Episode 76: Surviving The Teenage Years Without The Drama with Deborah Ann Davis
/Okay, so my first-born daughter is almost nine years old. And I know that just a few short years from now, I will be dealing with a teenager. This is something that I have been thinking about a LOT lately! I don't want to be caught off guard or unprepared for the teen years, and I know that what I'm doing now as a parent is laying the ground work for smooth transition for both of us as individuals, AND for our relationship.
And I and guessing I'm not alone in all of this! I know you all are likely curious about how to deal with soon-to-be teenagers OR understanding your teen (if you have one now). So for this episode, I'm bringing in a friend and colleague, Deborah Ann Davis. She is a speaker, coach, educator, and the author of "How To Keep Your Daughter From Slamming the Door." She will help us survive the teenage years without the drama, even if you don't have a daughter.
Here is an overview of our discussion:
How the struggles in teenage years are closely tied with the lack of self-compassion
How to have a healthy relationship with our teenagers
How to communicate with troubled teens
How to reach out to distant teens
Striking a healthy BALANCE between Connection and Autonomy with our teens
To learn more about dealing with teenagers, follow Deborah on her social media and website:
Facebook: Deborah Ann Davis
Facebook Mom Group: The Mom Meet-Up: Raising Confident Girls
Instagram: @awesomemomtribe
YouTube: Deborah Ann Davis
Website: www.deborahanndavis.com
And if you like to checkout her book "How To Keep Your Daughter From Slamming the Door", you can find it here:
TRANSCRIPT
Parenting is often lived in the extremes. It's either great joy or chaotic, overwhelmed. In one moment, you're nailing it and the next you're losing your cool. I want to help you find your way to the messy middle, to a place of balance. You see balance is a verb, not a state of being. It is a thing you do. Not a thing you are. It is an action, a process, a series of micro corrections that you make each and every day to keep yourself feeling centered. We are never truly balanced. We are engaged in the process of balancing.
Hello, I'm Dr. Laura Froyen and this is The Balanced Parent Podcast where overwhelmed, stressed out and disconnected parents go to find tools, mindset shifts, and practices to help them stop yelling at the people they love and start connecting on a deeper level. All delivered with heaping doses of grace and compassion. Join me in conversations that will help you get clear on your goals and values and start showing up in your parenting, your relationships, your life with openhearted authenticity and balance. Let's go!
Laura: Hello everybody, This is Dr. Laura Froyen with the Balanced Parent Podcast and I'm really excited for this conversation today. I know I said that every day but this is one we are actually going to be talking about something that I've been thinking about and wondering about how to have a good, healthy relationship with your child as they move into the teen years. This is something that is I'm on the cusp of it with my almost nine-year-old, it's coming for me and I'm really excited to dig into this. And so to have this conversation, I'm bringing in a friend and colleague Deborah Davis. She has written a book called How To Keep Your Daughter From Slamming the Door and I'm really excited to dig into this topic. Deborah, welcome to the show. Why don't you tell us a little bit more about who you are and what you do?
Deborah: Well thank you, I'm so glad to be here. Well, basically I taught high school in middle school for 27 years. I spent three decades with parent meetings where I have the angry, frustrated parent on one side of the table and the sullen defensive teenager on the other side of the table, and my job was to get them to talk to each other because we couldn't solve whatever problem that brought them to the table until they could talk to each other.
So over the years I created this great arsenal of techniques that I could use to try with this parent, try with that parent, try with this kid and try with that kid until it became second nature to me so I can sit down with people and say this is something that you guys can try, this is something that will work for you, but at the time it didn't have a name now we call it a parent coaching.
Laura: Yeah, it's amazing how things like that developed, right, my generation where we're parenting, where parenting is used actively as a verb in everyday language right before it's a verb, you can't have coaches teach you how to do it, right. That's awesome.
