Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / Tween/Teen Attitude And How To Deal

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Tween/Teen Attitude And How To Deal · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

• 0:05
  Hi everybody, and welcome to the dr.
• 0:07
  Psych mom, show, today, I had a request for how to deal with
• 0:11
  tween attitudes, which it could also be teen attitudes, later
• 0:15
  on. And before I do that, I wanted
• 0:20
  certainly tell everybody to subscribe.
• 0:22
  I'll probably be coming up to another subscriber episode soon,
• 0:25
  but I've gotten a lot of positive feedback on my one
• 0:28
  recently about attachment Theory, which gives you an
• 0:30
  overview about preoccupied and avoidant attachment pursuer,
• 0:34
  distance sir. Terms that I talked about a lot
• 0:37
  in my blog and there's not yet been the podcast overview until
• 0:41
  now which goes a little deeper on each type and how to assess
• 0:44
  them, including the strange situation, which we do with one
• 0:48
  year olds and their caregivers to assert to assess for
• 0:51
  attachment style. Anyway, so I had somebody ask me
• 0:57
  about how to deal with tween attitudes and gave me a few
• 1:02
  examples first, is the tween that doesn't really Make eye
• 1:05
  contact and engage with adults and just says, hi and kind of a
• 1:09
  monotone and this is irritating to the mother.
• 1:12
  And also an example about a child who will not put in put
• 1:17
  away her clothes or do some other little chore because her
• 1:21
  friends are around. And she says, I'm with a friend
• 1:23
  right now. But also the mother says, she
• 1:26
  had been asked to do this thing before the friend came over.
• 1:29
  So as in my podcast about stop letting your kids treat you like
• 1:34
  garbage. Parents nowadays are really
• 1:37
  anxious about setting boundaries because somehow they think this
• 1:40
  is going to fuck up the kid in reality.
• 1:42
  Permissive parenting has been associated with worse outcomes
• 1:45
  even than authoritarian. And remember permissive, you
• 1:49
  know, is what it sounds like authoritarian is the strict one
• 1:53
  and authoritative is the one that is warm, but firm and
• 1:57
  that's the one that we're going for.
• 1:59
  I mean, that just makes common sense.
• 2:00
  You know, you don't need a research study to tell you that
• 2:04
  it isn't good to let. Our kids do whatever the fuck
• 2:06
  they want and it's also not good to treat them like prisoners.
• 2:09
  So the best would be where there are boundaries but sometimes the
• 2:13
  boundaries can become flexible. Now, in this case, this would be
• 2:17
  a time where I think that boundaries would be flexible.
• 2:19
  So like if the child is hanging out with her friend, I mean I
• 2:22
  certainly don't ask my kids to do chores in that situation when
• 2:26
  there's a kid over the house and that would be considered
• 2:31
  embarrassing you know to do and I asked my own twelve-year-old
• 2:34
  and She said, yeah, that would be embarrassing.
• 2:37
  However, I'm not really understanding.
• 2:41
  Of course, I do understand. But for rhetorical flourish, I
• 2:45
  am not understanding how the child had a friend over when the
• 2:48
  child did not do her chore. So I'm going to assume that this
• 2:53
  is a situation, like the ones that I see in private practice
• 2:58
  where it is, not that the child has 10 chores to do per day,
• 3:01
  like, Laura Ingalls Wilder, but rather, the child has One two or
• 3:06
  three very, very minimal chore. Sometimes literally meaning
• 3:10
  taking folded clothes from their bed and putting them into a
• 3:14
  drawer. Something that takes point, six
• 3:17
  seconds, you know. And so if a child will not do
• 3:21
  their church or they do not get the next privilege and
• 3:24
  privileges, of course, include socializing and having friends
• 3:28
  over. So if her friends coming over is
• 3:29
  a privilege, you know. So lots of things are privileges
• 3:33
  money to go to the mall with is a privilege.
• 3:35
  Age seeing the latest movies a privilege, certainly video games
• 3:38
  or privilege. There's lots of privileges that
• 3:40
  are children. All have that make their lives,
• 3:43
  nice and good, and our luxurious.
• 3:47
  And those need to be not given if a child is disrespectful.
• 3:52
  So that's, it's a very easy way to teach them about how the
• 3:58
  world really works. Because if you refuse to do,
• 4:01
  even the smallest little thing for somebody, they're not going
• 4:03
  to go out of their way for you. Never, they shouldn't at home,
• 4:07
  and they shouldn't outside our home and they won't, you know.
