What Were Your Teenage Years Like?

I've been thinking about the the standards parents set for their children as they grow up. I was a very average student in high school, but I surely did not want my daughter to be like me in that regard during her high school years. I wanted her to be better, to have more options, to exceed what I felt was my own mediocrity at the time. PS, I think I am doing fine now!

In my parent coaching lately, I have been struck by the disappointment many parents feel about their teenagers lack of perceived motivation and achievement. Sometimes it's academic, sometimes it's the lack of passion their kids seem to feel for anything significant, and sometimes it's the resentment for the time and effort their teens put into their friends and not their family. When I ask these parents what they were like in high school, they often say, rebellious, angry, social, party animal, disrespectful to their parents... and then we smile at each other. One parent said, she didn't much like her teen these days, and started to cry.

Projection is a defense mechanism we can thank Freud for introducing us to. We often "project" on our children those qualities, memories and characteristics we hate most about ourselves. We sometimes see our children in a light that unconsciously reminds us of that part of ourselves we least like, and then wonder "how did they ever get this way?" Hmmmm

I urged the mom who was feeling so negatively about her teen to tell him she totally understood how he was feeling. She had never really shared honestly with him about her own teen years, which were full of rebelliousness and anger..just like her son. She could see how her own parenting style was mirroring her parents, smothering, and overbearing. She worried that being honest with him might encourage him to throw it back in her face. In fact, just the opposite was true.

Sometimes your teen feels your expectations so keenly and worries that they will fail. So rather than disappointing you and not living up to your expectations, they will just stop trying, and then you can be angry with them rather than disappointed. Anger is a much easier emotion to deal with than disappointment. This mom remembers well how she continued to disappoint her parents, and frankly continues to disappoint her family, not because she isn't successful enough, because she is,  but because she isn't doing what they had expected her to do. She made choices to do what she wanted to do. The message that you are OK being who you are, is so much more loving and accepting than, you need to be how I want you to be. And they will be just fine.

Helping Our Kids and Ourselves Face Our Fears

I was in LA for a few days and had the opportunity to hang out with a real live horse whisperer. A friend of mine owns an albino horse, which means that the pure white of the horse also extends to her eyes. Albino horses have some vision disability. As a result they can become quite fearful and skittish when they sense something they can't see. And that is why my friend hired a horse whisperer. To help this horse confront her fears and work through them.

Sounds like therapy to me. I watched this guy in action when the horse became fearful of something none of us could see or find an explanation for. The horse would become agitated, and refuse to move forward or backward. The "whisperer" calmly acknowledged the horses fear, but urged with control and calm for her to move forward. His efforts weren't instantaneous, but in time, without anger or frustration from the whisperer, the horse trusted him, and moved on. This process will need to be practiced and repeated by my friend, until her horse believes that with fear can come safety and comfort.

Isn't this a life skill we should try to teach our kids? Teens in particular are faced with so many new challenges and fears; Who am I? Who will I become? Where will I fit in? What will interest me? What is my future? What is my present? As parents we want them to take risks, the safe kind, try new things, meet new people, go on adventures, and get out of their comfort zone. If we give in to their fears, and leave them be, we don't give them our belief that though change is scary, working through it can bring eventual safety, comfort and growth, just like with that beautiful albino horse. Get that horse out of the barn and there is a world to run in and explore.

I worked with a couple once whose daughter's needs were to get out of her community where she felt like a square peg in a round hole. She had passions and interests that could not be supported in the town she lived, but could be if she could get on a train and go into the nearby city. The parents were homebodies, and never much left their community. It was time to get the "horse out of the pasture." In order for the daughter to feel that the bigger world was a safe and accepting place, the parents had to do it first, and show her the way. And because these parents loved their daughter, and "got" that she needed to experience life in a different way, they all became adventurers together, researching opportunities, figuring out transportation, and opening the door to adventure. They were all fearful, but with coaching, and persistence, these parents were able to help their daughter find a new way to feed herself. Once the pasture door was open, and she trusted those who urged her out,  she flew out the barn door!

You Are So Annoying

Often after my seminars, parents come up to give me a personal greeting. Sometimes I meet parents who have been repeat attenders of my seminar. ( I love that). They tell me that after their first seminar with me they left breathing a sigh of relief. Their kid may have only been 11 or 12, and most of what I said did not apply yet to their relationship with their teen. They report leaving the seminar thinking, oh good, I think we've dodged that teen bullet, our teen doesn't behave at all like Joani said. We must be doing one helluva job!!! Little did they know, that a year or two later, once again sitting in the audience of another of my seminars they would nod their head in agreement and wonder whether I lived in their house as my descriptions of the teen behaviors rang so very true.....now.

