How many times a week do you and your teen hit a brick wall – argue – fight over what they can or can’t do – or over what you want them to do, and they don’t want to do?

Last week, in episode 15, we talked about control, conflict, and your teen’s autonomy. We talked about how conflict occurs when we’re in this transition phase of adolescence - when our teen or tween is pushing for more control and we’re trying to hang on to it.

Finding that balance between our control and their autonomy can be really difficult. And moving into our new position as consultant when we’re used to being manager is extremely challenging for some of us who feel we need to maintain all or most of our control.

If you haven’t listened to episode 15 yet, it’s not totally a prerequisite to today’s episode but I do think it would help you with the big picture. Because today, we’re going to talk more in detail about a concept from last week’s show; relatedness (which I’ll explain again – don’t worry).

How do we maintain relatedness during these conflicts – specifically, while setting and enforcing rules or working on a teen’s challenging behavior?

Hi, I’m Ann Coleman and this is Speaking of Teens. I’m here every Tuesday with a new episode sharing science-based insight into parenting your teen or tween.

My teenage son went through a couple of really difficult years. I not only didn’t know how to help, but I was also inadvertently making things worse.

When we finally got on the right track, I decided to learn everything I could about the science of parenting adolescents so I could help you with the skills I was lacking.

As we discussed last week, when our kids begin to advance cognitively, and begin expressing themselves as individuals separate and apart from us - they necessarily push for more autonomy. And they want us to recognize them as capable of making their own decisions and acknowledge the valuable insight they bring to table – they want the opportunity to voice their opinions and to be heard.

And when their push for autonomy clashes with our idea of how much control we should have – remember that the key to finding balance is that simple concept of relatedness, which just means that when we disagree with them, we make sure they can state their opinion and express themselves freely, tell us what we really need to know and fully explain their point of view…all without worrying that we’ll freak out, punish them, get mad, shut them down, tune them out or make light of the situation.

Your teen needs to know you’re their safe harbor, that you’re there for them no matter what they say or do, that you won’t make them regret being totally honest with you.

This feeling of relatedness is what insures their secure attachment to you, gives them the comfort and the peace of mind necessary to insure that they’ll keep talking to you, and that they’ll come to you in a crisis, when they need critical advice.

This is what allows you to maintain your influence in their life, to be the voice of reason in their head when you’re not around and they’re in a situation where they need to feel you with them.

Now, we’ve talked in the past about how very important it is that you are both emotionally aware and regulated so you can handle these moments of conflict and provide relatedness (and emotion coaching) without freaking out.

Keep working on that if you’re not quite there. Go back to episode 8 and listen again download the resources, start practicing mindfulness. None of this is going to be possible for you unless you have your own emotions under control. And if you need a refresher on emotion coaching, go back to episode 6 and go from there.

What does relatedness/autonomy have to do with setting and enforcing rules or working on a teen’s specific problem behavior? First of all, by the time your kids are around 11 or 12, if you’re just declaring a rule without discussing it with them first, you’ve messed up already. No judgment here. I did the very same thing for years.

But here’s what that means: you’ve made a unilateral decision about their life, which to them means you’ve not supported their autonomy. You’ve not provided that relatedness we just discussed. They feel controlled, unheard, ignored, and devalued in this relationship. They feel detached and unsupported and misunderstood.

So, they fight you on this rule, and there’s your conflict. But you don’t budge, so they begin sneaking around to prove you can’t control their life. They’re rebelling. This leads to more conflict, as you attempt to control them even more as you see this out-of-control behavior. Soon, they feel completely detached from you, which leads to severe acting out and then anxiety, depression, which means their behavior is more off the charts. It’s a horrible cycle that, trust me, you do not want to start.

Here’s what you really need to grasp: gradually allowing your adolescent to have control over their own lives as they develop the capacity to handle it, is not giving up your parental authority. You’re supporting their autonomy and maintaining a secure attachment for them, which provides an environment of collaboration, a feeling of safety and comfort and trust in which they can share information with you, ask for your advice, feel you with them when they’re out in the wild trying to make decisions when their reward system is pulling them to do something crazy.