• 4:10
  So so let's say that this is a situation, we're dealing with
• 4:14
  the laundry. I think it's something something
• 4:17
  like this. I mean, if it really is a chore
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  that is extremely onerous, like I told my daughter that she had
• 4:23
  to clean all the bathrooms and the kitchen before she could
• 4:27
  have her friend over and she wouldn't do it because she was
• 4:30
  doing her homework and had to get to school.
• 4:32
  Well then you're falling into the authoritarian.
• 4:35
  Type of parenting, but I really do not see.
• 4:38
  A lot of people that are giving their kids too many chores
• 4:41
  nowadays. If you really feel that you are
• 4:44
  in that camp, then you should probably ask around your peers
• 4:49
  and see what their kids do. And try to aim somewhere in the
• 4:51
  middle because if you are listening to this and our have
• 4:56
  been told that you're extremely extremely strict and you
• 4:59
  yourself think you might be like it's not just your kid like
• 5:02
  bullshitting. It's literally like Your kid is
• 5:05
  like my friends, don't do any of this and you believe them and
• 5:09
  you've talked to peers. Well then your kids going to be
• 5:11
  really, really resentful, you know, as you would have been as
• 5:14
  a child, if you had to do a million things that nobody else
• 5:17
  had to do, right? That sets up.
• 5:19
  So authoritarian parenting sets up a lot of anger and resentment
• 5:24
  and that really ruins the relationship with the child over
• 5:26
  time. But I'm going to assume that
• 5:28
  this is just a. The reason that of course, I
• 5:30
  could tell that this is just a little chore is because if Is
• 5:35
  because of the fact that it didn't get done and the person
• 5:37
  still had the kids friend over. So I mean, obviously we're
• 5:40
  airing on the side of permissiveness here.
• 5:43
  Because what's the child's friend dude in the damn house?
• 5:45
  Right? I mean I get it your kid doesn't
• 5:48
  want to do chores in front of her friend, all right.
• 5:51
  Maybe it is embarrassing. You know like to especially if
• 5:55
  the friend never does that in front of your child.
• 5:58
  Cool. Like let your child like enjoy
• 6:00
  their social time. You yourself probably wouldn't
• 6:03
  do chores if you were Rising with somebody.
• 6:06
  But how is the child's friend in the house?
• 6:11
  That is a privilege. So if the child doesn't do a
• 6:14
  chore, then the child doesn't get the privilege, especially a
• 6:17
  very minimal chore like this. So the idea would be to sit down
• 6:21
  with your kid after the friend is there and say, you know, my
• 6:27
  bad, you know, I let you have this friend over and now I'm mad
• 6:30
  at you because you didn't do your chore, you didn't do it in
• 6:33
  front of the friend and you didn't do it before I Get why
• 6:35
  you wouldn't want to do it in front of your friend, enjoy your
• 6:37
  time, with your friend, fine. But why didn't you do it before?
• 6:40
  So, from now on, if the Futures that I ask you to do or not
• 6:45
  done, then the privileges do not happen and that's super easy to
• 6:49
  understand and it's a real easy situation for the kit because
• 6:53
  they literally only have to do their chores and it's very, it's
• 6:56
  very obvious. So when children don't ever put
• 6:59
  child in a no-win situation so for example, don't say something
• 7:03
  like you will have to do all Make your room completely clean
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  and then the child doesn't know what that means or they can
• 7:09
  never get there and it's never fully clean.
• 7:12
  But again, permissive parents don't really are on this side.
• 7:15
  So but for anybody listening don't give your child nebulous
• 7:19
  goals like clean your room. What the fuck does that mean?
• 7:22
  Nobody really knows what that means to the parent.
• 7:25
  So say I need you to put away your clothes.
• 7:27
  I need you to sweep up and I need all these, you know, cups
• 7:31
  of water and stuff away. Then you tell me, Tell me, I'll
• 7:35
  come and I'll tell you whether it's a go or whether you need to
• 7:38
  do more stuff and then of course you can go do what you want.
• 7:41
  After that this is the thing that you need to do.
• 7:43
  Before you do your other Privileges and that like works
• 7:47
  because especially over time. Yeah.
• 7:48
  The first time they're going to complain because it's a new
• 7:50
  regime but over time consistency is really positive and
• 7:55
  beneficial for kids because they know what to expect when kids
• 7:59
  have lasting trauma and resentment from their
• 8:03
  upbringing. It's because they were It into
• 8:05
  no-win situations where the expectations were constantly
• 8:08
  shifting, and they could never meet their parents approval.
