We all make mistakes when parenting our teens, that cause disconnection between us, which ultimately means we have less influence in their lives and their behavior can spin out of control.

And I’m going to tell you about 5 mistakes that will do just the opposite (and I made them all).

First, one of the biggest mistakes we make is not understanding why our teens think, feel, and act the way they do. This isn’t our fault—it’s not like someone gathers us up before they enter middle school and says “hey, let me tell you a secret—all hell’s about to break loose in your kid’s brain and here’s why”. But they certainly should!

So, what happens is, when they exhibit typical adolescent behaviors—which are way different than when they were just kids, 1 we panic a little bit, or we get angry and think “oh hell no this isn’t happening”—either way we overreact, which starts a cycle of control and rebellion. Let me explain.

We get to this stage of parenthood and start thinking we’ve got it made—they can be responsible now, understand things, have adult-like conversations, make their own sandwiches…yay, they’re all grown up.

Then BAM, they do something idiotic, reckless, or risky…or they treat us with disrespect, throw temper tantrums or say things that seem out of left field and we think, “what’s wrong with them?” “this is not like them” “there’s something off here” “I’ve got to stop this behavior right now.”

But here’s the problem—our expectations and ideas about how they should be able to act by now, are simply wrong and we don’t realize it. They’re just acting like a teenager whose brain is still a work in progress. 2 But when we see them act so grown up sometimes and see what they can do when they put their mind to it…they even look grown up and they understand a lot of grown up stuff so we forget that they’re actually a long way from being a grown up.

As a matter of fact, their brain won’t be fully “adultified” until they’re in their mid to late 20s.

Their brain simply cannot and does not do what your brain can do.

So, when you assume that they could treat you with empathy and kindness, remember your birthday, or even remember what to do at a certain time of day, or hang their damn wet towel up, you’re just making your life and theirs, more stressful. When you expect more than they can actually do, it creates conflict—causes arguments.

Parts of their brain are extremely sensitive right now which causes big explosive emotions—sometimes for no good reason that we can see. It makes them really nervous about things that make no sense to us. 3 It causes them to take risks and do things that we’d never imagine they’d do—especially when they’re with their friends because it makes them completely obsessed with fitting in and being accepted by their peers.

Worse still, the part of the brain that manages executive functions is undergoing major construction which makes it weak and not very good at its job of making good decisions, use self-control, regulating emotions, planning ahead, and staying focused. Their brain’s not even good at making them sleepy at a decent time anymore.

So, when we don’t understand why they act the way they do, and that they cannot do any better than they’re doing, 4 it drives us bonkers, baffles us, and frankly pisses us off and disappoints us (and may even make us feel like we’ve screwed up somehow).

You might even assume they’re lazy, entitled, narcissistic, materialistic, uncaring, or egotistical. You may not say these things out loud, you may not even recognize you’re thinking them, but it will start affecting how you treat your kid because it will affect how you feel when you hear that smart Alec comment coming out of their mouth or see the dirty dishes piled up on their night stand, or hear them whine about the off-brand shirt they have to wear.

Understanding how their brain works can help you be more empathetic, which can help you manage your own feelings about them and therefore, respond to them more appropriately. Otherwise, you’re just reacting on pure emotion, which usually means coming down really hard on them, which leads to conflict and rebellion, which leads you to try and control them even more….you end up in a death spiral with them.

5 If you want to learn more about how their changing brain affects their thoughts, emotions, and behavior, you can grab my Free guide, The Challenging Adolescent Brain which I’ll link to in the comments below.

Something else we do all too often that causes so much conflict and disconnection with our teens, is that we invalidate or fail to acknowledge their feelings. And boy did I make this mistake.

6 As I just said, teens are very emotional because of the changes going on in their brain (and if they have ADHD or other developmental or mental health disorders or use substances, their emotions are even more off the rails).

The part of their brain that controls the fight or flight response (the amygdala) is super sensitive. Fight or flight is the automatic response our brain has when we’re physically threatened in some way…like we nearly step on a snake or a car swerves into our lane. We automatically react, without thinking, to either avoid the threat (we take flight) or we fight (we stay and deal with it).

And because we live in a modern society where there aren’t physical threats around every corner, but our brain hasn’t evolved to realize that, we all react to what our brain perceives as any sort of threat…like maybe a deadline at work, the boss calling you into her office, getting a phone call from your kid’s school.

