Eps 297: Solo Show- Thoughts On Motivating Adolescents

Transcription

Casey O'Roarty 0:03
Kay, Hello friends. Welcome to the joyful courage podcast, a place where we tease apart what it means to be a conscious parent and a conscious human on the wild ride of parenting. I'm your host. Casey o'rourdy, positive discipline lead trainer, parent, coach and Mama walk in the path right next to you as I imperfectly raise my own two teenagers. Joyful courage is all about grit growth on the parenting journey, relationships that provide a sense of connection and meaning and influential tools that support everyone in being their best selves. Today's show is a solo show. I encourage you to listen for how grit shows up as I tease things apart for you. Thank you so much for listening. I am deeply honored to lead you. I am grateful that what I put out matters to you, and I am so stoked to keep it coming. Thank you for who you are and for being in the community, enjoy the show.

Hi friends. I am so excited to be recording a brand new solo show for you. Guess what? I'm also recording on a brand new microphone with brand new headphones. I feel very pro right now. I'm not gonna lie, I went to a podcasting conference last weekend, and you know, next year, it will be seven years that I've been doing this podcast. Isn't that crazy? I started in 2015 I started in 2015 so I figured, you know what, it might be time to uplevel the equipment. Chris Mann, my buddy over at pod shaper, my editor of the podcast, was really excited when I told him that I got a new mic. So new mic, new sound, hopefully better sound, hopefully I figured out how to make it work and it sounds good in your ears. Also done some other traveling. A couple weeks ago, I was in San Diego, saw some of you there. I was at the positive discipline conference and think tank. So big shout out to all the positive discipline educators and trainers that are listening now that told me over the weekend that you enjoy listening to the show. Thank you, First, for supporting me and my work and finding value here, but also huge thanks for the way that you are making a huge difference in the world and in the communities that you live in. And I'm just so inspired to be walking beside you. I mean, listen, the positive discipline community is so incredible. And by the way, if you are like, I want to get in on that, I want to be a positive, disciplined parent educator. Guess what? In February, I am doing another parent educator training so you can actually become a positive, disciplined parent educator. If you want to just go to my website and go to teaching parenting on the little navigation bar, and that'll get you there. That will get you there. Yeah, and you know what, it's been 15 years since I was first trained in positive discipline, 15 years, you guys, that's like the age of my kid. Not for much longer. Ian's turning 16 in about 10 days, which is crazy, but yeah, 15 years of spreading the word a positive discipline, of imperfectly practicing it with my own two kids and just loving it, loving it. But like any journey, there's been ebbs and flows, for sure, and most of it has to do with, you know, my kid's behavior. It's easy, right? It's easy to feel overly attached and connected to our kids behavior, because it can feel as if our parenting is cause and effect. In a lot of ways, it is, but there is also, you know, that our kids are individuals making their own choices and doing their due so it's slippery, right? And I know for me, when things got really hard as we moved into adolescence, and you all have heard me talk about this, that's when I was like, I have been duped by positive discipline. What is this? What is going on? How am I supposed to be with this teen situation? Anyway? As you know, I stuck with it, and things are really, really good for that child of mine. Wanna give you all a little update on my daughter. So many of you have followed our journey and know the story of Rowan, my sweet, beautiful Rowan, who really came into high school struggling anxiety and depression was very potent and real for her, and eventually, a couple weeks after the start of her junior year, dropped out of high school and kind of went into this long period, it felt like a really long time of what looked from the outside looking in, like doing nothing. But, you know, do. Lots healing, surviving, and then got her GED and went to esthetician School last spring. You may have seen on my Instagram that a couple weeks ago she graduated from esthetician school. She graduated from esthetician school, and you know, after about a week of downtime, she decided to apply for some jobs, and she decided she wanted to look for like an office receptionist kind of job, a front desk Medical Center job, and she sent out a bunch of resumes all on her own. She tweaked her cover letter to match each of the places each of the job offerings. She got three interviews, she got two job offers, and today, today's Thursday that I'm recording this. Today was her fourth day in a full time position at a local optometry office, and she is super excited. She's really tired. She is has just totally stepped into her confidence and her purpose and just the most beautiful possibility mindset. She is designing her life, right? She's in the design of her life, and I'm so honored to watch her on her journey. It's so good. So, you know, also, shout out to my friend Jessica, who it felt like a million years ago when things were really hard with Rowan, when I just was really in dire straits. She told me, you know, you'll get to the other side. She's gonna get to the other side. Things are gonna feel different. You'll be connected again. And I remember in that moment I was like, Okay. And that doesn't really help me right now, but I can just close my eyes and go back to that mama that I was and wrap my arms around her and just tell her, hang on, hang in there. Trust your daughter, trust that things are going to be okay. Seek out help and trust that things are going to be okay. It's true. Stay the course. Things are temporary, my friends and you're here, you're listening. You're in the practice of working on being the best parent you can be for your kid, for your kid.

