Eps 287: Exploring Risky Behavior and Teens with Alyson Schafer

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Alyson Schafer 0:00
While parents think that peers have the greater influence over their kids, it doesn't hold out in actual research, the number one reason for kids to say that they said no to drinking was because they did not want to disappoint their parents. We we feel so powerless, and yet we have so much more power than we know.

Casey O'Roarty 0:21
Hey, friends, welcome. Welcome to the joyful courage podcast, a place where you know what we do, we tease apart what it means to be a conscious parent and a conscious human on the wild terrain of parenting. I am your host. My name is Casey awardee. Nice to meet you. I am a positive discipline lead trainer, parent, coach and mom walking the path right next to you as I imperfectly raise my own two teens. Joyful courage is all about grit, growth on the parenting journey, relationships that provide a sense of connection and meaning and influential tools that support everyone in being their best selves. As you listen to today's show, pay attention to how grit shows up in the conversation. Also, if you're not on my email list, what are you waiting for right now is a great time to sign up, because by signing up now, you'll get the seven tips for connecting with your teenager, seven tips over seven days. And if you put them into practice, they will make a difference in your relationship with your kids. Each day you'll get an action step, and if you're an overachiever, some bonus work to put straight into that relationship. You can sign up for my newsletter at joyful courage.com/email joyful courage.com/email sign up and stay more connected. Thank you so much for listening. I am deeply honored to lead you. I'm grateful that what I put out matters to you, and I am thrilled to keep it coming. If you love this show, please take a screenshot and share it on your social media. Let your friends know you're listening and finding value in this podcast. Thanks so much.

Hey, yeah, today, today, I am revisiting my conversation with Allison Schaefer from the risky behavior and teens mini summit that went live in the summer of 2020, Allison, I love Allison. You guys, oh my gosh. She is one of Canada's most notable parenting experts. She's a family counselor with a private practice in Toronto, and has presented to audiences all around the world. She has regular media spots. She's the author of three best selling books, breaking the good Mom myth, honey, I wrecked the kids and Ain't Misbehavin. All three of those books have been translated into multiple languages. Allison. Allison recently launched a podcast called parenting the Adlerian way, which you can find on most major podcast platforms. Allison is so fun to talk to, and you're going to hear that come out in our interview. I am thrilled to get to share this conversation with you today. Enjoy. Allison, welcome to the summit. Oh,

Alyson Schafer 3:30
thank you so much for having me on I'm so glad you're doing this. Such a helping parents. Yes,

Casey O'Roarty 3:36
that is the goal. That's the goal. You are my final interview of the summit and the perfect guest for this wrap up. We have dug into teen brain development and individuation, substance use and abuse, and today, you and I are focused on teen defiance and risk taking kind of more in general, and how we can be proactive to avoid setting the stage for it, as well as how to be in it and with it when it shows up. So share with us a bit about some of the challenges you see parents having with their teens in the context of risky behaviors. Oh

Alyson Schafer 4:14
boy. So, so my sample size is obviously my clinical practice and the families that I work with there, but, but also, you know, when I speak to audiences, I always have a very robust Q and A so if I have, like, a window into the homes of families, and some people say, are you looking in my window? I mean, I say that just to reinforce the idea that parents really think that they're all alone in their problems, and they're much more common problems across families than maybe any one parent ever realizes. And so what I would say, in terms of parents and risky behavior, challenging behavior, probably one of the biggest pieces is that parents. Have a tremendous amount of fear, and the fear comes in a lot of different flavors, but we really have a culture of parenting that really wants to keep kids on a very short tether, and parents really think that any mistake that they make is going to be catastrophic, and that, that the that their kids somehow, in their defiance, feels like, you know, they've they've lost them, they're off the path, and their general knee jerk reaction to fear and sort of kid Gone Wild is to, first of all, send the child for therapy, which we'll talk about why that's a mistaken approach. But you know, it's just natural that when we're fearful and feel like we're losing control, it's almost like a knee jerk, primordial reaction to try to regain control. And control is actually one of the elements that's at the heart of the problem. So, you know, of course, we're seeing risky behavior in our society. Is pretty easy to do in on the negative side of life. So we see underage drinking, you know, early exposure to to drug use. I'm sure you've talked about vaping and whatnot. Can be sexual behaviors. It can be in high speed car driving. But really, these teens often sort of check out of checkout of their families. Actually, they're still sort of living under their parents roof, but they're really sort of checked out of the family, for lack of a better word. So, so that's, that's maybe like a general snapshot of the kinds of things that I say, and certainly with, I mean, I don't know if you would consider, you know, losing interest in school and education is as high risk. I guess it is when you look at the importance of education over the lifespan. But that's another thing that parents get really fearful of. Their marks are dropping. They're not attending classes. They're not doing you know, now that we're with covid, doing online schooling or whatever, and that becomes very alarming to parents, too.

Casey O'Roarty 7:09
Oh, yeah, and anyone who's listening now who follows my podcast knows I actually have a child who has completely dropped out of high school and is working on her GED. So I would say absolutely, I would consider that a risky behavior, and it's something to really mean. We'll talk more about, yeah, yeah, how to find my feet, or how to find our feet. So I'm hosting this podcast as a fellow parent educator as well as a mom of two teenagers. So which is awesome. Yeah, it's, it's crazy, it's, it's wild, and I really appreciate what you said about the fear and how powerful it is, and this comes up in other interviews as well. But that short leash, like we in our heads, I feel like we know that this is a time to get in the co pilot seat and offer some space. And yet I'm not gonna like, it's like, I can't offer you space. If I offer you space, you're gonna go off the rails. And so that, you know, I think we delude ourselves into thinking that we can somehow contain the teenage experience in a way that prevents our kids from making any mistakes.

