Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #278 Teens in Trouble

Transcript

#278 Teens in Trouble · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast.
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  Speaker 2: It's the podcast for the time poor parent who just
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  Speaker 2: wants answers now.
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  Speaker 3: The product of parenting is the parent. But our children
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  Speaker 3: are going to challenge us, and we do have a
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  Speaker 3: responsibility to do our best to help them.
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  Speaker 2: And now here's the stars of our show.
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  Speaker 3: My mum and dad good They We are Justin and
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  Speaker 3: Kylie Colson. We're the parents of six daughters. I'm the
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  Speaker 3: author of a bunch of books about making families happy
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  Speaker 3: and the founder of Happy Families dot com dot you.
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  Speaker 3: And this podcast is for the time poor parent who
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  Speaker 3: just wants answers. Now. We have a time poor parent
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  Speaker 3: who really wants an answer. This parent has sent us
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  Speaker 3: an email. Podcasts at happy Families dot com dot you
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  Speaker 3: every Tuesday we do our best to answer the parenting
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  Speaker 3: challenges that you're faced with. And Kylie, we've got a
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  Speaker 3: bit of a doozy today.
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  Speaker 2: Cherie sent in this question. My daughter is currently in
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  Speaker 2: grade eight in US having some trouble at school. We
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  Speaker 2: keep getting negative feedback from her teachers, all of them,
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  Speaker 2: not just one, that she is disruptive in class and
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  Speaker 2: is disrespectful towards the teachers. She challenges them daily and
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  Speaker 2: won't be told what to do, and when they force
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  Speaker 2: her to comply, she is very disrespectful. She's a strong
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  Speaker 2: willed child and definitely tends to challenge authority and doesn't
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  Speaker 2: conform without a reasonable explanation. When she does it at home,
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  Speaker 2: and boy does she do it often, we're able to
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  Speaker 2: explore why she is reacting that way and try to
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  Speaker 2: come up with solutions to the problem together. But at
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  Speaker 2: the school they don't seem to be willing to do that.
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  Speaker 2: They just deal out punishment, which makes things worse, and
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  Speaker 2: she honestly doesn't care. She just keeps doing it. How
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  Speaker 2: do we go about getting some change in her behavior
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  Speaker 2: at school without resorting to punishment at home? We have
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  Speaker 2: spoken to her about this so many times, but it's
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  Speaker 2: just not working. We're at our wits end, and I
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  Speaker 2: am seriously considering grounding her against my better judgment. We
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  Speaker 2: desperately need change.
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  Speaker 3: Wow, I'm kind of listening to that, you know in
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  Speaker 3: those cartoons where you see the carrier go ooh, I'm
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  Speaker 3: feeling a bit way down. Yeah, it's a tough one,
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  Speaker 3: and whether you've got a child in your eight or
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  Speaker 3: a child who is eight, it's really hard to hear
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  Speaker 3: this about your own child. It's hard to watch it
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  Speaker 3: when it's happening in your own home, but when it's
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  Speaker 3: happening outside of the home, it's happening at school, that
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  Speaker 3: negative feedback it really makes you question your own parenting,
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  Speaker 3: makes you wonder am I doing this right? What should
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  Speaker 3: I have done differently? This is a really difficult situation
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  Speaker 3: to be in. I do need to emphasize that the
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  Speaker 3: product of parenting is the parent, not the child. So
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  Speaker 3: when your child's behaving in a way that's being judged
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  Speaker 3: by others as challenging, and you're obviously judging it yourself
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  Speaker 3: that way as well. At this point, that doesn't mean
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  Speaker 3: that there's necessarily anything wrong with what you're doing, so
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  Speaker 3: long as you know that you're holding a good line.
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  Speaker 3: The product of parenting is the parent. But our children
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  Speaker 3: are going to challenge us, and we do have a
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  Speaker 3: responsibility to do our best to help them and socialize them.
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  Speaker 3: So what do you think, Kylie, when you hear an
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  Speaker 3: email like this, what's your initial response?
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  Speaker 2: My initial response is that we ourselves have a number
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  Speaker 2: of very very strong willed children.
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  Speaker 3: Who are quite happy to tell teachers how they feel
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  Speaker 3: about things.
