Ep. 16 Teenage Problems
Let's switch things around so that you can have the family that you've always wanted
I know when I was young, I dreamed about what it would be like to have a family, with the white picket fence, and they grow up to be wonderful children. Did that happen?
You're right in the midst of it. Now, if I were you, I'd want to know about someone like me and why I can help you. Couple things to know about my history, my academic journey in adolescent development. I've worked in secure facilities. I know what actual naughty teens are. In addition, I have five children and their ages range from twenty-six to forty-one. When I was raising my children, I had four step-kids as well. When you add five and four, what do you get? Oh, a number that's unconscionable! It's nine! Nine kids. We had a five-year-old and eight teenagers.
My kids are all grown now. All of them have children except two, and all but two are married. They have produced wonderful little teeny humans that you could eat and they're yummy! There are thirteen of them running around. I had nine here at Christmas. I'm not sure you have much that you've gone through that I haven't gone through myself with my kids or certainly seen with my clients or with the troubled youth work that I've done. So let's get going.
I've got copious notes here to share the basics of what you need to know before we really get to work.
If you don't understand these basics, you can't really get to work
Let me tell you what I hear all the time from parents. “Why is my teenager so angry? Why is my teenage daughter defiant? My child sleeps all day. My child plays internet games all day. They're addicted to their internet.” I hear that all day. I get it, it's awful. As a parent, feeling like a failure is the worst thing that can happen. I'd rather break my leg than be left feeling like a bad parent.
Here are three things I am going to teach you to get through this:
1. What is authority: Understanding parenting
When your kids don't want to hang out with authority. We'll talk about how much authority you have when they're one, three, five, sixteen, eighteen, twenty and thirty-five. Is your authority the same or does it change?
2. We're going to talk about normal versus abnormal behavior
What's normal, what's abnormal?
3. What's high-risk behavior and what's low-risk behavior
They're not the same and most of you are not clear of the distinction. I'm crystal clear of the distinction.
By the end of this, you will be able to diagnose whether your kid is normal, abnormal, high risk or low risk. Then I'll give you some ideas of what you're going to do about it.
Understanding Parenting
Let me tell you my favorite metaphor. You are making bread. You add flour, yeast, salt, and water, kneed it, roll it, and you do your thing then put it in the oven. What do you do then? Well, after the bread is in the oven for five minutes, usually the average person, the average person would go look at it and maybe open the door and after ten minutes you opened the door and go, “Oh my gosh, it's not working very well.”
“My bread is all lumpy on this side, and it's sunk in on that side. I don't think my bread is going to turn out very well.” Pretty soon you look again. “Oh, it's all puffy. It's good. Get . . . , oh wait, can you shut the oven?” Then you look again and the bread has sunk in the middle. You know what? When you take this bread out doesn't look very good. Do you know what to do with bread? You do the same things with bread that you do with children. You get out of their way.
A parent's job is to give their children only two things. Give them roots and give them wings
Roots are stability.
It might be spirituality, the security of love, a home, food is there. Roots to grow, a place to cry and laugh when you come home. A room to have where you can express yourself with posters, friends to call.
Wings mean learning to fly
Do you want your child to grow up to be a robot, or do you want it to know how to fly? To me, flying means the child has the ability to think on their own. When they leave the nest, they can think on their own and make decisions. Instead of, “Mom, what should I do? Some parents like that, we'll talk about that too, about how to not be so connected to your kids in a really super great way, but for today, understand that your parenting is going to shift and change as they grow. Those kids I'm going to tell you right now, if when my kids were all born within year three, if I died and left and never came back, my kids would still grow up, and I'm going to say as cool as I am, as great of a parent as I am, I think they'd be similar to what they are now.
Not completely, but they would still have that innate drive and thing that they do. Are they a singer-songwriter, or are they kind of a hippie, permaculture gardening person? I have both. I have five kids that are opposite from each other. How do you get opposites with five? They have two things in common. They have roots. They know I'm here. Their dad has passed away, and that gives me a lot of responsibility. I feel like I overcompensate. I get it, my kids have roots, but they also have wings. This is emotional because it's important. I have five kids that think for themselves. In my last sentence when I hang up the phone almost every time is, “You'll figure it out.” Cause they do.
What is Normal Teenage Behavior?
Let's talk about what's normal versus abnormal behavior. Is your kid normal?