7And your teen’s amygdala, because it’s so sensitive to perceived threats, will make mistakes all the time and cause the fight or flight response over nothing. That’s why they get angry at you when you ask a simple question or smart off when you’re just minding your own business. It’s their brain. They aren’t doing it on purpose.

But when we don’t understand why they’re feeling or acting the way they are, we often just want it to stop or we want them to feel okay. Their emotional reactions make us uncomfortable in some way—anxious, frustrated, angry, sad.

And that’s when we screw up. We say or do things based on our own emotions without taking theirs into consideration.

8You might say something like, “this is not that big of a deal”, “please stop”,  “everyone does like you”, “I thought you wanted to break up with them anyway”, “I’m sure coach Smith didn’t mean it that way”, or “why don’t you just tell them you’re sorry”. Saying anything like this shows your teen that you have no faith in them to understand their feelings…you just don’t get it.

Whatever the reason for their unpleasant emotions (even if it’s something you’ve said or done) you need to take the time to listen to them and acknowledge how they feel—let them know you understand what they’re feeling. It doesn’t mean you agree with what they’re saying, or condone how they’re acting about it. It’s simply an acknowledgment.

So, you might say something like, 9 “I know you’re disappointed, it sucks not to hit a goal you’ve worked so hard for”. Or, if you don’t think they’d respond well to hearing that right now, you could simply give them a hug, take their hand, or give them an understanding look.

No matter the situation, they should always know that you’re willing to hear them out and that you understand where they’re coming from. This is huge. The only exception is when they’re so angry and dysregulated that they aren’t really saying anything that makes sense. In that case, you excuse yourself, let them know you’ll be back after they’ve calmed down a bit, and that’s when you can also talk about anything they may have done while they were dysregulated (like name calling or slamming cabinet doors).

10 If you dismiss, ignore, or invalidate their feelings, you’ll only intensify their emotional state and cause them to keep trying to convince you of how they feel (the opposite of calming down).

Always put yourself in their shoes. If you were angry and upset about something your boss had said to you and came home and told your spouse the whole story and they said, “well, that doesn’t seem like that big of a deal to me. I’d just ignore it”, how would that make you feel?

Wouldn’t you rather hear something like, “wow, that sounds just awful, I’m so sorry you’re dealing with that…come in for a hug.”

11 Talk to your teen the way you’d want your spouse or good friend to talk to you. You’ll get much further in building a strong emotional connection between you.

Validation is part of a parenting skill called emotion coaching and I’ll link to a free guide on that in the comments below.

Another huge mistake we make with our teens is that we try to continue parenting them as if they were children and we were still the big boss. After your kid hits puberty, as I say all the time, “the telling is over”.

Because of all those changes going on in their brain, 12 they’re not going to respond well to the same parenting strategies you may have used in the past. It’s a different ballgame altogether now. They’ve changed so your parenting must change.

It’s no longer a dictatorship, you’re not their boss or their manager and if you try to be, you’re going to have more rebellion than you can shake a stick at.

The dynamic changes between you and your teen for several reasons. Their brain has developed the ability to understand more abstract ideas and perspectives so they understand the world around them differently than before.

13 They see you differently now (as a fallible human) who just happens to be their parent. They no longer believe you always know best. They understand things they didn’t understand when they were younger. They’ve been let in on a lot of the “adult secrets”, they’ve dabbled in adulthood in many ways. And they now feel much more like an adult than a child most of the time.

They feel they should be treated just like you want to be treated…with respect and dignity. They want to make their own decisions, they want more freedom ,and they even want more responsibility.

The bottom line is, they want to feel like an autonomous human being just like we all do. They’re trying to figure out their place in the world and want to be taken seriously. They want you to ask and listen to their opinions. At the very least, if they can’t do as they want, they want a chance to be heard on any issue that affects their life.

