Talking To Teens: Expert Tips for Parenting Teenagers

Cynthia Kane, author of How to Communicate Like a Buddhist and Talk to Yourself Like a Buddhist, sat down with me to discuss the communication tactics she has learned during her journey as a Bodhisattva. Her techniques are perfect for getting out of escalating arguments and questionable conversations!Full show notesAnyone who works in a team knows that proper communication can be a nightmare for adults, but communicating with teenagers is a whole different ballgame! How many times have you wanted to talk to your child about something small, but it somehow blew up into a huge argument? This can happen when parents and their children don’t have the best communication practices in order. It’s no one’s intention to get into an argument, but sometimes the small stuff can turn into a screaming match. That’s where Buddhist thinking can offer some sage advice…Mindfulness and listening techniques encourage us to take a step back and better understand how communicating with teenagers can become confrontational. Maybe your child is just having a bad day and they’ve been stuck in a defensive mood to cope with it. Perhaps you didn’t realize you used a sharp tone by accident. In any case, it’s important to understand why communicating with teenagers can get out of hand so easily.While teens are still growing up, hormonal and social changes in their lives can make it harder to navigate problems with a level head. One wrong word might prompt a heated outburst! This hair-trigger mindset can complicate even the simplest ways of communicating with teenagers.Before you know it, you’re getting pulled into their emotionally-charged, surface-level vocabulary of insults. If you ground them, you’re drawing out spans of resentment without improving communication habits. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Cynthia Kane, author of How to Communicate Like a Buddhist and Talk to Yourself Like a Buddhist has some techniques that can help you master the art of communicating with teenagers.I spoke with Cynthia about communicating with teenagers this week to better understand why conversations with your teen can get out of control. In her own life, Cynthia’s search for the Bodhisattva –a person dedicated to helping others ease their suffering– led her on a journey to become one herself. As a certified meditation and mindfulness instructor, she’s taught tens of thousands of people to speak with kindness, honesty, and confidence through her books. If anyone knows about communicating with teenagers, it’s Cynthia.Cynthia’s work has appeared in several esteemed publications, including the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Yoga Journal, Self Magazine, and Woman’s Day Magazine. Through her bestselling DailyOM courses, workshops, and Intentional Communication Training Program, she has helped thousands of others transform how they are communicating with teenagers, so I was especially excited to hear what she had to say about communicating with teenagers.In our interview, we talk about three central aspects to Cynthia’s approach:Self-TalkSpeechSilenceBy using these Buddhist principles of Right Speech, Cynthia walked me through how we can speak to ourselves and others in positive, reaffirming ways. I knew the Buddha was knowledgeable, but who would have guessed Buddhist teachings had so much to say about communicating with teenagers?Let’s Talk About Self-TalkThe first step of Cynthia’s Bodhisattva approach to communicating with teenagers is to listen to yourself. Though practicing honesty can be found throughout Cynthia’s entire method of communication, she says that it’s important to start with your own truths. Self-awareness really is the beginning of being able to interact with others in a more compassionate way.Unfortunately, many teens don’t yet have the experience to reflect on how everyone is feeling in the moment let alone take stock of their emotional status. They aren’t always able to observe your intentions, so they act out or behave disrespectfully, causing conversations to escalate to a place that no one wants. In this way, when parents understand self-talk and can demonstrate their feelings clearly, communication gets a whole lot smoother.For example, when parents and teenagers bottle up how they feel about a certain behavior, they’ll play the game of saying, “Nothing’s wrong,” when we know that’s not true. Using that phrase to dance around an issue that is clearly of importance can only muddy the waters and prevent you from effectively communicating with teenagers. This is why honesty and self-reflection are so important. When you listen to yourself, you can be more honest about how you feel and effectively cut through harmful defensive verbiage.We often avoid our own negative feelings because they’re too uncomfortable to deal with, and this can block productive meaningful conversation from occurring. By listening to ourselves, we can start to become aware of the restrictive language that we implement when communicating with teenagers.To hear about how Speech and Silence play into communication with teenagers, don’t forget to listen to the whole episode!What is Restrictive Language?Restrictive language is the kind of verbiage that causes us to feel stressed, overwhelmed, uncomfortable, and even incapable. As a parent, listening to yourself is how you can catch when you have this negative mindset.Cynthia mentions that this is an aspect of communicating with teenagers that a lot of parents are unaware of, but can make a huge impact at home. Once you’ve identified restrictive language in how you think, you can be more present when communicating with teenagers and have a genuine of conversation. Negativity is a total buzzkill when it comes to communication with teenagers.Don’t Forget––Listening is Part of Communication!Listening maintains several effective applications that you can implement as a parent while trying to communicate with your teenager. For one, listening to others improves your ability to notice when you’re not being present, like when you’re shopping at the grocery or are too self-involved in an argument. These situations can cause you to tune out details when communicating with teenagers.There’s so Much More!In practice, Kane’s insights help people more truthfully focus on their individual needs and build avenues of communication. These are crucial areas for parents to focus on if they want to improve and understand the relationship they have with their teen.Empathy and honesty are amazing tools for building trust between parents and teenagers, but, just like many other methods of communication, they need to be practiced. It all begins with an acute awareness of one’s own self-talk, and Kane offers a unique process to communicate your needs and wants more openly.In addition to canes special approach to communications listeners will discover:Why silence is a key part of effective communicationShutting down toxic teenage gossipThe importance of different kinds of speech in our everyday livesHow to combat the “shoulds” and “could...

