Eps 512: Trusting our teen’s development

Today I am leaning into Joyful Courage as I sit with the deep desire to know that my son is doing just fine as he navigates his first weeks at college (he is). I get to be aware of my own runaway emotions and find a place of peace and trust.

Transcription

Casey O'Roarty 00:04
Music, hello, welcome back. Welcome to the joyful courage podcast, a place for inspiration and transformation as we work to keep it together while parenting our tweens and teens, this is real work, people and when we can focus on our own growth and nurturing the connection with our kids, we can move through the turbulence in a way that allows for relationships to remain intact. My name is Casey or Rorty. I am your fearless host. I'm a positive discipline trainer, space holder, coach and the adolescent lead at sproutable. Also mama to a 20 year old daughter and a 17 year old son. I am walking right beside you on the path of raising our kids with positive discipline and conscious parenting. This show is meant to be a resource to you, and I work really hard to keep it really, real, transparent and authentic, so that you feel seen and supported. Today is a solo show, and I'm confident that what I share will be useful to you. Please don't forget, sharing truly is caring if you love today's show, please, please pass the link around, snap a screenshot, post it on your socials, or text it to your friends. Together, we can make an even bigger impact on families around the globe. If you're feeling extra special, you can rate and review us over in Apple podcasts, I'm so glad that you're here. Welcome, welcome, welcome, enjoy the show.

Casey O'Roarty 01:33
Hello, my friends, hi listeners. I am back. I'm back. The summer is over, and I'm back to hang with you on these Thursday solo shows. I've missed you. I hope that your summer was full of adventure and or ease, rest, connection, all the good things. That's what I'm hoping you're coming into this new month with and yeah, if you're on my newsletter, or you follow me on social media, you know that not too long ago, not too long ago, I dropped my youngest, Ian, off at the University of Arizona, and as I sit here and share He's rolled into the school year, he's making his way to class. He's feeding himself, he's making new friends, navigating the newness of this massive transition that's all happening as we speak. And you know many of you and family and friends check in with me and want to know how I'm doing. It kind of feels similar to when Ben was sick years ago, when we were in covid, times there was a lot of concern around how I was holding up. And it makes sense, right? It makes sense. This is a hard transition for parents when kids launch to college, especially for moms, but also for dads. And there's a lot of chatter and conversation around the emotional breakdown that comes with launching our kids. And like I mentioned on Monday with my interview with Tina Bryson, if you haven't listened, go back, pause this and go listen, because it was so good. It's definitely a mixed bag of emotions. I'm definitely experiencing excitement and a little bit of grief for just kind of the closing of an era. There's also an opening of this new era, which is really exciting. What I'm noticing coming up more and more for me as the minutes and the hours and the days go by with Ian, thinking about Ian and this experience is there is a little bit of tightness in my belly around wanting to be sure that he finds his place right, that he has a sense of belonging. I want him to be stoked about what he's doing. I told him last night on a FaceTime call. Thank God for technology to remember that people want to be friends with him, that he's awesome, and that the awkwardness of that initial request to hang out soon dissipates as you get to know new people. And I encouraged him to put the call out. Everybody's waiting for everyone else to make the first move, right, especially these Gen Zers who are just used to the ease of, you know, Snapchat, they don't really have to put themselves out there too far. So, you know, now they're in this experience where they get to flex some new muscles. They've come of age connecting over phones. Right now they're in a new environment. Or some of them are like a college campus, and they're having to really fly. Some new skills, those interpersonal relationship skills, and lean into taking some risks, right? And be vulnerable to build relationship. And I love it. I'm here for it, and I do trust that all of our baby adults are ready for it. I think they're ready for it. I believe in them. I believe that they're capable. So, yeah, I had Tina Bryson, Dr Bryson on the show on Monday. Again, if you haven't listened, pause this and go listen to that. She's brilliant, and there's a reason why it was the fourth time that she's been on my podcast. I'm so grateful for her wisdom and her relatability. And one of the things that came up I want to kind of pull on. It's a thread I want to pull on and dig deeper into today, something that she said was that we can trust in our kids development. We can trust in their development. And to me, this is so big, and of course, it's something that's been showing up in the community and the membership and on one on one calls with clients trusting their development. What does that mean? What does that mean to me, when I think about trusting our kids development, two words come up. One is experience, and the other one is perspective, right? We're always accruing experiences, and we're always growing our perspective through the having of those experiences. And I want to do a quick brain science review. We're just going to skim the surface, but it's important. Teen brain development is real. First of all, it's a real thing, and the more we parents can educate ourselves about the brain, the better we can to support and move through the teen years with our kiddos. You've heard me say this before, right? What we can learn helps us make sense of what's going on with our kiddos, and the more we can make sense of what's going on, the more effective we can be in how we respond, right? So during the adolescent years, the brain goes through what scientists call a pruning process, basically the first 10 to 12 years of life, our brains are like sponges, and they gather, gather, gather, gather, store, store, store information, right? And then puberty hits and the brain wants to be more efficient. So what happens is that the parts of the brain that aren't regularly used get pruned away, the processes and the thinking that isn't regularly used gets pruned away. The concept of use it or lose it comes from this process, so maybe we started getting really good at the piano, but didn't continue to practice as we became adolescents, or maybe we were, you know, as young children raised with a second language. But then, you know, for whatever reason, it wasn't something that was practiced in adolescence, and we lose those skills over time without practice. And there's probably things in your life that you used to be really good at, but then stop practicing and you kind of lost that skill. So when we continue to practice something, when we get better at it, when we stop practicing something, we tend to, over time, lose that ability or that skill. So