Deborah: When I was a young parent, I fully 100 believed in something we call today the supermom myth back then they didn't have that language and that's really all about comparing yourself to other moms and saying, oh, I fall short and they've got it together and they know what they're doing and their child's going to benefit and my child isn't. And for me it was especially difficult because My mother in law seemed to be the quintessence supermom, she had 15 children and I had one squalling baby.
And on top of that, I had two sisters-in-law who had had babies. We were like three months apart with our babies. So I had lots of people up close and personal to be comparing myself to and I always fell short, but I didn't understand was all the other young moms were doing the exact same thing. Some of them were looking at me and saying, wow, she's got it together and I don't. And the other thing is the reason why my mother-in-law was such an incredible mother was because she had a support team and what we do nowadays.
No, I'm not going to say nowadays what moms do is we get in our heads and we think I have to do it right. I have to do it on my own. I don't want anyone to know I'm having difficulty and I got to hide all the difficulty that I'm having and what I'd like to say is you guys don't have to go through that all you need to do is say, you know what, I haven't done this before. I'm a new mom, why in the world would I be expecting me to get it automatically?
So cut yourself some slack and start building your support group. I mean if you're listening to this kind of a podcast, then that's what you're doing is you're creating support system for yourself. Instead of saying, I'm going to reinvent the wheel. You have to give yourself some slack and treat yourself with kindness because isn't it true that if your best friend was struggling with the things that you're struggling with, that you would be there bolstering them up? You wouldn't be saying, why aren't you getting this right? You're a failure. Your kids aren't gonna make it No, I don't have that inner conversation with yourself.
Laura: Oh yes. You know, here in this community, we are so such big supporters of being so kind, offering ourselves the same grace and kindness that we offer every day to our partners, to our friends and to our kids and acknowledging really that if we want to do that fully and authentically and in a way that isn't draining to us. It has to start with us, that all of that has to come from within, like it's never this bottomless. Well, that comes up from within us, so that's beautiful. Okay, so thank you for that reminder and that pep talk,
Deborah: one more reminder. Yeah, I would say that what I just said was the number one thing about treating yourself as if you were your best friend, but the second part of that is that you will be modeling that behavior for your Children and if you treat yourself well then your Children will say well I'm supposed to be treating myself better than I am and that is probably the most important thing we can impart on them.
Laura: Oh my gosh, yes, 100% for going this way, but I feel like I feel called to go there, I know for me my experience as a teenage girl was filled with self-doubt with self-hatred with comparison with not enough, not good enough, not pretty enough, not whatever enough, you know, and I just wonder what my teenage years would have been like and what my relationships with my parents would have been like had we had this context of compassion and enough Nous your enough Nous being endowed by your simple humanity, you know, I wonder about that, so can we talk a little bit about that, about how sometimes the struggle in the teenage years is very closely tied to lack of self-compassion.
Deborah: The thing is that negativity is fueled by the media. My other book, How to get your happy on this. This little experiment at the back of the book that compares your mood influences. It shows how media and music affect your mood. The thing about media is, it is designed to create discontentment. If you are content with your life, then you don't shop if you are discontented or yearning for something or desire something because you've seen these ads, then it makes you go into the store and then if you can't get there for whatever reason you're dissatisfied.
So the media teaches us to be dissatisfied. Commercials, magazines, labels on clothing, they say were exposed to 4000 media inputs a day, wow, I know it's really incredible. And when you've got a teenage girl who is being raised by a mom who's feeling insecure, then she doesn't have anything to guide her in terms of her own insecurity. Now, for all your moms who just heard that and I'm thinking, oh my gosh, I'm messing up my child, let it go, let it go. You have turned into a decent human being.
So your child is going to turn into a decent human being, what we're talking about here is making these years a little easier for you and her. The thing is that statistically, 80% of the mother-daughter relationships that are like crazy bad during the adolescent years Have turned into good relationships as adults. Even if you're banging heads with your kid, you've got an 80% chance of this being a good adult relationship. So what we're talking about here is not, you're doing it wrong, you're screwing up, you're ruining your child's life. What we're talking about here is bridging the gap, Making things calmer in your household okay.