Dr. Steven Sloman, co-author of The Knowledge Illusion and professor at Brown University, joins Andy for a conversation on knowledge, making deliberate decisions, and how to talk to your teen about the gaps in their knowledge around things like vaping.Full show notes“Mom! Dad! Shut up! You don’t know what you’re talking about!”Have you ever heard these words fly out of the mouth of your teenager?If there were a remote control for a parent’s behavior, these words would probably be the equivalent of the “Volume Up” button.Why do these words sting so much? Well, press the “Pause” button and consider this:Your teenagers might be right. You might not know what you’re talking about. What’s frustrating, though, is that your teens probably don't know what they’re talking about either!But what even were you “talking” about? Let’s take the hot-button topic for example: teens and vaping.Is vaping bad for teens? Your gut instinct might be to say, “Yes! Of course it is!” But can you explain why? Can you describe how their lungs are absorbing this vapor and how their brains are reacting to the chemicals?If you tell your teen that vaping is bad, but can’t explain why, then you might just be told:“You don’t know what you’re talking about! Shut up!”Knowledge on a topic like teens and vaping might seem peripheral. If you are concerned about your teens and vaping, you won’t change their behavior by claiming knowledge you don’t have.So what can you do? You can’t be expected to know everything about every subject of controversy! To get some ideas, I spoke with knowledge expert, Dr. Steven Sloman.Dr. Sloman is a leading researcher on the human mind, a professor at Brown University, and co-author of The Knowledge Illusion: Why We Never Think Alone. He’s an expert on how humans think, and he has one or two ideas on how to work with teens who think they know everything. His book isn’t specifically about teens, but it touches on prevalent issues during the teen years. I was eager to ask Dr. Sloman about human thinking during the teenage years, and how parents might apply his wisdom to issues like teens and vaping.The Illusion of Explanatory DepthParents of teens might be very familiar with the Illusion of Explanatory Depth, even if they’ve never heard of it before. It is the illusion that people understand something when in fact they don’t.Dr. Sloman cites a Yale study in which people were asked to rate their knowledge of everyday objects. The subjects were presented zippers, toilets, and pens, and asked how well they thought they understood how each one worked. The data shows all the subjects felt pretty confident in their understanding of such everyday objects. But this illusion was burst when the researchers asked the subjects to explain how those objects worked in as much detail as possible!As it turned out, the subjects didn’t really have much to say. When the researchers asked the subjects to rate themselves a second time on how well they knew those objects, they lowered their rating. This demonstrates the Illusion of Explanatory Depth, that people think they know more than they really do.So this isn’t really a teen problem, or even a problem linked to teens and vaping. It’s a people problem. Still, the Illusion of Explanatory Depth seems to show up a lot during the teenage years. Your teen might yell, “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” but the Illusion of Explanatory Depth suggests your teen doesn’t know what they’re talking about, either. In fact, they’re more unaware than you of how much they’re living in an illusion. How might we go about addressing issues of teens and vaping?Why Would Anyone Live in an Illusion?In order to address the illusion of knowledge in teens, Dr. Sloman first asks:“Why would anybody live in this illusion of understanding?”He proposes that we live this way because we fail to distinguish what we know from what other people know. You think you understand how the toilet works because there’s a plumber who understands how the toilet works. You have access to the plumber’s knowledge, but the knowledge is sitting in the plumber’s head, not in yours.Dr. Sloman explains that the reason we have this illusion is because, in a sense, we do understand! It’s not every individual that understands, but the collective communities that understand. And communities can succeed when everyone has specialized knowledge to share.Who Do You Trust?Every day we are taking advantage of other peoples’ knowledge. As long as we can use our toilet, we don’t need to know how the toilet works. Our lack of understanding doesn’t matter until the toilet brakes. Then we realize how dependent we are on the plumber.This subconscious dependency on other people creates an interesting scenario for teenagers. Teens are caught in a high stakes decision where they have to choose which community they’re going to go along with and rely on for knowledge. They’re wondering what they should believe, how they should behave, and who they should hang around with. Dr. Sloman points out that all these identity questions will shape how teens experience the illusion of knowledge.Since teens have so much curiosity, what they choose to believe quickly becomes a question of: Who do I trust? Whose ideas am I going to accept?Exposing the IllusionDr. Sloman explains that we make decisions by virtue of the fact that people around us are also making decisions. For example, the best predictor of whether or not someone will give up vaping is whether or not their spouse has given up vaping.When discussing teens and vaping, Dr. Sloman points out that oftentimes kids pick up the habit from their peers. So simply exposing your teen’s illusion of knowledge won’t be enough to convince them to stop. In a way, it’s most effective to convince the whole group on the issues of teens and vaping, so it’s best to operate at the social level.On an issue like teens and vaping it’s even harder to convince a teen to quit because the research on vaping is somewhat inconclusive. You can ask teens to explain how vaping works, like in the study at Yale, but you might get a mixed bag of results.If you sit down with kids who vape and ask them how it works, you might easily expose their lack of understanding. They might say,“Well, you fill it up here, you press the button here, and it tastes like bubblegum.”You can press them for further explanation on all three of those steps. Even if they seem super confident in their knowledge, a barrage of follow-up questions will quickly expose how little they know about the device and what’s in it. You can get them to doubt how much they know about vaping, and this is good! By breaking attachments they have to their preexisting understanding of teens and vaping, discussing the topic feels less polarized, extreme, or emotional.There is a word of caution, though.Show CuriosityDr. Sloman says that when you puncture someone’s illusion of understa...

Dr. Adam Price, author of He’s Not Lazy, shares the tricks and tips from his book. Dr. Price and Andy dive deep into all that Dr. Price has discovered about motivating “lazy” teens in during his 20+ years as a clinical psychologist.Full show notesTeens face more pressure today than ever before. At times, it seems like a teenager’s only path to success comes from a rigorous schedule of academics, sports, community service, and a generally overwhelming amount of extracurricular activities. Such a routine builds tremendous stress in teens—and in their parents.This can be alarming for parents whose teenagers are “lazy.” It’s no secret that what kids do in school every year counts toward their future opportunities. In a society where young people are expected to be hyperactive achievers, parents with unmotivated teens worry their teens are doomed to fail – it’s like they don’t care about anything at all!!! Luckily, there are a variety of ways to assist parents who don’t know how to motivate lazy teenagers. That’s the topic of this week’s Talking to Teens podcast episode, “Laziness Ends Here.”This week, I spoke with clinical psychologist and former Associate Director at Family Connections, Dr. Adam Price to understand exactly how to motivate lazy teenagers. He’s the author of He’s Not Lazy: Empowering Your Son to Believe in Himself and has published many articles on family and child therapy in issues of The Wall Street Journal and Family Circle. With more than 20 years in the practice and a specialization in adolescent males, Price has seen it all.Common CausesKnowing the common causes of uninspired behavior is half the battle of understanding how to motivate lazy teenagers. To Price, “lazy” teenage behavior stems from two places:First, there is the enormous amount of pressure on teens to always be above-and-beyond average. There are no longer “late bloomers,” despite a wide array of cognitive developmental rates in teens. Instead, we now label them as “underachievers.”Secondly, because they are made to feel that the stakes are so high at every stage, parents micromanage; they attempt to control their teen’s life by taking away the teen’s.It might seem like the pressure for teens to do well and ending up with overparenting are almost inevitable realities for teenagers who can’t seem to kick it into gear. If they shut down under pressure, then it’s up to their parents to shoulder that anxiety and make sure their child succeeds. But knowing how to motivate lazy teenagers counteracts both of these realities. According to Dr. Price, you can subvert the overwhelming pressure that your child