Has your teen or tween ever said: “You don’t get it” or “You never listen to me”? Have you ever lost your cool with them over something, or issued a huge consequence that you later regretted? Yeah? Well, welcome to the club AND let me help you weasel your way out.

Today I’m continuing the series I started on Tuesdays in episode 151…and it looks like there are going to be at least 4 episodes rather than 3 (I do love to talk)! Don’t go anywhere – this is good stuff.

PODCAST INTRO

If you haven’t listened to the first two episodes in this series, go back now and listen to episodes 151 and 153 and then come back to me here because I want you to understand the general premise here – that our behavior matters.

Today, I’m talking about 3 more things that we parents tend to do that make our teen’s behavior so much worse: 1) we really don’t listen to them, 2) we aren’t able to manage our own emotions, and 3) we tend to issue rules and consequences without any discussion whatsoever.

Let’s start with a discussion about our listening skills. We tend to think of listening in terms of our teens listening to us (and usually complain that they just don’t). But listening and communication is a bit like respect – you have to give it to get it. And here, you have to listen if you want to be listened to!

As parents (and just generally as humans) many of us tend to believe that the most important element in communicating with someone is to get our own thoughts or point of view across to the other person.

Think for a minute about the people you consider really wonderful to talk to. Why do you enjoy talking with them? Is it because they have such great stories to tell, advice to give, explain themselves articulately? No? No. It’s because they make you feel special by paying attention to what you’re saying to them isn’t it?

The person that sits quietly and listens to your complaints or problems and then validates how you feel and perhaps asks if you’d like their advice. Wouldn’t you rather talk to those friends than the ones who interrupt you with their own stories of when something similar happened to them? Or friends who tell you that you’re overreacting or who jump in and give you advice before you’ve even explained it all (or asked for their advice)?

Several years back I read the classic best-seller by Dale Carnagie, How to Win Friends and Influence People”. This book could literally be adapted into a parenting book and at the time, we were still in the middle of trying to figure out our son and how to talk to him and so I attempted some of the skills he talks about in the book  (but gave up to soon as I wasn’t convinced).

But one day I’m going to do an episode on how each of his tips relate to parenting. The one that relates here is “Encourage the Other Person to Speak”. He talks about showing a true interest in what someone is saying, asking sincere, genuine, and non-threatening questions. And generally, this is a business book, so he talks about how people relax and feel comfortable around someone who shows such a deep interest in them and how much more interesting they end up feeling you are, when they’re talking about themselves.

The same can be true for any relationship, from dating to friendships and even to parenting.

We all have a deep need to be listened to and feel that the other person is interested in what we’re saying. It even makes us feel the other person is the interesting one!

And in no relationship is this truer than a parent and teen dynamic.

I introduced the concept of relatedness way back in episode 15. Researchers talk about how kids, as they become adolescents, they pull away from us physically and want more time with friends. But if they have a secure attachment with you, they can do this and not have stress over leaving you in the dust…which is great because it’s age-appropriate to begin separating physically.

And part of having that secure attachment is relatedness, which simply means that the two of you can have a conversation when there’s a disagreement, without them feeling the relationship with you is threatened.

That they feel free to state their opinion, share any sort of information with you, share their point of view, how they feel about things, without being worried that you’ll cut them off, or freak out or punish, judge, or shame them.

They have to feel you are the safest person in the world to share things with. If they don’t – well, I think you know, they’re not going to tell you anything and they’ll actively try to keep things from you. That safety allows them to remain in your sphere – to actually seek out your advice, listen to what you have to offer.

So, listening to them in a safe and respectful way is one of the most important pieces of the relationship with your teen…and it’s also what keeps you connected in such a way that allows you to be influential in their life. Otherwise, they’re not going to listen to a word you say.

Listening to them means focusing on what they’re saying, and you can’t do that when you’re talking yourself. You can’t do that when you’re looking at your phone or watching TV or cooking dinner…so put everything aside when your teen is talking about whatever it is…whether they’re upset about something or just want to share a funny meme.

Listening is also about putting aside the urge to scold and punish and otherwise jump in to give your opinion until the time is right. Listen first – everything else comes later.

Show your teen you want to understand them. Show them their opinion counts, that you want to understand their side of things, even when everything appears pretty cut and dried. Show them you’re giving them the benefit of the doubt if you think they’ve done something wrong. Let them know you respect their opinion if they disagree with yours, let them know their feelings about something matter to you, let them know you don’t think you know more than they do (yes, I know, you really do, but that’s not the point here).

Ask yourself what’s more important to you; being right and having the last word, making sure they understand what you’re telling them, which more often than not is going to end in an argument or yelling match and make it even harder to communicate the next time. Or would you rather gain their trust, so they’ll want to actually hear what you say and be more likely to behave the way you’d want them to?

The difference in those two outcomes is whether you make listening and understanding them, a priority.

