Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / How To Avoid Overparenting "Underachieving" Teens

Transcript

How To Avoid Overparenting "Underachieving" Teens · 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 am having another reader
• 0:13
  question that I am tackling and it's how to avoid overparenting,
• 0:18
  unfocused or underachieving teenager.
• 0:21
  So, we will get to that right after.
• 0:22
  I encourage you to subscribe because I have a lot of good
• 0:26
  subscriber episodes out the recent one that I did the most
• 0:31
  recent was how to tactfully tell your partner, when they're not
• 0:34
  good at something. And of course, I zoom out to
• 0:37
  whether you should even do that. And why, and what it means about
• 0:40
  your relationship and etcetera Etc but moving on to the
• 0:44
  teenager topic. So a lot of parents struggle
• 0:48
  with not losing their mind if they're teenagers.
• 0:50
  Don't seem to be doing much and they're just sitting around
• 0:53
  jacking off literally or figuratively and you start to
• 0:56
  fear that they're going to be living with you for the rest of
• 0:59
  their lives and you know, so parents want to the kid to get
• 1:04
  their shit together. Together and, you know, start
• 1:07
  doing something and you know basically start to show that
• 1:12
  they are independent. And so ironically that and out
• 1:16
  of a large, bolus of anxiety lard lodged in the parents, like
• 1:23
  solar plexus and they they feel just like Panic, they decide to
• 1:28
  over parent this child. In order to teach them to be
• 1:31
  independent, by saying, come on, come on.
• 1:33
  What classes are you going to take?
• 1:34
  And what are you Do here. And what are you going to do
• 1:36
  there? And what about this?
• 1:37
  And what about this? And what about that?
• 1:39
  And you could do this and you could do that.
• 1:40
  And why don't we just sit down together?
• 1:42
  Why don't we go to the computer together?
• 1:43
  And look at this, or look at that and know what about, you
• 1:46
  know? So like they just basically get
• 1:48
  up the kids ass. And so then the kids with draws,
• 1:50
  more and more and more until you really fear that they are just
• 1:54
  going to be a complete hermit and do nothing.
• 1:57
  So what do you do in this situation?
• 1:59
  Well I mean you know you can't really make an omelette without
• 2:03
  breaking some eggs, right? So If you really don't want your
• 2:06
  kid to live with you forever, you got to kind of make that
• 2:09
  clear. You should have been making a
• 2:10
  clear all along but like start making it clear.
• 2:13
  Now, start to say that like, you are not always going to be
• 2:17
  living here in the basement. Like, I may want to downsize.
• 2:21
  I may move away like etc, etc. You have to be self-sufficient.
• 2:25
  So in order to be self-sufficient, you got to
• 2:27
  learn how to do things on your own.
• 2:29
  So I am not going to be up your ass telling you what to do so
• 2:32
  much anymore. But that also means I'm going to
• 2:35
  stop doing some of the stuff that I've been doing.
• 2:37
  I'm not going to give you money for doing nothing.
• 2:39
  I'm not going to give you do all your laundry.
• 2:42
  I'm not going to do you know all of the things that I've been
• 2:45
  doing that probably are things that people should be doing for
• 2:47
  a ten-year-old rather than for a 16 year old.
• 2:51
  So if you look through all the things that you've been doing
• 2:53
  for your child, a lot of them for parents in this situation or
• 2:57
  likely, you know, still the same things as you were doing when
• 3:01
  they were in elementary school and that's certainly He does not
• 3:05
  train a child to be independent. So certain kids have a desire to
• 3:10
  be independent on their own and some kids in our culture today,
• 3:14
  particularly because of the child-centered parenting
• 3:17
  approaches and the fact that they do not really have to grow
• 3:22
  up in any meaningful way. They are allowed to kind of be
• 3:26
  kids for an extremely long time, so some of them don't grow up, I
• 3:29
  mean, you know, that's kind of how it goes some of them decide
• 3:32
  that they really are opting out of adulthood from us.
• 3:35
  Longer time. And if you're cool with that,
• 3:38
  and you're cool doing their laundry, and having them sit
• 3:40
  around, and having them be in your house and you think that
• 3:42
  sounds good then, you know, keep doing what you're doing but
• 3:46
  otherwise you actually have to put your money where your mouth
• 3:48
  is and, you know, incrementally withdraw.
