Eps 656: What if your teen is having a problem, not being one?

Joyful courage…. it means doing whatever I need to do to get the support to create the life I want…. to remember that I have the power to decide how I am experiencing my experiences.

Resources:

• The Mistaken Goal Chart — Positive Discipline tool mapping the four mistaken goals (undue attention, misguided power, revenge, assumed inadequacy); Casey references a full podcast series she did on this and notes it’ll be linked in the show notes
• Dr. Jane Nelsen / Positive Discipline — source of the anchor quote, “Children actually do better when they feel better”
• Alfred Adler & Rudolf Dreikurs — the Adlerian theory foundation that all behavior is goal-directed
• Amy Lang & Dr. Ann-Louise Lockhart — panel Casey was on the prior week; Dr. Lockhart’s “rage walk” regulation strategy is referenced
• Explore Call — free 15-minute coaching call at besproutable.com/explore
• Newsletter & email list — besproutable.com

Transcription

[00:00:00] Casey O'Roarty: Welcome, welcome. Welcome to the Joyful Courage Podcast. This is a place where parents of tweens and teens come to find inspiration, information, and encouragement in the messy terrain of adolescence. This season of parenting is no joke, and while the details of what we're all moving through might be slightly different, we are indeed having a very collective experience.
[00:00:30] This is a space where we center building relationship, nurturing life skills, and leaning into our own personal growth, and man, the opportunities abound, right? My name is Casey O'Rourty. I am a parent coach, positive discipline lead trainer, and captain of the adolescent ship over at Sproutable. I'm also a speaker and a published author.
[00:00:53] I've been working with parents and families for over 20 years and continue to navigate my own experience of being a mom with my two young adult kids. I'm so honored that you're here and listening. Please give back to the podcast by sharing it with friends or on social media. Rate and review us on Apple or Spotify.
[00:01:13] Word of mouth is how we grow. Thank you so, so much. Enjoy the show.
[00:01:21] "Where did we ever get the idea that in order for children to do better, first we need to make them feel worse? Children actually do better when they feel better." That, my friends, is a quote from Dr. Jane Nelsen from Positive Discipline, and it's something that I want you to sit with today because I think it's the whole thing.
[00:01:49] It's the whole parenting thing. I really do. So, hey. Welcome back to the podcast. You know me, I'm Casey, and I'm really excited that we are going to be hanging out together, just the two of us for this week. I have a solo show for you, and you know that quote is really gonna guide us in the content. Today's conversation is one that I wanna be really tender with because I know, I know that some of you that are listening right now are in a season that is just really hard.
[00:02:31] It's really hard. The kind of hard where you maybe don't recognize your kiddo anymore. The kind of hard where maybe you're showing up and you don't recognize yourself anymore. The kind where every interaction feels like a fight or a refuel- refusal to engage, or a slammed door, or more eye rolls that land somewhere in your chest like a small wound.
[00:02:56] Anybody? So this episode is for you, and it's an invitation. It's not a prescription. Take what serves, leaves the rest. All right? So we're gonna get into it. Here's what I keep hearing, and I'm hearing it... I heard it specifically this morning and wrote an email to a client, and it really just brought me to this place of, you know, I'm gonna dis- I'm gonna make a podcast about this, right?
[00:03:20] Because it comes up in coaching calls, in my membership, in my DMs, on social media. It comes up, right? And it's language that I hear from parents that sounds like, you know, "He's just so disrespectful," or, "She's snarky all the time. I can't say one thing without it turning into something major." Or, "She acts like she's entitled to everything, the phone, the car, the late nights, the money.
[00:03:48] And when I push back, you should see how she treats me." Or I hear, you know, "My teenager, they talk to me like I'm nothing, like I'm a problem to manage." Or straight up, I hear, "You know, this kid, they're treating us like shit, and honestly, why do we let them get away with it?" I get it. I've been the parent who's said some of those things or thought some of those things.