Casey O'Roarty 08:24
the other thing that's happening during the adolescent years is that the prefrontal cortex is still in development. It hasn't even reached maximum development yet, right? And this is where humans build perspective, decision making skills, interpersonal relationship tools, self regulation, all of these things are happening in the prefrontal cortex. It's a big deal place, right? And however, because it's still in development, our teens tend to rely more on a different part of the brain, which is their amygdala, right? The amygdala is farther along in development. It's the emotional center of the brain, and teens tend to lean on the amygdala for their decision making and problem solving, and the amygdala is associated with emotions, impulses, aggression and instinctive behavior. Sound familiar so often with our teens and how they're responding to the things in their life. We parents are like, What are you doing? This is too much emotion, or why didn't you stop and think? Or, you know, like you don't need to be so angry, right? But they're literally using the part of their brain that is associated with impulse, aggressiveness, instinct, right over time. The good news is, over time, as they get older, and the prefrontal cortex continues to develop. And yes, you definitely can play a role in that, which I'll talk about in a bit. As they get older and the prefrontal cortex continues. To develop that reliance on the amygdala can become less and less logic starts to land over time through experiences, right? Yay. The other good news is that brain development is happening no matter what, every interaction, every experience they have, is being imprinted on their brain. They're always making meaning about what they're moving through themselves and the world around them. And yes, this can go a bit sideways without a strong relationship with someone else to help them make sense of things, but oftentimes no intervention is needed, right? Whoa, brain. There's so many great books about the teen brain. I'll put some in the show notes, but that's kind of the surface level, you know, understanding that I wanted to share with you. I know it's a lot, and I would encourage you to dig deeper to find out more. But again, come back to those two words that I mentioned, experience and perspective. Experience and perspective. You might be thinking, okay, great. So how can I support my kiddo in healthy meaning making right, in growing a perspective that is useful, right? I'm so glad that you asked. I'm so glad that you asked. And this is going to sound familiar, right? One, don't make it worse. Whatever they're going through, whatever their current challenges or complaint or share, don't make it worse. Validate that what they're moving through is real for them, right? And ask open ended questions to prompt them in the expansion of their perspective about whatever situation they're in. Now, something that came up in my interview with Tina that I loved, she mentioned some do's and don'ts during the interview, and it's so funny. So I did this interview on Monday, and I've had a couple client calls, I've had other podcast recordings, and I can't even tell you how many times I've referenced Tina, and this conversation we had, it was so good. So she says, Don't Don't mobilize, don't criticize, don't minimize, right? Don't mobilize, meaning, don't go into fix it mode when your kids are having a problem, right? Don't criticize them for having a problem. Don't minimize whatever it is that's a problem for them. These things are not useful. What you can do, what you should do, what's useful to do is to empathize and authorize, right? I love Tina's use of language. Don't mobilize, don't criticize, don't minimize. Do empathize, do Authorize. So don't make it worse, right? We want to keep this space open for our kids to share with us, yes, but another reason we want to keep this open safe space is so that our kids can be open minded about the experiences that they're having and also the meaning they're giving to those experiences. We want them to stay open to the possibility that there's multiple meanings, there's multiple perspectives that they can take. So before you interact with them about an experience or a complaint that they're having, check yourself right. Check yourself and ask is what I'm about to offer going to leave my kiddo feeling seen and heard or more discouraged, right? Empathize and validate what they're sharing with you, right? I hear you That sounds really hard. I'm hearing that you feel discouraged, I'm hearing that