Alyson Schafer 8:17
Yeah, and I think that it's really difficult advice, you know, to give parents when you're sort of saying, like, I mean, they want to say, like, well, what does that look like? So, like, so, so what's does that mean there's a curfew or no curfew? Does that mean that I check their homework, or I don't check their homework? Does that mean that I, like, check their text messages, or I don't check their like, they totally have these instructions, but they're like, Yeah, but I have to live the actual experience of this, like any specifics, what does that look like? And so part of it is we, again, kind of have to have a framework around, what are parents true responsibilities, and what are the responsibilities of the child? And we know the parents have a job to do there. It's not like we're saying abandoning, abandoned parenting, but it looks a whole lot different when you once you get into adolescence. And so parents have to get really clear on what, what their focus needs to be, what their job needs to be, where their energies need to go and and know themselves when they're going out of bounds. And unless we really describe that, you know, it's, it's, it's sort of like, it's nice to be philosophical, but you know, I need a lot more hand holding than that.

Casey O'Roarty 9:38
Yeah, and there have been a few themes that have showed up through all the interviews specifically. You know, one thing that I try to remind myself as well is understanding that our teens choices aren't always an indication that we're doing something wrong or that we're bad parents, and that relationship really matters, like really, really matters. Yes. So when you think about and you can talk like you mentioned a framework when you talk about the sometimes smokeless teen years, what are some guiding principles that you share with parents? What does that and look, I'm like, what does that framework look like? Allison, yeah, well, that picture.

Alyson Schafer 10:17
So to your point, when? When one thing that we would talk about in counseling is we would get, probably deep into the parents own background and dig in a little bit about this, this feeling of, why does it feel like it's a reflection on you, if your child brings home a bad report card, or why does it come across as a as a mark against your identity, if your child is now vaping and sort of unpack that a little bit about you know, is your model of raising a kid that they're just A lump of clay, and you are the potter, and you're shaping them into this vessel and container that you want them to be, rather than thinking about it as it's more like our children are seeds like wildflowers in a beautiful pasture, and we create the Eco environment for them to develop and become the person they're going to be. And you can't, you don't know what that mature flower is going to look like until it's finished its life course. And the fact that parents have this myopic you know, it's one failed science test, it's one skipped class, but we go right into like, well, but if you skip that class, then you're going to start being a bad student. Your marks are going to come marks are gonna come down, and then you're gonna end up dropping out of school, and you're gonna live under a bypass, and you're gonna become a drug addict. And just like one test that I don't feel like studying for, my girlfriend broke up with me, and I'm, you know, yeah, and, and so, so we have to look at some of our thinking styles, but where do we get too generalized? Where do we think too short term? Where do we get too catastrophic? What happened in our childhood that we maybe didn't have the support of our parents or got too much support from our parents, that we're trying to create maybe a corrective response to some error in our childhood? How's our self esteem and have we individuated from our child? Can we tolerate standing in the face of what might be societal judgment even though we know we're doing everything that we're supposed to be doing? So wait

Casey O'Roarty 12:33
a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Will you expand on have we individuated from our child? What does that mean? So

Alyson Schafer 12:41
same thing, this idea of responsibility, that our children are not a measuring rod. Our children's behavior are never a measuring rod of how we're doing as a parent. So let's use an example outside the team years. Okay, you have a kid who's having a tantrum at the checkout counter because they want to have the little chocolate bar that they put at eye level.

Casey O'Roarty 13:02
If I know those damn grocery stores call it family friendly aisle and it's just no magazines, it's like, this is not family friendly.

