There’s an old Yiddish saying, “To a worm in horseradish, the whole world is horseradish.” Malcom Gladwell made that quote famous in a TED talk he gave a few years back. He used it to illustrate worldview.

People can only experience the world through their own lens – their own everyday experiences, their culture, where they live, where they spend their time and who they spend their time with. The residents of Whoville didn’t know they lived in a tiny spec of dust on a dandelion being carried around by Horton.

They didn’t know what they didn’t know.

The same can be said for all of us. We’re sitting in our horseradish day in and day out not knowing what we don’t know. And for parents of teens and tweens, there’s a lot you may not know. Let’s fix that.

 

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.

 

Obviously, I can’t drag you out of your horseradish all at once – that would be too shocking so I’m just going to give you a few highlights, show you what’s out there, get you thinking beyond the borders of what you’ve known so far about parenting your teenagers.

In no particular order, here are some things that you deserve to know – you have to know to parent your teens well (and I’ll bring you more later). And by the way, all the other episodes I mention and any parenting guides, will be in the show notes – you can find the link in the episode description where you’re listening.

 

Your teens aren’t lazy – They’re sleepy.

And they’re sleepy for a good reason; obviously, they don’t get enough sleep…but that’s really not their fault. I won’t get all into the science but basically, when their brain begins to change during puberty, one of the things that changes is their internal biological clock – they get sleepy around a couple of hours later than they did just before puberty. This means they get sleepy sometime around 11 to midnight – not 9 or 10 pm. This is biology –

but this issue is exacerbated by blue light emitting from their devices. So, if they’re in bed with their phone up until the time they’re supposed to go to sleep, it can be even harder to get sleep. If they have ADHD, anxiety, depression, it can delay sleep even more.

So, they don’t get to sleep until much later than before, but in general, schools are still starting at around the same time. It’s simple math – they get around 2 hours less sleep than they did before puberty. And some schools are trying to help by starting at 8:30, 8:45. But when you’re going to sleep around midnight and getting up between 6 and 7 – maybe 7:30 if you’re lucky, you’re still coming up between 2 and 3 hours short of the 9.25 hours of sleep needed for optimum functioning. So, your teen is chronically sleep deprived.

So, fussing at them about getting up in the morning or going to sleep earlier at night will do no good at all – it’ll actually make things worse. What can you do? Well, listen to episode 58 all about teen sleep and download the ebook, Why Doesn’t My Teen Sleep” for scientifically backed insight and suggestions. There’s a link in the episode description for the page where all the parenting guides and e-books live so you can go to that one link and get all of them.

 

Your Teens are doing the best they can

Scientifically speaking, the research shows that teenagers, in general, are doing the best they can with the brain they have. Their brain is in flux. It’s changing and programming and a bit jumbled as far as rational thought, focus, making good decisions, using self-control – all those things that make us more “adult-like.” Their emotions are a mess, they do stupid things…all because of their brain’s wiring. They’re not doing it on purpose. If they could do better, they would do better. They don’t want to act and feel the way they do – they really don’t. But if they could help it, they would.

So, all this business about, “I know they could do better if they’d just try” – put it out of your mind. Yes, it sometimes seems like they just don’t care and that they’re doing things that make no sense and if they’d just put forth the tiniest bit of effort or think for just a second or use some common sense…well, you’re talking about a fully finished brain now and that’s not what they have. You’re not going to be able to change that fact. You can punish and lecture and bribe and reward but it’s not going to change what they have to work with. They want to please you and they want to do good – but they need help from you – you have to learn how to communicate with them and teach them and guide them and model for them because the external control doesn’t work. Listen to episodes 3, 4, 16 and 30 for related info.

 

Your teens’ brains are on emotional overdrive

Because of the way their brain is changing, teens have an extremely difficult time managing their emotions. They can even be volatile at times. Again, this is their brain and not a conscious decision. They are not trying to manipulate you and they are not doing it on purpose. It’s a really cruel joke of mother nature to make kids so emotional when they’re going through the most stressful time of their lives anyway.

Just understand that when they’re emotional their brain is going a little haywire and the part that helps them make good decisions and use self-control goes offline so it’s no help at all.

This is why, as a parent, you have to learn how to help them through these emotional moments. You can listen to episodes 3 and 4 and 6 for more.

 

Your Teens are stressed as hell

Again, with the horseradish – teens and tweens don’t know a world outside of your home, their school, their friends, and the internet. Their world is pretty small - it’s all they know.

They’ve only been on this earth for 11, 15, 17 years – they’ve not experienced life yet as you’ve experienced it. They’ve never lived alone, may not have been in love yet, may not have had a job, never been responsible for another living human being, never had to pay bills, take care of an entire house, may not have experienced grief.

So, their worldview is much narrower than yours. They cannot possibly be expected to see things the way you see it. But you have a much better chance of seeing things the way they see it. You’ve been a teenager – they’ve never been an adult.

From their point of view, they’re concerned about school and grades (either because of internal motivation or externally, you’re on top of them about it); they’re concerned about whether they’re in or out with certain friends or friend groups, whether their left out or ditched or someone’s mad at them or being mean to them or started a rumor or wants to go out with them or whether they want to go out with someone else; who’d doing what this weekend; they might be concerned about sports, SATs, college or career – all of this is stressful as hell. They know nothing else, so this is their entire world.

Then on top of all of this you add school shooting concerns, climate concern, social unrest, social media, perhaps concerns about their sexuality or gender, a parent’s divorce or feuding post-divorce, financial concerns at home…

they don’t have the adult perspective or emotional regulation to handle these issues in their mind – and they’re stressed beyond stressed.

