it, at least for me, it took just a little bit to make me realize that and to read a little something and then keep researching and keep studying. But for so many parents out there, I think they don't realize that they are wounded, that we all have those things in our background and that we have to recognize those and see how we're passing along these things to our kids and that plays a role in their parenting. I mean, when you work with the parents, do most parents...have that aha moment and then it's just easy going from there and they just see what they've done and they back up and they can change their parenting style or is it really tough to get through to some people and how does that work? In reality, what do you do with parents to help them see how they need to change their behavior?

 

Aaron

Yeah. No great change comes without pain. Carlos Castaneda said that he was told that, you know, Don Juan had told him that no great change comes without pain. That story, we have to we have to ask ourselves if we're going to go into the contemplative parenting process, we have to ask ourselves who are we as parents, if not our story of how we were parented.

 

what we felt when we saw our children for the first time, what we're experiencing as a result emotionally or mentally when we watch our child, this love of our life go through life and death struggle at an age where they are not capable or designed of handling life and death struggles. Who are we if not a story? Well, there is an answer, and finding that out is unbelievably uncomfortable because the story is an...

 

of old sweatpants that we've been wearing for 53 years. I mean, what fits better than a pair of cotton sweatpants that you've been wearing for 12 years? What fits better? And then all of a sudden, this jackass with a bald head and a goatee is telling you, you gotta put on this brand new pair of blue jean Levi's that aren't faded and pre-washed and they're stiff as cardboard. And I gotta walk around in these parenting pants? I don't like this.

 

Aaron

It's not that you don't like it, not yet. Nobody likes that yet. It's uncomfortable. Change is uncomfortable. Permanent change is uncomfortable for a long time. But what are we if we are not our story? And asking parents to do things differently means that the next chapter of the parenting book that they're writing suddenly starts a new story. You know, it's like being introduced to a new character.

 

in the middle of a story, you're learning about so and so for six chapters and then all of a sudden, chapter seven you're like, wait, who am I reading? Only to find out later it's this person grown up. What an amazing experience to say to your kid.

The point is this. If all of a sudden I realize that the great change is going to come from me, one of the processes that we, that I teach is called the damaging admission. Now this is a great technique. Commercials use it, lawyers use it, and politicians who are in trouble use it. So I'll explain it to you like a lawyer. Your honor, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my client has a really checkered past.

 

Aaron

I'm going to show you. I'm going to show you their criminal file. Look at this. This is a thick criminal file. They have robbed people. They one time robbed an old woman at gunpoint. They've stolen cars. They've broken into houses. My child, my client has really struggled with following the law and following rules. But never once have they ever murdered somebody. My client is not guilty of murder, Your Honor, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. My client would never kill.

 

So what I just did is I called out the elephant in the room before I now tried to get you to buy the big story that I'm trying to pass on. To use that in parenting is for me to say, when you were growing up, I yelled at you. And I yelled when I was out of control and I was angry. And it probably seemed like that anger was coming at you. But the truth is I was just angry that life was out of control and I have control issues.

 

And I'm not gonna parent like that anymore. I'm done. I'm going into recovery, I'm working with a coach, I'm seeing a counselor, I'm listening to this podcast, and Ann's telling me all these other things I got. I'm not gonna yell anymore. And if I do, here are my consequences. I will not drive my car to work for two weeks. I'll take the bus, I'll pay for an Uber, but it's gonna cost me. And if I do stop yelling for one year and one day, I'm taking you to Disneyland. We're going together.

 

Aaron

or a camping trip, whatever. But this is where we as parents say, this thing that doesn't work, I'm not doing it anymore. That's our version of looking at a kid and saying, that thing that you're doing doesn't work, stop doing it. Show them how. Show them how it was something that's gonna be hard for you to change. And then write it down, put it on the fridge, and hold to it. Trust me, if you do a list of five or six things, you do as a parent that you're done doing, and you set that promise and context, you're going to get a list from your kid too. I have seen that more than 80% of the time when a parent does a damage admission list, kid follows every time. It's incredible.

 

Ann

Wow, that is brilliant. So, and I've said this before, if you're going to change, you need to let your kid know, you've messed up in the past, you're not gonna do it. So you've just said that, you've messed up, not gonna do it anymore, but taking it that step further to say, these are the exact things I'm not gonna do anymore. And if I do, then my consequence is gonna be ABC. Yeah, I mean, I love it. And if I do stick to it then we're gonna do this. And you better believe that kid's gonna remind you every time you mess up, which is great, because it helps you.

 

Aaron

Yeah. Oh, I had a mom, the kid, the girl came home, I was working with the mom while the girl was in treatment, the girl came home. And mom's that was the yelling thing. And and her consequence was not I'm not driving for two weeks. And her work was a distance. That's a good hour bike ride each time. They got into an argument because you're gonna argue with your kids. Mom raised her voice and daughter goes gotcha. And mom was like, Oh, crap, you did.

High five, you little so and so. You are such a genius. They high five and mom handed her the car keys for two weeks. Mom didn't. She rode her bike. She lost 12 pounds and you can bet on that uphill ride home she thought about yelling at her kid that all of us. This is an adopted kid with reactive attachment disorder, like full tilt drug use on and on.

 

A kid started keeping up their end of the contract when mom started keeping up hers. Behavior contracts don't work. Family behavior contracts work. That's it, there's a difference.