I think one of the hardest changes that parents experience with their teen is the abrupt change in their teens behavior towards them. Their teen literally goes  from being open and loving one day, to cold and secretive literally the next day. Parents feel puzzled by this,  questioning what they might have done wrong to ellicit this change. Answer: nothing.

Apparently your teen got the new memo, if you are acting nice to your parents, then stop. It is unseemly for teens to be nice to the "enemy. " Maybe your teen was sitting in the cafeteria, or on the bus, and a bunch of kids were slamming their parents..."man I hate my parents, they never let me do anything." Or maybe, "my parents are so nosy, always looking over my shoulder when I'm on the computer, they are such a pain!" So there your teen is, listening, and wondering, "gee I get along good with my parents, is that bad? And BAM they come home and practice being a "teen." So that may be one explanation.

Here is another. One of the major tasks of adolescence is separation/individuation. The work of developing a personal identity means stepping back from the people who have been the closest and most influential in their lives. How am I like my parents? How am I different from my parents? Where am I in all this? Unfortunately these questions are not consciously being asked in that teen brain of theirs. Instead this new brain is giving them new thoughts they have never thought before. "God my parents are so annoying, I hate the way they dress, eat, talk, think, ask so many questions etc." The truth is, it isn't really about you, it is more the process by which they are trying to figure out what they think, and what they feel. And for all of his/her life they have kind of depended on you to figure that out for them. Now they know that they have to figure this stuff out for themselves. Adolescence is after all, the training period for adulthood.

So when your teen tells you that you are annoying and gives you 'the look", try not to take it personally. A shoulder shrug, and an I love you, should say it all.

Prom Proofing Your Teen

I wrote this article for the Boston Globe a few years ago, but it remains timely!! Proms are wonderful, but there are some secrets that might help you make it safer!! Love all the pictures I see on Facebook of this year's crop of prom goers. It makes me pine for my daughters teen years!!!


https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/2016/05/08/prom-proofing-your-teen/9cTreAVO7ttNhuzaAp3wrK/story.html

Why Is It Important To You For Your Teen To Get Good Grades?

I just finished watching the 6:30 national news and one of the top stories was a new CDC study the found a  increase in teen suicide. This generation of teens face enormous pressure from social networking and from increased pressure to do and be better from school and parents. With the end of the school year, and exams looming I thought I would share this post I wrote a few years ago. It feels timely!

Why is it important to you for your teen to get good grades? This is a really good question for you to ask yourselves. Because often it is more important to parents than it is to your kids. Is it because you know that they CAN get good grades, and therefore they should? Is it because you were an exceptional student, and a strong academic record is something that you value in yourself and therefore want to see in your kids? Is it because it's nice to be able to say out loud and to the people you know; " My kid is an all-honor student." Is it because you know that the key to a successful life is going to an elite college, and to do that your teen needs to be an exceptional student. Or is it because this is a real goal your teen has stated is important to him/her and not just to please you. These are all very important questions to answer, especially the last one.

Below is an in-depth article in The Atlantic Magazine about the culture of academic excellence at two Palo Alto High Schools that may have inpacted cluster suicides of their high school students. As you might imagine this has thrown this community into overdrive to seek answers to why these teens wanted to die. One of the main premises is that the stress of the community and parents for academic excellence has thrown their teens into high anxiety, depression and hopelessness for their constant need to keep up the competitive edge to make it into the good schools and to have a successful life. My take is that this stress does and can affect students greatly, but that suicide is an extreme reaction for a teen who most likely had many other contributing factors for making this decision. It is a big leap to say that academic stress=suicide.

However I have spent a lot of time reading this article and the comments that hundreds of students wrote in reaction to this article. And what is clear to me is that learning and the curiosity for knowledge, for knowledge sake is missing from many teens lives. The excitement your 3rd grader felt from studying about birds and then going out into your yard beaming from his/hers' ability to label and understand what it meant for this bird to be living in your yard has all but disappeared. That makes me sad. If your teen truly loves calculus and is turned on by equations and loves the challenge of problem sets, then by all means this kid belongs in honors calculus. But if your teen just happens to have an aptitude for math, but takes absolutely no joy in it at all, will never use it again in his/her life, and is just doing it to get into a good college....... well I think you know what I would say to that!

School is obviously so important, and having high expectations for your children is reasonable if they are capable of meeting them. But life is about balance. Is your teen overwhelmed with the need for perfection in school, on the field, on stage, in your home? Is there a recognition of who and what turns this kid on? And most importantly, are there realistic expectations in place so that your teen has a seat at the table to say what it is that is or is not important to him/her?

Many kids blossom when they get to college. They take random courses and find out about passions and interests they never knew they had. They don't have to know-it-all in high school!!! Many many people who are successful in life are not the kids who were the all A students, just look at me, I was a pretty solid C, and I'm pretty damn happy with my life!

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/12/the-silicon-valley-suicides/413140/

The Power Of Parental Controls!