It’s so very hard for us to think back to our adolescence…it’s been a long time for some of us. 14 During this stage of development, they’re teetering back and forth between wanting to be an adult and still wanting the safety and security of being a child. They’re really torn between two worlds. They need us but they don’t want to need us. And finding that balance in our parenting is hard. We have to learn to read between the lines and support their autonomy even when we have the final say on an issue…when we have to say no. There’s an art to this and we have to accept that it’s not as easy as just saying “no”. We have to finesse the situation now, we have to work with them and share our control with them, rather than continuing to try and be the boss…if we want their cooperation. 15 They have to see us as an ally instead of the enemy. We have to maintain our connection if we want them to listen to us when they really need to. We have to earn their trust so they’ll let us in, tell us things, and ask for our advice—supporting their autonomy will allow you to keep them safe and healthy and guide them in the right direction.

But if you fail to support their autonomy, you’ll cause more arguments and power struggles and fireworks than you can imagine.

One of the best rules of thumb to help support their autonomy, is “discuss don’t declare”. As I said earlier, the “telling is over”. You now need to have discussions with them about anything that concerns them, rather than just making a unilateral decision and then declaring or commanding something. Again, you have to give them a chance to be heard, to speak their mind, and you have to listen and let them know you get it…even if you can’t agree.

16 Instead of saying, “no more games before homework” you initiate a conversation, a calm and rational discussion. These conversations are how they learn life lessons and how you grow closer. Tell them what you’ve noticed if there’s a problem with their behavior, ask them what’s up, use reflective listening, validate their feelings, tell them your concerns, and try to negotiate something if possible, rather than just telling them how it’s going to be.

Yes, it takes longer, it takes patience, but it also supports their autonomy, avoids a lot of blow ups and power struggles, maintains your connection, and keeps you in their life.

Discuss don’t declare…remember that. No more unilateral decisions, no more bossing them around, if you want a better behaved teen, you have to learn to regulate your emotions, have a little patience, and work with them rather than against them.

Something else that so many of us failed to learn growing up…discipline doesn’t equate to obedience. It’s not meant to be adversarial or to cause pain of any kind. Discipline means to teach and in this case it means teaching our teens how to become emotionally healthy young adults by maintaining our emotional connection with them.

17 During the teen years, discipline boils down to teaching them the skills they need in an autonomy-supportive way, rather than punishing them for not yet having those skills. And this is what we end up doing…punishing them for messing up or making mistakes. They need our help to learn how to do these things. Their brain isn’t there yet, they need practice and scaffolding, and support. They can’t do adult things yet because they’re not an adult yet. They have years to go. So, stop expecting them to behave like an adult and punishing them they can’t meet those expectations.

You know one of the very best ways for them to learn the skills they need? 18 By making those mistakes and then living with the consequences (as long as it’s dangerous, unhealthy, unethical, illegal, or closes a door to their future). Natural consequences happen automatically—no one has to enforce anything, it just happens.  Allowing natural consequences prevents arguments and power struggles. You can stop reminding, questioning, and punishing. For example, if they don’t wash their uniform they have to wear it dirty, if they go to bed too late, they have to go to school sleepy. They learn a lesson without any arguing. As long as the natural consequence doesn’t fit into any of those categories, it’s best to let it happen, as hard as that is sometimes.

If we jump in to rescue them from all natural consequences, we are literally robbing them of the opportunity to learn from their mistakes. And that becomes a real problem when it comes time to leave home, and they have no clue how to “adult”.

But the other side of natural consequences is logical consequences. And over the years first issuing a lot of unhelpful consequences and then studying and teaching about adolescence, I’ve developed a pretty strong opinion about issuing consequences to teens.

19 One big problem is that most of us don’t understand the concept of logical consequences (spoiler: they must be logical and teach something). And most of the time that’s not the case and the consequences parents dole out are just punishments by another name. And we know that punishment never works to change behavior in the long term. Prisons are running over with people who have been previously punished and are back in there again. It might frighten a teenager into submission for a little while but in the process, it usually causes power struggles, conflict, disconnection and ultimately, rebellion.

Punishment is about retribution, “I’ll show her she can’t get away with this” and that’s usually what we’re thinking when we issue a consequence. Most of the time you can avoid consequences by having a collaborative conversation with your teen. Ask them what happened, get to the bottom of the underlying issue, what skills are they having a problem with and then work with them to help them get it right next time. That’s the goal—to help them succeed and learn, not to punish them and make them hate you and rebel against you, right?