Laura: And focusing on like this is a lifelong relationship that the two of you will have. Exactly every relationship has ups and downs moments of time where things are rocky, urgency that comes sometimes and parenting is a lot. Okay. So then how do we go about making things a little bit more calm? Making connection a little bit easier. What are some ideas that you can share with us?
Deborah: So in the way, my science brain works like different topics you go topic is about how to calm and the second the topic is about how to bridge the gap in the relationship. Come first how’s that?
Laura: Just like my brain sees those two as intimately tied together that through calm connection is available and through connection, calm is available that they are this like hands washing hands kind of situation. But let's go for a while and.
Deborah: I agree with you. It is a chicken and the egg situation you're trying to say which one comes first, You just have to grab one of them. Start with it.
Laura: and start with it. Okay, so let's start with the bridging the gap one then.
Deborah: So we'll talk about bridging the gap first of all those of you who have a gap that needs to be bridged. This whole conversation is going to make you feel very uncomfortable because you're feeling a little hopeless and scared about it right now and you know, your child needs you and you don't know how to cross that bridge so that they can be enveloped in your love and warmth and security, even though you want to offer it.
My experience has been that for kids who are banging heads with their parents, they have a different personality style than their parents do or a different learning style than their parents do. I used to spend a lot of time talking about personality differences, but lately I've been talking about learning styles because so many parents are now intimately involved in their kid's schooling. Right?
So if you go to my website, there's a page in there called the learning styles inventory. I modified it from the Georgia, State Department of Education, and I like it because it only has three learning styles and I've seen some of them have 18, and the way my mind works, I'm like, I just want one and done, just give me something simple so you can find these things for free online if you want to research it if you like.
Laura: We'll put the link to yours and the show, you know, if you send me the link, I'll make sure it goes into the show notes that people can check it out. But yeah, okay.
Deborah: The learning style inventory is like 20 something questions and you go through and you answer it and it will identify the way you is your preferred learning style. So the three of them are auditory kinesthetic and visual. So what does that mean if you are an auditory learner and your teen is a visual learner and your teens watching tv and you come in the living room and say when that shows over, I want you to take out the garbage and the child goes okay. And then two hours later the child's not watching tv, the garbage hasn't been taken out because when you're an auditory person, things in the air make sense to you.
But for a visual person, they don't retain it the same way. Now you do that same scenario where you write on the sticky note garbage and you put it in front of the child and say when the show is over, I want you to take the garbage out and say okay when the show's over, they'll see the note and think, oh the garbage and go take it out. So when the child doesn't meet the parents’ expectations because the parent receives information differently, then the parent gets upset, feels like they're being thwarted or the child listens to her about them.
They're not listening that they feel like it's they get to the point where I feel like it's intentional and then the child's like why did mom get upset? I mean what's the big deal for mom? It's like the 100th time, the child hasn't taken the garbage out for the child. It's like she just asked me one time, okay, if you address it the way the child learns, then they will be able to adhere to what you're saying.
Do what you say, fit into your scope of things and your conflicts will decrease as the bottom line is and I don't care how contentious or angry your relationship is with your child, they want the exact same thing that you want, they want to be loved, they want to feel safe, they want to feel like you have their back, they want to feel like when there is a problem, they have a place where they can go and they want things to be magically good right now, they want the exact same thing you do. So all you gotta do is get a few tricks up your sleeve so that you can do that.
Laura: and it sounds like to like a piece of this is learning to assume positive intent or assume like the best of our kids, you know, I think so often as parents, when we are with our kids, we kind of assume the worst of them, they're doing this to be disrespectful, they're doing this to being manipulative and in reality, if we kind of kind of just say like, oh they must have forgotten kind of just give them a little bit of the grace that were, you know, we talked about offering to ourselves, that allows us to come at it from a different energy too. So yeah, speaking their learning style, I love that giving them t
Deborah: The other thing is your learning style is the way you receive information. It's also the way you process information, it's the way you understand the world and it's the way you do relationships. So if you've got a household where one of your kids gets along really well with your spouse and doesn't get along with you, chances are they have a similar way of approaching the world. So they don't get blindsided by each other and you and this child get blindsided because what makes sense to you and you would expect this kind of reaction from your child is surprising and shocking when you don't get it.
