TheTeenDoc.com » Parenting

The Teen Chat

teendoc — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 11:00:08 +0000

You know that feeling you get when your boss wants to chat with you on a Monday morning? That’s the same one your teen can feel when you suddenly walk in to have a chat with them. Know why?

They get this feeling for the same reason you get this feeling; You know your boss is too busy or too “bossy” to just come down and have a happy chat about what you did over the weekend so any “chat” they want to have is about something related to the job. So having a chat with your boss isn’t associated with anything positive. Sure your boss could do away with this association by chatting you up more about nonwork issues or coming down to tell you something you did great, but how many people are really that chummy with their boss? How many teens are that chummy with their parents? Well there’re certainly more teens that are chummy with their parents, but if you only want a sit down chat when you have a problem with your teen then when you want to chat, they’re going to think what did I do now? So they’re going to be anxious no matter what the chat is about.

Your teen is not your boss. Chat ‘em up. Get to know other things about them and talk to them about all things so when something that is behavioral comes up, it doesn’t stand out so badly it creates a feeling of panic just because you want to chat with them.

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I Know You’re Disappointed

teendoc — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 11:00:27 +0000

The last thing your teen wants to do is disappoint you. True story.

Your teen feels bad when they disappoint you so when they do something that seems natural to them or part of who they naturally are becoming like not being inclined to excel at academics, not passing up the joint offered at the party or starting to have sex well, your disappointment is like a knife to their heart. Depending on how you follow up the initial surprise of the activity they’re either going to know you still trust them even though you don’t like their decision and would not have made that decision for them; or they‘ll know they have blown it and they can never win your trust or respect again.

Give them a graceful way back into your good graces and tone down on the disappointment. When your teen knows there’s still hope to regain your trust and respect while being who they are, they’re more likely to keep trying. Once they give up, it’s over.

Ouch! That Hurt My Feelings

teendoc — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 11:00:01 +0000

So much acting out behavior that parents see comes from being hurt by someone your teen loves. Although your teen may seem to love being with their friends more, the hurt that hurts the most comes from you. If you know this hurts, why would you…

…Yell when you can speak calmly

…Shove when you can extend your arms for a hug

…Watch TV when you can watch your teen and hear how their day was

…Play Sudoku when you can send a text that says, “I’m thinking of you.”

…Call them outside their name when you thought so hard of the name they would be called

…Assume the worst when you know you gave birth to someone who has the potential to be the best

…Ask them to be someone else when you understand how much easier it is to perfect being yourself

Over time, hurt feelings become feelings of resentment and then turn into anger and it is very hard to get someone’s trust you when they believe they hate you.

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My fantasy was…

teendoc — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 11:00:36 +0000

I know it didn’t go well when you tried to tell your Mom you were pregnant. What did you want your Mom to say?

Your teen badly wants your support. Yes, they want their privacy, but that’s appropriate to helping them start to problem solve situations. In the end, when they look around the room of dance partners, they want you to be the person they finally talk it over with. It’s just that, they have a way they would like the conversation to go. It never seems to involve yelling or judgement. It’s all about you being this pillar of support. It’s about you being this Batman and Robin like team when it comes to something they need your help with.

She hoped you were going to say something like, “Wow, that’s a lot. I was really hoping you wouldn’t have to experience something like this. I love you and we can get through this together.” She was hoping you would say something like that. She already felt horrible about having to tell you she had messed up so royally. It took everything she had to crawl from under the rock of shame and guilt to just stand before you.. She didn’t want to hear you rub that in at all.

Your Teen’s Fantasy

Don’t Bother Finding Holes In Your Teen’s Plan

teendoc — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:45:32 +0000

Your teen calls and they are so excited about a trip or business venture or intimate partner. Meanwhile you’re listening and as you listen you start thinking, “this is not going to work.”

You may get to the point when you actually say out loud, “You’re joking right? You know that’s not going to work.” And then you proceed to ask all the questions excited brains don’t think about. You know, the practical questions.

