What It's Like to Be a Teenage Counsellor?

In this episode, Kimberly and Eliza discuss intergenerational relationships, mother-daughter healing, and navigating parent-child dynamics during the preteen and teenage years in order to cultivate more conscious, self-loving, and resilient children. Eliza discusses how she began this work, alongside her mother, Sil Reynolds, as a teenager. They discuss the need for parents to have intergenerational support while parenting and for teens, holding space for rapid developmental changes and intensity through the teen years, and pushing back on negative cultural stereotypes of preteens and teens in order to raise more empowered youth.

Bio

Eliza Reynolds is a best-selling author, speaker, and professional mentor. She's the coauthor, with her mom, Sil, of Mothering and Daughtering: Keeping Your Bond Strong Through the Teen Years. For almost 15 years, Eliza has been facilitating sold-out workshops for thousands of mothers and their preteen and teen daughters, and now offers online and in-person mentorship programs teaching emotional intelligence, embodiment, body literacy, and more for big-hearted preteen and teen girls at Badass Girls.

What They Share

--Need for intergenerational support for parents and children

--How cultural stereotypes of teen girls impact them

--Commonalities between teens and toddlers development

--Mature mentorship

--Healthy resistance and how to hold space for it from preteens and teens

What You'll Hear

--Describes writing book and teaching with mother at 15

--"Full body yes" to teach and facilitate

--Dominant culture "mom bashing" from teens and culture

--Sil always looking for mentors, intergenerational village for Eliza

--Cultural degradation of teenage girls

--Not normalizing parents feeling overwhelmed and isolated

--False, harmful narrative that teen parenting is only hardship

--Preteens and teens need intergenerational village of support

--Parents can't bridge intergenerational gap with teens without the village

--Underestimate fracturing of extended family, place, and impact on parent-child

--Healthy mentorship and positive power dynamics

--"Daughtering" as being active in relationship with your parent

--Growing between healthy independence and healthy dependence

--Negative stories/stereotypes we tell teen girls about themselves often come true

--Sil would never trash talk Eliza to other people

--Teenage girls as fiercely loyal, loving, kind, radically inclusive with support

--Mothers need other mother/mentor support in community raising preteens and teens together

--Children surrounded by peers in toxic mom-bashing culture

--Dual shift parents getting parenting in community and mentorship and daughter getting healthy peer community and mentorship

--Teens starve for mentorship and want to be in stable and grounded community mirrors back their magic

--Badass Girls Academy supports parents and daughters

--Pushing through the resistance as parents

--Commonalities in parenting, attachment, and rapid development in toddlers and teens

--Preteen and teen "tantrums" because of brain development, psyche, hormones, etc. remembering they are not adults yet

--Being safe harbor and adult through teen tantrums

--Empowering young people to have more conscious relationships to make home easier and less conflict

--Building skill-set to consciously communicate through practicing with mentors, scripts, body-centering techniques, etc.

--Holding boundaries and containment around preteens and teens

--Safety still really important with this age group

--Working with healthy resistance as parents, pushing up ways against similarities and differences as parent

--Feel safety with parents to express themselves and not taking it personally as parents

--Helping teens navigate resistance and intensity

--Holding true space for their 'no' in order to hold true space for their 'yes'

--Badass Academy is program private app and community curated by professional mentors all online, monthly themes, being more invested in radical responsibility of respecting and loving yourself

Resources

Website: https://badassgirls.me/

IG: @eliza.feelings