Alyson Schafer 13:14
So I I think the it is is the child's creative meaning making to choose their behavior, to lie on the ground and have their little tantrum, or whatever. If you want to judge a parent, it's how does she deal with the child who's tantruming? You know, does she turn around and spank them? Does she scold them, or does she, you know, keep her wits about her and say, No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You're disappointed, no chocolate bars today, and then hold herself, you know, calm like a Buddha. Well, the kid carries on. So I'm not looking at what the child's doing, I'm looking at how the parent is responding to the situation in front of them. And so I would say, you know, are we able to get clear around our reactions, our responses, our engagement, our our role as to your point? And I'm sure this came up with some of the other guests that you know, we are now more like a coach or sage counsel to our kids, and that means that we are sort of challenged with using sort of like Socratic questioning and the Power of the relationship in order to engage their newly developed, later developing prefrontal cortex. And that would have come up in your developmental stuff, rather than us saying you're you're still an adolescent and you don't have the wisdom that I do. So I'm going to do the work of your prefrontal cortex for you, which doesn't give them any training, doesn't give them any practice, doesn't give them any opportunity to exercise those capacities and to learn from their mistakes. So we're sort of like this safe container. Well, they adult and and so I think there's a real need to maybe compare. Or what I would compare it to is how much we infantilize kids in today's society to see the cultural context in 2020 of what we think kids can and cannot do, you know, like Cleopatra was ruling Egypt at 14, you know. And we, you know. And we, we still order food for our kids at the restaurant because we think they're too shy to talk to the waitress. You know what? Exactly? We really have a very low opinion of kids resiliency or ability to rebound from mistakes and things like that. So I think we really infantilize them and then, and somehow we need. We have this sense that we need to prevent mistakes or correct them immediately, rather than just holding that safe place to say, I love you. You're figuring out life. You know, I can, I can be an assist in that, you know and I trust you to be a learning part, a learning person, and I'm on this journey with you. And so, you know, I can offer advice. I don't know if you'll take it. I can, I can make some house rules about how we, you know, some basic levels of respect that we want to keep in the family. But we know when we start this with younger kids, you know, if people are following some of the more preventative, or the Illyrian parenting stuff that usually starts when kids are two and three and four, but to that relationship that feels egalitarian, not controlling, to build that relationship so our children feel like they have a voice in the family. So it's about creating those conditions that do not lead to oppression. And I think it's an interesting conversation to have right now, as we're watching the whole Black Lives Matter movement, and if you look at sort of how kids as a group can be systemically oppressed, and we can't even see it, because we we live with this as our cultural norm. But you know, for example, or the women's movement, we could use that as a similar thing, where women didn't used to be able to vote. Women couldn't sign a lease and have their own or a deed on a mortgage. You were considered the chattel of your husband, things like this. And children are sort of like the last of the people to get their rights. And so, you know, if we don't allow a child to have some freedoms within the context of the family, freedoms and responsibility co joined, so I believe that a teenager's bedroom is the same as a woman being able to have her own apartment, and that parents need to say, and I think that kids need to have money, whether, You know, depending on their age and allowance, so that they can participate in a free market economy, because we don't barter otherwise, the kids are beholden to us, and they have to come to us and say, Can I go to a movie? And then we're like, no. You know, it's like women having to come to their husbands and say, Can you give me some money to go buy a new dress? No, right, right? So this power over, it's very easy to have power over and and that that really just makes children feel oppressed, and then they try to get around us in one way or the other. We discourage them. We turn them off. They're more likely to try to find their way on a more discouraged, useless side of life than to sort of step up and participate in what we know evolutionarily, Darwinian Lee, however you want to biologically say it is we're wired to cooperate. We're why we are wired with motivation to want to grow and improve and contribute. So so long as we get those conditions right, then kids thrive. But there's this feeling that, no, they won't, no, they won't. Not without me. Too scary. No, scary. Never do homework if I didn't make them do homework. Oh, they never like it's amazing. We really do hold them a very low opinion of them generally well, and

Casey O'Roarty 18:50
I think too it's important to note, you know, even when we do the things right and we create the freedom within structure and all the things that you just mentioned, because I know for me, when I moved into the teen years with my oldest, I was totally taken by surprise. I figured, oh well, I am a parent educator. Now I've been doing positive discipline, and I probably the teen years are not going to be that hard for us. And all the things, Allison, all the things happened freshman year of high school, and I remember feeling like the ground, like the rug was just pulled right out from under me. And I questioned everything, and what I came to understand is, oh, this is messy, regardless of anything. This is a this is a messy time, and what finally and what has been my anchor in the years that have followed has really been my the fact that I feel like I have a really good relationship with my kids, and yes, they. Do some things that I am like, why are you doing that like you? Like this is not my narrative for you. This is not the easy path. Why are you choosing such a tough path and coming back to one, they talk to me. We have a good connection. And two, I have to trust that their path is their path, and I can't know the purpose. I can't know the why that it looks a certain way, but I can show up for them, and I can love them unconditionally, and I can be supportive and letting go of that. Need to know how things are going to turn out, and letting go of the idea that I'm the only holder of the quote right way to do things really supports right now.

Alyson Schafer 20:54
So I mean, Casey, Did you just hear how much you made that about your work? This is individuating with, which is like we have like that letting go. What you know, that non attachment to outcome is it's, it's really, it's huge. And again, the more that you can let it go and you just focus on the relationship and that unconditional love. And again, with, I don't want parents to think that this is like, this isn't anarchy or overall, it

Casey O'Roarty 21:28
feels like it sometimes else. And I'm telling you what I'm like, Whoa.

Alyson Schafer 21:35
One of my favorite stories was one of my parent educators telling me the story of her son who decided to drop out of school and become a tattoo artist. And she was like, Oh my God. Like, I'm a parent educator like that. My process leads to successful kids and you're going to drop out and become a tattoo artist, which, of course, he did. And what did he end up doing? He ended up starting a chain of tattoo parlors that were award winning, and he created a structure whereby each of the tattoo artists got shares in the company, and all of them were run with a family meeting democratic style. And it was like all these beautiful things that she had taught him translated into this incredible, you know, career and interest and, you know, wonderful outcomes, right? So you don't know how the journey's gonna end, yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 22:24
well, and it's interesting too, because my guess is, of all the possible outcomes that come to mind, I'm sure. Oh, but you know what? Drop out become a tattoo artist, because maybe you'll be a successful, you know, CEO of a whole chain. You know, we don't, we're so good at going to that disaster well, but in versus all the other possible outcomes. And

Alyson Schafer 22:49
in fact, just to reverse engineer that if you, if you went at it like, fine drop out of high school, you know, if that's going to make you happy, but then you better be a award winning multi chain, like it still speaks to expectation. Yeah, no. I mean, what I saw this wonderful documentary on like, the happiest people in the world. And like, one of the happiest people in the world is like a guy with 13 kids that is a rickshaw driver in Calcutta, you know? And, I mean, like, So, who are we to say that you got to have a multi chain whatever with this many like it's so much again, our calculation of how we measure a life. And so when we stand back and say, you know, I trust you to make a contribution in the world, I trust you to find happiness, I trust you to you know, then they more likely do Yes,

