When I was a brand-new mom, in the throes of trying to figure out how to ward off diaper rash, worried about that black stump hanging from his belly button and wondering if I’d ever be able to relax again, I had support from every single mom in my social circle.

Other moms brought dinner and treats and gifts, ran to the store for me, offered to come stay with the baby while I slept and gave me so much good advice…it was overwhelming really.

Moms everywhere unite over new babies, their new baby smell (which is really just a mixture of baby wash, spit up and urine-soaked diapers if we’re honest.)

We talk about the universal issues of sleepless nights, sore nipples, C-section scars, tummy time and solid foods.

But that comradery and support - those understanding nods and sisterly smiles – they seem to evaporate by middle school. Why don’t we validate and support each other more during adolescence in real life? Why do we clam up and act like everything’s fine? I don’t know – should we be spilling our guts to each other about our adolescent kids?

 

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.

You’re not going to see an Instagram reel when a friend finds a weed pen in their teen’s bedroom or a Facebook post when their kid just cursed at them for refusing to let them go to a party. Most of the time our friends don’t tell us when they’re having issues with their teens.

If you’re struggling with your teen, you feel like you’re alone in the world and that everyone else has the perfect family – I mean because look at their Facebook for God’s sake.

When we were going through all the issues with our son, I’ve never felt so lonely and desperate.

Lord knows, if any of my friends or social circle were going through things or had gone through things with their teens, they weren’t talking about it. I did have one friend that I shared a good bit with, she couldn’t really relate but I didn’t feel like she was judging me at least, and she did know of another mom who had been through similar issues with her son. But that woman didn’t want me to know who she was. She was only willing to talk to me anonymously.

What’s going on here? Why are we so willing to talk about our babies being colicky and screaming all hours, not sleeping or eating irregularly, even missing milestones…but we do not want anyone to know that our 16-year-old came home high the other night or that we found nude pictures of our 14-year-old on their phone.

I recently read an article in the Guadian where the writer mentions this phenomenon – troublesome babies? Fair game for discussion. Troublesome teens? A big no. She points out that all of our teens (just like all of our babies) are going through the same neurobiological changes and that the trouble they get into and the way they act is normal and common place – but that parents are simply not willing to acknowledge what’s going on to other parents.

As the writer states, society celebrates babies and babyhood – the bad as well as the good. But society doesn’t have such a warm spot for foul-mouthed, vaping, sex-having, teenagers. There’s a social stigma attached to struggling teenagers that isn’t attached to screaming babies.

And I think the writer made a very keen observation here about our collective attitude: Babies just happen. They come out of the womb this way – they are the way they are because God, or Mother Nature made them this way.

Teenagers, society would say, are made. The assumption is, we’ve been in charge (as their parents) for years now, so we must have made them this way.

And it’s not just non-parents or parents of kids young kids who can feel this way - it’s the parents of teenagers themselves. We feel it’s our fault – we did this. We couldn’t do this one thing right. We’re ashamed of ourselves – how did we screw this parenting thing up.

So, it’s no wonder we don’t want to acknowledge we’re struggling with our teenager to our friends – it’s no wonder we close rank and keep it to ourselves most of the time.

And it’s not just because of our shame or embarrassment that this happened when we were doing our very best to parent our kid, right? No one else is talking about having a hard time with their teenager. I mean who wants to be the first in your friend group to say, my kid’s being a real shit at home and I’m afraid she’s going to be arrested any day for driving around with weed in the car.

And you’re especially not going to make an admission like this if you think everyone else is getting along great with their kid and is having zero issues.

And everyone else is thinking the same thing! They’re not going to say anything because they think you’re having no issues with your kid because you’re not saying anything!

So, we have that feeling of shame…but we also fear the judgment of other parents.

We’re afraid they’ll judge us and our kid. And we’re afraid they may tell someone else – especially if it’s their kids who might spread the info around school or talk to your kid about it,

And I can’t honestly tell you – No, it’s fine – go out there and talk about all the issues – other parents will understand you and support you, no one will think bad of your teenager. It’s simply not true – everyone is not supportive, not understanding and they may even jump right in there and tell you what they think you’re doing wrong and what you should do instead.

You know why? Because parents are great at denial - until it happens to our kid, our family, we don’t think it will or that it ever could. Even if we’re having the occasional knock-down-drag-out fight with our teenager or we’ve caught them vaping weed a couple of times, we still have a tendency to judge other teenagers or parents or both – this one was expelled for having nude pictures on their phone or that one was arrested for simple possession or they got in trouble at school for trying to cheat on a test… “well, at least my kid’s not like that kid”

Well, let me be the one to break it to you: Good for you, if your kid’s not giving you too much trouble - but that absolutely doesn’t mean those who are having trouble are worse parents or did something wrong or that their kids are “bad.”

And just because you’re having trouble with your kid, or your kid is struggling or getting in trouble – it doesn’t mean you’ve done something wrong or that your kid is bad.

Teenagers are not only a product of parenting. Teenagers’ behaviors are a result of neurobiology, genetics, environment, culture, temperament, and parenting. And you don’t have any control over most of that. It’s a bit of a lottery really.

You can’t change that your kid is neurodivergent or super sensitive or has had a difficult time with your divorce or experienced a trauma as a child or has an intense personality or that you have alcoholism in your family, or they’ve had a bad experience at school…and you can’t help that the rational part of their brain is not fully online yet, but other parts of their brain are steering them towards emotional and risky behaviors

And every other parent is in the same boat as you, paddling down shit river together trying to avoid hitting the rocks.

But of course, you play a role in their behavior: you can make things worse, and you can make things better.

But the thing is (and this is no fault of any parent) – we have various levels of awareness of our role in our teen’s behavior.

And it’s simply not a parent’s fault that they don’t know what to do or how to adjust their parenting when a kid becomes an adolescent and starts pushing back and looking for more autonomy. We’re all just doing the best we can based on what we know.

We can’t fault ourselves or anyone else for not knowing. It’s certainly not like they teach this stuff in school!

We thought we knew. Everyone thinks they can figure out parenting. How hard can it be? People have been doing it for quite a while now.

And because of that same argument, we can’t fault other parents for not knowing either.

We need to give ourselves grace and accept that we’re now doing what we can do to learn more and be as good as we can be at parenting our teens.

And we can be understanding and empathetic towards other parents and teens who are going through what we’re going through or worse.

We can stop assuming that everyone else is either a better parent or a worse parent and realize that so much of this is a crap shoot.

We can share what we’ve learned, we can do something kind for a parent if we have seen outward signs of struggle because they’re obviously going through a hard time with their teen.

We can reach out and say, I’m going through some stuff too and I know there’s hope and I know not all of this is our fault. I know we can learn to help our kids do better. Pass along this podcast to them – that would be the best thing you could do for another parent who could be struggling. And if you tell them you’ve been listening, they’ll feel a kinship with you and they’ll feel your support and they won’t feel so alone and desperate. That’s what I want to do and I need your help to reach as many parents as possible to let them know they’re not alone in this. We are with them.

That’s it for Speaking of Teens today. Thank you for popping in to listen, if you’re new to the show I hope you’ll be back. We drop episodes every Tuesday and Friday.

We have a Speaking of Teens Facebook Group - the link is right there at the very bottom of the show description in your app, where you’ll also find links for both Facebook and Instagram – please come connect with us.

And I’ve been forgetting to give a big shout out to my husband, Steve Coleman, for producing and editing this podcast – it’s not easy when I give him a raw file late on the day before the podcast is supposed to drop! And he makes me smoothies and runs my errands and cooks my dinner…he spoils me so I can do this – for you.

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