If by now you’ve figured out your teen doesn’t want you to point out holes in their plan, you’d be right. And not only do they not want you to point out the holes, but they want you to be excited with them. Ride the wave with them. This may seem irresponsible and impractical to you who is trying to avoid pitfalls and wasted money and other resources, but to your teen this is unconditional love and support. They want your support. If they are lucky enough to get it unconditionally well then you have a teen who is on top of this world.

The truth is, the natural progression of things will reveal the holes. As a result, they will learn a new way to think about the next trip, business venture or intimate partner. They will figure out, possibly the hard way and with “wasted” resources, but the lesson will hopefully be learned and incorporated into their life’s experience. This is how they grow.

As a parent, you will have to bite your tongue and smile when you could just strangle your teen, but do bite your tongue. You are going to be so proud when your teen comes to and points out all the holes you thought up, on their own.

How Do You Apologize To Your Teen?

teendoc — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 12:00:43 +0000

“I tried to tell my Mom several times that I was molested by my uncle. It was clear that she didn’t want to believe or hear me. I finally realized that and stopped tryin’ to tell her.”

As a parent you do the best you can with what you’ve got. This is fair. No one is perfect and there is no manual on how to be a parent, sibling, or child. However, as a parent when you see hurt in your teen’s face as a result of your actions, it should be reflex to say, “I’m sorry.”

A previous blog gives hints on how your teen can apologize, but as a commenter mentioned one way you teach your teen to apologize is by apologizing yourself. The old thinking that your teen is not someone you should have to apologize to is old school.

A direct apology whether written or face-to-face shows your imperfection and humanity to your teen. This is parenting. You show your teen that it’s okay to be wrong, or make a wrong decision and own it by saying, “Sorry.”

The Mom of the teen in the first paragraph never told her teen that she really heard her and just couldn’t handle it. As a result, this teen never trusted her Mom and never told her anything about her life good or bad. This Mom as a result of her limitations ended up missing out on her daughter’s life.

When you apologize to your teen, they admire you. With this admiration comes respect and you end up with the ideal teen you knew was there. Parenting is too imperfect a process to think you are too big to apologize to your teen.

Toughening Your Teen Up For The Real World?

teendoc — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 12:00:42 +0000

“Bad things are gonna happen in life, if you can’t handle this, what are you gonna do when something worse happens? Get over it! What do ya want a hug? That’s not gonna solve anything.”

This Dad is right. Bad things do happen. And yes, sometimes the world seems really hard, but the way to prepare your teen for these bad things is not by making them solve these problems or face the consequences of difficult choices alone. You prepare them by being there for them and gauging what they need then providing it in a reliable way.

Your teen needs you. This cannot be emphasized enough. It is what a colleague of mine, Dr. John Duffy calls Available Parenting. You have to be there when they need help without making them feel like that can only happen when they are in crisis. You see, if you are only able to really make time when your teen is in trouble (they know you HAVE to leave work to get them from the principal’s office or jail), well it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out, get into a lot of trouble and my parent will give me time.

Even if your teen must endure the lecture that invariably ensues about how their behavior is blah, blah, blah and they should know better, all your teen is thinking is it’s the early afternoon and I’m hanging out with my Mom.

Don’t make it that hard for your teen. Be there with them to navigate life when it can be challenging, and toughen them up by nurturing their self-esteem and confidence with support, presence and an open mind. Do this reliably so your teen knows they can depend on you. You want to rely on them to always do their homework or take out the garbage, and your teen wants to know whenever they need you, you will be there without judging or reminding them for years to come of their faults. Your teen will be tough enough for the world when they know their parent’s have their back.

Give Your Teen a Self-Esteem Boost!

teendoc — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 12:00:07 +0000

Here is a simple exercise, without telling your teen what you are going to do, for one week give your teen compliments, cheers or kudos on legitimate actions and behavior. This is without any negative comments. Hmmm…seems hard, huh?

You can forget the things your teen is doing well because they also do things not so well. By spending a week taking the time to notice good things, if only so you have something nice to say, you actually start to notice the good things.

This is a great way to remind yourself of the good in your teen. Be generous at first, “Thanks for putting your plate in the sink,” say this with a smile even if you wanted and expected them to wash the plate too. When you start to look for it, you can see the ways your teen is trying to be good, but either because of immaturity or mishaps ends up not quite getting to shine as much as even they would like.