Casey O'Roarty 23:42
well, let's get this. Can we get some specific on a couple behaviors and a lot of things in this interview come up from, directly from the joyful courage community. So I reached out, said, Hey, where are you struggling? I know some listeners are listening, you know, preventatively, waiting for either, you know, they've got the early the tweens or the preteens or early teens, and they're just wanting to get as much information as possible. And I know that some people are parents of kids that are already in the trenches of some risky behavior, and they're just not sure how to be helpful and not hurtful so. And I also know, and as a fellow parent educator, you know, it's always interesting when parents ask a really specific question, assuming that we have the answer, when there's so much that goes into family dynamics and how the teens are making sense of their world and their role in it. But we're going to discuss anyway. So the first thing I want to talk about is Snape. Is sneaking out. I know sneaking out is something that's really scary for parents. I was a teenager who snuck out a lot, and pretty much got caught every time and grounded, and just thought to myself, I got to get better at getting out of this house without anyone knowing, right? But I hear about this. From parents, what comes to mind based on your experience and background as to a good, a useful, I'm not gonna say good, I'm just gonna say useful. Way of responding when parents realize that their teen has snuck out of the house,

Alyson Schafer 25:15
I love that you said one reaction to being punitive is that you just get better at sneaking better.

Casey O'Roarty 25:22
I didn't really get better, but I'm

Alyson Schafer 25:24
not really getting the problem, you know, right? And so and again, we don't, I don't know the the age here, but when we go down to, like, roles and responsibilities and whatever, you know, what are you going to do put a teen in house arrest? I mean, are you literally going to put some kind of a device on their ankle that electrocutes them when they cross the door to show that they're leaving? I mean, I actually find grounding is even hilarious in and of itself, because if the house rule was you're not supposed to go out, what makes you think that when you ground them that they're not going to say, No, I'm not. I'm going anyways,

Casey O'Roarty 26:03
like, right? It's still

Alyson Schafer 26:05
the child being willing to live within boundaries. So Right? I would talk about that boundary. I would say, you know, you're sneaking out. You clearly would like to have more freedom than I'm allowing you to have. So we need to discuss this, because here's my concern, and this is sort of going down to the fears, right and our roles and responsibilities. So my fear is, is that the police are going to knock on my door and they're going to say, when was the last time you saw your child, and I'm going to say, I thought they were in bed, and we're going to get Child Services to do analysis the family, because as your parent, I'm supposed to know where you are. My fear is, is that if you're sneaking out and you're not telling me where you're going, that maybe there's a place that you don't want me to know you're going, which makes me wonder either a is our relationship not good, that you want to keep secrets from me, or are you going somewhere bad so that you know that if I knew, I would be upset about it. So I would just go through all the scenarios that say, you know, trying to get some compassion from the child, to say, I want to step inside your world and see why it's so important for you to do what you're doing. But I'd also like you to have flexibility of mind to step into my world and understand what would be an appropriate amount of freedom for a parent of a child your age, without me abandoning my responsibilities to you, and Can't we find something between us that allows both of us to kind of get our needs met here in the family and again? So for some parents, it's going to be, well, no kid of mine is out that late, but just but what's interesting is like just having the healthy conversation, and then you have a child who really cares and has a strong relationship with their parents, they're like, You know what? Like, I could stay out, but I actually don't want my mom to lose sleep. I could stay out, but it actually creates pain for my parent. So I know that they've given me this extra half hour, or that I need to text them when I change locations, or whatever it may be. And I do that because I'm caregiving them, and I care about them rather, you know, because if it's just forced compliance, I've seen teens pay someone to walk around because their parents have GPS enabled their phone. They've actually paid somebody to walk around with their phone so their parent thinks they're in one place, they can go to house parties somewhere else. So there's no there's no amount of technology or surveillance. This is about Goodwill. Yeah, only grow the goodwill by having those kind of dialogs and so and then knowing that there's, there's a limit to you've done everything you can do. I mean, you can keep working on the relationship, but we also have to say, You know what, I'm not going to know where my kid is, and that may go depending on the severity of the case, Casey. I mean, it may be that you say, You know what, if we can't come up with an agreement about around what I need to meet my my criteria for for really being your guardian, right? Then? Then maybe we need to get a different guardian for you somewhere else, meaning there, meaning it's like you can. It's like that you can make a minimum requirement of your household that can't be disturbed beyond a certain capacity, you know. And again, this is an extreme example, but I say that because, again, some parents may think they're the innocent, but there's some teens who really need to get away from their parents and really would function better if they were either living on their own, living with an aunt or uncle or grandparent or whatever, and and there are sometimes better arrangements.