[00:04:12] There were definitely seasons in my own home where I would've told you with full conviction that my kid was the problem. That if they would just cut it out, be nicer, lower the attitude, or show some appreciation, then everything would be better. And I wanna be really honest with you, that story, the story that they're the problem, and we just need them to behave differently, it feels so true when you're inside of it.
[00:04:41] The disrespect is real. The tone that you're getting is real. The eye rolls, the slammed doors, the muttered, "Ugh, whatever," as they walk away, all of this is real, and I'm not asking you to pretend that it isn't. And, and there is another layer to this, and it's the layer that I wanna gently turn towards today.
[00:05:03] When we are in that activated, hurt, exhausted, I-can't-believe-I'm-being-talked-to-this-way-in-my-own-home place, we get really stuck, and that stuckness, it has a particular flavor, right? And maybe it sounds something like this: What do I have to do to get this kid to behave? What do I need to take away from them?
[00:05:28] What's the consequence gonna be? How can I make them feel how I'm feeling, right? How can I get them to understand my experience? And from those questions, we react, right? We react with our own snark, with sarcasm, with, "Oh, really? You wanna talk to me like that? You can lose your phone for a week," or, "I'm not gonna take you to do the thing We can respond with the cold shoulder, with withholding our love, our presence, our warmth, because honestly, why should they get any of those things when they are treating us like crap?
[00:06:05] Here's the thing, I'm not here to shame you for any of that. Every single one of those responses make complete sense. They're nervous system responses, they're protective, and they're an attempt to restore some sense of order and dignity in a moment that can feel really painful and chaotic. But I do want us to look at it, because if we don't look at it, we stay stuck.
[00:06:31] Our teen stays stuck, and the dynamic, the pattern, the loop, it just keeps repeating itself and getting more entrenched, with the relationship eroding a little more each and every time. So back to that Jane Nelsen quote, "Where did we get the idea that in order for children to do better, first we need to make them feel worse?"
[00:06:53] So take a breath with me for a second, because that question deserves a breath. It deserves a pause. When did we decide? When did we decide that the path to a more cooperative, more respectful, more pleasant teen runs through punishment, withdrawal, lectures, taking things away, and making them feel small?
[00:07:17] Children do better when they feel better. Teens do better when they feel better. We do better when we feel better, right? This is from Adlerian theory. Alfred Adler is the psychologist whose work that Jane Nelsen, and before her, Rudolf Dreikurs, built so much of positive discipline on. He taught that all behavior is goal-directed.
[00:07:42] Every single behavior, even the ones that make us crazy, every behavior is a coded message about what the person in front of us needs and isn't getting, or is misinterpreting. What they're trying to belong to, where they're seeking significance, the stories that they're telling themselves about themselves, about us, about the world.
[00:08:06] And when a child or a teen is misbehaving, Adler, and Dreikurs, and Jane Nelson, what they would tell you is that's a discouraged kiddo. A misbehaving child is a discouraged child. That eye-rolling and the snark, that whatever teen is discouraged. The one that's giving you one-word answers and disappearing into their room for hours on end, they're discouraged.
[00:08:37] They're screaming, "I hate you," they're slamming the door because they're massively discouraged. And hold on, 'cause I can feel some of you kind of bristling, and maybe even thinking, "Kasey, are you telling me that my kid is the victim here? That I'm supposed to feel sorry for them while they're treating me like garbage?"
[00:09:01] No, I'm not saying that. I want you to stay with me here, okay? In Positive Discipline, in this podcast, you've heard me talk about this tool, I did a whole series that I'll link to in the show notes, we use this tool called the Mistaken Goal Chart, and what it does is it maps the four main mistaken goals that kids fall into when they're discouraged.
[00:09:26] The first one is undue attention, and then we've got misguided power, revenge, and assumed inadequacy or avoidance of humiliation. With teens, two of the goals that we run into most often are power and revenge, which makes sense considering their need for autonomy is through the roof developmentally, right?
[00:09:50] Power looks and sounds like, "Well, you're not the boss of me. I'll do what I want. You can't make me do anything." It's that teen who refuses, who defies, who pushes against every limit, who turns every conversation into a battle of wills. That's a teen who's fallen into misguided power. Revenge, the mistaken goal of revenge, looks and sounds like, "You hurt me, so I'm gonna hurt you back.