On top of the stress, they’re getting no sleep. And because of the changes going on in their brain, they’re already more emotional, more prone to risky behavior and even to addictions.

Adolescents of this generation have more on them than we realize or acknowledge. And because of that, we end up adding to their stress, making demands of their time and energy, and pushing them beyond their capacity to endure. Anxiety, depression, cutting, suicidality, substance use, sheer emotional exhaustion…we need to be much more aware of these issues, empathize and do our best not to stress them out even more. You can listen to episodes 2, 6, 19, 27 and 66 to learn more.

 

They need instruction and guidance not punishment and control

Part of parenting a teen is making sure they’re learning the skills they’re going to need when they leave the nest to go out and live in the world. Whether they’re going off to college, the military, a job, or backpacking around Europe for a gap year, they need to be able to manage certain things.

This is the whole goal of parenting – to make sure our kids are safe and healthy and can make it out in the real world when they get there. And we really don’t want them just to “make it”, we want them to be successful in what they choose to do. And while they’re still at home with us, some of us want them to do what we say do because, we figure, this is the best way to teach them how to be an adult.

Let’s break this down briefly: a) demanding obedience from kids or teens is not going to teach them how to be an adult – at least not an independent, thinking, operational and successful adult. Obedience is for dogs. Let me say that another way – if you’re teaching your kids to do what you say without question, you’re teaching them to lie down and be a doormat – an unthinking doormat. “Talking back” is not a bad thing. “Talking back” is how they learn to take care of themselves and their needs, to stand up for others, to question the status quo, to demand justice. Talking back should be encouraged. For more on that listen to ep 38

1. b) if the goal is to keep them safe and healthy and teach them how to be an adult, then punishment is a poor way to do that. When they make a poor choice and skip school one day for example, and you take their phone away for a week, how are you teaching them that it’s not a good idea to skip school? What lesson have they learned here? That you have the power to take away their phone. That’s it. And what does that do? It infuriates them.

Now they’re angry, they’re pissed off at you and they’ve been taught nothing about why they shouldn’t skip school. What happens next? They might just skip school again to show you that you’re not going to control what they do – take their damn phone but they can still do what they want.

What if, instead, you asked them about skipping school and found out that they were doing it because they didn’t want to take a test and they didn’t want to take the test because they forgot to study. Now you have something you can work with – let’s figure out how you can keep up with upcoming tests so you don’t panic like this and skip school again. Holy cow – no punishment? Are you kidding? No consequences? Oh my God, I can’t let them “get away” with that!

Well, you talk about it this time and agree on what the consequences should be if it happens again. But you’ve put guardrails in place to try and prevent that from happening because you got to the root of the problem, you’re trying to help them, rather than just “showing them who’s boss.” For more you can listen to episodes 15, 16, 22, and 39 Bonus episode 8-11-23

 

They want to be treated with respect

I tried to tell a friend of mine a couple of years ago that her son just wanted to be listened to and be given the same respect she wanted him to give her. She bit my head off. She didn’t hear me out – please hear me out.

Teens feel like adults – it floors them that you consider them anything less. They feel they should be treated as an adult, talked to as an adult and shown the same respect you would another adult.

In other words, stop teasing them about sensitive topics like girlfriends and boyfriends, about getting a parking ticket in a clearly marked no-parking zone, about losing their sunglasses off the top of their car – they’re even more sensitive about being teased than adults are.

Don’t ask them to perform in front of an audience unless you discuss it with them first “honey, play that song for Grandpa on the piano.”

Don’t tell them to give great Aunt Joan a hug – Ewww and body autonomy. Only they should decide who they touch or hug.

Listen to them when they’re talking – I mean really listen. No phones, no doing the dishes or working on the computer. Stop whatever you’re doing, look at them and listen fully, don’t interrupt, make sure you understand, make sure they know you understand.

Don’t give advice or solve their problems for them. If they ask – fine. Otherwise, keep your trap shut. They have to learn to solve their own problems and when you tell them how to do it, you rob them of growth, and you show them you don’t think they’re capable. You can ask questions, help them figure out what to do but don’t push your own agenda on them.

Don’t talk down to them, as if they’re a child. Don’t adult-splain. If they don’t understand something they’ll ask or they’ll make it clear they don’t understand. Then you can ask if they’d like help or want to understand better. Assuming they don’t understand things (even when in fact they don’t) will make them angry – and no, you don’t want angry, you really don’t.

Join them in the conversation – make them a part of the decision-making process in the family. They deserve to know about potential job changes that may require a move. They deserve to have their opinions heard on the record and taken seriously. Especially if it has any impact on their life. This shouldn’t be an afterthought. Make sure they know their opinion counts, they have a vote, even if they can’t always get what they want.

Ask for their opinion on smaller issues. Buying a used car? What do they think? Need to look for new health insurance? Explain how that works and enlist their help (even if you don’t need it)

Show them you value them as a fellow human, not just the child you’ve been raising. Episode 15, 26 and 28

 

That’s it for Speaking of Teens today. Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoy the show, I would really, really appreciate if you’d help spread the word and let other parents know it’s helpful. I really want to help as many parents as possible. If you appreciate it, your friends will too. And thank you SO much if you’re already doing this!

You can join us in the Speaking of Teens Facebook Group too - the link is right there at the very bottom of the show description in your app. And hey – I’m back on Instagram at @speakingofteenspodcast

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