Eps 601: Revisiting Validation, Mutual Respect, Back to School

Joyful Courage is recognizing where I am the part of the dynamic that is creating the most suffering for myself (doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results???) – I know I’m not alone with this!

Resources:

Back -to-School Checklist

Brainstorm, by Dr. Dan Siegel

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 adolescents 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 Ody. I am a parent coach, positive discipline lead trainer, and captain of the adolescent ship over at Sprout Bowl. 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. Hey y'all. I am really excited to be sharing today's content with you. It's an edited version of episode two 90 that went live originally at the end of August, 2021. Remember. 20 21 4 years ago. Oh my gosh. 2021 over here, August of 2021.
[00:01:44] Rowan, my daughter was 18 and still very much finding her feet as she worked to transition into late adolescence. Uh, she was just completing her GED Ian was getting ready to start his sophomore year of high school, and he was finally heading into the classroom in person. Because we were coming outta COVID.
[00:02:15] Ben was almost a year out from his stem cell transplant from multiple myeloma. We had to keep it really cautious that year of 20 20, 20 21 school year when most of the kids were going back to school in, you know, the late spring of 2021. We kept Ian home to keep his dad safe. So yeah, he was getting ready to start his sophomore year.
[00:02:36] So, yeah, now it's four years later and today, the day that this show comes out, I am flying to Tucson to support that same son Ian in settling into his apartment and start his sophomore year of college at the University of Arizona. So crazy. Rowan is now 22 and she is a licensed aesthetician, working at a beautiful spa here in town and in school, getting ready to transfer to Western Washington University and continue to study biochemistry.
[00:03:13] And she's incredible living on her own and adulting in all senses of that word. And my man, Ben. Well, y'all know if you've been following along for the last six months or so, that he is back in treatment for multiple myeloma and the medicine is working. His numbers look great. He and I could not be more solid in our relationship.
[00:03:37] Personal growth and spiritual growth is all around us, and we are here for it, both as individuals and as a team. So, yeah, and we're moving into a new school year, so I'm, I'm kind of going through 10 years of podcasting. I've got a few shows around. These themes and this show holds up. I'm talking about mutual respect and validation and explicit language around the theme of Back to School.
[00:04:10] And by the way, if you haven't downloaded the Back to School checklist, get into the show notes. Click the link and grab your copy. Now. It's super useful as you consider this transition back into the school year with your teen. So yeah, so we're gonna just pop right into this content, and I am confident that there will be plenty here for you to take away.
[00:04:34] I want you to enjoy it. And I want you to remember as you listen, if you are resonating well, I know you're gonna resonate with the content. And if you notice yourself thinking, God, I really could use some handholding. Or man, I wish I could go a little bit deeper into this and get more support. I am yours.
[00:04:52] Book an Explore Call. It's free, it's low risk. 15 minutes. We can get on the phone, you can gimme a little bit about what's going on with you. I can let you know what I can offer. We can see if we're a good fit. Be spr.com/explore will get you there. Okay? So do that for yourself. Think about that as you listen to today's show and have a beautiful, beautiful day.
[00:05:15] Bye.
[00:05:22] Your kids are feeling their feels as they step back into school. I know many of them have already started. Some of them are, have yet to start. And today I just, I kinda wanna focus in on that. I think it's really important for us to recognize that the experiences that our teens are having, the feelings, the emotions that are coming up are really valid and it's up to us to support our kids and feeling.
[00:05:48] Validated by us, and that's what I wanna talk about today on the show. So one of the traits of the Teen Brain, as shared by Dan Siegel in his book, brainstorm, is Emotional Spark. It's this unique time for teens and their brains are just filled. Extra emotional processing and experience. So the upside of that is that, oh my gosh, life is on fire.
[00:06:16] They're feeling all the things. Excitement. Anticipation. So much passion, right? They're feeling it's big, right? The upside is those exciting feelings are supercharged. The downside is there's an increase in moodiness and angst in being unsure of why they feel the way they do in the speed and the, you know, acceleration that these emotions can come up.
[00:06:43] Fear, worry, embarrassment, anger, right? All of it again, is on fire and comes big, big time. And for us parents, it can feel well like a whirlwind. To put it mildly, right? And so when we think about validating, what validating means is demonstrating, I love this definition, demonstrating or supporting the truth or the value of something.