[00:10:19] I'll show you," right? It's the cutting comment, the deliberately hurtful thing, the cold shoulder. Revenge is the response to having been hurt. Right? It's the protective armor that says, "You don't get to hurt me first." Or it's the spilling over, like, "I'm- I hurt so much that I've gotta pass this around." And here's the part of the chart that I really want you to sit with.
[00:10:45] The chart also tells us what the parent typically feels in those dynamics, and how the parent typically responds, and how that response actually feeds the mistaken goal. So stay with me. When our kid is in misguided power and behaving from that belief of, "I only count or belong when I'm in charge," or proving that you can't boss me, we, parents, we feel challenged, we feel threatened, we feel provoked, our hackles get raised, and we tend to respond by fighting back or giving in, both of which keep us in the power struggle.
[00:11:30] When our teenager is in the mistaken goal of revenge, we feel hurt, we feel devastated, we feel disgusted And we typically respond by retaliating or withdrawing or making them feel it back, upping the ante. You see what I'm pointing to? These dynamics, they're not happening to us, right? It's nothing our kids are doing to us.
[00:11:55] We are in it. We are participating. It's a tit for tat. It's a two-person dance. We are co-creating the outcome moment by moment every single time, right? And this is the part that I think requires the most courage for us as parents because it's so much easier, it's so much more satisfying, honestly, to stay focused on what they are doing, on their tone, on their words, on their attitude, on their disrespect.
[00:12:25] But here's what I wanna offer you. The only person you can actually shift in this dynamic is you. Your teen has their work to do. Absolutely, they do. There's real conversation to have about how we speak to each other in our families, about repair, about responsibility, about accountability, about the long apprenticeship of being a person.
[00:12:49] But those conversations cannot happen, and they will not land, while you are both standing on opposite sides of this, like, chasm of activation, hurling things at each other and feeling so much pain and suffering. So the work first is yours. The interruption of the pattern is yours, right? I know, it feels really unfair.
[00:13:13] You're exhausted. You give and give and give. You've been doing it for years. You feed them, you drive them, you fund them, you worry about them, and they can't even be civil at the dinner table? And now I'm telling you you have to be the one that shifts it, it's up to you? Yeah, I am. And I'm telling you that because, my friend, you're the adult.
[00:13:36] Your nervous system, as worn out as it is, is more developed than theirs. You're the one who has access to perspective and language and the long-term view, right? Your teen, in many real biological ways, does not have access to those things in the heat of the moment, right? So this is the we gotta kick it up a notch call.
[00:14:03] Being the parent of a teen requires us to go places in ourselves that we didn't have to go to when they were small. The reactive parenting we might have engaged in and gotten away with at three or seven or 10, it doesn't work at 14, 15, 16, or older. They're too big. They're too smart. They're too capable of meeting our reactivity with their own for it to be useful in any way.
[00:14:34] So we have to grow Right? And our kiddos, you know I love to say this on the podcast, they are growing us. This is a huge, huge opportunity for you, parents, to continue to develop into an ever-present, ever more evolved human being
[00:15:06] So here's the reframe that I want to invite you into, and I'm gonna say it nice and slow because it's really the heart of the whole episode. Your teen isn't being a problem, they're having a problem. Say that out loud if you can. They're not being a problem, they're having a problem, right? And the problem might be enormous for them.
[00:15:28] Under the surface, they might be dealing with friend stuff, identity stuff, academic stress, social media comparison, a heartbreak that you don't know about, anxiety that they can't name, a body that doesn't feel like theirs, the existential weight of being an adolescent right now. Or it might be smaller and quieter.
[00:15:51] Maybe they didn't sleep well, or they're hungry, or they had a hard moment at school. They're dysregulated, and then they don't have the skills yet to come back to their center in the moment that you need them to take out the garbage or the recycling. Or, and this is the one that really asks the most of us, the problem might be us It might be that our teens do not feel seen, that they feel managed, that they feel like the only conversation they have with us are about their behavior, their grades, their phone, their room.
