At the pinnacle of my son’s behavior issues in high school he decided to leave a friend’s house one Friday night and go hang out with some older kids (all of them out of high school, over 18 and living in a house together!), and he ended up partying and staying there all night. We literally could not find him. By the time we finally located him the following morning, at this house, I had worked myself into an absolute haze of fear and rage.

So, as my husband was pulling up in front of this house, I had the door open and was on my way to the front door before he put it in park!

One of these boys met me on the front porch - as if he thought he could stop me – and I can’t even begin to describe the tongue lashing I gave him (something about contributing to the delinquency of a minor, the police, jail time, never contact my son again – I’ll never forget the look on his face) and as I shoved past him and walked straight into the house, I see what looks like the morning after a frat house party – several boys flaked out all over the place and a coffee table full of bongs. My son – 17 at the time – was flaked out asleep on the sofa. I grabbed him up as I lectured the rest of the kids in the room and drug him to the car – my poor stunned husband standing at the street with his mouth hanging open. Once in the car, I proceeded to question and lecture and yell, all the way back home where we reached a fever pitch.

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This is Ann Coleman attorney turned parent educator and mom to a kid who struggled during his teen years. You’re listening to Speaking of Teens, a twice-weekly science-informed podcast that helps you better understand, relate to, and parent your teen.

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On today’s episode I want to talk to you about the biggest mistakes we make with our teens and tweens that lead to conflict and behavior issues and create disconnection between us.

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People like to say (and we want to hear) that our teen’s behavior isn’t our fault. And to some extent that’s true. We’re all born with a particular temperament and personality that just aren’t going to change. But as parents, we absolutely have the power to greatly influence their behavior.

And many of the things we’re told, taught, or think will be beneficial for our kids, impacts their behavior negatively, and creates conflict between us, which harms our relationship with them and causes us to lose all influence with them. In other words, we achieve the exact opposite of what we want to achieve.

That morning that I found my son across town on a stranger’s sofa was the culmination of months and months of conflict and disconnection between us. He acted out, I became emotional and tried to control him, which caused conflict and disconnection between us, and the more conflict we had, the worse his behavior became, and the more distant our relationship, breaking down all communication which means all my influence was gone. And trying to control a teenager through brute force doesn’t work.

Our behavior, our emotions, our understanding of their emotions, can either bring us closer to our teens where we can remain influential and guide them through adolescence safely, or it can cause a giant chasm in our relationship and push them into negative behavior, mental health issues and more trouble than we think possible. So, let’s talk about the mistakes to avoid causing these issues.

1

One of the biggest mistakes many of us make that will cause conflict, disconnection and behavior issues with our teens is being unable to regulate our own emotions. That day with my son, my brain was in total fight or flight – it was in BOTH fight AND flight. And I had no awareness about what I was feeling or why and no ability at that moment to control it. I didn’t even know it was possible to control it. And when we allow our emotions to overtake us that way, we cannot parent with intention. I had no plan for when I found my son. I had no forethought about what do to or say – nothing – I was running on pure adrenaline caused by my emotions. The thinking part of my brain was completely overtaken by the emotional part. And that’s not good. It caused me to act before thinking – to react rather than to thoughtfully respond. We can’t do that as parents if we want our kids to be mentally healthy and to behave properly themselves. The more we react based on emotion, the more likely we are to cause a rift in our relationship with our kids and the more likely they are to react right back.

For example, if your teen walks in the door 2 hours past curfew and for those 2 hours you’ve been trying to text and track them but their phone was dead and you’ve dreamed up every scenario under the sun, called all the hospitals and were on the verge of calling the police and you’ve worked yourself into near stroke-level blood pressure…you might react by yelling, lecturing or punishing them as soon as they walk in that door. Your fear or anger or both has completely taken you over – you don’t think – you just react.

And what comes next? Does your teen apologize, accept whatever punishment you dole out and walk quietly into their room? Well, not if they’re like most adolescents. You’ll have a showdown. They’re going to yell back, argue with you, meet your out-of-control emotion with their own. And you’ve just chiseled away a big chunk of your connection with them, their trust in you to be the solid parental authority that keeps them in line in a kind and loving way, you’re right to hear what’s in their heart and be included in their decisions. It sucks.