• 8:12
  And they felt that there were these owners burdens placed upon
• 8:14
  them. Which in fact, they are were
• 8:16
  compared to other friends, right?
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  You never want to make your kid, an outlier in some bad way.
• 8:22
  You know, that, that doesn't you don't want to be an outlier in
• 8:24
  some bad way yourself, you know? So, I mean, just have some basic
• 8:28
  compassion for your kid there. If you have, if you are in a
• 8:32
  demographic where the children are not For example, you know,
• 8:37
  cleaning the entire house by themselves, you know, such as
• 8:41
  living in our times and not like in, I don't know again.
• 8:44
  Laura Ingalls Wilder's times was different like those girls had
• 8:47
  to work from the books you know Laura and Maria to do a lot of
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  shit but nowadays kids don't really have to do as much stuff.
• 8:55
  We also have labor-saving devices.
• 8:56
  The Industrial Revolution Etc. But here's my point.
• 9:00
  Don't make your kid a freak that they're like the only one like
• 9:03
  Cinderella doing a million chores.
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  But I don't think that you're going on this side.
• 9:07
  I think that you're probably on the other side, so it's very
• 9:11
  easy to understand. If you do X, you get y.
• 9:14
  Now you could do the same thing with anything else that bothers
• 9:16
  you, including the disrespect, what you perceive as disrespect,
• 9:19
  maybe social anxiety and awkwardness at this age.
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  Kids find themselves to be extremely awkward and they're
• 9:26
  like embarrassed by even being alive, you know, like they're
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  just breathing, feels awkward. They feel like the adults are
• 9:32
  staring at then they feel like everybody's staring Ang at them,
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  you know if you used to watch Wonder Years, the Kevin always
• 9:39
  had these Daydreams about everybody in his class.
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  Like, you know, humiliating him and laughing at him and pointing
• 9:44
  out some failing of his like, when you had a pimple that is
• 9:48
  how twins think. You know.
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  So probably your kid is like made very anxious by the
• 9:53
  interactions with adult and the less that she says.
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  And the more the less eye contact, he makes the better a
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  chance. She has of this terrible and
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  Direction which makes you feel so anxious, ending.
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  Now I certainly Just and your perspective which is you don't
• 10:06
  want your kid to active route. So therefore make the
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  expectations. Very clear when we see my
• 10:12
  friends on the street who are adult, I would like you to make
• 10:16
  ikot contact and say what you said in the question to the
• 10:21
  subscriber, said she wants the child to say Hi.
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  How are you? So cool, this super easy.
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  Lots of expectations are not as simple and straightforward.
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  So you say, when we are going to see my friends on the street, I
• 10:32
  would like you to say Hi. How are you?
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  You know, and this is This is one of those basic things that
• 10:36
  like you're going to do for me. Like, you know, you are going to
• 10:39
  put your laundry away. And now you're going to do this
• 10:41
  thing. And I ask not so much from you.
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  And these are the things that I am asking, and they will be done
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  accordingly because they make me happy, makes me happy when you
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  interact with my friend, like that.
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  Because, I mean, really be honest.
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  And as I've written before, let's always be honest with our
• 10:58
  children, about why we want them to do stuff, like plenty of
• 11:02
  people act like completely socially.
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  Bizarro when they're 12. And then they're totally normal.
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  By the time, they're like 25 and they say Hi.
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  How are you? So, like if you're saying like,
• 11:13
  I want you to learn this and that and this and that, that
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  really is not as much of a compelling argument because the
• 11:19
  reality is, is that your mobilized In This Moment by your
• 11:23
  own embarrassment about what your friends will think about
• 11:25
  you. But if you're honest about that,
• 11:27
  then cool like don't tell your kid, I want you to learn how to
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  engage with adult because this is going to To predict like how
• 11:35
  successful you are in life, like it's really not, that's like,
• 11:39
  pretty catastrophic thinking because most twins are
• 11:42
  extraordinarily awkward and it like, and then most of them turn
• 11:48
  into pretty normal adults who can talk to other adults and
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  talk to everybody and superiors and authority figures and
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  whatever. But it seems like it personally
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  irritates and triggers you, which, of course, Always.
• 12:00
  By the way, it's interesting. And maybe even Figure out why
• 12:05
  you yourself are triggered by a certain thing.