you feel overwhelmed. I'm hearing that you're feeling really sad. Believe them when they share about hard things, see them in their experience and name it, name how it must feel, even if you're just making a guess, right? And come from a really genuine and authentic place, this is not a magic formula. This is really interpersonal relationship, right? And once you land that empathy, zip it right, because something to keep in mind, when they feel seen and heard, then they don't have to fight so hard to feel seen and heard. Does that make sense? They can move on from that place of see me, understand me, and maybe even find a broader perspective without any help from you, just in the softening and the relaxing into like, ugh, yes, you get it, you hear me, you see me, and then you can just be a reflective listener. And this is really big. I'm gonna linger here. This is kind of this new idea to me, or I'm talking about it in a new way. And I'm just so interested in playing around here, perhaps the experience of being seen and validated and empathized with will allow our kids to shift out of justifying themselves. We'll move them out of that doubling down on being the victim and being in blame of others. No, you don't understand. They say, right? And then they talk more and more and more about how they were wronged or life is unfair. So instead, if we can empathize and validate, maybe we can give them a runway towards their personal power, just simply, in the act of validation. Empathizing and truly seeing them. So when I was kind of planning this podcast, I had this visualization of a GPS map. Because sometimes when we talk about validating and empathizing and just being more thoughtful and parenting, I've had parents say like, God, it's just so much work to do it differently. It's so much work to resist the impulse, you know, of shooting from the hip. And it got me thinking about like when you look up a location on the map, on your phone or in your car using GPS, and it gives you multiple routes right? One route might be directly through the city. It's quick as far as miles. It's a shorter distance, but it's red. It's bright red the whole way there's traffic, so it's gonna take longer. And then there's a route that avoids the city altogether. It kind of goes around all the buildings and around the traffic, and it's a lot more miles to get to your final destination, but it's actually quicker because there's no traffic. Or maybe it's the same amount of time, maybe it's an hour of sitting in traffic and getting going three miles, or maybe it's an hour of wide open road, but you're driving, you know, 60 miles, I don't know. Just roll with me. Both take you to the same destination, but one gets you there, and you arrive and you're irritated, you're frustrated, maybe you're bringing some of that emotion into the space that you've arrived at. The other is scenic, relaxing, and you might discover some new things when you arrive at your final destination. You feel peaceful. You feel grateful to be there. Which road do you pick? Right? A lot of parents in this analogy, right? I see a lot of parents choosing the red path. When it comes to their teens, right? They want to get there. They see the destination. They want to get there. They want to get there. And they use phrases like, Hey, listen, this situation. It's not that big of a deal. You just need to get it together, shake it off all of these things, this dismissive responses to our kids, creates traffic, right? They are dismissive, minimizing the experience that our kids are having. They don't feel seen, they don't feel like you understand, so they put on the brakes, and that's where the traffic shows up. That's where resistance shows up, even though the destination feels so close, why can't we just like, look, look at where we're going, right? It's right there. It still takes forever because of how misaligned we are around what our kids actually need, and in this scenario that I'm talking about, what they need, they need to feel seen. They need to feel heard, validated, accepted, right? That's the way we keep the road open, the space open, right? So does that make sense to you? Because there is another way. We get to sit down. We get to see our teens. We get to work to relate with them, listen deeply, slow down, validate, empathize. In this process, we get to know our kids even better. They feel more connection, and there is an opening to learning and growing and expanding, because the space isn't all jammed up with misunderstanding and frustration. Does that make sense?