is feeling and inspire them to get their life together by holding them accountable for their decisions.In order to address how to motivate lazy teenagers, Dr. Price focuses on the role that accountability plays in two major aspects of your child’s life:Personal InterestAutonomyBy balancing accountability with these particular features, you can move your teen to react in accordance with their responsibilities. During our discussion, Dr. Price walked me through how to motivate lazy teenagers with comprehensible examples and scripts that you can apply in your home today! Here’s just a glimpse of how it works:Internalizing MotivationThere's a lot of material in school that kids just aren’t interested in. And who can blame them? Is it particularly relevant to your life that the mitochondria are the powerhouse of the cell? Plus, the increased pressure that academics place on teenagers today can make studying or extracurriculars extra-daunting. However, when teens have a genuine interest in a given topic, that is where all their energy is redirected.In order to understand how to motivate lazy teenagers, you first need to know what your child is interested. Then you can look for ways to combine their interests with their responsibilities and potential career paths. Now, I know what you’re thinking: “It’s impossible to get my child excited about math. I don’t even like math!” Well, instead of trying to get your child excited about generic textbook material, you can look for things that your child is already interested! From there, you can try to extrapolate potential careers and applications of what they’re learning in school.You want to know how to motivate lazy teenagers in a way that is internalized so that their initiative is lasting, and you can be more hands-off. For example, if your teen holds an interest in rock-climbing and outdoor activities, you might direct their awareness to a career in environmental science and preservation. A good way to frame it is, “If you like spending time outdoors now, here’s how you can do more of that in the future!”. But make it clear that in order to find success, they’ll have to do well in their science classes and get into a good college. This internalizes their personal interests and motivates them to hold themselves accountable.When your teen conflates their personal interests with their responsibilities, they internalize the reward and are likely to follow through. Research finds that external rewards like good grades or even monetary prizes can actually reduce motivation if they aren’t linked to internal rewards. Personal interests are actually so transformative that they can negate the mental stakes of not doing well in school. Instead, they take advantage of your teens’ ambitions and motivate them to work harder.Dealing with ConsequencesAutonomy is about choices. When your teen makes a decision about their life, they are exercising control and self-governance. These choices can include everything from wanting to try out for the soccer team vs. staying at home to activities like hosting a sleepover the night before going to church the next morning. So what can your struggling teen’s autonomy do to help you understand how to motivate lazy teenagers?According to Dr. Price, increasing your child’s ability to make choices can help you discover how to motivate lazy teenagers by showing them the power of decision making, including neglecting their responsibilities. So, does this mean you should let your child do whatever they want? Not exactly. This is where accountability comes in.Accountability works with your teen’s autonomy by compelling them to live with the consequences of their decisions. For example, if your child decides they want to have a sleepover on a weeknight, that’s fine. If they can get all their schoolwork done and properly allocate their time, that’s great! But if they stay up until 4 am, then you have to hold them accountable by making sure they go to school the next day and still attend sports practice.Balancing accountability with your teen’s autonomy is all about boundaries; these are the limits you place on your child. And knowing how to motivate lazy teenagers is an evolving process. When your child is younger, you want their boundaries to be small enough that you can make sure they don’t get into trouble and that they can function on their own. As they start to grow into their teenage years, the boundaries grow with them. They start to take on more adult responsibilities and if you’re not there to micromanage, they’ll have to deal with the consequences of their own choices.There’s Much More!<...

Richie Jackson, author of the newly-released Gay Like Me and long-time, award-winning TV/film and theater producer, joins Andy this week. Richie and Andy discuss how parents can support their teens in their own journey of sexual identity, and how teens might become allies for their friends in the LGBTQ community.Full show notesGay like MeThese days it seems like just about everyone is ok with gay; there are more LGBTQ characters on TV, same-sex marriage is legal, and many religious groups originally against homosexuality are starting to come around. However, members of the LGBTQ community are persecuted and slandered every day. There are still numerous nations where it’s illegal to be gay and there are many places in the United States where people are killed for their sexual orientation. Regardless of location, members of the LGBTQ community confront challenges for sexual identity on a daily basis. This challenge could be someone using a gay slur and refusing to apologize because they didn’t mean it in that way. Or, heaven forbid, they come face to face with a homophobe who threatens or assaults them for liking the same sex. Yes, we all struggle with our identities but the struggle is much harder for people who’ve been told they will never be accepted.While homosexuality is far more accepted nowadays, struggles that LGBTQ teens face are new ground and can be confusing territory for parents. Parents are apprehensive about sex talks with their teens, but those with LGBTQ-identifying teens can feel more ill-equipped. Despite the trend toward more acceptance, there are many challenges for sexual identity that straight people cannot fathom. Representation of homosexuality in history books is virtually non-existent, and TV and film depictions are often stereotyped or exaggerated. While tech-savvy teens can tap into supportive online LGBTQ communities, navigating challenges for sexual identity in the real world is not as easy—and often not as friendly.For parents of LGBTQ children, it feels daunting to prepare your teen for a world that isn’t always accepting. Richie Jackson, an openly-gay Broadway and television show producer, felt similarly when he was preparing to send his gay son off to college. Even though his son grew up in an era much more accepting of homosexuality than Richie did, he knew his son had a lot to learn about navigating life as a gay man. So Richie started writing letters to his son, so many letters that he accumulated enough material for the beginning of a book. These letters were published in Richie’s first book Gay Like Me: A Father Writes to His Son. In this book, Richie shares stories from his own life, the good, the bad, and the humorous, as well as stories of LGBTQ leaders, creatives, and trailblazers. The book is an important read not just for those facing challenges for sexual identity, but for parents of homosexual and heterosexual kids alike. Richie insists that all parents must understand the struggles of LGBTQ people in order to empower their LGBTQ teen and, if they have straight children, to teach them to be better allies to their queer peers.Please note that the term “queer” is used throughout this article and in the episode. Queer is a term that nowadays is used to describe anyone who is lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and/or questioning their sexuality. Though previously used as a gay slur, the word queer has been reclaimed as an empowering term to describe the LGBTQ people who have formed an inclusive culture and community for themselves despite facing challenges for sexual identity.Know Your HistoryRichie believes that if you’re a parent of a queer teen, it’s vital that you be the one to show them how to face challenges for sexual identity. If you’re a straight parent, you may be thinking “how can I help them with challenges for sexual identity? I have no idea what it’s like to be LGBTQ!” In order to help them, Richie insists that you get informed about LGBTQ history, find shows that accurately and earnestly portray the queer experience, and provide an environment where talking about sexual identity is accepted. And parent’s of straight teens are not disqualified from talking about sexual identities with their kids. Richie insistst that it’s important for herosexual teens to learn about the queer experience in order to create a more accepting environment for their LGBTQ friends, classmates, and teachers.Starting a conversation about what it’s like to be queer can be as easy as sharing a personal story. For example, Richie shares his experience seeing the broadway show Torch Song Trilogy with his mother in the early 80’s. At the time, being gay was barely acknowledged and certainly not accepted. The show’s portrayal of a gay man was unlike anything he’d ever seen. After seeing the show, his mother told him that she would never reject him for being gay. His mother’s acceptance empowered Richie to come