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  Speaker 2: Right, And it's so easy to see that as such
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  Speaker 2: a detriment to their character. And yet what I see
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  Speaker 2: is these kids who know what they want and are
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  Speaker 2: willing to do what it takes to get it. And
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  Speaker 2: while as a small child that can be very challenging
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  Speaker 2: for the adult in the room, in time, if we
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  Speaker 2: can harness that, these kids are going to grow into powerful,
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  Speaker 2: powerful adults who can actually be instrumental in making change
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  Speaker 2: in the world. But we've just got to deal with
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  Speaker 2: today right now. As a great eight.
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  Speaker 3: Girl, Sometimes our children's greatest strengths are also our greatest frustrations. Yes,
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  Speaker 3: and they'll grow up and they'll use those strengths in
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  Speaker 3: magical ways. When I'm listening to what you've just said,
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  Speaker 3: it makes me think of just how clumsy our children
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  Speaker 3: can be. They know exactly how they feel, and they
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  Speaker 3: know what they want to communicate, they just don't quite
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  Speaker 3: know how to communicate it in a way that's going
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  Speaker 3: to be received well. Yeah, either in the home or
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  Speaker 3: at school. So what I'd like to do in this
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  Speaker 3: conversation as we answer Shari's question and do our best
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  Speaker 3: to give her some support here and any other parent
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  Speaker 3: who's kind a child who's really prizing their autonomy and
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  Speaker 3: holding it as the most important thing in the world.
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  Speaker 3: Is I want to talk a bit about the developmental
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  Speaker 3: realities of fourteen year old girls or girls in those
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  Speaker 3: early to mid adolescent years, and then after the break,
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  Speaker 3: we'll talk about specific ideas and ways of dealing with
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  Speaker 3: this that might be helpful. So we've been through this.
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  Speaker 3: Now we've got our fourth daughter who's now at this age.
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  Speaker 3: We've got our fourth daughter in grade eight, only two
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  Speaker 3: to go, honeybun, We're nearly there. And what I'm hearing
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  Speaker 3: is a couple of things. First of all, I'm hearing
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  Speaker 3: that when the school teachers feel challenged, and even when
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  Speaker 3: Mum feels challenged, there's this push back. And we know
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  Speaker 3: this really clearly. When someone pushes against someone else, there's
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  Speaker 3: usually a whole lot of argie bargie. There's a lot
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  Speaker 3: of pushing and shoving. In fact, there's that saying when
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  Speaker 3: push comes to shove, and I keep on thinking to myself,
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  Speaker 3: why is there so much pushing and shoving going on?
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  Speaker 3: We've got to take the power out of the situation,
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  Speaker 3: take the power out of the conversation, because force. You
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  Speaker 3: know what I'm going to say, now creates resistance. Force
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  Speaker 3: creates resistance, and adolescence especially they just I said it already,
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  Speaker 3: but they prize their autonomy so strongly, and they get
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  Speaker 3: to a point at around this sort of fourteen fifteen
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  Speaker 3: years of age, some a little bit earlier, sometimes a
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  Speaker 3: bit later, maybe even sixteen or seventeen, but usually somewhere
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  Speaker 3: grade eight, grade nine, where they really want to be
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  Speaker 3: an adult. Well, yeah, but to be an adult. What
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  Speaker 3: that means is that they want to own their own mind.
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  Speaker 3: They want to differentiate themselves from us especially and any
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  Speaker 3: other adults in their.
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  Speaker 2: Field and being considered a little kid.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, And the easiest way to do that is that
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  Speaker 3: when a big person says I want you to do this,
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  Speaker 3: you turn around and say, I don't have to because
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  Speaker 3: I'm my own person now. I'm becoming a grown up myself.
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  Speaker 3: And that obviously causes tremendous conflict and challenge. So I
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  Speaker 3: think that developmentally, what she's doing is normal. It's just
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  Speaker 3: that she's doing it in a kind of a clumsy
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  Speaker 3: way and frankly and ineffective way, and she needs some
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  Speaker 3: useful and gentle guidance to help her. But there's a
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  Speaker 3: couple of other things that we probably should consider as well.
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  Speaker 3: We don't know enough to know why she's doing this,
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  Speaker 3: and we'll talk about that after the break as well
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  Speaker 3: as we try to explore how we can help her.