Casey O'Roarty 18:22
So don't make it worse. Don't create traffic. See them in their experience, and when it feels right, use curiosity to support them in expanding their perspective. And you listen to me talk about this all the time, you can influence their critical thinking, and you get to it's part of your responsibility. It's part of parenting. This show today is about trusting development, so even if you skipped that step around curiosity and influencing their critical thinking and just focused on not making it worse and empathizing, your teen's gonna be okay, because life offers so many ongoing opportunities to grow and develop. A 10th grader dealing with their first breakup is going to be devastated, right? No doubt. They have no prior experienced heartbreak. They haven't lived through it or gotten to the other side before, and it hurts. It hurts big time, right? So fast forward now five years that same person is going through another breakup. Yes, it's disappointing and it hurts. Of course, we're emotional beings. However, this young person has been through breakups before and knows that the pain doesn't last forever. They might even have some good ideas about how to move through it, right? So our wisdom comes from experiences, right? The experiences that we live through and without, the experiences we don't build wisdom and our teens this time of life, adolescence, they're moving through so many firsts, right? And it's all part of development. We. All went through the firsts, the first timers, right? The first time for whatever can be really hard. But keep in mind that, as our kids, your kids continue to accrue experiences, their perspectives on things broaden, right? We can trust their development. Again. Shout out to Tina Bryson, I love this. We can trust their development and that over time, skills and mindsets are developed and will continue to be developed that will be ever more useful for our kids and autonomy, right? And speaking of autonomy when we feel like the time is right for some curiosity with our teens, you've heard me say this before, ask permission. Give the teen the power to invite you into their experience. Here's how it can sound. Hey, babe, thanks for sharing about that interaction you had with your teacher earlier. I'm wondering if you'd be willing to chat more about it. I have some questions, right? And they get to say, Sure, I'm willing to talk more about it. Or, No thanks, I'm good. And if you get the No, you get to gracefully. Just say, Okay, well, I'll talk to you later. Or, okay, well, if you want to, you know, if anything comes up, I do have some thoughts, and I'd love to talk more about it with you, right? Like you can gracefully take their no if you get no thanks all the time if they don't ever let you in for any kind of processing. I would get curious about that. It could be that the space feels like an invitation to criticism, or it could be feeding into a lack of self worth that you may or may not be aware of. We all get to learn to be better for each other and open for feedback, right? So it could sound like I noticed that even when things are calm and I want to check in on some of the challenges that you've shared with me, you don't want to revisit, you don't want to process. Can you tell me about that? Or you could say something like, I wonder if when I want to ask questions about experiences that you share with me if it feels like I'm being critical or disappointed. You know, how are you experiencing me? Make some guesses and then let your teen tell you if you're off on those guesses, if you're off or not, right? And keep in mind, some of our kids are just more internal. They may just say, I don't want to talk more about it. And you can respond again with, Okay, well, I'm here for you. There are others you can talk about it with as well. This is messy, right? This is messy. It's a dance we do with each other, interpersonal dynamics. It's a dance we do with life and life unfolding. But the main thing that I want to land today with all of you is that you can trust development. Who your kid is today is not who they'll be in a few weeks or a few months or a few years, right? They're always growing and developing trust that, trust that as they get older, they are growing and developing through the experiences they are having on their own timeline. I feel like this is annoying to us. Like we have a timeline, they have a timeline, and often there's a mismatch, and know that there is plenty of support as you move through this season of parenting. And I want to offer you, I want to let you know about some support that's coming up, right, if you're listening to this show, when it initially goes out, which is September 5, 2024 I've got a six week class that starts September 24 right? And in just a few weeks, six week class for parents of teens and tweens. This is such a powerful way of getting the foundation of positive discipline and everything we talk about here on the pod, and really beginning the process of cementing it through and integrating it into your home life. So we start Tuesday, September 24 the class is from five to 7pm Pacific Time. And yeah, I would love to have you. You can go to besproutable.com/teens, and tap on classes on the navigation bar, and then scroll down to live classes, and you'll see the six week class. I would love to have you. And if you are listening to this, and it's not when it was initially released. You can also go to the website and click on classes and see what I do have going on, because there are ongoing opportunities for support offered by me and sproutable and joyful courage. So check it out. I also work one on one with parents. You can book an explore call at besproutable.com/explore, we can get on the phone for 15 minutes and you can see if there's something that I've got for you that's a good fit for you and your family. I would love that I am here for you. I'm here for you. Always, if something landed and you'd like to share or celebrate that. With me, or if you're confused and have questions, whatever it is you want to interact around, shoot me an email at [email protected], I'm always available, and I always respond. It feels really good everyone to be back with you. Thanks for listening. Today. I'll be solo again. Live solo with you next week and in the weeks to come. Until then, make sure that you're drinking plenty of water. Get out in nature, give your kiddos a hug, if they'll let you and know that you are not alone in what you're moving through. I'll see you soon.

Casey O'Roarty 25:41
Thank you so much for listening in today. Thank you so much to my sproutable partners, Julieta and Alana, as well as Danielle and Chris Mann and the team at pod shaper for all the support with getting this show out there and helping it to sound so good. Check out our offers for parents with kids of all ages, and sign up for our newsletter to stay better [email protected] tune back in on Monday for a brand new interview, and I will be back solo with you next Thursday. Have a great day. You.