out and eventually use his challenges for sexual identity as an inspiration for many of his future endeavors. Richie states that the earlier parents express their acceptance and support of queerness in general, the easier it will be for queer teens to come out and the more prepared straight teens will be to provide allyship to the LGBTQ community.No matter your teen’s sexual identity or gender, making sure they are informed about LGBTQ history is an important part of instilling queer-affirming beliefs in your teen. That means teaching them about the Stonewall Riots, which was a series of political uprisings in response to police brutality against the LGBTQ community in 1969. It also means teaching them about the AIDS pandemic. Additionally, it’s important to teach teens about LBTQ activists like Marsha P. Johnson, an African American Drag Queen who was a major player in the Stonewall Riots. The list of important events and people in LGBTQ history is vast, and unfortunately wildly unknown because most schools ignore LGBTQ history. When queer teens learn about the multitude of LGBTQ people who paved the way for them to be open about their sexuality, they are more empowered to handle challenges for sexual identity. Additionally, straight teens will develop more empathy and understanding for their LGBTQ peers when they learn about the hardships queer people have endured to be accepted into modern society.Let’s Talk about SexRichie points out that regardless of how progressive your teen’s school is, less than 7% of LGBTQ kids get an inclusive sexual education. This makes it harder for them to have mutually fulfilling intimacy with their partners and frankly, harder for them to know what to do when they have sex. Learning about same-sex intimacy can be uncomfortable and unfamiliar for many parents. But in order to support queer teens, you have to be open, informed, and frank with them about sex. To hear more about challenges for sexual identity when it comes to intimacy and how to talk about these challenges with queer teens, tune into the episode.Challenges for sexual identity are often caused by the misconceptions of heterosexual people who have no idea what it’s like to be in a queer person’s shoes. So regardless of what your teen’s sexual identity is, Richie believes that teaching LGBTQ history and sharing stories of queer people you know will help both queer and straight children to embrace no...

KJ Dell’Antonia, author of How to Be a Happier Parent, joins Andy for a look at how to get happier while parenting. It’s time for parents to stop thinking about their kids so much and get back to what makes them happy!Full show notesRemember the days when you’d lose your mind over kids drawing on the walls or refusing to eat the dinner you prepared for them? You might still experience the same headache with your teenager. But you put up with it because parenting is about loving your children, no matter what wild rides they put you through! However, parents so often put themselves before their children, but they can unintentionally neglect their own happiness.I don’t think parents should have to sacrifice their own happiness in order to be a successful parent and raise good kids. I think there’s a trick to simple happy parenting, and the best way to uncover it is to talk to the pros.In order to figure out the tricks to happy parenting, I called up KJ Dell’Antonia. KJ has been a parenting expert for the better part of a decade, and she has a wealth of knowledge about happy parenting. KJ is an accomplished author, having written first for Slate and then the New York Times. She hosts a parenting podcast with Jessica Lahey, and she is also about to publish her first novel!In addition to her personal career, KJ is an accomplished parent. She has raised four kids, and much of her parenting experience has fed her career as a writer. Her most recent book on parenting, How to Be a Happier Parent: Raising a Family, Having a Life, and Loving (Almost) Every Minute of It, is an awesome resource that I myself love. This week, KJ helps me investigate methods to happier parenting.The SituationIt’s a hectic Sunday afternoon. You’ve been running around all weekend, going from activity to activity. Two of your teens have soccer tournaments, and both are inconveniently located on opposite sides of town. If either one goes to overtime, you’ll be late to your third teen’s spring musical at the high school theater. You’re exhausted, and you still need to figure out dinner.In the attempt to keep up with all of your teen’s activities, you hardly had a moment to catch your breath. In these moments of exhaustion, it can be so easy to feel discouraged when facing the world. But what strategies can you use to achieve simple happy parenting?While she was editor for the New York Times, she wanted to share a piece on simple happy parenting. She decided to come up with a list of solutions that would make her feel happier as a parent. However, she quickly realized that she did not have enough time in the day to invest in “happy parenting” methods and needed to pivot her approach.Instead of adding new activities to boost happiness like yoga, 2-hour runs, or hot stone massages, she needed to be taking stuff off her plate. Parenting is crazy enough, so reducing her hectic schedule is what helped KJ unlock the trick to happy parenting.The key to happy parenting is finding ways to make parenting less stressful.This proves to be a beneficial strategy, and sparked inspiration for How to Be a Happier Parent.The “Ground Rule” SolutionKJ decided that the easiest way to make parenting less stressful was to create ground rules for certain parts of family life. This made expectations clear for everyone, and in turn reduced the general chaos of family life. One solution KJ created was a set of five ground rules for dinner because she found it difficult to make a meal without one of her children complaining. Here’s one in action:Rule #1:At KJ’s table, everyone in her family has to accept everything on their plate. Before this rule, it was relatively common for one of her children to reject the food presented to them outright. In response, KJ said that everyone had to accept the food that is given to them. Whether or not everyone likes the food is up to them, but her teens can’t ask for a whole ‘nother meal to be made especially for them. Implementing this rule was great, KJ says, because it helped reduce her stress at the end of long days.As she implemented this strategy of creating simple ground rules, KJ quickly found that this strategy wouldn’t work in every situation.Another example she mentioned to me was getting dirty dishes in the dishwasher. One of her daughters would put her dishes in the dishwasher every time, and never needed a parent to stand over her shoulder to make sure things got in place.Contrarily, KJ’s other daughter would chronically forget that the dishwasher ever existed. She would leave dirty dishes around all the time, and rarely get them in the dishwasher unless KJ was on her case about it.In situations like these, KJ told me that sometimes there is nothing you can do to create happy parenting.Ultimately, the trick for parents is that they need to be resilient about asking teens to complete tasks. It is a great help when they are done correctly, and these skills are things they will remember for the rest of their lives. Some teens will have no problem following rules, but others might need to be reminded on a daily basis. It might take a year of moving your kid’s dirty dishes to their bedroom for them to actually remember to clean them on their own!But, don’t give up hope. You can’t expect teens to be perfect because progress doesn’t happen overnight. However, with the right guidance, the “ground rule” solution will help good behaviors become muscle memory to them.Over-InvolvementAnother strategy for simple happy parenting that KJ mentions is to avoid getting over-involved with your kids’ lives. Surprisingly, over-involvement is a common issue among fathers who fixate on their teenagers’ performance in sports. It is easy for these parents to get carried away with their teens’ lives because they want to be supportive and helpful, but it can be harmful for both the parent and the teen. Unfortunately, over-involvement in cheering for your teen has negative side-effects.One downside to over-involvement is that parents can lose sight of themselves. If parents lose sight of themselves, they might also lose sight of happy parenting. It is important that parents make sacrifices for their kids, but not to the extent that they are constantly unhappy or unable to focus on themselves.When you lose focus on yourself, your happiness can become dependent on what you are focusing on. If a father is constantly focused on his teen’s high school batting average, the teen might think Dad’s happiness is based on athletic performance. On one hand, it puts extra pressure on the teenager. On the other, basing a father-son relationship on something as insignificant as a high school batting average is unhealthy for everyone. It doesn’t make sense for a father (or anyone) to be happy only when their son is having a good day on the field. Teenagers should not be expected to bear the brunt of someone else’s happiness!Parents can avoid over-involvement by looking at the bigger picture. By focusing on the bigger picture of what your teen loves to do, you can support them in a positive manner without becoming too attached to what they are doing. If your teen h...