Yeah, we're a little kid when they get blindsided by their mom, because they were expecting mom to be okay with this and mom blew up. That's scary for them because now they don't understand who you are, what you do, how you interact and their trust in you starts to decrease because they don't think you understand them, they don't think, you know what to do. So when they've got a problem with somebody at school, they don't feel like they can come talk to you because you're not going to get it anyway. For example, like me with my daughter, I'm the kind of person, like I'm very intuitive and I want to jump in and fix it fast, right? She is a strong personality
So when she would come to me wanting to share about what was going on, I didn't understand that she needed to vent. She had all these emotions that she had built up over the course of her school day and she just wanted to go blob and I was there listening to two sentences and giving her solutions and she didn't want to hear a solution because how could I possibly tell her what would be better when I didn't really know what the whole story was yet I didn't understand.
So I wasn't going to be able to help her. It made her feel this gap, this bridge, this widening gap. And it wasn't until we had a conversation where I started saying to her, okay, what's my role here? She say, I just want to complain. I just want event. Sometimes she would say, I just want you to be the mommy, sometimes she'd say I just want you to be the friend, sometimes she'd say I need to know what to do, which then my inner self would be going yeah, now I get to do my thing
Laura: Yeah. You know, I used a similar process with my daughters when they come to me with a problem. You know, they start talking to me, I hear them, you know, I'm holding space a little bit and then I, at some point I find a place to interject and say, okay honey, is this something that you want me to just listen to? Is this something that you want my advice on all my thoughts on for how to handle? Or is this something you want me to get involved in and help you with those three levels of kind of like my, like those roles for me that I can take are so help understand.
Yeah, they understand it there and I mean like it's almost, you know, sometimes it's they have to think about it for a second, you know, and they, sometimes one of them will say, well just listen for now and after you're done listening then maybe something else, but right now just listen and the other one is like, yeah, I want advice right now, you know.
I mean, But what you're talking about this process of conscious communication because that's what it is, checking in meta communicating about how we're going to communicate. That is a skill that kids need, that everybody needs, that we don't learn growing up, most of us, I don't know about you.
Deborah: That stuff wasn't actually one thing that was taught in my household when I was growing up, we could have private talks. So if you were upset or if you just wanted to talk you, it was okay for you to sequester yourself away with one of your parents and close the door and nobody could bother you while you talk. We did have that. That's beautiful in our house. Yes. But I would like to say this for the moms who are listening to this and have not done this kind of procedure before you're probably saying, well that works for you, but that won't work in my household. So let me tell you how to start this.
Laura: Yeah, good. That's great.
Deborah: The whole thing first of all with any changes that you want to make in your relationship or your procedures in your household. The thing you have to do is pick a quiet calm time and explain what it is that you're going to do what the changes are going to be because if you insert the most loving change right in the middle of the battlefield, your kids are going to sit back and go, okay, something's wrong with mom
Laura: More like I'm going to reject that.
Deborah: Like I'm not doing that. So, so for example, with this thing you say, I have just found something interesting in a magazine or just heard this great podcast or whatever that has a different way to approach family interactions and I decided I wanted to try it. So I just wanted to let you know, so you would recognize it when it's going on.
So when you come to talk to me about something about school, I'm going to qualify my role right upfront. So I'm going to say to you, what do you want me to do? Do you want me to listen? Do you want me to talk? Do you want me to hug? Right. And then for the older kids you say do you want to vent? Do you want to share and get my input? Are you looking for advice? So that's what I'm gonna do.