As Drs Laura Kastner and Jennifer Wyatt write in their best-selling book Getting to Calm, you’re building intimacy and trust as you share your power with them – and this is why they are much more likely to share things with you that will allow you to guide them or help them stay safe. That doesn’t happen if you try to hang on to all the power.

Knowing these general concepts is one thing but figuring out how to execute them in real life, under the stress and pressure you face every day with your kids, is quite another.

How exactly do you strike this balance of control? How do you set rules with their input? What do you say or do when they ask you to do something that goes against the rule? What do you do when there’s a problem behavior you need to address?

I don’t know about you, but for me, when I started down this road, I had no clue how to set aside my controlling nature and do things differently. I just didn’t have the skills – I didn’t know where to start or what to say.

I understood the overall concept – listen and reflect, empathize, acknowledge their feelings, make sure they feel heard. But give me a script or something – what exactly should come out of my mouth? And when do I say what? Let’s get into that now.

So, first things first. If you’ve been controlling everything up until now, still making all the decisions and all the rules without their input, and you’re ready for some positive change, then sit down with your kid and let them know you want to give them more say in the things that impact their life.

Admit you’ve made some mistakes in the past and that you want to try a new style of parenting (they’ll really respect you for that). Tell them you want to handle things more as a team, moving forward – that you feel they’re ready for more control and more input into rules and decisions. So, now is also a good time to revisit the current house rules to start fresh. I don’t mean to toss them all and start over. Hear me out.

Ask them to make a list of the rules they’d like to discuss. Chances are these are the ones that cause the most conflict between you. They could even be those unspoken rules or mandates like, “when you’re hair starts getting below your collar it’s time to get it cut”, or “you can’t wear a wrinkled shirt to school”.

Laurence Steinberg is a world-renowned expert on adolescence. His vast body of research has examined everything from adolescent brain development to juvenile justice. He’s written 5 books and in his most recent book, Age of Opportunity, he talks about relinquishing control to our teens gradually as we think they are responsible enough to handle it. Steinberg says that although you’ll always have some limits and boundaries, easing up on the limits and monitoring how the do with it, allows you determine whether you can leave things as is or go back to the previous limit.

Overall, he says, “Protect when you must, but permit when you can”. That sounds like a great rule of thumb to me.

He’s goes on to explain that we have to allow our teens the freedom, learning and growth from their mistakes – he says if they want to do something and it’s not dangerous, unhealthy, illegal, unethical, or likely to close some doors that are better left open (not taking a course they may need later) – as long as you don’t think anything really bad could happen – let them do it.

So, keeping this checklist in mind and knowing, as we learned in the last episode, that teens feel they should have complete autonomy with issues they consider in their own personal jurisdiction (what they look like, their bedroom - things like that)…take a look at the list of the rules or mandates they make for you and see if there are any that you should toss out altogether.

Is it dangerous, unhealthy, illegal, unethical, or likely to close some doors that are better left open? If not, then it probably falls under their personal jurisdiction to decide for themselves. Certainly, it’s under their personal jurisdiction if it involves something that will only embarrass you if they do it. In other words, it’s not dangerous, unhealthy, illegal, unethical, or likely to close some doors that are better left open, but you’d want to crawl in a hole if it were broadcast to the neighbors. Yeah, not up to you.

I’m sure if you try hard enough you could make an argument that your son’s shoulder length hair is dangerous. I mean what if he got it caught in the car door?! But let’s be brave! C’mon!

My guess is the rules (or mandates) they feel are more personal, are the ones you likely argue about most often. So, suck it up buttercup and give your kid a big win on those and then move on to the others.

Let me tell you why I can now, in retrospect, joke about this a little. I’m from the South. My son’s first infant swim trunks were Lilly Pulitzer. He wore smocked John John’s until he could fight me about it. He wore khakis, polo shirts, madras button downs or preppy T shirts every day of his life from kindergarten through 9^th grade (he didn’t own a pair of jeans). But suddenly, he decides he’s into “urban street wear”.

Okay, so I take a deep breath and try to go with that. But then to complete the look he decided he wanted a very bold necklace. I think he knew I would draw the line, so who did he go to? Yep – the grandmother. My mother bought him a big thick gold rope chain with a rather large cubic zirconia ankh hanging from it (like a cross with the circle at the top).