Peggy Orenstein, author of Boys & Sex, a current New York Times Bestseller (as well as several other bestsellers!), joins Andy for an in-depth conversation about the culture of sex, intimacy, and relationships that teens are facing and which conversations are crucial to have with your teens - despite how awkward it may be!Full show notesTeenage hookup culture is dangerous. And while most parents are aware of how scary and confusing it is for girls, society at large is neglecting a significant percentage of the participants: boys.Despite what social norms generally say about boys, young men have feelings too. Unfortunately, media and male role models are rarely depicted as anything but macho, “strong,” assertive, and sexually dominant. While parents may encourage their girls to play sports and stand up for themselves, it is still taboo to encourage teen boys to dance, craft, or be vulnerable. These cultural norms can have a huge impact on teen behavior across the gender spectrum, especially when it comes to (teenage hookup culture) their sexuality. Luckily, there are proven ways to mitigate harmful behavior.But norms are pervasive, and sending negative messages according to the gender binary, overt or subliminal, about how adolescents are supposed to act hurts everyone. Teen boys are “supposed” to be aggressive, impersonal, and sexually dominant. Girls face conflicting messages, locked into submissive, inanimate, prude, and sexually alluring roles. These messages create harmful expectations and behaviors, and when put to the test in today’s teenage hookup culture, your child could face the consequences. That’s why the focus of our Talking to Teens podcast this week is “What You Don’t Know About Teenage Hookup Culture.”This week, New York Times bestselling author, Peggy Orenstein, joins me for a candid discussion about her collection of books on teenage hookup culture. Her latest book, Boys & Sex: Young Men on Hookups, Love, Porn, Consent and Navigating the New Masculinity (2020), explores how young men understand and negotiate the new rules of physical and emotional intimacy. It follows on the heels of Orenstein’s second foray into teen hookup culture from women’s perspectives, Girls & Sex: Navigating the Complicated New Landscape (2016).Peggy conducted research for Boys and Sex through qualitative interviews about teen experiences with sexuality. She found that open communication and education about healthy sexual relationships mitigates the harmful behavior of teenage hookup culture. This works primarily by:Subverting Harmful MessagingPrioritizing Your Teen’s Safety and HappinessPromoting Mutual Empathy in RelationshipsIn the podcast, Peggy clued me in on how communication can be used to apply these virtues in successful parenting scenarios. We also discuss the gripping revelations from her other books, Schoolgirls (1995), Flux (2001), and Cinderella Ate My Daughter 2012. Her research is so important to the wellbeing of young adults navigating today’s teenage hookup culture that parents should absolutely hear what she has to say in detail. Here’s just a hint at her findings:How Much Do You Know About Teenage Hookup Culture?Teenage hookup culture is the social behavior of encouraging casual sex encounters. This practice isn’t inherently bad, but it is largely informed by harmful messaging about gender roles. One negative aspect of this messaging that Peggy’s books address is the emotional vacancy that boys are encouraged to adopt as part of their sexuality.The reason teenage hookup culture tells boys to reject intimacy is to take ownership of the people they have sex with. In movies and TV shows, the cool characters are often portrayed as womanizers or men with a long sexual history, highlighting their emotional callouses. These messages make it so that sex is about building social capital rather than empowering a partner and yourself. However, sex is an intimate act and is personal by nature. This is why teens turn to alcohol for a dangerous buffer to their emotions and general cognition.In our conversation, Peggy notes that teenage hookup culture is dependent on alcohol to create the sense of “compulsory carelessness.” When teens are urged to make their sexual relationships feel meaningless and treat them like commodities, they often turn to alcohol to numb their authentic selves. This dynamic can lead to substance abuse, violent relationships, and emotional trauma for the people involved.So how can parents mitigate these behaviors?The Benefits of Open CommunicationCommunicating openly is an opportunity for you to directly address the messages of teenage hookup culture that often conflict with teen’s emotional wellbeing. More than just the “birds and the bees” discussion or relaying the negative aspects of sexuality, teens should be encouraged to speak openly about their interests and inexperience.When we talk to our kids about sex, particularly girls, it’s usually in a protective context. We do this because we recognize how teenage hookup culture cultivates a destructive narrative around sexuality. One way that parents can undermine this narrative is by addressing locker room talk.Locker room talk is a perfect example of how these messages become ingrained in young adults. It’s also why male parents are commonly overprotective of their daughters. They know how women’s bodies and sexuality are discussed and naturally wish to protect their daughters from encountering such harm. But this toxic behavior also makes it so that boys cannot express their concerns about sexuality. As Peggy details in her book, boys that felt uncomfortable with the aggressive attitude of locker room talk were pressured into conformity.As it turns out, boys are as equally confounded as their female peers when it comes to sex, intimacy, and relationships. Almost all the information we give teens about sex is risk-based; that is, we tell our teens all the “bad” things that might happen, such as diseases, sexual assault, rape, pregnancy, and skip out on everything else. These messages, combined with the vernacular of locker room talk, create a very hostile perception of what sex is like.Parents can mitigate the harmful behavior of teenage hookup culture by creating a safe and secure space for teens to talk about their concerns. When teenagers feel like they have a trusted confidante to talk about these intimate matters, they’re more likely to ask genuine questions about teenage hookup culture and the kinds of activities that would feed a positive relationship.If teens don’t know what kind of healthy practices exist, how would they know to engage in them? Instead, they’d be left to emulate what teenage hookup culture prescribes as the only way to engage romantically. This is why it’s important for parents to provide alternatives, like in-depth examples of...