Casey O'Roarty 29:39
That is not something that you hear a lot, right? What you just said, you know, just being really honest and clear about what it is that everyone needs most. I so appreciate the lens of conversation in a way that allows our. Children, our teens, to have compassion for our experience. And even as I say that, I'm thinking like there's lots of ways to try to get that across, and some of them are really ineffective. But like, what you you know, the way that you shared just now, so listeners, I would go back five minutes and listen again to what else and just said, because, you know, in my own experience, I never thought it was never about how it was affecting my parents, that I was sneaking out. I never went there because, you know, and I would say, you know, as far as being grounded, it was annoying, but I it never occurred to me to be like, Well, screw you. I'm not gonna be grounded. Like, once I was grounded, I was like, Okay, I'll go bowling with the family. Like they were always about, okay, you're grounded, so we're gonna go bowling, we're gonna go the movies. We're gonna go do things as a family, you know? And I remember laughing with or not laughing, but being with my dad, and saying, Dad, okay, I think we're good now. I think we can drop because I would get grounded for months at a time. Oh, wow. I'd say, I think, yeah, I'd say, I think that we could drop this now. And he put his arm around me, and he'd say, case, what kind of dad would I be if I went back on on my word? And, you know, I gave him a big old eye roll, and it was annoying, but there was something about the way that they showed up in relationship with me that kind of counteracted some of the damage that could have come from. You know, their more punitive approaches, which I thought was really interesting as I look back on that

Alyson Schafer 31:38
and I feel like, can I ask you, this is the therapist in me. Were you sneaking out to things that you knew? If you asked your parents, they would have said, No,

Casey O'Roarty 31:46
oh yeah, yeah. I just wanted to stay out. I was just ready to be at the party longer, yeah,

Alyson Schafer 31:52
yeah, and so and so. That's the part where, like, I kind of worked things out with my daughters around that stuff that was really super uncomfortable for me, or, you know, you know, but I knew that sort of the greater good. But it was also, again, about that vote of confidence, which is, right, huge. I knew my kids, so it was like I knew they were going to do some stupid things at a party. Like, we're all going to do stupid things. But yeah, I felt like I could give enough passes that when I said not this time or not that party, or not this, but mostly what I was saying to them, as you know, it's a good thing, it's you, because you, I trust you're probably, you're probably gonna end up having a caretake a bunch of your friends. So keep my phone number close by, yeah. But then my kids, you know, they, they wanted to keep that, they wanted to keep that respect, right, you know. But I knew they were going to go off and do their tomfoolery, yeah, you know. And again, it's, it's, it's hard to take one piece of advice like that and apply it to all families. Because, like I said, the other case that I talked about is, you know, if you've got some 17 year old and their father is a raging alcoholic, and every Saturday night, they get drunk and beat them and and then the other nights of the week they don't let them go out because they're not on their binge drinking. And then they want to, like, I don't know, overcome their guilt feelings by trying to be a super dad and make them study and whatever. Like some kids are in really awful, awful situations, you know, whereas relationships have really been damaged for many, many years, and, you know, but I would hope, I mean, I would hope, that most of us are more in the category like I know my parents when I was growing up. My parents were also parent educators at Leary and parent educators, but we also had something called a runaway destination. We had to my parents said, you know, if ever gets so, like, awful in this house, and because we love each other most, we have the greatest capacity to hurt one another. So if you feel like you just need to, like, get out from the mess of family and you just need to have some downtime away from us, then let's make an arrangement with, like, what family you would go to, so that we don't worry about your roaming the streets. And so we all had these little runaway destinations that we could call on and just say, like, you know what I'm getting out of here. I'm going to go to so and so's house. And we, each of my brothers and I, did it each once. But it wasn't actually the fact that that we did take them up on it. It was the fact that they could put voice to the idea that they, as parents and the family could be the biggest pressure on a kid's life, the biggest source of pain the kid's life, and that it's okay to need to have a holiday from your family that that was healthy, just acknowledging it, just saying it, you know, and the name was like, wow, like, we actually have, like, a release valve built into our family structure.

Casey O'Roarty 34:43
I thought that was so cool, yeah, well, and I noticed too, you know, So in your example, and you know, sometimes it's not clear, like, as clear as an alcoholic dad. It, or, you know, some kind of adverse childhood experience checkbox, as far as the the fit of a child in a family like I'm thinking of a family that I know not real well, but I know that the family is having a really hard time with one of their with their middle child, and it is, it's kind of in that place of what like at the end of their rope, trying everything they can, and it's just continued, you know, at risk behavior. And they're, you know, seem as though they're pretty functioning family. I love what you're saying about the runaway space. My daughter, for a long time, had a go back. She's like, I have a go back, just to let you know, Mom, I've got a go bag and but as far as like, letting me know where she was going, she's like, Oh, I wouldn't tell you that. Like, okay, well, good luck. I love you, and just know that we would want you to call but what? What about those, you know, those the the families where it's really kind, it's really more challenging to pinpoint that thing, you know, for lack of a more eloquent word, the thing that is the the the tipping point in their child's scary behavior,