[00:16:27] It could be that they've stopped feeling like our home is a place where they get to fall apart and still be loved. Okay? Stay with that for a minute. When was the last time that your teen got to fall apart in your presence and feel completely held? I'm not saying this to make you feel bad. I'm saying it because we're gonna talk about what's really going on under the surface.
[00:16:50] If we're gonna talk about that, we have to be willing to look at our own contribution to the dynamic that we find ourselves in with them. We forget. We forget to remember that there's a whole lot going on under the surface. We get caught in our own reactivity mode, we just keep meeting their behavior with our behavior, and, and then we just live on the surface.
[00:17:18] That's all we see, right? And when that's what's happening, we just are doubling down and creating even more pain and suffering and disconnection. And here's this, like, somatic body piece, 'cause, you know, I can't talk about any of this without coming back to the body. When your teen is dysregulated, and believe me, disrespect, snark, eye-rolling, slammed doors, all that stuff, that is a dysregulated nervous system finding an- any exit ramp it can.
[00:17:52] And when that happens, when they're dysregulated, your dysregulated nervous system meets theirs, right? And when the two dysregulated nervous systems meet, no learning happens, no connection happens, no repair happens. We just escalate. We're not learning, growing, listening. We are escalating, and we're confirming for each other that we are not safe, right?
[00:18:20] So the first move is regulating, and that's yours. And listen, it doesn't mean stuffing it down and pretending you're fine. It doesn't mean being a doormat. Regulation isn't passive. It's one of the most powerful things that you can offer in a moment of chaos It's the literal thing that your teen needs most from you.
[00:18:45] They need you to stay regulated. They need you to recognize when you're taking something personally and shifting into remembering, "My kiddo's having a problem," right? "I gotta take care of myself so I can be there for him or her." Co-regulation is still a thing that teens need from us, even when they're six feet tall and look like adults, right?
[00:19:09] They need you to take a breath. They need you to put your hand on your chest, right? You get to feel your feet on the floor and soften your eyes and pause, and send that energy of, "I'm not gonna match your energy right now, and I'm not gonna go anywhere." Although, I will say, sometimes, and I was on a panel with Amy Lang and Dr.
[00:19:33] Anne-Louise Lockhart last week, and Dr. Lockhart was talking about one of the things that she does to regulate her n- nervous system when she's really lost it, which can't we, can't our teen send us there. When we really lose it, she talks about going on a rage walk, 20 or 30 minutes of walking, moving her body to calm it down.
[00:19:53] Whatever you need. So it might be, "I see you, I love you, I wanna take care of myself before we continue this conversation." Or if you are in the right head space, be able to recognize, "Oof, I'm feeling a little amped up. I'm gonna take a breath, put my hand on my chest, feel my feet, and stay." But stay in your energy, not get sucked into theirs, right?
[00:20:19] And that right there, that is the interruption of the pattern, of the loop, of the dynamic. And I wanna name something, 'cause it comes up when I teach, people saying, "Casey, this sounds permissive. Are you telling me that I just have to take it? That they get to talk to me however they want, and I just stand there and breathe?"
[00:20:42] No. That's not what I'm saying. This is where the both/and lives, right? This is where we get to be fiercely committed to this kiddo and lovingly detached to their behavior. We hold both. Fiercely committed to the relationship, to the human in front of you, to the kid that's having a hard time, to staying connected even when it's hard, and not giving up on them, on yourself, or on your family.
[00:21:09] Lovingly detached means we're gonna create some distance, some energetic distance from their reactivity, their tone, their attempts to provoke you, from the story that says that their behavior is a reflection of your worth as a parent. We wanna be lovingly detached from the urgency that shows up, telling you, "Oh, I gotta shut this down right now."
[00:21:34] Boundaries don't go away. Standards don't go away. Expectations don't go away. The conversation about how we speak, how we relate and communicate to each other happens. They just happen when the nervous system is regulated, not in the heat of the moment when nothing can land. Okay, this isn't permissive parenting.