I was mortified by that thing, and I wanted to throttle my mother. Now, judge me if you want to, but I just think men wearing jewelry is cheesy and tacky (except for that one cute boy from Jersey I dated).

I grew up where if it’s not madras - it’s camo and we weren’t hunters. I just didn’t feel that this look reflected well on him or me and my husband. It literally made me cringe. So, I proceeded to not so subtlety, trash this necklace, which was really trashing his taste, his self-expression. I told him he absolutely could not wear it to school. I think I later gave in and said he could wear it only if he kept it under his shirt. We had more fights about that necklace than I can remember. It was an enormous point of contention between us. And it shouldn’t have been – not for one single second.

Was it my place to tell him he couldn’t wear a necklace around his own neck? Absolutely not. Did I likely prolong his love and need for that necklace by making such a big deal about it? I probably did. Was there anything dangerous, unhealthy, illegal, unethical, or “door-closing” about wearing that tacky, gaudy, fake diamond necklace? Nope.

So, ask yourself those questions about the rules your kid brings to you…and if the answer is no, please, if for no other reason but your own sanity – just let those things go. Remember, it’s not a reflection on you – you are not them – they are not you. What you think is tacky or silly or ugly or yucky – they may think is gorgeous, fabulous, and the best thing since Rachel’s haircut – and it won’t matter in a hundred years…it might not matter next week if you don’t make a big deal about it.

Now, as for the rules that if broken, could be dangerous, unhealthy, illegal, unethical, or “door-closing”, how do you go about negotiating them? Before you start, if you and your partner can talk to your teen together, that’s best. And both of you need to understand the process and the goal. But you do not need to go into it with a specific idea about how you could modify the rule. Let that happen naturally as you discuss it with your child. You don’t go into this trying to push another rule on them – you already did that. This is about letting them have a say – not more unilateral decision making on your part – that will totally defeat the purpose here. We’re shooting for a win-win.

So, to flesh this out for you, I’m going to take some cues from the research-based model featured in Dr. Ross Greene’s book “The Explosive Child”, which I read cover to cover back when my son was in elementary school. His model is called Collaborative and Proactive Solutions (I’ll give you some links in the show notes) and it’s been widely accepted and praised, especially in educational settings.

Anyway, his book and this model addresses behaviorally challenged kids (kids with a low tolerance for frustration and lacking in flexibility). Since that sounds a lot like any old run of the mill adolescent to me – it makes sense to adapt it for our rule modification meeting.

So, you’ve asked them to make a list of rules they’d like to discuss, revisit. Agree to a time. Don’t set the time and tell them to show up. Keep in mind this might take several short meetings – don’t make this frustratingly long for them. Have a notepad at the ready.

The first thing you can do is either take a look at the list or let them rattle them off one by one and immediately decide which ones you can remove totally from your control – give them those for a big win right off the bat. Then go back to the others and let them start with whichever rule they want. Let them talk first while you ask questions and listen and reflect back what you hear them saying - until you figure out exactly why the rule is a problem for them. Make notes

It might sound something like this:

“So, can you tell me why you feel this rule about attending all of your sister’s soccer matches doesn’t work for you?”

“Well, I don’t want to go to all her stupid soccer matches.”

“Okay, I hear you. You don’t want to go to the soccer matches. Can you tell me a little more about that? (note: you’re not asking them “WHY”)

“I just have other things to do and don’t want to go watch a bunch of 4^th graders run around not knowing what they’re doing. Plus she doesn’t even know I’m there.”

“Right. So, you have other things you’d rather be doing, and you’re not really interested in watching the game and you don’t feel like she notices your there or not. Is that right?”

“Yeah, and I just don’t understand the point.”

“Okay – so how does it make you feel to go and sit in the stands and watch?”

“I don’t know – sometimes I guess I kind of feel good – like when she scores or they win the game – but also bad, because I want to be playing my video games or hanging out with friends.”

“So, you feel proud when she plays well, or they win the game – but you’re still a little frustrated that you’re missing out on doing other things?”

“Is there anything else?”

“No – that’s it – I just don’t want to go.”