Then when the kid comes to you and says it, you're going to say, okay, this is a great time for I'm gonna try this new thing. All right, so you're gonna have your conversation and I'm gonna say do you want me to hug you? Do you want to talk to? You want me to listen? So what time would you like to try and then you started and you might get some eye-rolling or whatever and it's okay because they are uncomfortable with something that's new. They're not rejecting you when they roll their eyes. Okay, so here's the science behind eye-rolling. May I?
Laura: Oh my gosh, please do. Okay. Rolling. Oh my gosh.
Deborah: Biology Behind eye-rolling. Your body creates happy hormones with physical movements. So wiggling, dancing, jumping up and down creates happy hormones. also get a set of happy hormones that get created when you smile. So if you smile because you're happy, you feel it like in the middle of your stomach and if you smile, if you do a fake smile like you're not really happy and just make your face do it, your body can't tell the difference. And it's that little surge of happy hormones with a fake smile.
So I remember when I was telling my daughter that I was going to fake smile in the middle of a fight so she wouldn't think I was crazy, I would be yelling and going at each other and I said wait this is not the way I want this to go and I would do a fake smile, I just gritted her and she sit back and look at me. I said go ahead, grin at me, I don't want to, I said just do it. You don't have to mean it just grit your teeth and move your lips to the side and do it and it would interrupt the negativity.
Laura: Sure.
Deborah: But if I had just grinned at her in the middle of a conversation without telling her ahead of time, she would have said daddy, you need to take mom to the funny farm. So anyway, so the whole thing, so with the happy hormones, I started with a smile because that when everybody can practice while they're doing it grinning when it's not really greening is self-soothing.
It's a physical self-soothing when you cast your eyes upward, like you're glancing up at the sky, just do it right now everybody is listening, just look up, you can feel it in your gut that creates a happy hormone release. Also if you quickly expel air like that, it creates a sensation of relief in your stomach. Oh also banging your feet on the ground or thumping or jiggling or whatever also creates those happy hormones. So when you see a child who stomps her foot and exhales hard and rolls their eyes, they are self-soothing. This is not something they're doing to you, this is something that's happening to them.
Laura: Oh my gosh, you're blowing my mind. Like I feel like as I'm listening to you and everybody is listening like there's just like this like reverberation around the world of my parents minds being blown like what a great reframe, the rolling of the eyes. The stopping of the all of these things are Children's wise, eternally wise bodies, attempts to soothe and regulate Oh man that feels good to know.
Deborah: And the slamming of the door is another one, it's just a rough motion that makes a hormone surge in their body and they released afterwards.
Laura: Yeah.
Deborah: But then when they're on the other side of the door, they don't know how to get back to you and every time they slammed the door they're afraid that they have irrevocably ruined your relationship mm So if you've got a door slammer when they slam the door, just go stand outside the door and say I love you. Even if you're angry and steaming and you want to open the door and slam it yourself. Just say it just like doing a fake smile. It creates a change in your body chemistry saying I love you, shift your perspective.
Laura: Okay, so what does it on the other side of the door? Yells back, Well I hate you or no, you don't love me.
Deborah: Looking at this one. If you had a four-year-old who was upset because they hadn't don't eat their carrots, couldn't play with their truck, whatever and they said I hate you. Would you believe them?
Laura: No, never in a million years.
Deborah: that 17 year old behind the door is an extension of that four-year-old. They don't hate you. I told you already they want the same thing. You want, they want the problem and magically go away. They want to be able to sit next to you and feel comfortable. They want to be unconditionally loved and know that they are safe and secure and you will always be there for them.
That's what you want from them. That's what they want from you and they're going to cloud it up with I hate you. Which is code for I have absolutely no idea what to do right now. I am completely stranded in the universe. I have nowhere to turn. I have no solution And for all, I know this feeling may last for the rest of my entire life.
They're just waiting when they slam the door. They are waiting to be rescued. And so that doesn't mean that's not going to make you mad. That doesn't mean that you have to be all of a sudden the saint with your flying colors and you go storming the door and say, I'm here to rescue you. You know, that's not what's going to happen.
