Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / What Defiant & Non-Compliant Teens Actually Need (a Q&A)

Transcript

What Defiant & Non-Compliant Teens Actually Need (a Q&A) · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to the Happy Families podcast. Thank you
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: so much for joining us today as we unpack Sandy's
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: question a single mum who has a thirteen year old
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: boy who is a noncompliant. That's kind of what we're
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: talking about today, miss Happy Families. When the kids don't
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: do as you ask, when you've sat down, you've had
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: the conversations, you've built the structures, the rules, the processes,
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: and the kids just go eh, I'm not into it.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Today we will help you to know what to do
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: when the children are not playing ball. How do we
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: fix this challenge and get our families on track, especially
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: when we're flushed and stressed, overwhelmed, overworked and have too
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: much on our plates. That's next, stay with us. Hello
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: and welcome to The Happy Family's podcast, where you get
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: real parenting solutions every single day. This is Australia's most
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: downloaded parenting podcast and we are two of Australia's most
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: experienced parents. I think can I say that we have
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: six children, our oldest in Can I say we're experienced parents?
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: I think we are. I think we've done We've done
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: the hard yards here.
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  Speaker 2: Maybe just take the most experienced.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Okay, two very experienced parents raising six of our own daughters.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Our eldest is in her late twenties.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, and I actually have my grandbaby at my
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: feet as we as we speak.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, if you hear any when you say your grandbaby
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: she has scissors, she's cutting? Are you aware of that
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: she is?
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: I gave it things to cart right, Okay, So.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: She's two and a half and that's why she's so quiet,
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: feeling really nervous. If you hear any noises in the background,
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: it's because we have a two and a half year
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: old that we're looking after today while we record today's
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: pod for you. So, without any further ado, if you
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: have any questions that you'd like to hit us up
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: with a tricky question, go to the super simple system
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: at happy families dot com dot you, scroll down to podcasts,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: click the record button, start talking. It is really that easy.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Or you can send us a voice note to podcasts
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: at happy families dot com dot au. Here's the question
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: that Sandy sent through.
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: I've gone down a few rabbit holes with several episodes,
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: so thank you share all of your help, especially the
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: recent perimenopause episode that was great. I'm currently wondering what
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: to do when you have all the routines set up,
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: and you set up the screen time, and you collaborate
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: with your child, only to have them withdraw lie not
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: do the routine or task on their own without being
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: asked or nagged. He's an only nearly thirteen year old.
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: I'm single, nearly fifty two year old, and he seemed
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: to be stuck in this endless cycle of I talk
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: to him about the expectations or the plan ahead of time.
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: He does nothing. I repeat and ask, he becomes silly
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: and defensive, interrupts. I call out the bad behavior. He
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: feels accused and rages. You know, he stays in his room,
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: getting distracted by anything and everything and nothing. And I'm
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: a single mum juggling years of stress, legal battles, parenting
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: battles with the eggs, work stress, an age parent who's
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: at a stroke with very little support ak eight none.
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: And when I do call out his poor choices, I
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: get meanness, disrespect, and rage. The trust has been eroded
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: and now we're both trying to rebuild out and feeling
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: really resentful that he still doesn't do things on his own.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: Please help, all right, Kylie? Any major themes that jump
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: out at you as you listen to Sandy's plea.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: I don't want to say it. I feel like every
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: day we're talking about the same thing, but screen.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Like parenting is screens, isn't it. Wow? Yep, yep, Okay, So, and.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: I'm feeling I'm feeling all the feels for your Sandy.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: It's already hard life as hard as a parent, but
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: Sandy's doing it alone and has been through some pretty
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: serious things. From her voice, note, it sounds exhausting, and honestly,
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: I would go further. It's like, sometimes parenting is just brutal.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: So we're doing it together and it's exhausting.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they're talking about a thirteen year old boy who's
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: been through the same things. I would say, Sandy, please
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: know you're not failing. It's just really, really, really hard
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: what you're trying to do. At the risk of being solicitous,
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: I've got a book called Boys that you can get
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: for twenty some percent off a book Toopia dot com
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: dot you right now. That might be useful, But let's
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: let's give you a serious answer here to your question.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: Let me ask you a question, Kylie. When I call
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: out your poor choices. So Sandy literally said, this is
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: a direct quote. When I call out his poor choices,
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  Speaker 1: I get mean this disrespect and rage, and we don't
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  Speaker 1: like that. When a thirteen year old turns around, rage
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: is at us and it's disrespectful.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: Maybe she needs to just come and spend some time
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  Speaker 2: in our house, because we never had that response.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: There's never any rage ever.