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  Speaker 3: But I just want to step into a school day
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  Speaker 3: for a high school student anywhere between grade seven and
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  Speaker 3: twelve and help parents to imagine what it must be
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  Speaker 3: like to be that kid. So imagine you wake up
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  Speaker 3: in the morning and your body is still flooded with
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  Speaker 3: melotonein because that's what teenagers bodies do. So you wake
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  Speaker 3: up groggy, and you've got someone shouting at You're saying,
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  Speaker 3: for goodness sakes, you're going to be like, get on
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  Speaker 3: with it. What do you mean you can't find your
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  Speaker 3: score bag? Hurry up, get out the door. Can'ts down this?
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  Speaker 3: You're doing it every morning? What are you lazy or something?
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  Speaker 3: And so you already start off.
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  Speaker 2: Do you mean you haven't packed lunch?
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  Speaker 3: You having a lousy morning, You skip breakfast, you don't
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  Speaker 3: put any food in your ledge box, and you get
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  Speaker 3: to school. Now, let's imagine that school isn't school, it's work,
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  Speaker 3: because for a teenager, it kind of is. They walk
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  Speaker 3: through the gates, they catch up with a couple of
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  Speaker 3: friends for a few minutes. Then the bell rings. They
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  Speaker 3: go into a one hour meeting. They write notes NonStop
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  Speaker 3: and do a whole lot of work in that meeting,
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  Speaker 3: don't really get the time that they need to check
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  Speaker 3: in with the boss to get the head around everything
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  Speaker 3: that has to be done in relation to that meeting.
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  Speaker 3: And at the end of the meeting, the boss says,
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  Speaker 3: we haven't covered it all. You're gonna have to take
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  Speaker 3: this bit home and do it. And by the way,
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  Speaker 3: you've got this big assignment that's due in about six weeks.
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  Speaker 3: Please make you get onto that as well. Then they
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  Speaker 3: go into with no break, go into another meeting. Before
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  Speaker 3: they've had time to process and deal with that first meeting,
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  Speaker 3: they go into another one hour meeting. Same thing happens.
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  Speaker 3: As soon as that meeting's over. They've got a fifteen
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  Speaker 3: or twenty minute quick lunch break, toilet break, catch up
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  Speaker 3: with a couple of friends around the water cooler, and
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  Speaker 3: then they're into two more back to back meetings, another
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  Speaker 3: lunch break, and then another meeting, and then they go home,
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  Speaker 3: at which point they're trying to juggle extra curricular activities.
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  Speaker 3: They're trying to get all of that extra work done
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  Speaker 3: that wasn't finished in those meetings. That is, those classes,
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  Speaker 3: they've got demands on them that are significant for a
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  Speaker 3: child who doesn't have the prefrontal cortex development to help
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  Speaker 3: them to plan effectively and manage their way through the afternoon.
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  Speaker 3: And they go to bed kind of late, just wanting
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  Speaker 3: to be a kid, wanted to catch up with their friends,
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  Speaker 3: and being told get off the devices, you're not allowed
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  Speaker 3: to connect with them, stop at hurry up, go to sleep.
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  Speaker 3: This is what it's like. And I think that if
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  Speaker 3: we as adults had to go to work and deal
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  Speaker 3: with that on a day to day basis, we'd start
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  Speaker 3: looking for another job.
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  Speaker 2: Not only that, when you talk about it in those terms,
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  Speaker 2: each of those meetings covers a completely different topic.
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  Speaker 3: That's true.
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  Speaker 2: It's not when you go to work, you're dealing with
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  Speaker 2: the same things all day every day. You know what
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  Speaker 2: your role is, you know how to do your role
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  Speaker 2: because you've spent years and years training for that role.
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  Speaker 2: But these kids are going in and they're having a
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  Speaker 2: one hour meeting about geography and then a one hour
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  Speaker 2: meeting about mass and then I've got to be I've
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  Speaker 2: got to be a psychologist in the next meeting, like,
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  Speaker 2: there's a lot.
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  Speaker 3: To take in after the break, Let's talk about exactly
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  Speaker 3: what Shari can do as a mom of this year
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  Speaker 3: eight girl who's having such a hard time. It's a
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: Happy Families podcast.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: Are Screens Creating Tension at home? Tweens, teens and Screens
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: is a webinar to guide families to healthy, safe superscreen solutions.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: Bye today at happy families dot com dot au slash shop.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: It's the Happy Families podcast, the podcast for the time
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  Speaker 2: poor parent who just wants answers now and hopefully today, Shari,
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  Speaker 2: We've got some answers for you.