So I'm going to circle us back on what our topic is going to be today. I'm really excited. This is something that just keeps coming up. It's a theme that keeps coming up in different contexts, in my parent groups with my private clients, and it's that whole conversation around how to motivate our teens, right? How to motivate our teens to care about school or care about chores or care about spending time with you, right? Or care about, you know, their health and well being their sleep. I've been talking so much about this with parents, how to motivate our adolescents. So there's two directions we're going to go into. One is, how do we break down the armor or the, you know, kind of the shit wall that you know, builds up between us and our kids? How can we break that down so that we're actually speaking human to human? So that's the first thing that I'm going to cover today. And then the second thing is, how do we allow them, and you've probably heard me talk about this before, but I'm going to do it again. How do we allow them, offer them hold space for them to feel the tension. How do we hold space for them to feel the tension so as to make that internal decision to change or to do something right, or to get up, to shift, to pivot? So those are the two places we're gonna go. Those are the two places we're gonna go. And let me tell you, I am coming at you as a real life parent, right? I have definitely been in the spin out of nobody wants to help out, nobody does anything around here, which is never totally true, but it can feel like that, right? Nobody ever helps, nobody ever does the dishes, nobody ever wants to clean their room. So I've been there. I know what that feels like, and it's interesting. I just had a parenting class tonight, and we were talking about how, you know, we work on the relationship with our kids, and it's not like we get somewhere and we're like, Okay, sweet, we're here now it's gonna be like this all the time. No, it's this ongoing practice of connecting, of creating agreements, of problem solving, of tweaking those agreements, of looking for new solutions, of checking in on how things are going like it's this ongoing thing, right? It's an ongoing thing, but today, I really am hoping that what I share with you is going to make a difference. So let's co create some value. So today we're going to co create value. What I mean by that is, as you listen, I want you to notice when you're kind of shutting down or shutting off thinking that, Oh, this doesn't apply to me. And I want you to move into, how does this apply to me? How can I take this concept and put it inside of our experience, of our friction, right of the rub that's happening in our family. So we're gonna, I'm gonna bring what I bring, and I invite you to bring a mindset that is open and ready and impossibility. Okay, so let's break down the armor. How do we break down the armor so that we can actually connect with our kid, right? I think, you know, teen years especially, we can just feel like there's this gap between us and their our kids, and that they just don't want to have anything to do with us, right? We fall into and I've been there. I've worked with parents who have been there in that place where it feels like our teens just they don't want to talk to us. They won't talk to us at all, or maybe the exchanges are one word answers and they're just not giving anything away. Or there's a lot of anger thrown around. There's a lot of anger and hurt being thrown around. Here's what I'm going to tell you, and you get to just trust me on this. Teenagers want to be connected to their parents. They want to have an adult that has their back. They want an adult they can confide in and connect with. They want an adult that can handle what they're bringing the highs and the lows and the sideways and all of it, right? They want somebody who can hold space for them. Relationships are super complicated, right? All of our relationships are complicated. And the interesting thing about the parent teen relationship is, you know, teens are going through that individuation process. They're in the practice of learning skills, right, communication skills, listening skills. Their perspective is continuing to broaden, right? They're continuing to move through experiences that are slowly brought, slowly keyword slowly broadening their perspective, right? And then we the adults we've already had 40 plus years, most of us of being humans. And so we have the perspective that we have. Sometimes we actually stall out, though that's one thing that can get in our way, is when we think, Okay, listen, I'm 40. I'm 48 years old. I know everything I need to know. I see the world the way that it is. Side note, you see the world the way you see the world. You don't see the world the way that it is. Right? None of us do. We all see the world the way that we see the world, right? So it's like this mismatch, and we're trying to be in relationship with our teens, and we forget