But it’s not just these big situations where your emotions can take over and cause you to react in a way that can lead to disconnection and worse behavior. It’s the everyday feelings you may not even be aware of. Like that nagging thought in the back of your mind when you see their pile of dirty clothes in the floor beside the laundry hamper. “Oh My God, why can she not just throw them 6 inches to the left and get them in the damn basket?! Is she that lazy? I think she does it just to make me mad. She’s such a slob, how is she ever going to be able to keep a clean house and get along with roommates or a husband?”

You may not even realize you’re having these thoughts! You have to be very aware of what happens when you see these clothes in the floor next to the hamper. What do you feel in your body? Do you have a lump in your throat? Does your face get hot? Do you get a not in your stomach? Then notice what you’re thinking at that moment. Notice how it makes you feel. What emotion pops up? Disappointment? Fear (of her not being able to please roommates, etc.)? Anger (because she doesn’t respect the rules, your house, how hard you work and do things for her?) What comes up in your body and your mind and what are you feeling emotionally?

Once you’re able to tune into this awareness, figure out what you’re thinking and feeling in that moment, you’ll be better able to respond intentionally to her about this issue rather than simply reacting without awareness and thought (yell, lecture, nag, scold)

So, you then have a little conversation with yourself: “Why am I so afraid about her not being able to get along with roommates one day?” Oh yeah – I had that situation my whole second year of college with those battling roommates in our 4-bedroom apartment. Oh My God that was awful – THAT’s why I’m so freaked out by the clothes in the floor! Wow, now I can try to remember that my daughter is not one of those roommates from that craziness I experienced years ago. I don’t need to put that on her. I need to respond to my daughter as my daughter in this moment in time without all that garbage from my past butting in. Now, I can calmly either pick the clothes up and put them in the hamper, leave them in the floor and not worry about it, or discuss a rule with her and maybe agree that unless they’re in the hamper, the don’t get washed. But whatever it is, you will have taken the time to think about it rather than jump in head first without thought.

It’s quite near impossible to parent responsibly without getting a grip on your emotions. One of the best ways to help you with this is to keep a daily journal. Start writing down your emotions, what you felt, what you were thinking, how your body felt in that moment, where you think that came from. Explore your emotions in writing. You can even go back to emotional events in your past and work through it in writing. It's been scientifically proven to make an enormous difference in people’s lives. Writing things down not only brings awareness and the ability for you to them regulate them better, but in many cases, it will help you totally free yourself from things in your past. I recommend this book all the time so I’ll say it again – Emotional Agility by Susan David is a fabulous book that will help you on this journey. I’ll have the link in the show notes along with links to anything else I mention. So, if you have a hard time not blowing up or you find yourself constantly reminding, scolding, repeating yourself about things, you need to explore these feelings because they’re causing issues between you and your teen.

Another way to do this is to explore mindfulness and take up a mindfulness practice. Mindfulness is simply being totally immersed in the present moment without judgment of what your mind is doing. I’ll link to an article in the Harvard Gazette that explains it beautifully. I also have a free guide called “Emotional Awareness Strategies” that’s available through a link right where you’re listening. Just scroll down in the description.

2

Another big mistake a lot of parents tend to make that causes conflict disconnection and behavior issues with their teens…is not understanding and being aware of their teen’s emotions and not knowing how to help them manage their unpleasant emotions.

This is a multi-layered issue. First, some parents simply have a hard time spotting when their kid is about to become emotional or even when they are emotional – they just lack attunement or awareness of the ques and red-flags – being able to “read the room” so to speak. And this can be a big problem. For example, for some reason I was totally oblivious to the fact that my son was not open to teasing at certain times and I would say something silly or kid him about something and he’d hit the roof. My husband would look at me like I was crazy and ask – could you not see he wasn’t in the right frame of mind for that – and I’m like, “What? No.” I think it was sort of willful blindness on my part – maybe I just didn’t want to see it. But understanding our kids emotional triggers, what makes them nervous or angry or frustrated and being mindful of that in our interactions with them is so important in keeping conflict at bay and making sure we maintain our connection with them.

A big part of that is developing your empathy for what they’re going through. And I mean every single adolescent out there is going through something. It may seem insignificant to you, or it may be something they say they’re handling, but they may not be. As I’ve pointed out on this show over and over, our teens are experiencing a significant mental health crisis. Anxiety and depression rates are sky-high for so many different reasons – and yes, social media is probably at the top of the list. But they are under pressure and stress from every direction, and you have to believe that even if they don’t show it, it may be just below the surface. I don’t want to say you have to walk on eggshells but if they are experiencing any outward signs of distress, you simply do not want to make it worse – you must be empathetic.