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  Speaker 3: A year eight girluggling at school, getting a lot of
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  Speaker 3: negative feedback and being pretty oppositional to teachers and to parents.
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  Speaker 3: So let's talk about attitude at home. Kylie, be honest,
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  Speaker 3: when our fourteen year old girl gives you attitude, what's
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  Speaker 3: your initial natural response?
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  Speaker 2: Time out?
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  Speaker 3: I can't believe you even said that on our podcast. Yeah,
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  Speaker 3: I can't believe you need time So you need time out? Ah,
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  Speaker 3: you need to be sent to your room until you
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  Speaker 3: can come out and behave.
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  Speaker 2: Like an adult, because often when that attitude comes out,
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  Speaker 2: I'm not at my best.
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  Speaker 3: And it's a really, really challenging situation to be in.
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  Speaker 3: So here's what I'm actually going to recommend for a
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  Speaker 3: parent who's dealing with a teenager who is really pushing
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  Speaker 3: back and really saying no, no, no, you can't make me.
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  Speaker 3: I want my autonomy. Leave me alone. It's my life.
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  Speaker 3: First of all, here's a script that I find useful,
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  Speaker 3: and I've used this with our kids called doctor justin.
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  Speaker 3: I don't know if you've heard me say this to
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  Speaker 3: our kids, but when they when they give us a
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  Speaker 3: really hard time and they give us some attitude from
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  Speaker 3: time to time, I'll look at our kids and I'll say,
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  Speaker 3: I'm going to pretend that you didn't say that. And
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  Speaker 3: then I just wait. Maybe I'll turn my back and
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  Speaker 3: walk away because I'm ready to explode myself, but I
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  Speaker 3: just say, I'm going to pretend that you didn't say that,
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  Speaker 3: or I'm going to give you a chance to rethink
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  Speaker 3: that that tone or that statement. What you're really doing
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  Speaker 3: is you're stopping it right there at the start. You're
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  Speaker 3: calling it because you've seen it, but you're doing it
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  Speaker 3: in a manner that is pretty non confrontive. It's not
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  Speaker 3: like you're saying, don't you dare speak to me like that.
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  Speaker 3: I've had enough of your attitude. I demand you show
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  Speaker 3: some respect. Have you noticed that we demand respect in
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  Speaker 3: the most disrespectful way, Whereas if we say I'm just
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  Speaker 3: going to pretend that you didn't say that, that can
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  Speaker 3: be really really powerful. The second thing that I'm going
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  Speaker 3: to suggest is emotion coaching. And we've got a couple
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: of podcasts where we've talked about that in detail, so
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  Speaker 3: we won't go through it a lot right now, but
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  Speaker 3: the simple, the real crux of emotion coaching is that
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  Speaker 3: we recognize that our child's having a really big emotion.
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: We try to see the world through their eyes, and
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  Speaker 3: we state the emotion that we can see. So we
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  Speaker 3: might say, you're really upset right now, aren't you, Or
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  Speaker 3: being at school today's really gotten under your skin, you're
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  Speaker 3: really frustrated, you're really angry, you're really this, that or
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  Speaker 3: the other, and so find the words that describe the emotion.
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  Speaker 3: If you get it wrong, they'll tell you. The great
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  Speaker 3: thing about kids, I'll say that's not what I'm feeling
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  Speaker 3: at all, And you can say, oh, well, I'm here
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  Speaker 3: to understand, help me to understand. I don't want to
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  Speaker 3: reprimand I want to understand. I want to get curious,
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  Speaker 3: not furious. And that's what emotion coaching really is. We
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  Speaker 3: name it to tame it, and then we pretty much
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  Speaker 3: say how can I help or what's the best way forward?
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  Speaker 3: And that's the second idea. So number one, we've got
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: those scripts. Number two, we've got emotion coaching. Number three,
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  Speaker 3: I think just seeing the world through their eyes, say
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: to them, this is really hard right now, being a
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  Speaker 3: teenager being in grade eight, Like, if you can get
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: through grade eight, you can get through anything. Yeah, yeah,
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  Speaker 3: And that's the truth. Hard time, it's just such a tough,
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: tough time to be a teenager.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I've got a question for you though. Ye you know,
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  Speaker 2: as parents, we actually have a huge amount of control
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  Speaker 2: over what happens in our homes. But she is dealing
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  Speaker 2: with this in the school, you know, right classroom as well,
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  Speaker 2: and she doesn't have any control over what the teachers
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  Speaker 2: do or how the teachers respond. She's not there in
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  Speaker 2: the moment, and so how do you tackle that?