So, you keep asking questions, empathizing, and reflecting back what you hear. And be sure to get those emotions in there as well. He says bad and good, and you give him some emotion words like proud and frustrated when you acknowledge those feelings and reflect what you hear. That helps build emotional awareness.

When you’re satisfied you’ve gotten to the bottom of it, then it’s your turn to tell them how you feel about the rule, why you made it to begin with, what concern it is you’re tackling with it. Again, if both parents can do this together that’s even better and you can both have your say here. Just remember, you’re just telling them why you think the rule is important.

Also, be sure to use “I statements” (“I feel _______” “I think ______”). This part is all about you and not blaming them, talking about their behavior or anything like that.

So, I’ll be you.

“Since I’m really the one that made the rule – dad just kind of went along with me – I’ll tell you why I think it’s important for you to go to the games. You know I’m an only child and I always wanted a brother or sister. So, I really want to see you and your sister have a close relationship – watch out for each other and root for each other – you know? And I feel that’s really important because as you get older, I think it will be great for you to have that family relationship – then your kids and her kids will be close and that will be important to you later on. I also think it makes your sister feel really proud and excited and supported to see her big brother in the stands at her games. I know she notices because I see her looking at you and smiling. And it also means a lot to me (and I think dad) to have you there – to have our whole family there together. I enjoy spending that time with you. Do you understand where I’m coming from?”

Remember not to lecture here or throw in any judgment or shame them - and especially don’t offer a solution or a way to modify the rule yet. Ask them if they have any questions about why you feel the rule is important.

You’d do the same thing if the rule involves something like a curfew or driving rules or phone use. Let them say what they need to, listen and empathize, put yourself in their shoes, reflect what you hear, make sure they’ve said everything they want.

Then give them your side. Use “I statements”, see if they have any questions for you, make notes. That’s it so far.

After everyone has their say about the rule, now you have to start brainstorming to see how you might be able to modify the rule to accommodate both sides. Your both pitching ideas on how to compromise - and in our example, this is probably a rule that should be compromised right? It doesn’t really fall into one of our critical categories. It isn’t about keeping them safe or out of trouble or healthy. But it is something you feel is important for your family.

Dr. Greene says you could start with something like, “I wonder if there’s a way…” and then add in your teen’s concern. For example, “I wonder if there’s a way, we can address your need to protect your personal time and still support your sister playing soccer?” Something like that.

You both need to throw out ideas here. If they start with, “well, I could just not go to the soccer games anymore”, explain what negotiation means! Explain this isn’t an all win or all lose situation. Both of you need to feel like you gave a little.

After you both throw out some ideas, you just keep talking until you reach something that you feel will likely work. But, with the agreement that you will revisit things in the future if something isn’t working for either one of you. To seal the deal, write down exactly what you’ve agreed to and both of you sign and date it. Contracts are great to fall back on when one of you conveniently forgets what they actually agreed to.

Now, go through this same process with each of the rules on their list. Even rules that are protecting your child from something dangerous may be able to be negotiated. Perhaps they can handle more responsibility than the rule allows.

But what if a rule comes up that is just non-negotiable – you just can’t budge? You can still validate their need to change the rule and support their autonomy here.

Dr. William Stixrud and Ned Johnson, parenting experts and authors of “What do You Say?”, give us a really good solution for that; comment on something positive about their need to get out from under this rule. Find the positive personality trait or value that you can praise.

For example, let’s say the rule is that they can’t have more than one passenger in the car with them when they’re driving. You’ve read the science and you know how much more dangerous it is for a young driver with every passenger added to the vehicle. So, you say something like, “You know, I absolutely love how you want to be the friend that helps everyone out by giving them a ride. You’re a really loyal and responsible friend.” Then explain your reason for the rule, using “I statements”, without judgment (don’t say “I don’t trust you with more people in the car”, say “I know, based on research, that it increases the risk to the driver to have more passengers in the car. It’s more distracting and more dangerous for you.” And let them know that right now, it’s non-negotiable. But, if you feel it’s appropriate, it might help if you let them know you’ll revisit this rule at some set point in the future. Also let them know for any of the rules you’ve modified, that if for any reason you feel they don’t handle the extra responsibility or freedom well, you’ll have to revert to the old rule for a while longer.