And part of developing that empathy is understanding that their brain is going through major changes during adolescence, and they have no control over that. Their individuating, which means they’re naturally drawn more to friends than you, they’re trying to figure out who they are and where they fit into the grand scheme. They’re hyper focused on fitting in, looking cool, and being liked. So much so that they’ll do just about anything, including risky and dangerous things like drinking, driving recklessly and drugs – and these things are much more pleasurable during adolescence because of the revved-up reward system. And the emotional center of the brain is also in turbo drive and makes mistakes about situations, tone of voice and what’s said to them so they get upset about things that they probably shouldn’t be upset about. And their negative emotions can be much more intense. At the same time, the part of the brain responsible for executive function like self-control, focus, planning ahead and making good decisions, is far weaker than these other areas so it’s really very difficult for them to control any of this.

You need to understand all of this so, a) you won’t be shocked at their behavior, and b) so you can be more empathetic and see that they’re not doing this on purpose, it’s not something they’re doing TO you, it’s not that they want to feel out of control or want to cause trouble or drive you crazy on purpose. They’re doing the best they can with what they have at the moment.

So, watching out for their triggers and being aware of their emotions and why they behave the way they do so you can be more empathetic is so important in being able to then coach them through their strong and unpleasant emotions.

Whether it’s something you’ve said or done that gets them going or something else that’s happened, being able to navigate the teenage emotional meltdown is an artform and requires some skill.

First, you must be able to regulate your own emotions, like we talked about a minute ago. You can’t hope to coach them through their emotional state if you’re having your own meltdown. So that’s first.

You have to also try not to dread these moments like I did. Believe it or not, these emotional storms are actually an opportunity for you to connect on a deeper level with your kid. You can really help them learn how to be more aware of and regulate their own emotions.

Here’s how you do it: you listen to them with that empathy you’ve developed. You don’t try to tell them how to feel or tell them how to fix things or solve their problem for them. You listen to every word they say – give them your full attention without interrupting them at all. You ask them to clarify anything for you that you don’t understand and then repeat back to them to make sure you understand. This is essential to helping them calm down. And you can’t help them solve the problem until they’re calm. For example, let’s say you hear your son banging things around in his room and hear him grumbling to himself so you cautiously approach. You can tell he’s frustrated about something, so you say, “what’s up?” and he immediately starts ranting about not being able to find the homework that he had already almost finished at school. He’s throwing books and slamming things around and of course didn’t talk very kindly to you. But you overlook that, as you should because you can see he’s extremely frustrated at the moment. After he finishes his rant, you say, “Oh wow, I can see why you’re so frustrated, I hate to lose something, especially something you’ve already put so much work into.” With that one statement, you’ve acknowledged that he has a right to be upset, that what he’s feeling is in fact, called ‘frustration” and confirmed that you get it.

Once you do that, he’s going to feel validated in his frustration and feel relief that someone – you  - have sort of given him permission to feel the way he feels (in other words he’s not stupid for feeling that way). So, now he can start to calm down. Another thing that really helps bring a little oxytocin to the encounter is a loving touch on the back or shoulder or even a hug (if they’ll let you).

Now, if you’d walked into his room and said, “Could you please calm down and stop slamming things around, what’s wrong?!” You would have been met with just as much, if not more “attitude”. And at that point, had you said something like, “do not talk to me that way – you need to chill out.”, he would do no such thing. See, telling someone to calm down or chill out only fires them up more. How do you like it when you’re upset and feel you have a right to be and someone says, “Good grief – will you chill out already?” Yeah – that’s called invalidation and it doesn’t feel too good. When someone’s invalidated, their reaction is to try harder to convince the person that they feel they way they do and have a right to feel that way…which means, they turn up the heat.

But by validating their emotion, giving them a name for it, you’ve basically given them the validation they need, which means they can take a breath and stop trying to convince you they need to feel that way. Pretty genius, huh? I wish I could say I came up with it but I didn’t. I’ll link to John Gottman’s book in the Show notes – How to raise an emotionally intelligent child.

Once they’ve calmed down you can then guide them through their own thinking process to solve their problem, which usually involves asking more questions to make them think.

3

Yet another huge mistake we make as parents of teens and tweens that causes tons of conflict and disconnection and even more behavior issues is using a top-down parenting approach.

When they’re little, we have to manage everything they do – they’re still learning so much and the opportunities for them to get hurt are abundant. So, we have to make sure everything is okay – it’s more of a management position.