Alyson Schafer 36:26
you know. So if we just use the example of the the middle child, you know, we know from Arian birth order stuff, right? That, yeah, that the middle child is most likely to bring a family into counseling, statistically speaking, or research shows, because, you know, eldest kids kind of get the benefits of being first, and they get all kinds, you know, get bigger allowances and later bedtimes and different recognition for being the eldest. And babies are cute and sweet, and they usually get away with murder, and they get a place of significance in the family as being like the little engine that could kind of thing, and the middle child has the hardest time finding their place in the family, and so they they have more discouragement because of that. And this is where I'm saying it's not about the parents. This is the child's creative meaning making, where if they can't find their place, if they if they feel like a sibling is preferred, it's very easy for them to develop a kind of cognitive schema that might say something like, life is unfair, or people are always out to get me, or I can never get ahead, or, you know, I'm not lovable. And this can happen, you know, over a series of events, over time, or it could just be one thing that the child deemed to be the most important thing that they ended up making some life construct in their thinking. And so this is erroneous or or we call it their private logic, but you can keep you can keep doing consequences and family meetings and freedoms and responsibilities and all that great parenting stuff from the textbooks. But if we can't get into the correcting the child's private logic, we're unlikely to get very far ahead at all, and there's some private logic that a parent can work on secondarily. But this is why family counseling is is so great, because we've got these tools where we can get inside some of that stinky thinking of that child and help them along. So when a child gets discouraged, they feel there is no way to fit in. They can't find their place in the family. They don't know how to be socially successful in in constructive, helpful ways. And this is when they start turning to to things on the on the useless side of life. So if I don't think that I can impress you with my own good merits, then I'm going to impress you with doing something wild, like, you know, high speed driving. And we've seen this time and time again, where in the research, that boys are more likely to do higher risk behaviors when they're in a group, because there's this sort of macho bravado that requires the audience of their male peers in order for them to bang their chest and whatever, whether that's, you know, binge drinking all the little you know, shots, you know, those silly games, or whether that's reckless driving at high speeds in cars that these things, if we say, what's the usefulness of it, what's the utility of it there. There is a if you can get inside the mind of the child or the teen, young adult, we can say what would have to be true for this behavior to make sense. And that's why I really, yeah, I'm a family counselor, but I'm kind of a detective. I'm always trying to solve the equation for x what would have to be if I was this kid in this family in this era, you know, with this sibling and those parents and this experience at school, how would this be moving this child to a felt plus position, a perceived betterment in their in their mind's eye and and so that. That's the formula that we have to kind of work with. And so if you're a girl who's growing up in a culture where you're only valued if you are pretty or have a boyfriend, and then everyone on social media tells you that you gotta put out and you don't want to be the one who doesn't and it would be like you'd look like a prude if you ask them to wear a condom or whatever, then suddenly we have this high risk behavior that, again, has does that have anything to do with your parenting? How much of that had to do with all these other things going on in their lives? Now, again, if we have a strong relationship, we get to say, have you noticed on social media that girls are really whatever? You know, we have more of a chance of having a stronger influence over over their peer influence and so and we know this is true. You know, I've been doing work for years now with lavats Brewery on a program called hashtag family talk, and if your parents are interested in it's a whole program to reduce underage drinking. It's up on my YouTube channel, but the research there shows that while parents think that peers have the greater influence over their kids, it doesn't hold out in in actual research that that the number one reason for kids to say that they said no to drinking was because they did not want to disappoint their parents. We We feel so powerless, and yet we have so much more power than we know. But the power, it doesn't come from pulling in the reins and controlling it comes from to your point, to ride sidecar and and be there for them.

Casey O'Roarty 41:38
Well, and I really appreciate the word influence. Influence is a much different word than control, like inside of influence is, you know, a hope for, you know, we can hope for a good outcome. We can pray for a good outcome. But ultimately, when we look at our role as being an influencer instead of a controller, we there's space there to recognize, and they're out in the world on their own, making their own choices, right? And so sometimes they are going to kind of tap into that, probably get away with this, so I'm going to give it a try, right? And, you know, sometimes they do think about like, I don't really want to, you know, mess anything up in my life or my parents life, but, you know, I just think for parents listening, I think it's really important for all of us to remember that, like, even when we're doing all the things, all the things I think I already said this, but all the things that we're that you and I are talking about right now. It doesn't equal, okay, great, then they won't do anything stupid.

Alyson Schafer 42:46
No, oh no, no. They're gonna have the tantrum at the grocery store in front of the chocolate bar counter, which are gonna go to the party and drink. They are gonna, you know, probably have, you know, whatever, sexual relations at a age that's going to freak you out. And again, part of it is, you know, they are also, if you do good parenting, I hate to say this, if you do good parenting, you are going to raise a Cleopatra who is ready to run a country at 14, which means they could very well be ready to be sexually mature enough to make good decisions about a partner, and want to explore that and to not do it in a way that's pressured that, or

Casey O'Roarty 43:26
get into it, or do it the opposite way, and come to you and tell you about it, which is also has its own, yeah, bag of skills that we get to lean into as our kids are when we do have this Great, honest, open relationship, because that is also not as easy as you would think.

Alyson Schafer 43:47
I moved out of the house when I was still in high school, and I had a good relationship with my parents, and it broke their heart and and they there was many conversations, and their biggest fear was that, if you're living because I moved in with my boyfriend, that's how that's how naughty and terrible I was. Oh

Casey O'Roarty 44:02
my gosh, Allison, you are making my day right now. Go on, five

Alyson Schafer 44:06
years older, and he knew, and he had a bachelor apartment, and I moved in, and my parents, who I had a great relationship where, and I said, they're parent educators. They were wonderful people and and this, this was very hard on them, but they could say, my fear is, is that you're going to drop out of school, that you won't be able to make rent and work and do all the things you need to do to be independent and still put your mind you're studying. And I was just like, I you know, I think I can do this. I think I can do this. So of course, I did. Because, like I said, What are you gonna do shackle me at home? What kind of red hot hell would I have raised if they would have forced me to stay? I mean, we're free agents, so I moved out. And of course, I so wanted to show them that I could do this. My marks were never better. I, you know, yeah, and I, and I never moved on, and I ended up marrying him. We were married for 27 years, and it was all, you know, the long story. It's a good, happy story. But yeah, I scooped my parents out. But I was, I truly was mature enough from the all the good skills that they had taught me, that I was really ready to be independent. And what's interesting is, now we don't have grade 13, so I would, it would have been the same age as going off to college for our kids now, so I wasn't that precocious, yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 45:25
oh my gosh. So I have some other specifics from the community, and I think it's, you know, interesting, the whole consequences and punishment conversation. I know that you and I are on the same page with and it's come up the uselessness that can show up with kind of the more punitive response to some of this behavior. So I'm interested in hearing what your thoughts are. So from one mom in my community, she said, one question I keep having during a time when my teen I kept having during a time when my teen was partaking in risky behavior was What exactly did being kind and firm look like? Do I take away the car when they're driving high do i When do I call the police when they haven't come home? Or do I What are your thoughts on those juicy questions? So