20 I’m talking about listening to them, asking the right questions, validating their feelings, telling them what worries you, and working together to brainstorm ways to avoid the issue next time. If they vaped when they’ve promised they wouldn’t…”what happened?” Do they do it to relax, do they it with other kids and don’t know how to say no, do they do it because they’re anxious? You have to understand what’s going on so you can take the next step to problem solve the situation. If they’re anxious, maybe going to a therapist will help, if they don’t know how to say no, practicing some resistance techniques might do the trick. But you’ll never even know what’s going on if you just automatically take their phone away or ground them for a period of time. That’s not going to make them avoid vaping…it will just make them get better at hiding it from you.

I get into the details about all of this in The Field Guide for Teens, my course inside Parent Camp. You can find the link in the channel description.

This last mistake is one I believe 99% of us make…simply because we’re human. Did you ever get the comment on your report card that said something like “Ann’s not living up to her full potential”? Yeah, I certainly did…that, and Ann needs to keep her mouth shut and do her work (“apply herself” – that was it!)

Anyway, as parents, 21 we have this idea in our heads of how our kids should be—we’ve been building this movie reel in our brains since they were little. We see their “potential” in everything they do that thrills us and lights us up and we take those little sparks and we stitch them together in our brain and create this perfect ideal kid—this is how it’s supposed to be—this is what they could be if everything goes as planned.

But guess what? Things NEVER go “as planned” because your kid is not an idea, they’re an imperfect human who during adolescence is trying out different personas like trying on clothes. THEY don’t know who they are yet so you can’t possibly know that. That movie reel is a fallacy. Their “potential” is something you’ve created in your mind that doesn’t exist…the same as the teacher who writes some stupid comment about potential in a report card.

The problem is, when you build up this ideal kid in your mind, anytime they fall short of that, it freaks you out and you jump in to try and “fix them”…to drag them back over to the “light”. You watch for any sign of them “not living up to their potential” (and you find it everywhere).

And when feel our kids aren’t “living up to their potential” it does something to us…it makes us feel like WE’ve failed somehow, it puts a huge dent in our ego, it disappoints us, makes us sad, maybe even makes us fearful about their future or angry at them for not doing what WE’ve decided they can and should do!

22 This movie reel in our head causes major disconnection between us and our teens. Instead of focusing on the human they’re really becoming, we focus on the human we want them to be. Instead of supporting them in their own journey of discovery and growth, we’re hell bent on fitting them into the box we’ve created in our mind.

Everything we do shouts to them that we want them to be someone they aren’t. They feel it in their bones…our disappointment, our disdain even. They feel criticized, they feel like a loser, they feel they can’t win, they can’t please us no matter what they do…because we just don’t get it.

How does this show up in your life with your teen? Well, you know all those reminders you give them, the questions you ask, the little statements you make when you’re trying to pull them back into your movie reel? Those things cause conflict, and make them feel bad about themselves, and cause a big rift in your relationship. 23 That part of their brain we talked about a minute ago (the amygdala)—it causes them to interpret your behavior, your statements, expressions, tone of voice, more negatively than you even mean it. They interpret so much of what you say as criticism, put downs, and disappointment in them. So, when you have this movie reel going, and your trying to get them to “live up to their potential” you’re setting yourself up for lots of blow ups and disconnection between you and your kid.

Think about it…why do you remind your teen to do their homework or not to forget to wash their uniform, or ask them questions about their grades or their friends or whatever? It’s because you’re afraid they’re going to screw up…that they’re not going to fall outside that ideal. 24 Seeing our kids mess up is even worse than when WE mess up. We’re too emotionally invested in their performance. We’re focused on their outside when we should be focused on their inside—their emotional growth, their learning through making mistakes and figuring things out for themselves.

Look past their performance, look at the person they want to be, help them be THAT person, help them see how fabulous they are just how they are. Tell them how proud you are of the person they’re becoming, despite grades, their willingness to clean their room, or any other areas you feel they may be falling short. Look for those positives and call them out on a regular basis. We spend far too much time pointing out their shortcomings and making them feel “less than”—when our time should be focused on building them up.

25 Try it. Let go of that movie reel. Start focusing on their positive attributes and let them see that. Let them mess up and learn their lessons now, while they have you there to help them get back on the track THEY want to be on.

Alright, that’s it for today. If you want to learn more about how to parent your teen, just click here and watch this video next and subscribe for more. Thanks for being here—see you next time.