Laura: So what do we do then? Okay, So I'm loving the visual of this scenario that you're creating for us because I feel like we've probably all been there at some point with our kids. The door has been slammed. We've gone up and we've said, honey, I love you. No matter what. I love you. And they come back with no you don't or you, I hate you.
Okay. So now there are on the other side of the door. We know we I believe wholeheartedly in what you just said, that they all they want is love and connection and understanding and safety from us and they're lost. They're adrift. They feel like it's going to last forever. You know that these are completely overwhelmed by their emotions. So like, what do we do? What's next?
Deborah: So you say? I love you, no matter what and they say I hate you. You say, well, that makes me feel sad. But I love you no matter what and when you feel better and you want to come talk to me, I will be here for you and then you say I'm going in the kitchen, I'll be there when you feel better, I will be there. I love you. No matter what. When they say something is hurtful, you don't have to hide that that's hurting you, you could say, well that hurts, but I still love you and I know that if you were in a better place, you wouldn't be trying to hurt me right now. So I understand that.
Laura: Yeah, I love that. I think, you know the assuming the best. There are times when kids don't believe the best of themselves, right? And they need someone to hold them in positive regard unconditionally. Like for those times when they can't see the good in themselves, Do you know what I mean? Like, you know, like just someone there who like, we know like they're always going to think good things of us, like kids need that confidence. You know even.
Deborah: A lot of kids get that from their grandparents, right?
Laura: Oh yeah.
Deborah: grandparents don't discipline them. Their grandparents love them unconditionally, grandparents aren't raising them right there just there for the hug.
Laura: Yeah, there's so much, I think grandparent and child relationships can be very much less complicated than parent and child relationships. For sure. Yeah. Ok, so I'm wondering about if we can talk a little bit just for a moment about I know one of the primary developmental tasks of the teenage years of adolescence is learning how to separate.
Well to fully step into an adult identity to and figure out how to have the like this ultimate of autonomy and related this, that's what attachment theory is about. You know, How do we stay connected and still stay ourselves and teenagers are definitely grappling with that, right? What role do we as parents have to play in that part of the staying connected while still allowing for autonomy and independence? Do you know what I mean?
Deborah: Yeah. That unfortunately is a question that depends on the child. They are all developing at different rates. Again, here's the science part. The brain develops from the back to the front. It's like the cosmic joke that the frontal cortex, which is your logic and reasoning is the last thing to develop.
Laura: Yeah. Not until your twenties, Right?
Deborah: I know, not to your late twenties, like post-college, beginning job. Yeah. No.
Laura: it's terrifying.
Deborah: I know, trust me. I know. So for the Children who are trying to become autonomous, I would say, I mean all Children are trying to become autonomous, but for the parents who are in that situation, I want you to recognize that that stuff starts early. When my daughter turned nine, right after she blew out the candles on her cake. She said, Mom, now that I'm almost a teenager, I said, Whoa you're not almost a teenager.
I will tell you when you're almost a teenager because she's thinking like I'm one year away from 10, that's double digits. That's right. So she was ready for it way back then and I certainly wasn't. So one of the things is you have to pick and choose where they can be autonomous and where they cannot, here's where they cannot be autonomous.
And this these are what I call the non-negotiables, their safety, They cannot be responsible for their safety. You have to be responsible. And that comes from everything between when they can use a sharp knife to when they can drive a car and when they can drive a car, they turn 16. It's when they are ready to drive the car and yes, cell phones, ipads, all those electronic devices that leave them on them because it's exhausting to try to monitor that.
Laura: But I love that you're situating that we have full responsibility for their safety even when they're teenagers.
Deborah: That's right. I'll give you an example back in the day when my daughter was younger, there was I am in a meme. Right, okay. So she wanted to go on that and I had been at all these conferences and stuff because I was a teacher about the pitfalls of it and how it's distracting. So she and I sat down and had this discussion and she said, well, yeah, I know some of my friends are having a hard time doing their homework because they're so distracted by this. But mom, I already know this, so I can keep an eye on it and watch it. I said, okay, so we put it on the computer and in about a week I could see a change in her grades.