• 3:51
  Some of this, you know, enabling that you've been doing because a
• 3:56
  lot of parents think that something is support when it's
• 3:58
  really just an enabling. So doing all of the chores for a
• 4:02
  child, you should could be able to do their own is not.
• 4:05
  Not supportive, if they're not doing anything else?
• 4:07
  I mean, if your kid is like, you know, studying for the SAT, you
• 4:10
  know, night and day and it's next week, you know, all right.
• 4:13
  You want to do their laundry? That's cool.
• 4:15
  But if your kid is kind of basically doing nothing and you
• 4:20
  are bringing them, their clean clothes and given them money,
• 4:24
  whenever they need it, and cooking all of their meals, and
• 4:27
  then bringing them some snacks. I mean, think about what you're
• 4:29
  teaching them, you're teaching them that they're basically
• 4:31
  still 10 years old because this is the same stuff that you were
• 4:33
  doing that. It sounds good, right?
• 4:38
  But many people can't do it. And the people who really
• 4:40
  struggle with withdrawing, any sort of support / enabling are
• 4:44
  people with anxiety. And so they fear that any sort
• 4:50
  of behavior that they do, that the child could possibly
• 4:53
  consider - will result in the child hating them.
• 4:56
  I'll tell you something. Like they won't, you know, kids
• 5:00
  hate parents mostly. If parents are cruel, or if
• 5:03
  parents are unloving. Is that unloving to stop doing
• 5:07
  some basic things that a child could already be doing at their
• 5:12
  age? That is being a parent that is
• 5:15
  being a separate human being. That does not want to enable a
• 5:19
  extremely large child / adolescent to just kind of
• 5:24
  remain in stasis forever, so that is not something that will
• 5:27
  make a child hate you. It may make them irritated with
• 5:30
  you but in order for there to be long-term hate or something that
• 5:34
  could potentially lead to a, All that wanted to be close to you,
• 5:36
  you would have to do a lot worse than that.
• 5:39
  Honestly, most kids love their parents even if the parent is
• 5:44
  abusive or neglectful, which is a far cry from the sort of
• 5:48
  situation that people would be in if they are having these
• 5:52
  children, that kind of just sit in their room and hang out and
• 5:56
  when they're not at school. So what you really have to do
• 5:59
  then is kind of focus on your own self in therapy and figure
• 6:05
  out why it is so threatening and intimidating to you.
• 6:08
  To think about upsetting your child, I have a podcast called,
• 6:11
  don't let your kid treat you like garbage.
• 6:13
  And I talked about how if you had any sort of narcissistic
• 6:16
  parent or self-absorbed parent, then you're used to getting
• 6:19
  treated like shit and I'll tell you in this situation where
• 6:22
  you're enabling a child to remain dependent, then, you
• 6:27
  know, by overparenting them, you have to think about the over
• 6:31
  functioning that you started to do when you were much younger.
• 6:33
  And that was probably taken care of.
• 6:35
  Be their siblings because a parent couldn't or your parent
• 6:38
  themselves and when you learn that, the only way to cope and
• 6:42
  to live in your life is to over function, then you do that for
• 6:46
  your kids and you keep doing it. If you don't really interrogate
• 6:49
  it and stop yourself. I'll tell you that.
• 6:52
  If you got sick, God forbid were sick with something.
• 6:57
  You know, very bad and you were just laying in your bed.
• 7:00
  It's really unlikely that your teenager would never have clean
• 7:04
  clothes. Again and we just wear the same
• 7:06
  dirty shirt to school. All the time, I mean, most kids
• 7:10
  who are neurotypical, we'll we'll figure it out, you know.
• 7:16
  And most people that I mean, even on neurotypical, kids could
• 7:21
  figure like a lot more stuff out than the parents realized.
• 7:25
  When the parents are caught in, this Dynamic of overparenting,
• 7:28
  an enabling If the child has to do, they will do a lot more and
• 7:32
  this isn't you're not in that situation.
• 7:34
  So you're very Lucky, you are healthy and you are willing to
• 7:38
  help. The problem is your little too
• 7:40
  willing to help. So all of the help kind of
• 7:43
  leaves the child feeling like they can't really do anything.
• 7:46
  Children need a lot of scaffolding when they're younger
• 7:50
  but the scaffolding needs to be incrementally taken away as they
• 7:53
  get older. Otherwise if it remains like at
• 7:55
  the same level by scaffolding, I mean doing things for them.