What if there’s a rule that really falls more into the personal domain; a rule that’s not meant to protect them from something dangerous, illegal, immoral, unhealthy or door-closing, but you just can’t stomach turning over total control to them yet?

Here’s what you can do – just give them some broad parameters to operate within. Let’s say you worry that if you give up total control over their hair, you’re afraid they might walk in with a shaved head. Which, by the way, I’ve seen some really pretty shaved heads. But you can literally agree that they can do anything with their hair they want, outside of shaving their head. Now – they have a parameter to stay within – they can crop it, dye it pink, get dreadlocks, wear a wig – whatever…just don’t shave it off. They can probably live with that. Just don’t abuse this – remember, you’ve got to learn to let go when it’s in their personal realm.

Now, you could just wait to revisit your current rules until the next time one causes conflict with your teen – but it’s much better not to try and negotiate in the heat of the moment if you can help it. There’s usually too much emotion to deal with on top of negotiating.

Let’s talk about a little bit of a different situation – something else that causes conflict with your teen but doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with rules. Often, conflict is about your teen not meeting some expectation you have for them - when you expect more of them that they’re actually capable of doing. Dr. Greene’s motto is “kids do well if they can”. He points out that kids don’t fall apart because they want to or to be manipulative or to spite you. They want to do well. They want to meet expectations.

And, as we’ve learned in talking about the adolescent brain, the same is true for your teen. When they’re falling apart emotionally, it’s not because they want to, it’s because that’s the way their brain functions. They go out and do risky things with their peers - because that’s the way their brain functions. They stay up late and have a hard time getting up at day break - because that’s the way their brain functions. They forget things, they’d rather do something fun and exciting than study, they’d rather play a game than set the table, they’d rather stay in their room than watch a movie with you….because that’s the way their brain functions.

Put out of your mind that your teen could do better if they wanted to. That’s a fallacy. They DO want to. They do well if they can. If they have the skills, they do it. Please remember that.

So, when we expect them to do something that is beyond their brain’s capacity to navigate, they’re not going to behave the way we want them to. Again, not because they don’t want to but because they can’t. Just because they look like adults, and sometimes talk like adults, does not mean they function like adults. They do not have the skills to function like adults.

And what happens when our expectations for them and their capacity to meet that expectation don’t match up? Right. We have a bit of conflict on our hands. We see that behavior as manipulative, spiteful, lazy, unmotivated, coercive, over-emotional. But again, as Dr. Greene points out, we all react maladaptively - we all basically “malfunction” - when demands are placed on us that we can’t meet – when we don’t have the necessary skills. He points out that this is why the concept of rewards and punishments simply doesn’t work. If they’re already doing the best they can with the brain they have (and they are), how is throwing a reward their way or threatening them with a punishment going to change that particular behavior? If they can’t do it, they can’t do it.

So, if there’s some problem behavior that is causing on-going conflict between you and your teen, then you know there’s some expectation they’re failing to meet because they lack the skill to do so. What specific skill are they lacking to meet this expectation? Dr. Greene calls these issues, unsolved problems. And, because these unsolved problems pop up all the time, you need to act proactively to solve the problem before it happens the next time.

As we’ve just discussed, you can’t solve anything by issuing a unilateral rule or mandate of some sort. That’s not going to solve any problem. If your kid is lacking a set of skills to meet an expectation, you have to figure out a work around. And you’re going to do this collaboratively – with your teen. When you do this, again, your supporting their autonomy and secure attachment, which means they buy in to the solution. And eventually they’ll learn the skills to meet more demanding expectations.

So, now earlier we were talking about negotiating rules with them but now, we’re simply trying to figure out the skill or skills they’re lacking to meet an expectation and then you’ll negotiate a way to work around that lacking skill. You’re going to start by asking a very open-ended question about the situation so they can give you their input on what they think is going on.

Dr. Greene suggests starting with something like, “Listen, I’ve noticed you have a really difficult time finishing your homework before dinner, what’s up?” This leaves all the judgment out of it – if you said something like, “why are you not finishing your homework before dinner?” – it’s dripping in judgment (you could do this if you really wanted to). So, asking them “what’s up?” just makes it very neutral and open.