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  Speaker 2: There's just gratitude that we've pointed out their wrongdoings and
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  Speaker 2: they're just so eager to make it right.
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  Speaker 1: So I was going to I was going to put
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: in an adult context, like when I point out your
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: poor choices or you point out, Oh, when you point
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: out my poor choices, I usually express appreciation, but I
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  Speaker 1: might be the only one in the family that does that.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: You're looking at this, you're hilarious.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: You don't. Firstly, let's make that very clear. But you
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: are very good at coming round in time.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: But in the moment, it's pretty hard, isn't it.
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  Speaker 2: And it's really hard. No one wants to be told
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: that getting it wrong, especially when you know you're getting
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: it wrong. That's even worse.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So he's already not doing the thing, whatever the
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: thing is that you've told him to do. He already
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  Speaker 1: knows that you're frustrated. Then you call out his poor choices,
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: which really means, in his mind, you are making bad decisions,
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: you're being irresponsible, you're disappointing me. You're not a good person.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: I was about to say that the actual crux of
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: it is you're a bad person. That's what That's what
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: you hear.
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  Speaker 1: So now he feels ashamed, and so he responds with
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: meanness and disrespect and rage because he's feeling accused and
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: judged and feeling like you can't get it right. But
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: more than anything, he's just feeling unworthy. And the thing is, Sandy, like,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: you're not wrong that he's not doing what you've asked.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: You're not wrong to point it out. Is that what
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: you're saying, No.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: No, like he's not doing what he's asked. That's actually correct.
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  Speaker 1: But the calling it out, which that doesn't fix it,
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: because no one wants to be fixed, or it does.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: It creates this shame cycle. He doesn't do the thing
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: you call him out, he gets upset. It erodes trust.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: I mean the word that Sandy is was I'm becoming
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: more suspicious, right, I'm becoming suspicious of everything because trust
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: is being eroded so much so the first the first
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: shift I think in my response to Sandy's question is
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: got to move away from correction and direction. Got to
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: move away from calling him out. I got to absolutely
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: get to a point where we can say, just stop
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: the calling it out.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: Well, we're in this vicious cycle now. It's just this
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: repetitive behavior going around and round in a circle, and
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  Speaker 2: there's no way to get out of it unless somebody
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  Speaker 2: breaks the cycle.
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: The second thing that I think is really important here, Kylie,
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  Speaker 1: is we're talking about a thirteen year old. This developmentally normal.
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  Speaker 1: It's awful, it doesn't make it right or good, but
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  Speaker 1: it is developmentally normal. And so as he's trying to
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: figure out how to separate from you, the easiest way
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  Speaker 1: to do that is to do what he wants, not
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: what you want him to do. He's creating his identity.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: And I'm going to sound really pessimistic here, but if
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: he doesn't want to see your point of view about something,
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: then no amount of collaboration, none whatsoever is going to
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  Speaker 1: magically make him compliant. So I think we need to
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: change the question rather than how do I get in
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: to do what I want? The question is how do
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: I get him to want what is in his best interests?
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: Because his idea of what's in his best interest and
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: what's actually in his best interest two totally different things.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: And after the break, I'm going to tell you what
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: we do in our family to do that and give
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: you a couple of pointers on what you can do
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: to get it happening with your son. Stay with us,
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: We're back. It's the Happy Family's podcast. How do you
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: get the kids to endorse, buy into, accept, identify the
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: value of the things that you're asking them to do
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: when they want to do exactly the opposite, stay up
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: or not I need ice cream, not do anything that
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  Speaker 1: they're being asked to do, spend time on screens and
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: so on and so forth.
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  Speaker 2: Can't you just give in?
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  Speaker 1: Some people do. That's why we have so many of
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: the challenges that we have in socide today. The thing
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: that I've really been working on with our kids when
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: this stuff is blowing up, and ideally it happens before
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: it blows up, although not always is, I want to
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: talk to them about trust. So I literally say to
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: the kids, what doesn't mean to trust someone? Here's the
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: definition of trust. Trust is when you believe the other
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  Speaker 1: person is going to act in your best interests. And
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: then I literally I'll ask the kids, regardless of their age,
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  Speaker 1: do you trust me? Do you believe that I'm here
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  Speaker 1: to act in your best interests? Or am I just
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: here to act in my own best interest? Did I
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: have you to make me happy? Or did I have
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: you because I wanted you? And so the conversation really
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: needs to get to a point where your child can
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: acknowledge and recognize that you, as a parent, are there
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  Speaker 1: to act in their best interests. If there is no
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: foundation of trust, then you cannot have a meaningful, positive, progressive,
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: productive conversation. It just doesn't work.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: I kind of feel like if we're at the stage
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: that Sandy's out, I'd actually be simplifying it even more.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: You go, and it just.