that we are coming from a different place and that our teens are still in development. Relationship inside of that dynamic is complicated, and it really requires us, the adult, to be on our best behavior as much as possible, to hold the perspective as much as possible, and to be willing to look at things from their shoes, right, not to mention our kids. Just like every other human, their meaning making machines, right? They're meaning making machines. And the filter that they're making meaning of the world is is limited, because they've only had, they only have 1314, 1718, years of life experience. So they don't have a great meaning maker, right? There, they perceive they're good perceivers. They're not so skilled at the meaning making so well intentioned loving parents trying to offer support and help and direction and maybe a little bit of pressure. The experience of that for the teenagers might not necessarily be, Oh, thanks. You're really helping me out. It might be, you know, my parents, they don't think I'm capable. They think I do everything wrong, they don't get me right. So they're making that meaning through their filter, and they might be getting a different message than what we're sending. Another tough thing around the crap that the armor that we build between ourselves and our teenagers that get in the way of relationship is that we take their individuation process personally. We take it personally. They push us away. We feel hurt. They only want to hang out with their friends. We feel hurt. They're pushing against our values. We feel hurt, right? They're taking risks, sometimes really scary risks. God Do they not care about us? How dare they right? All of these things are part of the individuation process. They are wired to pull away. They are wired to turn towards their friends. They are wired for novelty seeking. They're wired to push against the status quo, which, by the way, is you right? So we this is a place where we. To really do our work and quit taking things personally. We mean well, but our offers of support can feel very invalidating to our teens. Feels invalidating. We were just talking about this tonight in my parenting for the season, you're in class positive discipline class for parents of teens, and and we talk about, and I've done this exact thing, Rowan can attest to it, you know, she was really low time. And, man, it just seems so simple to me. It was like, you know, just come out of your room, get some fresh air, do some yoga. What I didn't know is that that was really invalidating. She did not feel seen when I offered suggestions like that, and they don't trust that we can handle or hold space for what they're going through. And right now, our kids are going through a lot, right our kids are going through a lot, this whole covid situation, the the political fighting that the adults, the adults are not behaving well at all. Climate change is confusing and complicated and very doom and gloom. Sorry, kids, sorry, we couldn't get it together. It's scary out there. Plus, you know, individuation, isolation, not being able to go to school like my son's going to homecoming this weekend, hopefully, if it doesn't rain, because they're doing it outside for an hour, homecoming dance outside for an hour, as long as it doesn't rain. What is that? What is that? So it's tough out there. It's tough for our teens. And of course, all of this is like that, you know, that shit wall that's building up between us as we try to be in relationship with them. So what's the solution? What's the solution to that armor, that gap that's getting in the way? The first thing is, like I said, human to human conversation. How can you how can we continue

to be in conversation with the person inside of the teen body? Right? And a lot of times, you know, they might have some swagger or some angst, but that's just the coat that they're wearing inside of that is that developing human being who is wired to be in relationship, is wired to be in relationship, to know that they are cared for and cared about. So really thinking about that like the human inside of me connecting with with the human inside of my teen, and it's a it's a process, man, keep showing up. Keep showing up, even as they close the door, even as they, you know, get in your face and maybe even say hurtful things. Keep showing up. Close your mouth and listen. Do less talking and more listening. Ask questions, be curious, trust them. You know, trust your kids. Let them know that you trust them and not like, well, I trust that you're not going to do stupid things. I mean, bigger than that, like trust that whatever they're going through right now might actually be in support of growing them into who they're meant to be, right? Leave your judgment at the door. Get a life people, right? I'm saying this to you, and I'm saying it to myself when we are super and you heard me talk about this with Alana a couple weeks ago on the podcast of codependency. And I get it, you