So we sat down and talked about it and she goes, you're right. I was not paying attention. I'm going to do better this time. The same thing happened in another week and I said, this isn't working. I'm going to take it off the computer. She goes, all right, I see it. Okay. A week later. I don't know what made me, but I checked the computer and had secretly been put back on there. So I just secretly took it off again and then a week later was secretly back on there and she secretly took it off again.
The funny thing was when she was about 25, I was sharing that with her and she went, I never knew you were taking it off. I thought it was just something that was I hadn't put it on there. Right? So I didn't leave it to her. I want to explore the possibility. But I didn't leave it to her because why was my daughter going to be the only child that wasn't going to become addicted to internet stuff? No, that's not happening. It's like why is my child company? The only one who's going to drink alcohol and not have a problem with it.
Laura: So the analogy that always comes to mind when I talk about this is it's like going bowling but with bumpers like the bumpers and the lame, you know, like we can't just send a toddler to go bowling and imagine that they're going to get a strike, they need bumpers. We can't think that we're going to send a, You know, a 16-year-old out to her, you know, a big hang out with her friends and not put some bumpers on there to keep them safe, you know, to help them make a decision, they need the bumpers.
Deborah: So the non-negotiables are safety, their health, and nutrition, that's non-negotiable, you are in charge of that, not them. And then the 3rd thing is school, you are in charge of that, not them. They don't get to make decisions about whether they're going to do their homework and not do their homework, that's your job. Now if they're struggling because of the flip-flopping of what's going on in the school systems and stuff and you're going to ease that for them so you can make this a more positive situation, that's still your decision. You know, their decision, right?
Laura: I think that, you know, partnering with them on those things too. So if they're struggles figuring out what are the struggles where ,where is it hard or you know, even just, you know, I, you know, growing up in, my parents were both teachers and my dad was a teacher in the school system I was in a science teacher. The advanced placement. Yeah, and I mean and so there are still times where I reflect back on and think about like I did not have choice in my classes I was taking, I was in three science classes with my dad a day and had no time for art that I really wanted to take and I still like I still think about that.
So I think that there is room for agency within our like, you know, for our kids, like really partnering with them, figuring out what it is that they want, why they want it this way, what you know, what is it that's important to them, What are they seeking and wanting these things that they're pushing us for and equipping them to make good well-rounded decisions, you know, as opposed to imposing what we think they should be doing, what we think is right for them, you know, and that all builds connection with them to that builds that Heard understood scene and valued piece of it, that's so important. Right?
Deborah: I 100% agree with you. All I'm saying is you're the person in charge.
Laura: Yeah, of course.
Deborah: Now the negotiable stuff, what color the room is going to be, what clothes they're going to wear within a certain parameter, you know, then you use the Venn diagram, this Venn diagram is like two circles, right?
Laura: Love a good Venn diagram.
Laura: So I use this with my daughter right When she was little , little, she always wanted to wear an outfit with her belly showing and me as a high school teacher is thinking, okay, the writing is on the wall here. So I needed to have a way where we went bang heads when we went shopping for clothes for school, you know? So I said and make a circle with one finger in one hand and say this is all the stuff that you love. And I'd say this is on the other hand, the other circle of the, this is all the stuff I love.
And then I'd overlap them and they say this is all the stuff that we both love and that's what's coming home with us. So we'd go shopping and there would be rules, right? The one rule was that I had to let her try on anything she wanted to try on. And the second rule was that she had to try on everything. I asked her to try on and then the third rule was that there would be no fighting because whatever came home with us, we would both love and that saved us so many headaches because I had a totally different view of what she should wear to school than she did. But she loved everything she brought home.
Laura: So that's interesting. That's a good idea. Yeah. I still don't think schools should be policing girls’ clothing and bodies, but that's probably.