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: It goes back to those three questions that we sit
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: down with our kids every week. It's like, what's going
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  Speaker 2: well in our family right now?
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: What's not?
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: And hopefully there's an from his perspective, you're always on
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: my case. I can't do anything right. That's what he's
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: going to say. Right, He's going to pull out all
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: of the things that make his life hard and as
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: his parent.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: You're gonna say, well, I've got good reason for it.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, but you don't, don't like resist, let him talk,
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: let him share with you what's going wrong. Hopefully he'll
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: be able to see that there are some things that
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: are going well and really kind of lean into those
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: things as well, you know, acknowledge them, celebrate them, be
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: grateful that there are some positives. And then when we're
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: able to talk about what's not going well, we can
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: then collaborate together and say, so, what do we do
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  Speaker 2: about it?
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: Well, explore explaining power.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think that has to come first.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: See, I'm going to argue that the trust comes first, right,
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: If you don't trust me, then you're not going to
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: explore explain it power with me. And I've found when
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: we've had a couple of really tricky situations in the
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: last few months with our kids, when I've said do
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: you trust me? Do you think that I'm here to
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: act in your best interests of mine? And they've gotten
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: to the point where the like, no, actually you do
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: want to act in my best interest. Once we can
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: get to that point, then I can say, great, So
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: if you trust me, what's actually going on here? Let's
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: explore this, let's understand what's working, what's not, and let's
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: problem solve together. I just feel like that gives you
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: the foundation. Either way, both of these things can work
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: in harmony. You could go with your three questions first,
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: you can go with my question about trust first, and really, Sandy,
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: that's where I would be pointing you. There's one other
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: conversation structure that I might point you to as well,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: and that is that you could just say, what do
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: you want our home to feel like? We've done this
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: with our kids a few times and it's worked really nicely.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: What do you want our home to feel like? So
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: this is not what rules should we have. It's not
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: how much screen time is okay? Just what kind of
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: home do you want to live in? What is a
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: good day look like? What makes you feel happy here?
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: That's another variant of what's working. But it's got a
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: goal focus. It's got to let's look to the future.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: If we could design how our family actually felt, what
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: would we design it to feel like. We're not talking
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: about rules here, We're talking about the feelings.
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, when we sat down to this with our kids
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: years and years ago, I remember just asking them if
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: they could pinpoint their happiest moments in family life.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: What were we doing, what they look like?
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: What were we doing, what did they look like? Who
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: was there just helping them to connect with that feeling,
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: because if it hasn't felt like that for a while,
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: it's really hard to say, well, I want it to
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: feel this.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: And if you know that your family has been happy before,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: that means that it can be happy again.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so you understand what it felt like.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: Deeply understand what it feels like. So if that's what
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: was the happiest moment, how do we recreate those moments
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: in our everyday family life?
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that conversation is much more likely to build
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: buy in with a thirteen year old boy who is
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: otherwise a little bit opposition and wants to do things
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: his way. We need to wrap it up here, Sandy.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: We hope it's been helpful. I might jump in with
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: the final word. I would say. I would love to say,
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: just collaborate and everything's going to be fine. I don't
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: really think that's going to happen, though, because you're doing
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: it alone. It's a really tough situation. Big load and
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: a thirteen year old boy who's developmentally wide to resist
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: you and has been through some really hard stuff just
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: like you have. But this current approach of setting expectations
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: and you're the one who's doing all of this, then
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: he doesn't meet them and you call him out and
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: he gets upset. It's not working. So stop calling him out,
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: stop deciding for him, stop trying to control him into compliance. Instead,
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: start getting curious. See if you can create a vision
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: together about what he wants and what you want and
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: develop it in a way that gets his buy in.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: What do you want to have? Feel like where's the tension?
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: What solutions do you see? And then just listen, like
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: really listen. Don't correct, don't veto, just listen. Don't think
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: you're going to think fix everything quickly. This stuff takes
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: a while to build up and it takes a while
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: to unpack. But if you do start on this, it
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: will increase responsibility and I believe that it can break
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: the cycle that you're in. Thank you so much for
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: the question. If you have a tricky question for us,
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: hit us up at happy families dot com dot you.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: There's a super simple system there where you just click
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: the record button and start talking, or send us a
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: voice note to podcasts at happy families dot com dot au.
• 13:36
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• 13:42
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• 13:46
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• 14:02
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