• 7:59
  Like how scaffolding will help hold something up so the
• 8:01
  scaffolding needs to be taken away.
• 8:03
  So for example, a 10 year old Old could cook a simple meal, a
• 8:07
  16 year old, could cook a fancy meal.
• 8:10
  You know, I mean that's like a that's an age where you can
• 8:13
  really do anything, they can have a job that should be how
• 8:16
  they get money especially again, if they're not super big into
• 8:19
  academics. So of course there's only so
• 8:22
  many hours in a day and if a child is super into school you
• 8:25
  as a parent may decide that if they're into school, there are
• 8:28
  two sports or at extracurriculars that you want
• 8:31
  to subsidize them. But if they're not really doing
• 8:34
  much in The, in the way of school sports or anything that
• 8:41
  you think is productive, then they can work and they can
• 8:44
  certainly learn to work. I mean, remember, where you were
• 8:47
  at age 15 16, you were able to do a lot of shit and your child
• 8:52
  would too if they had to and they may have to if they need
• 8:56
  money and they may need money if you're not going to give them as
• 9:00
  much anymore and for parents that do set more boundaries and
• 9:04
  say, Say things like, okay, well, you know, I'm really kind
• 9:08
  of not going to be, you know, cooking all the dinners anymore.
• 9:11
  So, like, let's see what you can do.
• 9:13
  Kids frequently rise to the occasion, not instantly, they
• 9:17
  don't immediately know how to cook a meal but they can figure
• 9:20
  it out with love and positivity and confidence.
• 9:24
  I have stuff on like how to teach your kids to be more
• 9:27
  independent and that's geared towards smaller kids.
• 9:30
  But unfortunately nowadays something on letting your kids,
• 9:33
  cook a meal is Necessarily geared toward a parent of a 10
• 9:38
  or even a twelve-year-old but of 16 or even an 18 year old.
• 9:41
  So certainly at that age, the age of majority, you know, kids
• 9:46
  can do everything that an adult can do in terms of these life
• 9:52
  activities and that's where I think that your focus should be
• 9:55
  and anytime that you want to rush in with anxiety about the
• 9:58
  future, you need to tell yourself that this anxiety is
• 10:01
  not warranted because the child themselves.
• 10:05
  It will, the child will figure their life out as long as they
• 10:10
  are given the space to do it in. I mean, 99% of situations
• 10:15
  children do eventually become independent people.
• 10:19
  So, the point here is your own anxiety.
• 10:22
  Really needs to be addressed and parents of teenagers, have a lot
• 10:26
  of anxiety. They feel like this is their
• 10:28
  last chance to get it, right? They feel like there are a lot
• 10:31
  of dangers actual dangers. If the child does this or Wrong.
• 10:35
  You know, they could get pregnant, they could crash a
• 10:37
  car. I mean there's a lot more actual
• 10:39
  danger and for people, you know, than there is for younger kids
• 10:43
  doing something. So this activates anxiety and a
• 10:48
  lot of parents in the anxiety leads to hovering and
• 10:50
  overparenting. And then there's this idea again
• 10:53
  that I keep discussing, which is Big, this fear that the child
• 10:57
  will never be independent, but ironically the parent hovering
• 11:00
  around and saying things like that is going to make the child
• 11:04
  feel I'll less depend less independent and less able to be
• 11:08
  independent because they take their cues from you.
• 11:11
  If you seem terrified about how they're going to do eventually
• 11:14
  as an adult, well guess what, they're going to pick up on
• 11:17
  that. They probably do not have the
• 11:19
  skill set to be very successful. So you want to really in any
• 11:24
  possible way, you can promote Independence and stop yourself
• 11:29
  from the hovering and the anxious remarks you want to
• 11:32
  indicate that it is an expectation that We'll live
• 11:35
  independently and then this brings us to something else
• 11:38
  which is parents who want the kid to do, exactly what they
• 11:41
  want the kid to do. So there's a lot of parents have
• 11:44
  conflict with their kids because they want the kid to go to
• 11:46
  college. Kids, want to go to college
• 11:48
  well, as for the kid, the kid's life.
• 11:52
  So if the kids want to go to college and the only way out of
• 11:55
  that is by kind of doing nothing at school, then that's how they
• 11:59
  will get there, you know. But if a parent says listen, you
• 12:02
  could take your own path as long as you have a job.
• 12:05
  As long as you're doing something productive.