Deborah: I understand what you're saying, but I looked at, I've been in, I've taught in inner-city, I've taught in rural, I've taught in rich communities, I've taught in Atlanta, I've taught in Hartford, I've taught in such a wide variety of environments. In the schools where I taught were the kids wore uniforms, Like Hartford Public schools wear uniforms. I love the uniforms because instead of trying to make the clothing on their body represent who they were, the child had to represent who they were to be through their personality and their actions and their statements, it was like clothing was now taken out of the mix and their personalities could shine through.
Laura: I love it too. I know, and uniforms can be great equalizers too and you know, in terms of access to close and labels and uh you know, yes, I am all for uniforms. Okay, well, I feel like this has been a really good conversation, I really appreciate these things and you know, I think that for everybody who's listening, who is, does not have teen kids does not have that gap. The things that we've been talking about set you up to not have that come up.
I think that there's this big myth, this misunderstanding that the teenage years have to be tumultuous that they have to be filled with discord that they have to be filled with slamming doors and I'm not sure that that's true, you know, that they, you know, I think it's actually a very American concept. Other places in the world don't have as much of that narrative. I think they're getting it more now that media is expanding. You know that Western media is expanding. But yeah, I don't know any other like little tips to kind of yes. Factor to improve our relationships.
Deborah: Yes. The main thing is that you have to take care of you, mm If you take care of you, your kids will follow suit. If you are content, they'll know it and I don't know how much time we have left, but I just want to tell this little story when my daughter was 2.5. I know I'm positive about this age because of where I was driving her at this story, we go to the daycare and we went over a bridge that went over a train track and the hill on the side of the bridge had a tree on it that was situated in such a way that the crown of the tree was right even with where the cars were.
And one day we were at a stoplight right there next to that tree and there was this huge hawk right there Like 10 ft outside of the car window. And me like the science person, like I was also excited and I said Rebecca, look, look see the hawk. And so the next day when he went over the bridge, I said to Rebecca, look, Rebecca, see that tree, that's where the hawk was yesterday. And the day after that when he went over, I said, see the hawk was there the day after that we went over and I said, see the hawk was there. Rebecca says, are you going to say that every day? I said, you know, she's in the back seat, I'm in the front seat.
She can't see my set face. I said, fine, I won't say it anymore. She says to me from the back seat of the car, mommy, you can say it as many times as you want. If my daughter at 2 and a half, intuitively understood, I needed a little comfort, right then, then trust me, your Children know what's going on with you emotionally. You can't fake it. If you don't take care of yourself and feel good about yourself, they will know it on some intuitive level. So you have to walk the walk and talk to talk. And I would start by writing a sticky note and putting it on your bathroom mirror and on the refrigerator.
And every time you see it, you say it and it says I deeply and completely love and appreciate myself when I first started doing that. It was really hard for me to say that. But if you put it up there, your kids will see it and they'll see that. That's what you're aiming for because it's ok if you're not the perfect paragon of a mother right? This moment or a father, because you can say to your kids, well, I'm on a journey,
Laura: Yeah.
Deborah: and they can understand that, and when you show them ways that you're improving yourself, they'll say, oh, so we're supposed to be improving ourselves, I'm down with that.
Laura: Yeah, I love that. I think that's so important. I think self-compassion and self-kindness is just one of the very best things you can offer to yourself as a parent and offer as a model for your kids. Thank you.
Deborah: Coz you deserve it.
Laura: You deserve it. Yes, of course, you because you're human, just like everybody else on this beautiful planet, Right?
Deborah: Yes, exactly.
Laura: Well, Deborah, thank you so much for being here with us. I'll have all the links of people can go and find your books in the show notes. I really appreciate the conversation that you've had with us today.
Deborah: Thank you. I enjoyed this thoroughly. You're lovely.
Laura: oh, thanks, I'm so glad that you're here. All right. I think that's it. It was really nice to chat with you.
Deborah: Thank you very much.
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All right. That's it for me today. I hope that you keep taking really good care of your kids and your family and each other and most importantly of yourself. And just to remember, balance is a verb and you're already doing it. You've got this.