But as soon as they become an adolescent (which for some could be as early as 9 years old, depending on their neurobiology and hormones) as soon as they hit puberty, your parenting style needs to change (as does your attitude about discipline).

Discipline literally means to teach or to learn as it was used in ancient times. A disciple was someone who learned. Disciplining your kids or your teen is not about demanding blind obedience, holding power over them, seeking retribution or punishment. None of that teaches anything at all.

The goal of discipline is to teach and guide kids and teens into adulthood – not to teach them to blindly obey what other people (even parents) tell them to do. And punishment doesn’t teach kids or teens anything other than to be afraid of getting caught – so it just serves to make them better liars and sneaks.

We have this misconception or lack of restraint that causes too many of us to think punishment is the way to teach. “I’ll teach you a lesson about sneaking out, you don’t go anywhere for the next 6 months, buster.” or “You’re going to learn not to stay out too late, hand over your phone – you get it back when I say so.”

Does trying to keep a teen at home for 6 months teach them anything about not sneaking out? No, it doesn’t. First of all, you’re going to give up the fight after a few weeks, but the only thing this punishment will do is cause animosity, disconnection, and conflict in the home.

Instead, Find out why they snuck out. Find out why they stayed out too late. Have a conversation, do a lot of listening, ask questions, state your concerns, brainstorm, and negotiate a way to avoid the issue in the future. And go ahead and discuss and agree to what the consequences will be if they do it again.

But be careful with consequences, if you use them improperly, it’s just punishment. First, if there’s a natural consequence to the behavior, you’d just let that happen and don’t intervene – unless it could be life-altering in some way, of course. A good example is a cracked screen on an iPad after they’ve misused it or taken it out of the case for some reason. It just stays cracked.

But when there’s not a natural consequence, you may need to brainstorm with them to come up with a logical consequence – meaning that it’s logically related to the actual misdeed, it doesn’t teach anything. And here’s a hard truth – smart phones are not logically related to everything they do wrong! Unless they used that cell phone to bully someone or snuck it into their bedroom after hours, or did something wrong related to the phone, it’s off the table as far as consequences goes. But you might agree with them that the next time they’re late getting home, their curfew will be cut short the following night by that many minutes and maybe if they’re late again, they have to stay home the following time they want to go out. There are creative ways to do these things that will help them learn the importance of what they did wrong, or the mistake they made.

Consequences should also be reasonable in scope – in other words think hours and days rather than weeks and months. The most egregious misbehavior is worth no more than a week because a week is a lifetime to a teenager. You can listen to more on consequences in episode 22.

4

The last big mistake that parents of teens tend to make that will cause all sorts of conflict and behavior problems is threatening their teen’s autonomy. Remember that teens are trying to build their self-concept, they’re individuating, they feel like they’re adults and they wanted to be treated with respect like any other adult. They want to have a say in decisions that concern them – everything that concerns them. They just want to be heard – even if things can’t go their way, if they feel they’ve been able to express themselves without fear of retribution or being dismissed – they will feel their autonomy has been somewhat supported.

But instead, what happens a lot is parents try to treat tweens and teens like children. You might not mean to but you might call them a pet name that they hate or ruffle their hair like when they were little or talk to them like they don’t understand things – parent-splaining. Maybe you tend to hover over them, remind them of their homework a million times in the afternoon, tell them to wear their coat (by the way, let them go coatless and freeze their ass off – it’s called natural consequences).

Along the same lines, another way parents threaten teen autonomy is by nagging (that’s reminding to you and me), lecturing, criticizing, yelling, being sarcastic. Think about it this way, if you wouldn’t want to be talked to that way, neither do they. They feel the same way you do – they want the same deference and respect you afford to other adults. That’s it.

Something else that threatens their autonomy is being told what to do (rather than having a discussion). Do you make all the rules and decisions or do you get their input, discuss things and brainstorm first? Do you tell them when they’re going to the doctor, what they can wear, how or when they should cut their hair?

Now, some rules and decisions should be in your realm – things that are (or may potentially be) dangerous, unhealthy, unethical, illegal, or likely to close some door better left open (like not taking that credit needed to get into most colleges)…but you need to still hear them out fully and discuss it with them and see if there’s room to meet in the middle. I talk more about these issues in episode 14, 15 and 16.