• 12:08
  So you know there's always there's a good book parenting
• 12:11
  from the inside out that really walks people through figuring
• 12:14
  out why they have specific triggers and their kids
• 12:16
  behaviors. And I've written about this as
• 12:19
  well. In my article, 11 things to ask
• 12:22
  yourself when you're going to flip out on your kid which I
• 12:24
  could link you to. But so like for example, let's
• 12:27
  say that you had a parent who is like really weird who's like on
• 12:31
  the Spectrum or something. Even and so when your kid Act
• 12:35
  Weird and doesn't make any eye contact, then you get terrified,
• 12:38
  you feel like they're going to turn into somebody like your
• 12:40
  parent and you saw how hard life was for your parent, you know?
• 12:43
  So this would be something to dig deep on, right?
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  Or maybe you feel like your kid is kind of ungrateful and you're
• 12:51
  just asking them this one thing and they won't do it.
• 12:54
  And who else was perhaps ungrateful or unappreciative in
• 12:57
  your life? Are you triggered by thinking of
• 12:59
  somebody as ungrateful or unappreciative frequently, when
• 13:02
  people perceive their kids as unappreciative?
• 13:05
  Duh. It's because they were with a
• 13:06
  parent who never recognized anything positive about them and
• 13:09
  wasn't very appreciative. So that was also in my article,
• 13:12
  stop letting your kids treat you like garbage, which was also a
• 13:15
  podcast episode. But anyway, you're totally
• 13:18
  within your rights. You are giving your kid a lot of
• 13:20
  shit. I'm sure and lots of privileges.
• 13:23
  Lots of cool stuff. Lots of clothes, lots of trips,
• 13:26
  whatever. And you know things this
• 13:29
  generation of kids gets a lot of stuff.
• 13:31
  And so you want to say It embarrasses?
• 13:35
  Me, you know when you won't say hello to my friends, I think
• 13:38
  that they think you're being rude so because you are going to
• 13:42
  be nice to me you, this is what you're going to do.
• 13:44
  You're going to make eye contact and say hello, how are you?
• 13:46
  Then that's going to make me feel good.
• 13:48
  So what it's so then if your child says well I don't want to
• 13:51
  do that. You say that I don't want to do
• 13:52
  a lot of things you know I particularly don't want to drive
• 13:54
  you to the mall later. I don't want to buy all these
• 13:57
  clothes from wherever the hell you like.
• 13:58
  I don't want to buy you a voice lessons and guitar lessons and
• 14:02
  because soccer, and all sorts of shit.
• 14:05
  So you know what, I don't really want to, but I do it because I
• 14:08
  love you. So here's something you're going
• 14:09
  to do because you love me because you're a member of the
• 14:11
  family, okay? So next time we see somebody I'd
• 14:14
  like to see that if you forget I'll just kind of squeeze your
• 14:17
  hand a little bit and I'll give you a little.
• 14:19
  We're all like, wink or something, give you a code and
• 14:23
  most kids are going to try to do it, you know.
• 14:25
  And if they don't, then that would be indicative of a
• 14:29
  different sort of an issue such as a larger social anxiety issue
• 14:33
  or an anger issue toward you. You know, and just a lot of
• 14:36
  resentment on there and which precludes them from from wanting
• 14:40
  to make you happy. But within the majority of
• 14:42
  relationships with children, when expectations are delimited
• 14:46
  very clearly with consequences and reinforce consistently, then
• 14:50
  that can ameliorate a lot of the problems.
• 14:52
  So, for example, if you then had a day where you met a person on
• 14:56
  the street and your kid, didn't barely say hello, and didn't
• 14:59
  talk at all later? You would say that interaction
• 15:02
  didn't make me, happy. Doesn't exactly make me want to.
• 15:05
  Do whatever we were going to do later, you know, that was fun.
• 15:08
  So, do you want us not to go to the mall later?
• 15:11
  Your kids be like, no, no, I have to go to the mall.
• 15:14
  So you be like, all right, I'll give you one more chance, but
• 15:16
  next time, next time you don't do it.
• 15:18
  Truly, we will not go to the mall because I say to give a
• 15:22
  warning to be kind because if it's a whole new sheriff in town
• 15:25
  with consequences, might as well be kind and actually say, here's
• 15:30
  what would have happened in the new regime if you don't do what
• 15:33
  I say in these Couple of things I asked, we then do not do the
• 15:37
  privilege later and that may be very strange for your child.
• 15:41
  So give them a little lead time with that.
• 15:43
  So say so because I ask this of you and you didn't do it, I
• 15:48
  don't want to go to the mall since this is a whole new thing
• 15:51
  I'm doing where there's consequences.
• 15:53
  I'll still take you to the mall this time next time though it's
• 15:56
  over. So then two days later.