[00:07:07] When I put that in the context of parenting, to me, it sounds like how you feel is valid. Your emotional experience is valid and it's valuable, right? Here's what our teens hear. Here's what kids moving into middle and high school here. From adults often, well, all teens feel like that all adolescents, you know, are insecure, um, feel uncomfortable with their bodies.
[00:07:33] Everybody goes through this. You don't know how you feel. Oh, it's the hormones. You won't feel like this forever. Just go outside, turn off your phone, take a walk, do yoga. Some of this I have said, so full disclosure, the assumption is that what they're going through isn't real and it isn't powerful. It isn't a unique experience that they're having, and it is so disrespectful.
[00:07:58] Right. It's so disrespectful. What a disrespectful way to treat other human beings. Teens are flooded with emotion. It's real for them, and they continue to be in development of the tools that they need to regulate those emotions, right? I mean, aren't we all still in development of that? I think as our kids become our size, or for some of us.
[00:08:22] Larger than us. Oh my gosh. My son's six three. Their size kind of skews the appropriateness of what we expect, and we forget that they are very much continuing through. Developing the tools and the skills they need to be contributing cooperative members of society. Just because they're big and tall and teens and not kids anymore.
[00:08:47] We lump them into, well, you should know this. You should be able to do this. Sometimes even, well, you should have mastered this. How dare you get mad at me? I wanna talk about this because it's been coming up with. Some of my private clients,
[00:09:12] sometimes parents hear me talk about this, about validating, and they think that validating their child, their teen, means that they're also validating the behaviors that can sometimes accompany the flooded emotions. And I am here to say that we can validate their feelings without validating their behavior.
[00:09:34] And I'm here to take a stand for you and to urge you to remember that mutual respect. Something that we talk a lot about with positive discipline. Mutual respect is about respecting the person in front of us, the adolescent in front of us. While also respecting ourselves and the situation. So let's put this into context.
[00:09:58] Okay. Your kiddo has started school. Maybe they're a week or two weeks in, or three weeks in, and they come home, they walk in the door and you, you know, nonchalantly ask them to unload the dishwasher. No, they say angrily. Why the F do I have to do that when you've been home all day doing nothing? Whoa.
[00:10:20] Right. Whoa. That's aggressive. You have a choice in this moment. One, get worked up about the language they're using and meet their anger with your own, which we all know just levels things up, gets us more into this spiral. Or two, recognize that something must have gone down earlier in the day and validate your kid can sound like, Ooh, sounds like you have had a tough day.
[00:10:48] Or you sound pretty angry now. Your tween or teen will do one of two things. One, they will soften because they've been seen and perhaps let you in on what's going on. They'll move from their reactive state and towards a more receptive state, and you can have a conversation, ask them what they need, make a plan for the dishwasher to be emptied at a later time or.
[00:11:16] Your middle or high schooler will continue to be in the grips of their dysregulated emotional experience and snap back some more colorful language or name calling, continuing to unload their emotional angst onto you. If this is what you experience, I want you to listen to what I have to say next. It is your responsibility to model personal boundaries.
[00:11:41] I'm gonna say that again for the people in the back. It your responsibility to model personal boundaries. This is where you get to respect yourself enough to say, wow, you are really angry. I am here to listen if that's what you need, but I'm not gonna allow you to treat me. Badly. I'm gonna take a walk when I get back and we both feel cooler.
[00:12:05] We can talk about what's going on and then follow through and take that walk or do what you need to do to take care of you. People who struggle with boundaries are typically people who had caregivers that struggled with boundaries. They didn't see the modeling. We have to model setting boundaries with our kids and.
[00:12:26] The key to this is to set these boundaries while you yourself are staying regulated. Positive discipline is not permissive parenting. It is not taking verbal abuse from our teens. It is not no expectations or responsibilities. It is also not commanding or demanding. It isn't about punishments or rewards.
[00:12:48] Positive discipline is about using kindness and firmness at the same time, positive discipline is respecting the needs of the child. We do this by checking our own regulation and how we're delivering our messages and our tone, while also simultaneously respecting the needs of ourselves and the situation.