This is normal
Lazy, sleeps all day if they can get away with it, play games as much as possible on their computer, doesn't take responsibility for their actions, not at all helpful around the house. Wants to be with friends more than family. They don't reason well and debate with their parents. They're defiant and usually angry. Hey, sorry this is just reporting, don't shoot the messenger, but that's a normal teenager. So far, is your kid normal? Let's talk about what abnormal is.
This is not normal
Helpful, team player wants to go to school and get themselves up, wants to go to church, consistently helps around the house, cleans up after themselves, says, mom, how can I help you? Mom, Dad, thank you for what you do for me. Is your kid abnormal? What we're going to do with the skills and tools here, is we're going to help you have the most abnormal, cool, awesome child ever. Kind of interesting.
Out of Control Teenagers: High Risk Behaviors
Let's talk about low risk
Low risk means they do it once or twice, maybe. There's not a pattern. They just smoked once. I know it's awful, but you know what? That's still low risk. Meaning you just watch. With low risk, you watch. Being rude to authority is low risk. I know the principal calls you, if he just does it once, hang out. Disobedient, mildly, mildly defiant, running away once or twice, hanging around the wrong crowd for a while. That's normal and it's low risk.
Lying and deceiving on small things on occasion, that's low risk and kind of normal, but you want to watch it. Low self-esteem, got to watch it, but it's still low risk. Anger kind of, stealing once, outbursts, blame, toying with the idea of drugs, trying them once, pushing the envelope with mild sexual behaviors, talking about it, talking rude, masturbation, not wanting to be with family, saying that mom and dad never did anything for them. Based on your upbringing, there's a huge variable, you have your beliefs about what's right or wrong according to religion and how you were raised. I'm telling you, in America, this is across the country, this is still low risk.
No matter what your religious beliefs that would be a variable and how you were raised is a definite variable. If you are strict, you might think, I can't let my kid do that, I never did it. You might overcompensate the other way, where your parents were permissive, so you grab on harder.
What to do with an out of control teenager
There's a difference between use, versus abuse, versus addiction. That's the distinction between low and high risk. Also with different naughtiness, there is a stage, a phase, and a pattern. Patterns usually don't show up until after they're eighteen, or out of the house. I know this is a lot of information really fast. High-risk behavior.
This is where you want to grab your kid
It requires immediate forced action. Severe eating disorders, inpatient. The eating disorders as defined. You might want to get a really sure diagnosis on that. Drug abuse or drug dealing. No, I didn't say use once, I said abuse. Real bad abuse and addiction activities. That includes anything illegal, immoral or unethical that has turned from a phase into a pattern. When it's way more than a one-time episode, statutory rape, those kinds of things. That's high risk. With high risk you grab them, and you take them home, or you lock them in their room.
Take A deep Breath
Lots to think about here. Where's the diagnosis of your child? Right now we're just diagnosing. Take a breath and remember to keep breathing. We're almost done.
Parenting
Let's now diagnose a normal parent and an abnormal parent. A normal parent is codependent, hovering, controlling. A showbiz parent where your successes equal my successes. You need to be successful, so I look good, very common. Not Trusting your teenager, not at all. Parents that think they're all that and they're all so smart and they know everything. Parents have low self-esteem. This is a normal parent.
Normal parenting is just this overreaction, over parenting, over concern, the not letting the bread rise, there's no trust and faith in the process. Abnormal parent, high self-esteem, realizing that they're not their children. “I am not my child.” I remember learning that. I'll tell you another day.
An abnormal parent knows their kids have their own minds, their own personality, and they understand their kids can barely be shaped but only a little bit shaped. A really great parent understands the journey of life, and God's plan. That's what an abnormal parent is.
What is your Endgame?
What's our goal with these teen issues, these troubled teens, these defiant humans that live in our house, just right down the hall. What do we do? The first question to answer at this point, do you want your child to be a robot, and just mind you, and do what you say, and do everything right, and grow up just like you thought. Or do you want your child to have wings? You need to get a life, and I say that with all due respect. As you watched the bread grow, trust me, we have a lot more to talk about at another time.
Boundaries
How to say the boundaries, the verbiage. How to say things and how not to say things. Parenting styles. There are many. The three main ones and many more. We need to talk about identity development. We need to talk about family structure and order. We need to talk about presupposing language, rapport.
Our goal is to help you have abnormal children.
Yes, you want to be an abnormal parent and live a beautiful life, and have a beautifully abnormal family, with respect and love flowing through life. Knowing we're all on our own journey and have the life that you want, and have the family you always dreamed about. It's possible. Thank you for reading. Have a great day. Take care. Talk soon!