Recently I met with parents of a 15 year old girl who is addicted to her phone, her computer, her tablet...and her apps!! Parents had been noticing a spiraling down of grades, attitude, and spending as little time as possible in their presence. Anything sounding familiar here?  Previous to our meeting, the parents had tried to set limits, but as you all know, once your kids are in addiction mode, this can be unbelievably challenging and fraught with constant conflict and fighting. Not a pleasant home to live in!!!

At my suggestion, the parents signed up and installed Disney Circle, a popular parental control program that helps them assume control over their kids social networking life. Today I got call from these parents, explaining that after they installed this program, their daughter's behavior had deteriorated even further, and the anger and abuse she spew was mind-blowing!! But then the mom went on to explain, that she caved, just spent from all the fighting, she gave back most of what she had taken away, but with a caveat. You have a choice now, do what you need to do, complete all missing assignments, and stay up to date with daily homework, spend more time with the family, and basically be a kinder gentler self, OR we take it all away...again! Pretty tall order. Initially, I groaned when I heard that her daughter's antics had worn these poor parents down and that the lesson she had learned was, being my most terrible self gets me what I want. But....and there is a big but here, the outcome was actually really positive.

The daughter completed all her assignments. The parents know this because the high school she attends has records online for parents on a daily basis from all teachers about missing assignments. So the parents were checking daily and yup, assignments were being completed and handed in on time. Also attitude and time with family improved!! I was really surprised, until I thought for a moment, and here's what I think happened. I think when these parents actually followed through with the parental controls, and the daughter realized in fact, that they were, for the first time completely in control of her use of social networking and phone/computer. Cue rage!!!!This absolute control came as a shock to this kid who had been able to manipulate her parents through her anger. When parents gave in, they actually also acquired a new bargaining tool. And here is the new deal. If and when she chooses to be disrespectful, avoids homework assignments and bails on school work, which is information for which her parents have daily access, goodbye phone, good night text, goodnight snapchat and instagram! And now that she has actually experienced life without connection, she does not want to do it again!! For a teen who sets up everything as a power struggle, she is now being given control over herself and her choices. But now parents have control too, and the kid knows it!

Teens need structure, expectations, and a little bit of control! Parents need to feel that they have the ability to do what they need to do to make sure their kids are their best selves. Parental controls are really the only way to do that. Magically you are given the power to turn on or turn off, control time limits for apps that take up wayyyyy too much time like snap streaking and chat and instagram and group chats.

Try it you'll like it!! Here are some of the popular ones. They cost about $50  a year. Well worth it!!
Disney Circle
Verizon family
Netnanny
Netsanity

The Power Of Understanding Is Very Powerful

Recently I had two personal experiences that reiterated to me the power of understanding and forgiveness. One experience was for me to ask for forgiveness, and the other, looking for someone else to understand me.

I got an email recently from someone in my past. In it she expressed a need for closure on an incident that occurred between the two of us many years ago. Unfortunately, my own memory about the issue was very fuzzy, but really it didn't matter what I did or did not remember because her feelings were very much in the present. I was devastated that something I had done, even though unintentionally, had caused her such pain. I apologized, with respect for what she was feeling, and for my own need to make amends. It is so hard to accept sometimes our own culpability in bringing on pain in people we care about. In fact often we are unaware that something we have said or done has hurt someone. So, when confronted and surprised by someone we have hurt we get defensive, and combative, rather than be apologetic and understanding. In my example, this person had her experience and her feelings, that is a simple truth that I had to acknowledge and respect. Her gift to me was accepting my apology, and thanking me for my lack of defensiveness, and understanding her need to get closure and move on.

People are not perfect. We screw up. We screw up with our friends, our partners, and yes, we screw up with our kids. When you own your mistakes, and apologize to your kids, you show them respect. They will be able to move on. When you get defensive and evasive even when you know it's on you to take responsibility for your actions, your kids become disrespectful, and then feel acutely a double standard of "do as I say, not as I do."

The second experience illustrates this point. I felt a colleague had crossed a professional boundary. I agonized for a week about whether to share my feelings about this incident. But I could see that it was interfering with our relationship,  and that we needed to talk about it. I was expecting a simple "Oh my god, I am so sorry, I didn't even realize, I'm glad you told me so I can do better the next time. "Instead, I got a "face". You know that face, kind of all scrunched up, and disdainful. No apology, no thanks for letting me know, just the feeling that I was the crazy one! Even if I was the crazy one (which by the way I wasn't) giving me that gift of understanding would have cleared it up in a second. Like I said nobody is perfect, and we all make mistakes.  How can we change if we don't know what those mistakes are, take responsibility for them and move on.

The power of understanding, and all the "I get It" scripts I feed you in these blogs I hope pave the way to help you accept, respect and move on in your relationships. Truly, it's powerful stuff.