The days of you just saying, “this is how it’s going to be – period” are over – unless you enjoy blow ups and meltdowns leading to family chaos and potential mental health problems and or substance use. Seriously, the more conflict you have with your teen and the more you allow a wedge to be driven between you in that way, the worse their behavior will be and the more disconnected from you they will be – you could potentially be cutting yourself out of their life as far as your influence with them goes. In other words, they won’t listen to a word you say.

So, as much trouble as it sounds like and as foreign as “autonomy support” may be to you, it’s crucial to your relationship and to their mental health, their physical safety, and their behavior. You need to get used to discussions and negotiations with your teen. When you can’t negotiate something, when you have to hold firm, you can still hear them out - then hold the line in the kindest and most respectful way you can.

I just mentioned that anything dangerous, unhealthy, unethical, illegal ,or likely to close some door better left open, is presumed to be in the parental domain – although things should be open for discussion at least.

But anything not in one of those categories (and you have to be reasonable here because these categories are subjective) – if it’s not dangerous, unhealthy, unethical, illegal ,or likely to close some door better left open…it’s in your teen’s domain. So, this would be hair, clothes – pretty much anything about their appearance other than permanent things like tattoos and piercings

(and that could fit under several of the parental categories) – generally, it might be how they decorate their bedroom, what hobbies they take up, where they work, when they do their homework – again, anything that doesn’t fit squarely in those other categories should be in their domain – they get to decide.

Another issue in the area of autonomy support is their right to privacy. And yes, they actually do have a right to privacy – even in your home and even when they’re a minor and even if you feel strongly that they shouldn’t have. You know why? Well, number 1 – they’re learning to be adults, they feel like adults and they’re becoming sexual beings and yes, I know, those all sound like reasons they shouldn’t have any right to privacy. But there’s a way to protect them from harm while still respecting their needs. Again, it’s about discussion and negotiation up front. If you want to put a particular type of parental control on their phone, then they have a right to know. After all, this isn’t about “catching” them doing something wrong, it’s about teaching them how to do things right. If you haven’t listened to episodes 54 and 55 about social media, I strongly urge you to because I talk about the surgeon general and APA advisories and their recommendations, I’ll have links in the show notes.

Finally, unless you’re gradually building up and allowing them to take on more responsibility and have greater and greater freedom, you’re also threatening their autonomy. Teens learn by stretching a little bit past what you and they think they can do and seeing how they do. If it doesn’t go well you pull back, but if it does, you take the next steps to broaden their abilities a little further down the road. You can listen to episode ____ for more on autonomy support.

So, to wrap up and summarize here today, these are 4 of the biggest mistakes parents of teens make that cause conflict and behavior issues and wreck your relationship (which means they’re not going to do anything you want them to):

Mistake #1 - Not having a good grip on your own emotions. You can’t be going off half-cocked with your teen – you’ll get nothing, but arguments and meltdowns and things will rapidly spin out of control.

Mistake #2 - Not understanding and empathizing with your teen’s emotions and behavior. You have to understand why they behave the way they do (because of their brain and biology) and when they’ve done something wrong or they’re having an emotional moment – you have to coach them and help them calm down and develop their own emotional awareness and regulation.

Mistake #3 – Using a top-down approach to discipline. Trying to manage rather than guide them. You need to practice teaching them rather than punishing them – this is what discipline is all about; teaching rather than just getting pay-back or retribution. Part of this is learning to use natural and logical consequences and help them learn the skills they need for adulthood.

Mistake #4 is threatening their autonomy. One of those things so many parents of older kids and teens have a hard time with. It’s hard to start treating our babies like their young adults. It’s hard to give up control. It’s hard to talk to them differently. But if you don’t you will surely regret it because there will be arguments and chaos galore and it can so quickly spin out of control, impacting everyone in the family.

 

That’s it for Speaking of Teens today. You can find the show notes at neurogility.com/57 – there’s a link in the description where you’re listening.

Thank you so much for listening – I really appreciate it and I hope you got something out of today’s episode. If you did, please consider sharing it with someone who may need to hear it. You know people out there parenting teens need help. Share it with your school counselor, your pediatrician, your therapist – they know people who need this kind of help – and you’ll be doing me a solid as well.

And do come on in and join us in the Speaking of Teens Facebook Group for free support. There’s a link right where you’re listening.

Speaking of Teens is sponsored by neurogility.com, where I help moms build stronger relationships and decrease conflict with their teens.

Our producer and editor is Steve Coleman, researched, written, and hosted by me, Ann Coleman.