Jessica Lahey, author of The Gift of Failure and storied educator, shares the secrets of what makes teens successful in academics, at home, and in the world. If your teen does fail, Lahey knows where to look to find the silver lining.Full show notesPicture the scene: your teen sends you a frantic message from school, telling you that they left an important piece of weekly vocab homework behind. You walk to their room, check their desk, and immediately spot their homework sitting off to the side of their desk, buried under an empty glass of water and their video game system. What is the right thing to do in this situation?Should you answer your kids wishes and bail them out?Or do you leave the homework behind and resume your day in order to make the daily briefing at your job on time?This is no easy dilemma for a parent to solve, and an even greater question is how to improve your life as a teenager to not make these mistakes.On one hand, you would allow your child to fail by not bringing their work to them. On the other hand, is it totally right to fix every problem for you child? The idea of failure so often challenges the deepest motivations of a person, and how one responds to failure is a defining aspect of character. Improvement from failure demonstrates a person’s fortitude and drive for success.Culturally, the idea of failure for children has been sometimes rejected by parents, as one of the core goals of parenthood is to raise your child to be successful. The mentality of “my kids are always right” can be exemplified as a parent meeting with their kid’s teacher in order to advocate for their child’s work, replacing a bad grade with one that the parent deems appropriate.How to improve your life as a teenager is a problem that I’ve had on my mind lately. We all know that failure is human because nobody is perfect. But how do we help teens learn how to improve your life as a teenager through failure?Failure has been on my mind because children who, say, always forget their homework but have Mom or Dad to save the day never learn the lesson of forgetting their homework. The lesson parents are telling their children is that they will always have someone to cover for their mistakes. This is not how to improve your life as a teenager. How is it possible for children and teens to improve into the best version of themselves if they are never forced to confront failure even once in their lives?With me this week on Talking to Teens is Jessica Lahey. Jessica is an astounding woman who has taught for years in middle school and high school, written the New York Times parent-teacher advice column, the Atlantic and Washington Post. Her book, The Gift of Failure, is a NYT bestseller and can be found in bookstores across the world, from Argentina to the United States and everywhere in between. Jessica is an expert on the idea of failure and how it should be used by parents to encourage teens on how to improve your life as a teenager, and I am so excited to have her with me this week!Solving the DilemmaThe product of steering kids away from failure makes them unable to cope with the idea of failure, and therefore are unable to find an angle to improve from their failure. By coincidence, Jessica had encountered the same conundrum of whether or not she should bring her child’s homework to school for them. Jessica was going to her son’s school that day for an unrelated reason, but she was faced with the dilemma of bringing her son’s homework to school, or leave it at home and force him to confront his mistake?Jessica decided to leave her son’s work at home, reasoning that she wanted to give him the chance to prove that he could adapt to his mistakes and learn how to improve your life as a teenager. When her son came home that day, he had already spent some time thinking about what had happened with his teacher. He told Jessica that he wanted to create a checklist so that he could practice remembering his homework every day. For the past couple years, Jessica’s son has made a checklist every year for the things he needs before he goes to school.This is a perfect demonstration of the positive learning and improvement that can arise from situations when teens are forced to confront the idea of failure. Moments of failure can be some of the strongest lessons for parents to use because the way teens respond to adversary is a core function of a human being. By being placed into situations where teens will be forced to confront their shortcomings, they will be able to learn how to improve your life as a teenager. For this reason, it is important that parents don’t maintain the façade of perfection with their children.Identifying Failure as GrowthIt could be difficult for a parent to understand how to improve your life as a teenager and when they can use failure as a moment to grow. One example of how to use a moment for growth is when your teen doesn’t complete a chore in the right manner. As a parent, your impulse might be to redo the chore in a manner that you are satisfied with, but this overrides the potential for your teen to grow in the situation.A good method to demonstrate how to improve your life as a teenager would be to bring your kid back in to the situation and explain to them why you aren’t satisfied with their chore. Asking them to fix the chore so that its done in an efficient and productive manner gives your child the chance to learn from their mistakes and practice methods to remember how to do it properly when they are asked again. Doing things right the first time can save teens a lifetime of stress.Additionally, it is good to remember that teens are teens, and nobody is perfect! They are still developing all the time, and it should be easy to forgive your young adult if they do make a mistake. Feeling afraid to fail is not how to improve your life as a teenager.Sometimes teens will totally forget how to load the dishwasher correctly, or where the broom is kept in the house. Forgiveness for instances of forgetfulness is a wonderful skill to assist parents when teaching their children failure. Kids become more and more competent with each passing day, and to expect them to be completely perfect is absurd. They’re absolutely better at emptying the dishwasher today than they were a year ago. Keeping a mindset over long-term growth can help parents be more comfortable in teaching failure, because you know that teens are always improving.In addition to how to improve your life as a teenager, Jessica and I discuss…“Learned Helplessness”Failure and the education systemThe fine line between “social jostling” and bullyingIdentifying your teens signalsHow to institute a routine “clean out”Thank you so much for tuning in! I hope that you have been able to take away some of this wonderful information Jessica Lahey shared about how to improve your life as a teenager. If you’re interested in learning more tips from Jessica on the art of failure, check out her book The Gift of Failure, available wherever books are sold. Have a great day!