know? I get it when it gets really hard. We really dig in, and we're really attached, of course, to the health and well being of our kids and all. It's really important that we take care of ourselves and that we have a life beyond being the parent of a teenager and finally, finally, a way to break down that armor. A way to break down that armor is to let go of attachment to how things will look, right, because you might get down to the armor. Listen, you guys know, I'm the queen of this, right? I had to totally let go of what I thought was a standard, you know, situation like high school and college and like the path, the common path, the traditional path, and man, you know, it was really hard for me to let go of that. I didn't even realize I was attached to it until it was pulled out, out from under me, and I was shown something really different and it and I couldn't make sense of it for a while now, I'm really glad that I got to go through every, every last minute of the last few years with my oldest. But man, going through it was it was really hard, and I had to take care of myself, and I had to look for opportunities to have a life, right? So that's the first piece. Yes, if we want to motivate our teen, then we have to be able to communicate in a real way. And the only way that we can communicate in a real way is if we're having that human to human conversation, if we're cutting, cutting through the judgment and the tension right that that exists between us now, listen, Okay, listen, I know this is hard and it takes time, and it's not one conversation. It's not, you know, okay, do this for a week and everything will be better. We gotta really be committed, you know, and committed to showing up, regardless of how quickly or slowly our kids open up to us, but I promise you, they want you. They want you in their life. They want to know well, they might not want to know your opinion, but you know, they want to be asked permission to give it right. They want to be seen by you. They want you. They want to know that what's hard for them is acceptable, is accepted by you, right? They want to know those things. So there's that, there's that. What do you think about that? The second thing around motivation is allow them to feel the tension of the world. We care so much about so many things that they don't have to, right? Like we care so much, and you've heard me talk about this a lot, grades in school, right? We care so much that they don't have to or it feels like we care more about the grades in the school or the chores than we care about them. True story, right? Feels like we care more about how they do in school than how they're doing in general, right? They're making up stories all the time. They're making up stories all the time about how capable they think you think they are. They're making up stories around and asking, do my parents even care? Do they see that I'm struggling. The more isolated they get, the harder it is to reach across that divide. So you get to create those stepping stones. You know? Another thing that gets in the way right is, is that we rescue them last minute. We don't follow through. We keep the problem. Problems is our problems, instead of our teens problem, and their only problem, in the end, is how annoying we are, and how to avoid spending time with us or talking to us, right? So these are the things. This is. These are some other things that get in the way. So solutions, right? How to allow them to feel some tension. So I'm going to tell you a story. I had a wonderful client session this week, and the mom, we were talking about her teen daughter and the messy room. And you know, I know this seems like, oh, geez, messy rooms. Come on. I got bigger problems than that. But let me tell you the messy room thing comes up a lot. It comes up a lot. So I'm guessing that the vast majority of you might be like, I've got a lot of problems, and messy room is one of them. So we were talking about this, and she was sharing about how her daughter gets really overwhelmed and, you know, kind of does a half assed job. All the things, right? All the things. And I asked her, I asked this mom. I said, well, like, what are the non negotiables? What are the non negotiables? What are the, what are the things that that have to, in your opinion, have to happen when it comes to cleaning rooms? And she said, Well, you know, if she just empty the garbage and get the dishes out of the room, I would be fine with that. And I was like, Great, let's start there. Let's start there. Let's create an agreement with her around garbage and dishes, because those are two pretty simple tasks, right? You create an agreement. You decide which days, what are the days that garbage and dishes come out of the room? Of course, we'd love to say every day. I'm going to suggest twice a week, make that agreement and let that be the messy room agreement. Now what happens is, and this was something the mom was like, well, but you know, like she does