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  Speaker 3: So let's respond to that fairly briefly, and then we'll
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  Speaker 3: have to wrap up because this is meant to be
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  Speaker 3: the podcast for the time poor parent who just wants
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: answers now, And we don't want to turn into a
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: too long discussion, but I think it's worth highlighting this.
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  Speaker 3: We don't really know what's happening at school. We've got
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: a year eight girls storytelling about what's happening, and it
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  Speaker 3: may be that the teachers are responding and saying, here's
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: what's been going on. And it may very well be
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: that some teachers are not dealing with it in a
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: way that is what we might consider best practice. They
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: might be fairly punitive. They don't like being challenged by
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: a year eight kid when they're dealing with so many
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: students and so much stuff, And so it's possible that
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: the teachers could be dealing with it better. But I'll
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: tell you what, it's got to be tough being a
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: teacher as well. My sympathies really are with the teachers
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: in many of these circumstances. It's important that we don't
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  Speaker 3: actually take sides and say that the teacher is a
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: bad person or that the child's a bad person. What
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  Speaker 3: I think is more helpful is to have a chat
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: with our child and go through the three years of
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: effective discipline, explore explain in power what's going on at school.
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  Speaker 3: How connected do you feel to your friends, how meaningful,
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  Speaker 3: how purposeful, how useful you're finding the classes. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: your AG's a tough time. Year eight, nine, and ten.
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  Speaker 3: It's like we're just in purgatory. We're waiting until those
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: senior years of high school so we can finally get
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  Speaker 3: on with our lives. We've just got to sit here
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  Speaker 3: and keep on learning stuff. A year after year after year.
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  Speaker 3: It's a tough time. Well, it's the year.
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  Speaker 2: Also, you know where you're trialing all the subjects, so
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  Speaker 2: you're not even hand picking the subjects that you want
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  Speaker 2: to do.
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  Speaker 3: You just yeah, because elective subjects come in later. That's right,
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  Speaker 3: So there's not a lot of autonomy. I'd be looking
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  Speaker 3: to make sure relationships are good. I'd really be asking
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  Speaker 3: a question about whether the school's the right one based
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: on the cultural things that have been mentioned, and I'd
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: explore a lot, not in a ten or fifteen minute conversation,
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: but across the next couple of weeks without any agenda.
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: Just tell me about this, tell me about that. I'm
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: trying to really help us to make some progress on this.
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  Speaker 3: It might take a few weeks. I'm going to ask
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: you a lot of questions. Are you cool with that?
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: What else can you tell me? Then explain? Explain means
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  Speaker 3: no matter what the teacher says or does, it's not
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: okay to be rude and disrespectful. And that's a value
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: that we have in our home. Keep it short. Kids
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: fall asleep when we give them long explanations, and then
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: empower your child. What do you think, what's the best
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: way forward? How can we improve things? What would you
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: like to see happen? What can I do to support you?
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: I hope that's helpful, Shari.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: I think the most important thing to remember out of
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: all of this is that none of these changes will
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: happen overnight. No that the conversations that we're going to
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: be having with our children in light of the challenges
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: that we're experiencing at the moment. There even may be
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: some pushback from them in the beginning, because this is
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: really challenging. But over time, if you're consistent, you'll start
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: to see some really wonderful changes in even just your
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: relationship with your child.
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: So the take home message in brief.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: It's really tough being a teen, but if we can
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: explore explain and empower them. The world's going to be
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: a much better place in our homes.
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and when they get it wrong, I'm going to
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: pretend that you didn't say that.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: Love it.
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: We hope that this has been a helpful podcast for you.
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: If you enjoy the podcast, please leave those five star
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: ratings and reviews that Apple Podcasts so that more people
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: can find out about the podcast and make their family happier.
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: As always, your feedback is welcome. Podcasts with an S
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: podcasts at happy families dot com dot AU and big
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: thank you to Justin rule On from Bridge Media, our producer,
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: and Craig Bruce, our executive producer. If you'd like more
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: information about making your family happier, you can get it
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: all at happy families dot com dot a