 

Ann

Yeah. Tell me more about that because I've heard you talk about that before. So talk to us about that a little bit.

 

Aaron

Yeah, behavior contracts are a new set of rules and a new set of consequences for your child. Ah, it's not gonna work. They're not gonna,

 

Ann

Yeah, yeah, I did that a lot. Yeah.

 

Aaron

Oh, of course we do it. Of course we do it. But there's no payoff to that. Look, I said this before, and I wanna explain. The reason why getting focused on the trickle at the top of the mountain as the problem and not the results of the problem as the problem, the reason why that works is because we start

 

Aaron

why people do the things they do. All we're doing is reacting to what they're doing. You don't like the politicians currently because of what they do. Why do they do it? That's where your vote goes. Why do they do what they do? Figure out why they make the decision because their decision-making process isn't gonna change. Not for you, who are you, right? Why do they make decisions like that? If you can understand that, then you can affect change because now you're dealing with a trickle not a gorge.

So when we're dealing with a new set of rules and a new set of consequences, we're not addressing why things happen. But if we sit down as parents and say, here's why I yell, not because you make me mad. Oh, great. Give all your child, give your power all the way to the child. You make me mad. You make me sad. You make me happy. No, I am things.

I'm scared. Why are you scared? Well, because my kid sneaks out. That's not why you're scared. You're scared because you believe that this behavior leads to death and you don't see another path where this behavior ends. And that limited sight you possess is terrifying you.

Now, that conversation will land on your child differently because transparency is the new tough love. Tough love doesn't work, transparency works. I'm scared because I don't see another result to what you're doing than the result I see. The result that I saw my older brother have when he killed himself with opioids. The result that grandpa had as an abusive alcoholic. When I see you doing what grandpa does, my trauma tells me how to feel because I don't see another path.

 

Now my fear is not your problem. It's mine. So I'm going to go deal with my problem while you learn how to deal with yours. So I can't deal with both problems at the same time. So good luck with court. I hope they don't put you in jail. Well, I don't know what to do. Not my problem, Mr. Google. Right now, the reason why we're doing this is because we're not going to protect our children.

 

 

Aaron

Your consequences in a behavior contract need to be natural consequences. If you do this, I will take your phone. That's not a natural consequence. That's you taking something from someone that you gave to them. But you paying for their bill, you don't have to do that, especially if they're using the phone to do something that goes against your value system. So we're gonna stop saying, you stop or I'll, we're gonna start saying, I'm willing to pay.

 

Aaron

for your phone as long as you do not use the phone for lying, stealing, sneaking, cheating, or breaking the law. I'm gonna say those again. Lying, stealing, sneaking, cheating, or breaking the law. That covers a very large gamut of behaviors. Now, all we're saying is I'm not willing to pay for that. Now, you can do it. I'm not telling you how you should be. I'm telling me how I'm gonna be. I'm telling you what I'm willing to do, what value system I'm gonna have. Well, you gotta make your own value system.

 

Aaron

The family behavior contract means we're confronting the source. I'm scared, and I'm not willing to live life like a scared parent. So I'm going to start going to yoga. If I miss yoga, because we all want our kids to start exercising, right? Sitting is the new smoking. So if we're going to expect our children to do that, great. How many days are you going to the gym? What happens if you don't? And who's going to hold you accountable? Do you expect a child to hold you accountable?

 

Aaron

Or do you expect a child to watch how adults hold themselves accountable? Cause I'll tell you which one they're going to do. So you've got to set up a family behavior contract where everybody in the family has to make some changes. So the house changes where the behavior that is dysfunctional can no longer survive in a house of recovery, create a house of recovery, not you got to go recover, you're using drugs. We're in recovery.

 

Aaron

Dr. Patch Adams was one of my mentors many years ago. And he said, your grandma doesn't have Alzheimer's. Your family has Alzheimer's, treat the family. That's how families heal, from trauma, addiction, mental health, epigenetics. The legacy ends when the family heals, not when one person stops.

 

Ann

The concept of family change and healing can be difficult for some of us to grasp. It’s far too easy to see your teen’s outward behavior as the problem to be solved because that’s what’s in your face, that’s what’s causing your fear or anger.

So, Aaron says the first step is understanding that your teen’s outward behavior is not the problem – it’s the result of the problem.

The problem is your teen’s ADHD, or their trauma or their life experience, genetics, epigenetics, things that lead to their thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, and then your reaction to those things – your thoughts emotions and behavior.

That is not to say that you should feel guilt or shame or beat yourself up. It simply means you need to recognize it, declare it to your teen, and move forward to make the changes that will both heal them and heal the family.

Aaron now focuses on supporting parents through his podcast, Beyond Risk and Back, his Telly award winning parenting Masterclass of the same name and his parent coaching, public speaking, books and more.

You can find Aaron, and all of his fabulous tools and resources at parentingteensthatstruggle.com  And I have all of his information and links in the show notes, which you can find in the episode description where you’re listening.

That’s it for Speaking of Teens today. I can’t begin to tell you how much I appreciate you being here. I’m constantly thrilled to hear from you about how the podcast has helped you in some way.

And if you do appreciate the show and think someone else would benefit from listening, please share it with them. There’s a little share button in most apps where you can email or text an episode to someone or share it on social media.

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Until next time, remember, a little change goes a long way.