her laundry. This kid does her own laundry. When she does her laundry and she brings it back to her room, but she doesn't put it away. And so the laundry, you know, she doesn't have clean clothes, and they're all over the floor. And I said, Great. So what's gonna happen when. In, she ignores her clothes and then needs something to wear. She's gonna feel the tension, right? She's gonna feel the tension, and that might come with a big meltdown that you have to deal with. Yes, and you get to say, like, oh, man, do you want me to support you with a plan so they this doesn't happen again? Or even better, what could you do so that you feel really good about having the clothes you want when you want them? What might be an idea around that? How can I help you? This really sucks. Yeah, it sucks. You don't have what you want, right? And so instead of being the Enforcer, we get to be on the sidelines with them looking at the problem and saying, Wow, yeah, I can see how this is a problem for you, yay. It's a problem for them. How might you solve it? Right? And remember that messy rooms and chores are low risk places for your kids to feel the tension. They're low risk places for us to hand it over and to quit being in charge doesn't mean like, I mean the whole messy room thing. Listen, if you are someone who's like, you know what the rooms are, their rooms, I don't need to get involved in that. It's fine. Great. Love you. I'm not that person. I just get too worked up. I can't deal like I just went into my son's room today. I have to just close the door and not look in there. But we do have, you know, every week, every weekend is, you know, everybody cleans their room. It's just kind of something that we do. Well, it is something that we do. It's planned. So I know that it's gonna happen. I wish that it happened more often. And sometimes I'll throw out like, Hey, if you're gonna go to basketball tonight, make sure your room's tidy before you leave. And sometimes he does it and sometimes he doesn't. And I get to decide how worked up I'm gonna get about it, knowing that every weekend the room gets cleaned, right? I

so this is one of those places also where often our what's important to us just isn't important to them, and once it becomes important to them, they're going to show up differently, right? I was a slob in college. It was very, you know, we had a cleaning lady growing up, and I kept my room pretty clean because I had to, went to college. Didn't care. Get really messy, especially the kitchen. Oh, my God, my roommates and I were kind of gross. And, you know, now, here I am in my own house, and there's a certain level of cleanliness that happens that I want, because it's my space, it's my things. It's on me, right? Trust that when it's on them and their space, things are going to be different or not. But guess what? They get to live in it, right? You getting really worked up around their rooms and chores and having it look a certain way isn't really teaching them skills. It's more creating a battlefield, right? And what we want most is to teach them skills, and skills show up when they feel the tension of, what if I don't do this right? And also, I will say, because, you know, if I was like, oh, they'll do their chores when they feel the tension, no, what happens is, we do the chores when we feel the tension. But chores are something that we come back to weekly and we talk about them. How's it going? What's a plan? How can we make this work better? What do you want to do this week, like it's just common. We just, it's just a thing that we talk about that's the firmness piece is that we talk about chores, and we make plans for chores, and we expect the kids to follow through, and sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. So this week, Ian did great. A couple days ago, he did his job, and then the last two days he didn't. And so when he came home today, I said, Hey, can you make sure you sweep and take out the garbages? Those were yesterday in today's job. Can you just get that done right now before you go clean out the car? That's a whole nother story. I'm soon to have two teen drivers, which is terrifying anyway, so it was just because of the relationship that we have and because of the kind of ongoing this is what we do as a family, expectation around helping out. It's not, you know, a big power struggle to say, Hey, do your job because it's expected of everyone, and we revisit it. And I don't get worked up about the fact that we have to revisit it. That's another thing that kind of shows up with parents sometimes is we take it personally when we have to revisit things. And I'm here to say, like, let's normalize the revisiting. Hashtag. Normalize the revisiting. I'm saying revisiting. I'm not saying nagging, right? Those are two different things. Revisit. Agreements, revisiting the plan, trying it for a week, what's working, what's not working, how can we tweak it? Gathering information, finding out. Here's another