You have to remember, your teen has expectations for them too, and they don’t like being considered the person who messes up or can’t do anything right. It can really wear down a person’s spirit. Once this happens, your teen will give up on ever trying to please you and then you will really only see consistent bad behavior, “the problem child.” People and especially teens really want to please people that make them feel good about themselves. This person can be you, or their friends who do drugs. When you consider how low the self-esteem of many celebrities is even though they are given overt displays of praise, you get a sense of how hard it might be to lift yourself up from the barrage of complaints about you when there is no academy award to tell you how great a job you’re doing.

But that is what parents do, you are your teen’s academy. Your disappointment with your teen should not stop you from seeing the good you saw so easily when your teen was a baby or child. Same kid, different body. Try it for a week and see how it changes not just your teen, but the relationship you have with your teen.

Are Your Words Hurting Your Teen?

teendoc — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 22:05:24 +0000

Teasing and bullying are not just done by other kids. Sometimes parents are the ones doing the name-calling. I was speaking to a teen in my clinic who was preparing to leave for college. I was concerned because I wanted him to be sure he had a good support system in place (e.g. physician, therapist, and other group like Narcotics Anonymous). I am like this with all teens, but especially teens who have had trouble coping in the past and used substance use, eating disorders, or depression to cope.

He began to tell me how he had already taken steps to support himself such as moving out of his childhood home. He went on to explain how that was part of the initial pull to his addiction with drugs, living with a parent who was always calling him “idiot” or saying “ move out! See if I care. Do you think anyone cares about you? You are nothing!” As hard as these words were for me to hear, I kept thinking of how much harder they must have been for him to hear from someone who was supposed to love him.

Being a parent is a tough job. There are no breaks for exhaustion or do-overs for the comment that just pierced a spear through your teen’s heart. It is important that we are aware of how important our words are to our teens and not take their “whatever” attitude towards us as a sign that we can say whatever we want to them without it hurting who they become as adults.

Preventing this type of abuse of your teen takes lots of practice, but little things like:

1. Taking a time-out for yourself if you notice you are getting too angry.

2. Saving discipline for after you have calmed down, and

3. Reading from a written statement

can help decrease the amount of negativity you direct at your teen. Of course, if this is too difficult a pattern for you to break or you find yourself with a teen whose behavior is out of control, then you should seek professional parenting or family counseling services to reverse the behavior.

Every word thrown at teens is plastered on the wall of who they think they are. If they begin to believe those negative words, it can take a lifetime to reverse. In the meantime, they may struggle to love themselves through poor coping behaviors like substance use, eating disorders and depression.

Welcome to TheTeenDoc.com

teendoc — Fri, 08 May 2009 21:03:34 +0000

Welcome to The Teen Doc! I know teen issues are frequently addressed on an “as needed” basis. “I am having trouble with my teen; let me ask a friend or find a parenting book.” It is human nature to wait until you have an illness to seek the cure once you have the illness. But I’m going to challenge you to consider, what if you knew the basics before the issue arose? What if, you had such basic insight into what was around the corner for your teen that you felt prepared? What if you could interpret “the code” that is teen?

You’d feel more prepared and in charge, as a parent should. AND, your teen might feel secure and confident about your parenting and your ability to understand where they’re coming from. This is the goal.

Teens want to be able to go to their parents. They’re more likely to do this if they feel their parents understand and empathize with what’s going on in their life. Parents want to feel that things are in control and their teen is going to end up happy, responsible and self-sufficient.

I help parents do this everydayas a teen doctor. A good place to start:

1. Think. Remind yourself of the things you like about your teen. Everybody makes mistakes, but they don’t want to be defined by them. They certainly don’t want people bringing them up all the time.

2. List. Consider three things that you really like or are impressed with that your teen does. (I know this may take a minute for some so, I’ll wait. Da-da da-da, da-da da. Done? Good.)

3. Share. Now, go tell your teen what you think of them. Don’t be shy, they’re expecting that you’ll tell them something bad that happened. Surprise them and let them know what you really think of them.

Try and do this every day.

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