Lisa Heffernan, co-founder and author of Grown & Flown, shares her vast knowledge on parenting during the late-teens and even early 20s. Our Kids may be more grown up, but it doesn’t mean parents don’t still have an important role to play!Full show notesThe day will come when you have to drop off your child in their new room and go home without them. They’ll likely be smiling, waving as you depart, from their cozy new dorm room. It’s a surreal moment of mixed emotions to see your child grow up and start living on their own for the first time.The process of letting your teen go on their own can be frightening for parents. The world is vast and chaotic, and leaving your child to figure things out is both a time of pride and fear. On college drop-off day, it’s normal for parents to experience both excitement and dread.I have a lot of burning questions about this monumental moment.How can families prepare for a teen to leave the nest?Is it more important to teach teens about independence, or following the rules?Will teens be in danger without parental supervision?To get to the bottom of these questions, I interviewed Lisa Heffernan about control, the process of letting go, and finding a balance between it all as teens enter their own world.Lisa is the co-author of Grown and Flown, which collects information, advice, and helpful tips from teen experts about teens leaving home. Lisa was a parent who found herself without any helpful information on parenting tips from the ages of 15-25. This caused her to start the blog called Grown and Flown with her co-founder and collaborator Mary Dell Harrington. The blog has received millions of page views since the opening, and spurned Lisa and her team to go further by creating a Facebook group which has grown to over 130,000+ members.Today, Lisa helped answer everything about the art of letting go with hot topics such as helicopter parenting and monitoring your child’s grades. The trick, Lisa tells me, is to strike a balance between following rules and giving autonomy for your teen. Without being overprotective, here are a few of Lisa’s top insights and tips on creating a relationship that will guide your teen towards healthy choices and being grown and flown.Helicopter ParentingOne of the most common parenting tropes today is the idea of a “helicopter parent,” who ties to control every minutia of their teen’s life. Lisa says that the concept of being a helicopter parent is so undesirable that many parents are fraught with anxiety over their actions because they don’t want to be seen as a helicopter parent. Helicopter parenting can be a huge roadblock in having your teen become grown and flown.First, it is helpful to know what a helicopter parent is. Helicopter parenting would be returning to your teen’s dorm every week to clean and inspect their room. Or, another example of helicopter parenting would be to steer your child into a desired career field which will make them a lot of money over letting them choose a career on their own. Helicopter parenting is characterized by a parent’s overinvolvement in their child or teen’s life. By controlling your child down to the smallest level, teens aren’t able to form their own ideas about what they want to do or develop any sense of independence to become grown and flown.When teens aren’t able to establish an independent identity, there is a risk that they will not understand how to function when they are grown and flown. This can make the transition to independent living much more challenging for teenagers than it would have been if they had an idea of who they were before going on their own. In the worst cases, a teen having an identity crisis while they are living on their own can result in dangerous situations for both parties if they are unprepared. That is why it is so important to nurture independence in the household, and to strike a balance between the two when it comes to raising your teen.One tip to practice balancing independence and authority Lisa has identified is the oversight a parent maintains over the grades of their teenager. Technological advancements have allowed for student’s grades to be viewed on demand for parents instead of having to wait the entire semester to receive a report card. Many parents have access to their teen’s grades through the websites services that schools use to record this information, complete with their own password and login. Parents who slip into the “helicopter parent” mentality over their child’s academic performance might check their child’s grades daily, sometimes even twice or three times a day!Monitoring Your Child’s GradesI asked Lisa where here research has led her on the topic of monitoring grades, and parents can do this in a balanced manner. First, Lisa shared that it is important to keep an eye on how your teen is doing academically. If there are warning signs that your teen is struggling, then it is crucial to stay up-to-date on that information. However, parents do need to understand that they need to give their teen some form of autonomy over their grades and allow them to succeed or fail on their own.An example of helicopter parenting your teen’s grades would be hovering over the parent portal, waiting all day to see what they got on their most recent exam. This is not the way for a parent to go about checking grades. A better tip for parents to demonstrate trust in their teen is to take a step back from grade monitoring. This will absolutely build the skillset to make your teen grown and flown.On the other hand, don’t be an uninvolved parent. Being uninvolved in your teen’s grades would be forgetting to check on them, or blindly trusting your teen to report them to you. You want to give them autonomy, but at the same time parents shouldn’t be in a place where they can’t extend oversight to what their teens are doing. They are only teenagers, after all, and shouldn’t be expected to function as a grown and flown child.One tip for parents who want to develop trust between teens and their grades is by giving them the ability to try and fail on their own. Set some ground rules! You could tell your teen that you will only check their grades once a month, simply to stay up to date on how they are doing. Or, you could give them the option to report their grades to you, without even looking through the parent portal.By allowing your teen to practice accountability in their school life, you can help them achieve a better version of independent thought and allow them to build skills that will lead them to become grown and flown. Finding this balance between oversight and independence is challenging but is totally achievable for parents.You Can Achieve Grown and Flown Balance!Striking a balance between protection and independence extends into so many other areas of parenting as well. In the rest of the podcast, Lisa and I talk about achieving balance to prepare for the grown and flown days. Other topics include…Parenting and tracking softwareHow to help your teen through heartbreakBuilding a dialogue around alcoholHow to remember the big momentsWow! Thank you so much to Lisa Heffernan for sharing her wonderful knowledge on pa...

Dr. Laura Markham, author of Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids, and Peaceful Parent, Happy Sibling, founded Aha! Parenting as a resource for parents who are struggling to control their disobedient, disrespectful, and/or depressive kid. Dr. Markham shares her secrets for how to flip punishment on its head and get the best possible results--and relationship--with your teen.Full show notesYou caught your teen lying to you. He missed curfew, and the reason was NOT finishing a school project with his friend. One glance at his friend’s Instagram feed clearly shows the two of them at a party.Now you’re angry. Your teen has taken advantage of your trust, and you want justice. You might want to raise your voice and scream and yell. You might even want to punish him. But this is also where you might want to stop for a minute, and consider something about punishments for teenagers.More and more research is showing that coming up with punishments for teenagers doesn’t make them behave better. In fact, it’s more likely that punishing kids teaches them to become better liars. (More on that below!)If punishments for teenagers aren’t helping, though, what can parents do to enforce their own rules? To get some quality, scientifically-backed ideas, I spoke with Dr. Laura Markham.Dr. Markham is all about setting limits and enforcing boundaries without yelling or using punishments for teenagers. She earned her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Columbia University, and is the founder of the website Aha! Parenting. She is a parenting expert, a researcher, and the author of the books Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids, Peaceful Parent, Happy Siblings, and Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids Workbook. And as a mother, herself, she knows the value of having a strong, emotional connection with your kids.So what is the number one thing we can learn from this parenting expert?An Emotionally Stable RelationshipThe first thing Dr. Markham wants parents to understand is that parenting is NOT a set of strategies. Parenting is a relationship. She wants parents to have a comprehensive plan for connecting with their teen. For her, the goal is to build a strong, trusting, and lasting relationship without reverting to old-fashioned punishments for teenagers.According to Dr. Markham, the first step for parents is to learn how to regulate their own emotions. Your kids, especially teenagers, know how to push your buttons. Sometimes it can feel like a personal attack. In these scenarios, though, she says it’s vitally important to take a breath and ask yourself,“Why does my kid feel the need to treat me this way right now?”Likely, the answer is that your teen doesn’t feel understood. It might also be possible that your teen doesn’t feel like you’re listening. Instead of dishing out punishments for teenagers when they act out, Dr. Markham suggests that parents pause and ask their teens,“Hey, what’s going on? What’s making you want to treat me this way?”