The more you fight for your point of view to be accepted by them, the less likely that is to happen. Make listening and understanding your kid, a priority.

And this is a critical topic in the new Parent Camp experience launching in late August. Listening is a big part of the communication skills I teach in Section 3. If you want to understand on a deeper level what I’m talking about here then Parent Camp – the course and the weekly group sessions – that’s where you’re going to really be able to learn what to do.

So, this leads me right into the next way we parents cause our teens’ behavior to be worse; we can’t control our own emotions.

You know this is a big one, right? Do you have an issue with this yourself? No? That’s fantastic…so, I assume, you have no problem listening and considering your teen’s feelings and point of view without a conflict, anytime you feel they’ve done something wrong, have not done something they’re supposed to do, they’re upset about something or they’re pleading their case to go to an unsupervised party at the beach at 11 pm.

If you can’t listen under these and other circumstances, I’m afraid it’s likely because you can’t regulate your emotions.

What I mean is a) you don’t understand why you get so angry or worried or nervous or annoyed about things your teen does or doesn’t do and b) you don’t understand how to manage how you feel in the moment and c) you don’t know how to keep yourself from blowing up at your teen or from asking them a million questions or from scolding them or reminding them to do something a thousand times, without listening to what they have to say about it, and considering what they think and how they feel.

Listening and trying to understand your teen and validating their feelings will feel like a total impossibility until you get a handle on your own emotions. It’s so hard to parent with any sort of calm and confidence when you have all these thoughts and feelings rolling around in your own brain and body that you cannot understand, which cause the unpleasant behavior that you just can’t seem to manage.

And I know very well how hard it is to become more emotionally aware and regulated. I went my whole adult life without ever thinking about how I specifically felt about anything. I just knew I either felt weird or off or bad or good – that was about the extent of it.

And you know what that lack of emotional awareness did for me? It meant that I was always stressed or anxious about something, which meant I was always acting mean and irritable and angry and annoyed. That’s the bad thing about feelings – most of the unpleasant emotions tend to look the same on the outside – like anger.

Not knowing why, you feel so bad is a horrible predicament. It’s confusing and provokes even more anxiety, which leads to more unhelpful and conflict-producing behavior.

Learning how to stop and think about your own thoughts, examine what’s going on around you and in your own mind, being present in the moment and understanding what’s in your control and not in your control, has a profound impact on how you feel and how you show up in your everyday life, including for your teens.

And listen, it’s absolutely understandable if you don’t know or get how to do any of this. Lord knows most of us didn’t grow up with emotionally intelligent parents who taught us how to be emotionally regulated. As a matter of fact, most of us grew up with extremely un-emotionally intelligent parents who stifled their emotions and dismissed ours or made us feel bad for having them. Which is exactly the kind of thing we end up doing to our own kids until we understand how to change.

If you want to stop this cycle of generation after generation of raising kids who become emotionally dysregulated parents for their kids, then make it happen. It can actually be done without years and years of therapy – I’m living proof of that.

But of course, it varies from person to person - you may also benefit from counseling, or family therapy or even couples therapy.

I can certainly help you get a major head start even if you do end up also going to therapy. For example, in the Parent Camp course and sessions, I talk about the ways our brain takes shortcuts and causes us to think about things (including our kids and their behavior) in a way that then causes us to feel about them and parent them in ways that are completely unproductive. You learn different ways to understand and manage your emotions so you can parent with more intention, which then helps your teen improve their own behavior. It’s a wonderful gift that can literally change the outcome for parents and kids for generations into the future.

One last thing I want to address today is our tendency to set all the rules and jump in to give consequences without any discussion with our kids. This is a major point of contention for so many families. You make all the decisions unilaterally. You’re the boss. You’re the unquestionable authority on all things regarding your teens’ lives. And they don’t like that “attitude you got there”.

As a matter of fact, they feel pretty darn capable of making their own decisions about what they can do. They’ve felt this way for a while now. And if you’ve been denying them their autonomy – their chance to make some of their own decisions and make their own mistakes – then it’s no wonder there’s a bit of conflict in your house.

Parenting teens is a joint effort (between you and your teen). It’s no longer an autocracy – you are no longer the supreme leader. You lost that title (whether you realized it or not) as soon as they hit puberty.

You can’t parent teens like you parent kids – it’s that simple. It will backfire every single time. You have to acknowledge an adolescent’s steadily increasing need for and right to autonomy. If you continue to make all the decisions about their life – including all the rules and even often, the consequences for breaking those rules, you’re in for a fight.

And it’s actually not that difficult to have brief and respectful conversations with them in advance and generally not even that hard to come to an agreement about some pretty big issues.

When teens feel they’re being respected and listened to and you’re calm and collected about it all, you’d be surprised what you can work out. Do you have to become an expert negotiator – well, no - maybe just an intermediate level negotiator. But you do have to be willing to take more time parenting - listen, have the conversations and be willing to be reasonable, flexible, and empathetic as well as firm and consistent.