They may not have clue how to answer that right off the bat. Give them as much time as they need to sit and think. They may think about it for several minutes, or they may immediately say, “I dunno”. The first response they give isn’t likely going to tell you much even if it’s not “I dunno”. You have to keep asking questions to figure it out – stay curious until you think you’ve really reached the root problem.

Let’s say you start with, “I’ve noticed you’ve been up really late finishing your homework lately, what’s up?”

And he says, “I want to play basketball and relax when I get home from school, I don’t want to immediately start on homework.”

“Okay, I get that – you’ve had a long day and you want to relax with friends after school. What else?”

“I don’t know, I just guess I don’t like doing stupid homework – there’s too much.”

“Well, is there any one subject you feel like is too much?”

“It’s all too much.”

“Well, do you have too much in history?”

“No – she never gives homework.”

“What about science – is there too much there?”

“Not really – she normally just asks us to do vocabulary throughout the week.”

“What about algebra? Is that too much?”

“I actually like doing the algebra problems.”

“Okay, well how about English? What kind of homework does Ms. Smith give?”

“Oh God – it’s always writing, writing, writing. And we’re not writing we’re reading . I HATE it. It’s boring and takes forever.”

“Well, let’s talk about it. Does the reading take forever?”

“No, it’s not nearly as bad as the writing.

“Alright, so the reading’s okay but the writing takes you too long?”

“Yes – there’s always some paragraph or two that she has us write about the thing we read.”

“So, she gives you a passage to read and asks you to write something about it?”

“Yep – and it makes me so dang nervous because I hate writing. I never know where to start and the words start jumbling in my head and I can’t get my thoughts on paper.”

“So, the writing makes you really nervous, and you don’t feel you can get your thoughts organized to put into paragraph form, is that it?”

“Yeah – that’s about it.”

So, now rather than thinking maybe he was just blowing off homework until later for no reason or just because he was making poor use of his time, you realize he’s having a hard time getting organized to write in English. That’s great information to have.

After you get his concerns on the table then you go next just like we did in the rule negotiation. Tell him any concerns you have about putting off the homework. Then you brainstorm and you try to come up with a solution you can both live with and agree to revisit it if it doesn’t work out.

You can use this same process when they’ve broken a rule – especially if they’ve broken it several times. Again, remember to get curious about the unsolved problem – the behavior that is failing to meet expectations and get all the information you can before you begin looking for solutions.

This is what I want you to take away from this episode:

Although conflict is inevitable during adolescence, you can handle it proactively if you communicate openly with your kids and share your authority with them as they are capable of handling it.

Here are your guidelines:

• Don’t issue rules unilaterally – always discuss them and go through the negotiation process we just went over if they’re negotiable and if not, use the tips we discussed
• If a current rule is causing conflict:
  • First, ask yourself if it should be a rule at all. Is it to protect them from something dangerous, unhealthy, illegal, unethical, or likely to close some doors that are better left open?
    • If not, it’s likely in their personal domain
    • If it’s in their personal domain but it’s something you can’t turn over altogether, then set very broad parameters for them to work within… or negotiate
  • If it’s a rule that does protect them from something dangerous, etc, then is it negotiable or non-negotiable?
    • If it’s non-negotiable, use the tips we discussed earlier
    • If it’s negotiable – negotiate – go through the process
  • If we’re not dealing with a rule but a challenging behavior, some unsolved problem where your teen is not meeting expectations - go through Dr. Greene’s process of
    • First, figuring out exactly where they problem is by asking “what’s up” and asking questions until you get to the root of the problem
    • Then present your side of the problem
    • Then brainstorm for a solution

Remember 2 quotes

“Protect when you must, but permit when you can”.

and

“Kids do well if they can”

Speaking of Teens is the official podcast of neurogility.com

Go to neurogility.com/herewego to find all our free parenting guides and e-books to help you learn more about your teen and how to parent them in a way that increases their emotional well-being and keeps them safe.

You can go to neurogility.com/16 for this episode’s show notes and transcript.

Thank you for listening – I hope you’ll consider sharing it with another mom who could use the support. My email is in the summary right here in your app if you’d like to reach out – I’d love to hear from you!

Okay - I’ll be right here again for you next Tuesday.