thing, finding out what's getting in the way. So one of the parents in my class tonight was talking about, you know, trying to support her son and helping with the bathroom, but she forgot, you know, she was trying something new and explaining to him why it was important, which very well intentioned and I and I paused her, and I said, okay, but you're missing this one piece around. Tell me about your experience with the bathroom. This is what you said your kid, right? Like, tell me about your bathroom and cleanliness? How do you want it to look what do you notice about me? Right? What does it feel like when it's time to clean the bathroom? Is there anything you don't like? Do you have any questions? Is it hard, like we want to find out what's happening for them, what's getting in their way, so that we can support them, so that we can problem solve from a place of knowing what the real problem is. If we sit up top around, well, the problem is they're not cleaning their bathroom. We're missing, we might be missing some things. So let's drop into what is the problem for the teen, right? What's the problem for the teen? Do they not have any cleaning products in their bathroom? Okay, let's get you some cleaning products so you don't have to, you know? So it's right there when you need to do it. Is there no deadline? Is there no timeline or time of day and day of the week? That is that's explicit and followed through on. Is it that, you know, you keep saying clean the toilet, but they've never actually, really been shown. How is it that could you maybe show them some tricks and tips for making it easier, right? And then again, what can you handle, right? What's the non negotiable? So I've talked a lot about school and this whole let them feel the tension. If you missed those episodes, go to episode 292, with Ned Johnson, or the solo show I did a couple months ago, or maybe last month 292 where I talked about school discouragement. And speaking of discouragement, sometimes our kids discouragement is bigger than you have skills for sometimes discouragement is bigger than the family can hold and that's when you get help. And there is no shame. There's no shame in getting help. Sometimes help looks like signing up for a parenting class or finding a therapist for the family, or finding a therapist for your teen, or talking to the guidance counselor, or looking for another adult in your teen's life that they feel close to, that isn't you, which I know it's like, oh, I want them to talk to me, though you might not be the person, and that's okay, because at the end of the day, you want your teen to feel supported, and if it's not by you, let it be by somebody else, and be honest With how you feel with your teen with no blame, right? Be honest, you might say like, oh, man, I wonder if I've made you feel like how dirty or clean your room is is more important to me than what's going on with you. Or if you feel like I only care about a clean house and not you know your life. Own that own, that clean it up and let them know that you need some help in in, uh, creating something different. The goal is to be in relationship with your teenager, so that no matter what they go through, they know they have people who see them and love them, no matter what hard times are moved through because of the support of family and results. Listen, results aren't guaranteed, so check your expectations and remember that this is your teen's life. Things may be challenging along the way, but you have no idea what those challenges are preparing them for we don't know the outcome be with right now. And fight for relationship. Fight for relationship. What did you think about that I know, talking about motivating our teens, and I got real deep motivating our teens so we want to break down the armor so that we're connecting human to human that's going to support us in motivating our teens in listening and following through and showing up well, while also allowing them to feel some tension. Pull back. Pull back a little bit. Let them feel the discomfort of no gas in the gas tank. Whoa. How does that feel, running out of gas, or, you know, no clothes because the laundry hasn't been done, or something like that.

All right, that's what I've got for you. Today, what do you think about that? I'm really excited to let you all know that I've had a couple of parents reach out about the live coaching. So I am gonna continue to release live coaching calls on the podcast. I think it's really powerful and useful, so that's exciting, and what else did I want to tell you? It's almost Halloween. That's interesting. Halloween is on a Sunday. Super annoying here in the United States. This weekend is homecoming here in Bellingham, so it's the first homecoming experience that My sweet son is going through. But things are good over here in joyful courage land, and I hope things are good. Wherever you are, remember that I am here for you, and I am happy to support however that looks. Bye