Alyson Schafer 46:15
freedoms, freedoms and responsibilities go hand in hand, so you need to show me that you can drive responsibly. If you can't drive responsibly, then you lose your car privileges. I think that's completely fair. Now if that person then wants to save up enough money to buy their own car and drive high and as scary, and you can give them education about why the impairment of thinking and response times is still just as dangerous, and that's why it's illegal as well. But at least you've protected your property, and you've done your good parenting job to say I've educated you on all I can tell you about the subject matter. You know now it's really it's in your hands. And I would be a, I would be devastated to lose a child, and worse, I would hate to not worse, but also equally bad, is, you know, imagine that your age being responsible for somebody else's death. I mean, what a what a thing to have on your conscience, you know. And so, you know. And then all the other alternatives, you know, like, could you Uber? Would you like to have my Uber account number? We can square up at the end of the month, you know, we can figure out how to settle that debt. But in terms of the police, usually, that's like a real last resort, you know. And I say that because we're really talking about escalating who the authority is. Do you know what I mean? It's kind of like when it used to be, you know, if, if, if I was sitting there saying, you know, you got to go cut the grass, you got to go cut the grass, and the kid won't listen to you, and then you say, Honey, and you get the partner, whether that's the other woman in your household or the man in the household. But there's somebody who it's kind of, oh, so what you're telling me is that there's a power hierarchy here, and we're going to kick it up to the next level of power. So now you've just said that somebody in the family is more powerful than one parent, so there's these tiers of authority, and you're kicking it up a notch. And so now we're saying, Oh no, let's kick it up to the power authority level of police. It's still it's sort of like telling your kid that you don't want them to eat the granola bars in the cupboard. So you put a lock on the cupboards, and then they pick the lock. And so then you, you know, like, right, right, right. You have to build the fence to have the kid not go over it. Why don't we just say we're missing the point we need to get again, go back down to, hey, I'm super concerned about what's going on in your life, that you're doing things that we know have a potential life threatening quality to them. You know, it's the whole we want to win their cooperation rather than force their compliance. So how am I going to win their cooperation? I got to get inside their world. I got to get into what's the usefulness of this behavior? Can you not get around? Are you trying to impress your friends? Do you find that you can't cope without substances because you've got an anxiety problem, and we haven't actually got you good tools to deal with your anxiety so you're numbing or you're tuning out. You know, let's get to the heart of the matter, rather than just putting bandages on on symptoms and kicking up the authority to a higher and higher and higher level, thinking that somebody bigger is going to be able to make the mind their will and listen,

Casey O'Roarty 49:21
right? Oh, I love that. And I'm also real conscious in this moment that even having the thought like of calling the police, like I think about that question right now as a as a middle, you know, middle class, white family that I mean, and just thinking about how many families like that would never be a solution just because of the dynamic right now, yeah, right now, just because of the dynamic of of police and people of color in the United States. So just wanting I feel like I can't let that moment go by without speaking it. Um. Yes, yes, yes. So another mom shared, how do I get and this is kind of, is another under the surface, kind of slicing it thinner piece. How do I get my teen to listen to me and understand the severity of these issues when they really never like to take my advice on anything? Right? And so to me, I'm looking inward at the way that I give advice, and I I ask myself, like, am I sharing in a way that is inviting my teen into the discussion, or am I sharing in a way that's turning them away? Like, am I talking at them, or are we having a conversation? And so you know, when there is kind of a deep disconnection and the relationship isn't there. Like, what are those baby steps towards? One, establishing, like, re establishing that reconnection, and then two, being able to have these conversations in a way that allows our kids to hear us, instead of just thinking, Okay, how long am I gonna have to sit here and listen to your voice before I can nod my head and leave? Yeah. And