If you refuse to see you and your teen as partners in their moving into adulthood and you neglect to give your teen more responsibility, more freedom, and the ability to make more of their own decisions, these years are going to take their toll on the whole family.

Your relationship will suffer, and their behavior will disintegrate before your eyes. And when that begins to happen, and you double down on your insistence that they “do what you say”, you’ll end up in a vortex of bad behavior, conflict, and punishment…which is much more difficult than simply supporting their autonomy to begin with.

So, stop saying “you can’t do this or that” and stop saying “no” – give them a chance to express themselves and why they believe they should be allowed to do something or shouldn’t have to do something. Listen and validate their feelings about it. Try and stay positive about their need to push for what they believe in – it’s great practice for being a self-sufficient adult who can advocate for themselves. Relish that they have this in them – it’s a great skill. Now, you do the same – advocate for what you believe. What concerns you about what they want? Tell them – be honest. Ask them to brainstorm with you to see if there’s a way to meet in the middle or find a win-win. Neither of you will walk away fully thrilled but simply satisfied for the time being. If you can’t budge, let them know you may be able to revisit the issue at a future date – tell them when if you can. Teens need to know that they have some power in this dynamic – don’t make them feel completely powerless.

If they feel there’s no hope for them to get just a nugget of what they want or need – why comply with anything? They might as well just do what they want – that will become their attitude. So dig deep.

If you’re one of my OG listeners you’ve probably heard me quote Dr. Laurence Steinberg before – He’s a world-renowned expert in adolescent neuropsychology and he says if it’s not dangerous, unhealthy, unethical, illegal or likely to close some door better left open, your teen should be able to make the decision, do the thing or not be rescued from it.

In other words, if your teen wants to do something, ask yourself if it fits into one of those categories, and if not, they should really be allowed to do it. If it doesn’t fit into one of those categories, you really shouldn’t have a rule about it. And if it doesn’t fit into one of those categories, you shouldn’t jump in and save them from the natural consequence that’s occurred due to their behavior.

For example, if your 14-year-old daughter is begging to go to a concert 50 miles with 3 other teen girls, one of them being the 18-year-old sister of her bff (the driver, of course) ask yourself, is this or could this be dangerous, unhealthy, unethical, illegal or likely to close some door better left open? Of course, it could. That means you have jurisdiction or the last word on this issue. But that doesn’t mean you just say “no”. Remember, the point is to listen, validate how they feel about this (they feel like they’ll die if they don’t go!)

Ask yourself if there’s a circumstance under which you might allow her to go to the concert. What if a parent drove instead? Can you say something – anything – that would be positive or give her hope that she could do something in the future like this – say by the time she’s a certain age or if the concert is closer? But of course, after discussing it, if there’s no way to work out a compromise and it falls into one of these categories, you just have to feel okay about giving your reasoning and staying firm (but kind).

Now, believe it or not, consequences should also be discussed when possible. And we’ll talk more about consequences in the 4^th and final episode of this series next Tuesday (I decided we need 4 episodes rather than 3).

First, I really want you to understand that not all mistakes that teens make, require consequences – that’s one of the biggest mistakes we make about it. But the other mistake is that we jump in when we’re angry and issue consequences without any thought and without ever discussing anything with our kid.

And I get it – when your emotionally dysregulated, it’s of course, really easy to just start shouting out orders like “hand me that phone” or “your grounded for the whole summer”.

Ideally, when your teen has made a mistake, done something wrong, you’ll be able to pause long enough to discuss the issue, calm down, listen to them, validate their feelings and come to an understanding about what will happen next.

If that’s consequences, then it should also be discussed and possibly even negotiated. Ideally, if this same thing has happened before and you’ve worked with them to remedy the issue, but they haven’t quit figured it out yet and did it again, you will have already talked about what the consequences will now be.

Whenever the discussion takes place, the point is to tell them why you think logical consequences are in order, listen to what they have to say about it and then brainstorm together to come up with those consequences. It’s a conversation, not a unilateral decision that you make on your own.

But of course, if you can’t agree, you still have the final say. Just remember that you have to always be respectful and show them they can trust you to do the right thing.

So, just to recap, I’ve talked about 3 more things that we do as parents that will absolutely make our teens’ behavior worse: 1) we don’t really listen to them, 2) we can’t control our own emotions and 3) we issue rules and consequences unilaterally.

Learning how to course correct is invaluable to the relationship with your teen, and it will turn everything around in your home, including their behavior. You can do it – check out the link in the show description in your app to learn all about Parent Camp and get your name on that waitlist for early registration – we start the first week of September.

Alright, that’s it for speaking of teens today. I really appreciate you being here with me today. If you love the show, please share it with a friend because sharing really is caring in this case!

And remember, until next time, a little change goes a long way.