• 12:06
  That's cool. You know, you do you, not
• 12:09
  everybody was meant for college, then those kids can maybe find a
• 12:12
  different path. Everybody wasn't always expected
• 12:16
  to be a super high academic achiever as people are now, you
• 12:20
  know? And so College, isn't the path
• 12:22
  for everybody and certainly people can figure out various
• 12:27
  ways to be a successful and happy adult such that they may
• 12:32
  not have the exact same path as the parent.
• 12:34
  But they Have their own unique path.
• 12:36
  And these are interesting conversations to have with your
• 12:38
  children, but as long as you are benignly curious and not
• 12:42
  overwhelmingly anxious and directive.
• 12:45
  So if you say, oh my god do you think like I don't even think
• 12:48
  you're gonna get into college at this rate.
• 12:51
  Like that is certainly fear-mongering and the kids
• 12:53
  going to withdraw right away and they're going to think my God, I
• 12:57
  don't seem to be able to do anything.
• 12:59
  You know, I might as well just kind of sit around and stay
• 13:02
  paralyzed but if you say so, What are you thinking about
• 13:06
  doing? Are you thinking about going to
• 13:07
  college or anything about getting a job?
• 13:09
  Where are you thinking of living, what interests you, you
• 13:11
  know, not all one after the other like that but in a
• 13:14
  conversation, like an actual conversation while you're doing
• 13:17
  an activity of some sort, so that you're not staring at them
• 13:20
  intently and some sort of way that freaks them out.
• 13:24
  So, you know, there's a whole bunch of ways to live life and
• 13:28
  the number one that most parents agree on is that the kid has to
• 13:31
  be independent in case something happens to you, you know?
• 13:33
  And because that is how To live as an adult is to be an
• 13:36
  independent fully. Functioning human is to have
• 13:39
  kind of your own life. Your own preferences goals that
• 13:42
  you're working toward but these can look very, very different
• 13:45
  for different kids. And if you have gone down the
• 13:49
  path of saying, there's only one way to live and it's going to a
• 13:53
  good college and in the specifically, this one possibly
• 13:56
  and they'll write, then your kid may feel paralyzed.
• 13:59
  I'm not saying you did this. I mean, this thing was like a
• 14:01
  one-sentence question that I got from this reader, but You know,
• 14:05
  if parents are listening who do do this then it's time to stop,
• 14:09
  right? It's time to say, you know,
• 14:11
  there's a lot of paths, you know, of course, I've been
• 14:13
  focusing on College, that's the path I did or that's the path
• 14:16
  that I thought would be good. But honestly, you can really do
• 14:19
  whatever you want. I just need you to be happy and
• 14:22
  productive member of society. Such that I don't always have to
• 14:24
  support you. I will not be around forever and
• 14:26
  I am getting older and getting tired or and so you're going to
• 14:30
  be taking over more stuff and that's how we're going to do it.
• 14:33
  And again the values Best majority of children will rise
• 14:37
  to the expectations of Independence as long as the
• 14:39
  parents stay consistent. So that doesn't mean you say,
• 14:42
  all right, make your dinner tonight.
• 14:43
  And then at 6:30, if the kids still in their room, you're
• 14:47
  like, well forget it and then you just cook them a meal and
• 14:49
  deliver it. No, that's not what that means.
• 14:51
  It means that they actually are expected to come out and cook
• 14:54
  dinner and that you're waiting to and like you're waiting for
• 14:56
  them to cook dinner for the family.
• 14:58
  Why not do it once a week for a teenager?
• 15:00
  That's a good amount. So any people All that are
• 15:05
  listening and struggling with with how to address their
• 15:08
  anxiety about their child's. Future therapy is a wonderful
• 15:12
  way to address anxiety. You can finally talk to somebody
• 15:15
  about all of your catastrophic, worst case scenario, thoughts
• 15:18
  like that. Your child ends up homeless
• 15:20
  under a bridge and the therapist will go through them with you.
• 15:24
  We'll figure out where they come from in your early life and will
• 15:28
  challenge the cognitive distortions possibly and replace
• 15:31
  them with more viable, realistic thoughts and Help you hone the
• 15:36
  skills with which you can better communicate with your teenager
• 15:41
  who are notoriously bad at communicating.
• 15:43
  So hopefully, this addressed your issue reader and anybody
• 15:47
  else who wants to join my Facebook group should and I will
• 15:51
  talk to you all soon. Bye.