Alyson Schafer 51:09
I also just sat here and listened to you tell me about why I need to load the dishwasher. And I just sat here and listened to you about why I need to play for sign. And I just sat here and listened about why I need to cut my hair. And I just sat here and listen. I mean, we just bark at our kids constantly. It's really hard to make one note stand out from the cacophony of our ongoing messaging to kids, which is like barking little compliance requests all day long. And so, you know what I generally say to parents is, in adolescent years, you've got three big no's, don't waste them. So if you're, if you, if you can hold back on that, that micromanaging piece, so that when you say, Listen, I'm not an unreasonable person. I don't usually try to control your life. But I am asking you, and they're going to say, Wow, that's actually pretty true. So I think we have to talk less. That's, that's part of it. The next piece, I would say is, there's a great book, I think it's called brainstorm, by Daniel Siegel, and he talks about the fact, because we're talking about usefulness of behavior, he talks about the fact that when it comes to risk assessment, even though we're educating them on, you know, oh, but you know, your brain doesn't, you know, use fire as fast when you're on substances, and you could go through A red light and all these great things like we could educate them. But what his research shows is that kids actually assess risk just fine. They're like, Yep, that's right, and they do it anyways. So in a sense, educating on the risk is not likely to move the needle on behavior choices. So the brain and teens. And again, I know you've talked about some of this stuff, but you know, the those dopamine receptors that are firing off that want to give them that big joy piece, that's the thing that says and it miscalculates. It's sort of like if you if you play Russian roulette, an adult would say, I'm not gonna play Russian roulette, because if one of the boats goes off and blows my head off, then I'm gonna die. So I'm not gonna do it. And all the kid says is, yeah, but if I play Russian roulette and I can win a million dollars, I'd win a million dollars the brain actually, it's not that they don't understand that the bullet would go through their head. It's that they can't weigh the benefit against the negative in a accurate proportionality. So if they can impress a girl, if they can, you know, whatever, whatever is their felt, plus it dopamine, plus in that moment, that's going to assuage anything that we do in terms of educating them on the risks. So I think we have to talk to them about their brain that way, so that they understand it again. I want to come at it from a position of care and concern. And there's some really wonderful stuff around what's called motivational interviewing, or talk a little bit about that. Yeah. I mean, motivational interviewing is about when you have somebody who is, you know, has no intention of changing, you know, it's like, no, I'm a stoner. Like, I like, I like my weed. It's legal. You know, other people do it. I don't know why, you know, why are you making such a big deal of it? But that's on you, whatever. And then what we're trying to do is to use a certain form of questioning that finds a little dissonance, so where you can say something like, Oh, so you don't mind, then you could, you'd like you could smoke up in front of grandma. No, don't tell Grandma I smoke. Well, why don't you want grandma to know that you smoke weed? And then right there, there's some piece of dissonance that doesn't align, and I want to dig into that discrepancy, and that it's just a small little hook and and so to that point, these are skills I wouldn't expect a parent to have. You know, you having a kid doesn't mean you off, to go off and become Clinical Counselors, for Pete's sakes, but that's where you might say the size of this problem requires us to bring in a professional. And again, I wouldn't say the kid off. Say, look at you're a pothead. You need a counselor. Kids are going to you. That's going to be the mandated client. But if we go in and talk about the relationship and how it's impacting and that we have worry and we've concern, and let's talk about it, and everyone comes in together, parenting comes in together, then you can hand over some of those skills to the counselor, and usually we end up finding out there's other things, you know, there's other other stuff going on in the family. Is

Casey O'Roarty 55:21
that what you meant at the top when you said that often families will ship the teen off, and why that's not that's not useful, because it's only a portion of the of the party that's having the problem. Yeah. Is that what you're saying here? Yeah. And

Alyson Schafer 55:34
then you find out there's an older sister who's like an absolute scholar and super easy going and quite the little pleaser. And she's always been the goody two shoes, and he could never shine in under her shadow, and he's always been a disappointment. He could tell he's always let his parents down and, like, it's like, Okay, now we're talking about stuff, and the drugs kind of go away when the other problems get solved. You know, it's amazing. It's amazing. So, you know, if you just keep staying on the whole drugs, that, to me is that that really will come down, get control. It's not saying we're not going to talk about it, but

Casey O'Roarty 56:13
Right, right? It's huge. Tip of the iceberg. It's tip of the iceberg. Yeah, it's not getting to the it's not solving the underlying problem. So Allison, as we wrap up, because I know you have a commitment here in a few minutes, is there? So where can people find you and follow your work? I want to make sure everyone knows where to see you, because I love following you and you every time I watch any of your videos, I'm like, oh, Allison, I wish you were in my head.

Alyson Schafer 56:39
Yeah, well, and I'm excited to watch this whole series, as you know, because we're both fans of the Illyrian way. Just different. People say it a different way, different. I just love it. So anyways, I'm excited that that we're doing this together. So, but if people want to find out more about me, my website is allisonshafer.com and it has all my social links, you know, that spread off that. And then, of course, as you said, my podcast is called parenting the Illyrian way, so, but all my social handles are there, and I'm posting content all the time, and I do regular Facebook Lives, and a good way to stay in touch is to sign up for my E newsletter, and I just send that out once a month, and that kind of says, sort of what's coming up in the in the month ahead, when my when my events are, and things like that. So,

Casey O'Roarty 57:27
yeah, that's probably, I'll make sure, yeah, I'll make sure all those links are on Allison's speaker page for the summit listeners, so you'll be able to find them. Easy peasy. Thank you so so much for spending time with me. Allison, this was so great, so helpful. Oh,

Alyson Schafer 57:43
my absolute pleasure. Thanks for all you're doing.

Casey O'Roarty 57:52
Okay, yay. Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening, my friends, I am so honored that I get to show up for you every week and share some of my favorite people with you. Don't forget to sign up for my newsletter list and grab the seven tips for connecting with your teens. Don't forget that you can purchase all the summits, or whichever ones are striking your fancy at joyful courage.com/. 2020, Ms. All of these links are in the show notes, so don't panic too much. Be sure to find me in all the places I love. Connecting with you on social media. Take a screenshot of the podcast if you're using your phone to listen, grab a picture of the podcast, and please share it to your Instagram or your Facebook story. Tag me at joyful courage, and I will repost it as well. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm always trying to do what I can to reach ever more families. So if you're listening and finding value, please share it with the world. Okay, I'm so glad that you showed up today. I am really excited to be with you again next week. For now, let's all take a deep breath, writing that inhale into the body, finding your balcony seat for perspective, and let's all just trust that everybody's gonna be a O, K, see you next week.

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