[00:21:55] This is grown-up parenting. This is the parenting that requires more of you than the punishment/consequences route does, not less. Permissive parenting says, "You know what? I don't wanna deal with the discomfort of holding a limit, so I'm just gonna let it slide." What we're talking about is saying, "You know, I'm gonna hold the limit, and I'm gonna hold the connection.
[00:22:18] I'm not gonna abandon either one." And that's a totally different posture, and it asks more of us
[00:22:35] So I'm gonna get practical now, 'cause I know you didn't come here just to be, you know, talked at. You want something to do with this information, right? So I've got five different moves that I'm gonna share, right? You get to pick one. Just pick one. Try it for a week, right? Some of them are gonna sound familiar, great.
[00:22:53] Some might sound new, great. Try them on. See what fits. The first one is the pause, right? When your teen comes at you or responds to you with snark or attitude or rudeness, your first job is to not respond from that same energy So before you say anything, you take a breath, right? You drop down into your feet and say out loud, "Babe, I need a second."
[00:23:27] And you walk away if you have to. You're modeling regulation. You're interrupting a pattern. You're showing them, "This is not how we're gonna keep doing this together." The second option, the pattern interrupt. Say something they don't expect. They're snarky, you can say calmly, "I love you, and that's a tough tone for me to engage in, but I love you, and I'm gonna come find you in a little bit."
[00:23:53] And then go back to that pause. You don't argue, you don't lecture, you don't make it about them. You make it about you and your commitment to how you're going to show up. Watch what happens. Might not be magic the first time. They might escalate. They might mutter something else under their breath. But you've changed your part.
[00:24:11] You've shown up differently. You're interrupting the pattern. Three, make a bid for connection, right? So outside of those moments, you get to find an opportunity to make a bid for connection. A text in the middle of the day that says, "Hey, I'm thinking about you. I hope English wasn't too bad." Or perhaps a snack that was left out on their desk or their favorite show cued up.
[00:24:39] A, "Do you wanna come with me to grab coffee?" It's not about bribing or rewarding. It's not pretending nothing's wrong. These are you saying with action, "You're still my person. We're still us. I see the rest of you beyond just this behavior." 'Cause your kiddos, they're whole people, you guys, right? And sometimes they show up poorly because of that discouragement that, you know, is part of the terrain of adolescence, right?
[00:25:09] The fourth invitation: making repair. So when you blow it or when you meet them with your own snark, and you will, because we all do, you get to go back. And you don't have to make a huge production of it. You can say, "Hey, you know, the way that I came at you last night when we were having that discussion about your phone, and you started feeling upset, that's not how I wanted that to go.
[00:25:34] I was tired, I got reactive, and I'm really sorry. Can we try it again?" Right? You're modeling repair, and in that model, you're teaching them what repair looks like. You're modeling humility, and that teaches them they don't have to be perfect to be loved. Even better, in that repair process, "I was tired, I was reactive, I'm sorry.
[00:26:02] The next time I feel that way, you're gonna notice me put my hand on my heart, take a few deep breaths. I might even close my eyes, 'cause I wanna have productive, useful, helpful conversations with you, so I need to take care, better care of myself when we start to get heated in conversation." Right? And five, the final thing that I wanna offer you is, you know, having a question in your back pocket Right?
[00:26:29] This is the back pocket mindset shift question. So I want you to memorize this. When you're activated, before you respond, ask yourself, "What is my teen needing right now that they don't have the language for?" Right? The assumption with that question is there is an unmet need. There's something going on deeper than the surface, right?
[00:26:54] And that question, what is my teen needing right now that they don't have language for, it pulls you out of what do I have to do to them, and drops you into what's actually happening for them. That's the shift. That's where you get to be curious. That's where you get to maintain curiosity, build connection, and interrupt this negative pattern, this dynamic, this loop that so many of you are coming to me and telling me about, right?