.When you withhold anger from your teen, you make it easier for your child to connect with you. This feeds into the second step, which is learning how to reinforce that connection.CommunicationIn any relationship, a consistent line of open communication is extremely healthy. Without healthy, open communication, there is no relationship. In this way, you want to make it as easy as possible for your teen to talk to you. Here’s how:If your teen is struggling with a serious problem, you want your teen to tell you about it. However, giving punishments for teenagers who mess up makes them less likely to be open about their troubles in the future. Teens won’t share bigger school or friendship problems if they are afraid you will get angry, or punish them.If you yell at your teen for missing one school assignment, what kind of reaction will your teen expect when they want to voice something more serious? They might be too afraid to share more complex problems, like a friend who is touching them inappropriately. We don’t want that.Coaching Your ChildIf you can regulate your own emotions and teach your child that they can trust you with their problems, you’re on the right track! In fact, you’re ready for the advanced techniques… Next, comes Dr. Markham’s third step: coaching your child to be his or her best self.Teens need guidance working through new emotions, and it’s a parent’s job to be an emotionally-stable coach. By demonstrating calm, attentive, connectedness with your teen, you can meet them where they’re at, and help them work through their problems. Dr. Markham says showing off your inner-zen can help your kids feel deeply understood. They may not even feel the need to act out!Imagine that! A relationship with your teenager where they don’t feel like pressing your buttons and making you mad! Wow! And no punishments for teenagers were involved in the making of this relationship!Not Punishing Your KidsDr. Markham explains that the parent-child relationship is like any other relationship. There should be mutual care and respect. There will of course be arguments, but in a caring relationship where one person respects the other, there is no reason to punish.Not using punishments for teenagers when they cross the line might sound like a novel concept to some parents. If you’re still skeptical, Dr. Markham asks you to think about your own teen years. How did you react when your parents punished you? Did you think about how you messed up, and how you were going to behave better in the future? Probably not! You probably reacted by thinking about how unfair your parents were! You probably thought they were being mean, and that they didn’t understand what you were going through.Dr. Markham points out that punishments for teenagers only perpetuate their anger and holds their focus on the power struggle. If a teen is being punished for lying, they aren’t motivated to stop lying in the future. They are just motivated to be better at getting away with it to avoid punishment. They become better liars!To be clear, kids still need discipline. A better way to approach bad behavior is to encourage teens to reflect on their wrongdoing. Dr. Markham wants parents to recognize that punishments can ruin a teen’s motivation to reflect. So how do you motivate your kid to reflect on their mistakes?Teaching Kids the Importance of Your RelationshipLet’s say you get an email from a teacher explaining that your teenager has fallen behind on homework. This might be a surprise, especially if you asked your teen a week ago how homework was going, and they said they had it under control. You are now understandably angry, but if you don’t implement punishments for teenagers, how do you get your child to learn from messing up?

Dr. Amy Alamar, author of The Parenting Project and Parenting for the Genius, takes insight from the educational sphere and applies it to practical parenting techniques to get through to your teen. Whether you have a teen that shuts down, or one that over-shares, Dr. Alamar has suggestions for exactly what to say when the tough conversations get going!Full show notesDo you notice your teen shutting down and pushing you out? As teens strive to become individuals, they start to communicate less and less with parents. This is a common ‘side effect’ of growing up, but it isn’t all bad. Making decisions independently is a critical skill all teenagers need to learn. Although, if parents struggle to keep a close relationship with their teens, there can be more conflict and difficulty when it comes to teaching life lessons.Amy Alamar, author of The Parenting Project: Build Extraordinary Relationships With Your Kids Through Daily Conversation, believes the best way to know your child is through conversation. As an experienced teacher and researcher, Amy uses academic research and psychological concepts to break down the most effective ways to communicate with teens. Her methods involve daily techniques you can use to build extraordinary relationships through conversation. Even when it comes to the most trying topics!In this episode of the podcast, we cover everything from managing our reactions to word-for-word scripts for the toughest situations. Here are some of the major takeaways.Recognize Your ReactionsCertain types of conversation make us act and react differently, we can’t help it. And sometimes our apparent shock or frustration can cause a teen to back out of the dialogue. As parents, if we’re discussing something that makes us afraid, like our teen driving for the first time, our emotions are heightened. We have a totally different energy than if we were talking to our teens about intimacy, or being a self-advocate.Amy advises that we walk our teens through our own emotions so they aren’t put off by a genuine reaction. Simply explaining, “I’m not judging you, I’m just surprised,” can make a world of difference. It might take a minute to calm down, but it’s important to let your teen know that you want to have a fair conversation without reactions speaking louder than reason. We also discuss the value of finding the right tone and setting, even when we’re upset and can’t keep up a solid ‘poker face.’Let Your Child SpeakAmy shares how staying quiet and letting your child speak can be the key to having meaningful conversation. For example, asking open ended questions like, “how did you feel about that?” can inspire a teen to be more open. Amy also suggests we point out situations in TV shows and movies to facilitate dialogue about touchy topics like drug use or peer pressure. It feels non-confrontational and lets your teen speak their mind freely, as it’s about a fictional scenario.Plus, we outline the difference between whole-family and one-on-one conversations, as well as how to let our children bring up their thoughts about the future, so we don’t make assumptions about their path. Above all else, Amy highlights how to be on your teen’s team, always.Navigate Risks and Limits“We’re not their friends, we’re they’re parents.” This impactful statement from Amy regards setting expectations and holding our teens to them. We have to be bold about setting limits, but at the same time, we must recognize that it’s the purpose of a teenager to push limits, take risks, and try new things. So, our job is less about being strict, and more about talking our teens through their decision making and coming up with appropriate natural consequences when they make certain choices.In this episode, Amy coaches parents how to teach their teens about making decisions, learning from mistakes, identifying parents’ concerns, and forming plans to address those concerns.Master Difficult ConversationsThere are so many tricky conversations that Amy has methods for mastering. If your child has a friend that you don’t like, Amy knows just how to handle it. She mentions that one of the worst things you can do is say, “You can’t be friends with that person,” or judge that person, because the minute you judge them, your child will start to shut down. Instead, she recommends ways to influence our teen’s decision making.She has tips for talking about the most dreaded topic of all too: teenage sex. Some of her talking points include the importance of intimacy, being present, and having consent for an enjoyable experience. Rather than encourage or forbid sex, her approach focuses on how to have the best relationship, and what it takes to achieve that.We even go into detail about what to say when someone breaks your child’s trust, elaborating on empathy and apologies. This episode is packed with useful suggestions to conquer all sorts of challenging discussions you’ll have with your teens!