• 15:58
  Your kid thinks there's going to call your bluff and she, you
• 16:00
  know, doesn't talk to the adult again and you've About the
• 16:05
  social anxiety thing. You don't really think it's
• 16:07
  that, but of course, who knows. You know, you might want to ask
• 16:11
  your kid if they do suffer from social anxiety, in this feeling
• 16:14
  of why they're not talking to your, to your friend but I'm
• 16:18
  sure you did that. Anyway, which is why I didn't
• 16:20
  lead with that because most parents, do they talk about the
• 16:22
  feelings with the kids too much if anything not too little.
• 16:26
  So let's say your kid doesn't get, let's say your kid acts
• 16:28
  totally rude and doesn't even say hello to the friend that all
• 16:32
  never mind. Make eye contact.
• 16:33
  Then you say well. The next thing that we were
• 16:35
  going to do we were going to go to get ice cream.
• 16:38
  We're not doing that. You feel like oh my God why?
• 16:41
  No you can't do that. You say yes I can do that.
• 16:44
  I even gave you a warning. I was so nice.
• 16:46
  Last time I gave you a warning. This thing is very important to
• 16:49
  me. Now if as you're listening to my
• 16:51
  episode here, by the way, you're like you know what like it
• 16:55
  really isn't that important to me you know and maybe I'm going
• 16:57
  to do some more introspection about why this embarrasses me so
• 17:00
  much and what I feel that it says about me to my friend and
• 17:03
  why I may be true Goodbye. A child who doesn't listen or by
• 17:06
  a child to act awkward. Then great take it off of your
• 17:10
  list of shit that you want you know and and go back to the
• 17:14
  folding and putting away the laundry or what have you you
• 17:16
  know anytime you could get some shit off of your list of stuff
• 17:20
  that you want another person to do because you realize it's your
• 17:23
  problem, then. Great.
• 17:25
  That's like in parenting that's in a relationship that's
• 17:28
  anywhere. You know, you should always do a
• 17:30
  deep dive of, why do I want my loved one to do x?
• 17:33
  What about me? Me, is it is this actually
• 17:36
  important for our relationship or am I may be conflating
• 17:39
  variables and being triggered by something in my own self.
• 17:44
  So but but maybe you'll decide, no, it really is important to
• 17:47
  me, you know what, if anything, I'll put away the damn close, I
• 17:49
  just want her to act social, because I really do think that,
• 17:52
  that is going to make my life with her a lot easier, and it's
• 17:55
  going to put me in a better mood.
• 17:57
  And it's important to me that she acts nice to these people
• 18:00
  who act nice to her or whatever. Then you can make this, your
• 18:03
  Hill to die on. And it's not going to be, you're
• 18:06
  not going to die on it because the vast vast, majority of
• 18:10
  children will respond very well to contingent consistent
• 18:18
  expectations. And of course, if this is an
• 18:21
  impossible situation and you're locked in a battle of wills with
• 18:24
  your child, then family therapy can be very useful in assessing
• 18:27
  why the child refuses to engage? And we usually use a frame with
• 18:32
  Children of can't not won't. So if your child is really given
• 18:36
  this as a very, very clear expectation with contingent
• 18:40
  consequences that they care about deeply and still cannot do
• 18:44
  it, then we must think, why can my child not make this eye
• 18:47
  contact? What is it?
• 18:49
  What is actually going on and a therapist may be much better at
• 18:53
  figuring that out than a parent who is really where it's really
• 18:56
  too close to home. So thank you so much for asking
• 19:00
  this question. Hopefully, it gave you a useful
• 19:02
  perspective and for All the other listeners, hopefully it
• 19:07
  taught you something about the different parenting Styles in
• 19:11
  addition to how the majority of children will respond.
• 19:16
  If given these very clear expectations at a very
• 19:19
  consistent, integrated natural kind of way to explain.
• 19:23
  Kind of if you don't scratch my back I don't scratch yours
• 19:26
  especially not on the margins of all these extra luxuries that I
• 19:30
  am you know, creating your life to be so magical.
• 19:34
  B I'm not going to make it so magical if you can't do like
• 19:37
  little things for me and that's like how life works.
• 19:40
  You know if you bust your ass for somebody over and over then
• 19:42
  you ask them something and they don't do it.
• 19:45
  Well then you stop busting your ass for them which includes, of
• 19:47
  course, hosting playdates and anything else that, you know, is
• 19:52
  extra not talking about food, shelter, love respect but extra
• 19:56
  stuff, you know, alright, great. So if this added any value to
• 20:01
  your life, please do subscribe and I will talk to to everybody
• 20:05
  soon. Have a great day.