[00:27:26] Obviously, the flavor looks different at everybody's house, but it's kind of the same thing, and I fall into it as well. I fall into it with my kids. I fall into it definitely with my husband. But the beautiful thing is once we're aware, okay, this is a dynamic that I am a part of, we get to sit inside of, and I can do something about it, right?
[00:27:50] I can do something about it, about my part, about my contribution. Okay, so we're coming to the end here, but I want to leave you with something to sit with, something to take into your week and let it work on you a little bit. Here's the question: If your model of a relationship is that tit for tat model, if your model is I'll give you what you give me, I'll show up to you the way you show up to me, I'll treat you with disrespect if you're gonna treat me with disrespect, how far are you actually willing to go in that cycle?
[00:28:24] Because it doesn't end, right? That, that revenge cycle or even the power struggle, we just keep pulling harder and harder and harder. The cycle escalates, and eventually one of you taps out. And I know in my experience with my kiddo, you know, it was finally me tapping out, and I felt resentful and angry. Or maybe if they did tap out, what was the cost, right?
[00:28:51] What's the cost of being right about how disrespectful they are? What's the cost of getting the last word? What's the cost of being the parent who refused to be the bigger person? Your teen is out the door, right? They're leaving. They're leaving in two years or four years or six years. The window for this kind of close, easy, in-the-house relationship you might have imagined for yourself when they were little, that window is slowly closing.
[00:29:18] But here's the thing, the relationship doesn't end when they leave, right? You're gonna be in a relationship with your kiddo for the rest of your life, and the patterns you set down now, the way you show up now in these hard years when they're pushing and testing and learning how to be a person, those patterns could be the foundation for the next 50 or 60 years.
[00:29:43] What do you want to be true between you and your adult kids? What do you want them to remember when they look back on their adolescence? What do you want to know about yourself when you look back? That's some important work. That's the real work of this season. It's not about getting them to behave, it's about who you're choosing to be in relationship to this beloved, complicated, sometimes infuriating human you were given.
[00:30:13] Right? So I'm gonna land the plane now. Children do better when they feel better, even teens, especially teens. And you are not abandoning your standards by choosing connection. You're not being permissive by regulating yourself. You're not letting them off the hook by recognizing that they're not being a problem, they're having a problem.
[00:30:36] You are elevating. You're taking it up a notch. You're doing the hard, more grown-up, more relational thing. You're being a deliberate creator of the dynamic in your home instead of a reactive participant in it. And you're not alone. I see you. I'm with you. Every single one of you who's doing this work, who's willing to look in the mirror and ask the hard questions and shift the part you have access to, you're doing something profound for your teen and yourself, and for the lineage of the relationship that you're working on building.
[00:31:16] So if this episode landed for you, will you do me a favor? One of two things. One, send it to another parent who needs it. Just one. That's how the little ripple keeps moving out into the world. The second thing that I would love for you to do is go into Apple Podcasts, find my show, and tap on write a review.
[00:31:37] My reviews, they mean so much to me. First of all, they're great feedback. Second of all, they make it more likely that this podcast is being shown to more people as an option, as something they might like, right? And if you wanna keep doing this, if you wanna go deeper, come check out my work, right? I got some real fun things coming up.
[00:31:58] You're getting emails about it. Make sure you're on my email list. And book an explore call. Go to besproutable.com/explore, and let's get on a 15-minute call. Let's see how I can support you, 'cause I'd love to support you. All the links are in the show notes, so check that out. And until next week, my friends, I see you.
[00:32:20] I see you being fiercely committed and lovingly detached. It's my mantra, too. I'll talk to you soon. Bye.
[00:32:31] Thank you so much for listening. Thank you to my Sproutable partners, Julietta and Alana. Thank you, Danielle, for supporting with the show notes, as well as Chris Mann and the team at Podshaper for all the support with getting the show out there and making it sound good. As I mentioned, sharing is caring.
[00:32:48] If you're willing to pass on this episode to others, or take a few minutes to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, it helps other parents find this useful content. Be sure to check out what we have going on for parents of kids of all ages, and sign up for our newsletter to stay connected at besproutable.com.
[00:33:08] I see you doing all the things. I believe in you. See you next time.