[00:13:10] But what about the F-bombs? What about the dishwashers? I can hear you out there like, okay, great. What about these other things? I don't want my kids swearing at me and they have to do chores. Yes, you are correct. So back to the scenario. You take that walk, you take care of you, you circle back with your kid, knock on the door, Hey, can we talk?
[00:13:33] I can tell that you have some stuff going on that must be hard to hold, and then you pause and you wait. I know I've said this a lot and I'm gonna say it again. I am here to listen. Now, side note, if you have been judgmental or critical or invalidating in the past, you gotta own that. You gotta own that and clean it up.
[00:13:57] Could sound like, listen, I know that I have a tendency to wanna talk you out of how you're feeling. Or act like it's not a big deal or tell you how you shouldn't feel that way. I'm learning how disrespectful that is. I'm really sorry I've been that way in the past and I'm gonna practice being different.
[00:14:15] Pause. Your wellbeing is what is most important to me, and I am here for you. Pause. What do you need most right now? Again, pause. Now, they might share. This might be enough to support them. And again, moving from reactivity to receptive. They might ask you to leave 'em alone. They might not wanna share. They might apologize for the F-bombs.
[00:14:46] Listen to whatever it is they have to say and finish up with. I'm gonna come back in after a while and we can make a plan for emptying the dishwasher. Okay, now a word about swearing and you know, the language, the put downs that we use. So kids learn through modeling, which means the most powerful thing you can do to cut down on their swearing is to cut down on yours.
[00:15:12] I am a swearer. My husband is not. My kids swear sometimes I don't get uptight about it. You know, that's not the same in everybody else's family, but that's how it is in our family. When it feels excessive, we talk about it. Communication has to be explicit lessons and conversation, meaning as a family when nobody is worked up, brainstorm what communication looks like in your house and then how you want it to look or sound in your house.
[00:15:44] How do all the members of the family wanna be treated and spoken to? What does everyone need? And you can use a talking stick, like, you know, everybody gets a turn. Say, you know, if somebody doesn't wanna participate, okay, great, you can pass, but go around the family. What is important to you? How do you wanna be treated and spoken to get an idea from your kids and the other people in your family about what they want and what they need.
[00:16:12] And write it all down.
[00:16:23] Respect is really slippery when looked at through the parent lens versus the teen lens, right? So. I hear a lot, you know, whenever I do, if you've taken a class from me, you probably know that. I always start with the two lists. What are your current challenges? That's what we start with. Always. Always on that first list, more than one parent will say something about, they're so disrespectful, right?
[00:16:50] We do not wanna be disrespected by our children. And we feel disrespected when our teens speak to us angrily, right when they swear at us, when they name call us. Teens feel disrespected when their parents dismiss that they're having an emotional experience when their parents dismiss that their experience is valid when their parent doesn't seem to get it, when their parent doesn't understand and doesn't make an effort to try and understand when their parent is critical or judgmental.
[00:17:23] That feels disrespectful to teens. Both sides feel hurt and hurt back. Right. So when this is your scenario, when this shows up. And there's, you know, not great language and the communi and we're meeting each other. Hurt to hurt. Call a break, step away, disengage, just stop, communicate outside of the moment, right?
[00:17:49] Talk about this as a family, that when things get heated, like they do. There will be a timeout for people to take care of themselves and cool off, and when you have this conversation with your family, make it about you. I get so mad sometimes that I do and say things that I regret, like that One time I said, you know that you were lazy and I told you I would take your phone for a month.
[00:18:15] I didn't mean what I said, and that consequence wasn't something I wanted to follow through on, but then I felt conflicted because I said it in the moment. Right. We just don't treat each other that well when we're heated like that. So from now on, we're gonna call timeouts. You can call them or I can call them, but whenever anyone calls a timeout, conversation stops.
[00:18:38] We all disengage. We do what we need to do to calm down. And then you ask the family, can everyone agree to that? And then you ask them, does anyone have a problem with that? Can we try it for a week and see what happens? Right? Can we practice? Maybe the kids play the parents, parents play the kids. I mean, I've got one kid that would be totally into practicing and one kid that would be like, uh, no.
[00:19:02] So I'll let you see. What happens with the practicing dysregulation is super real hours and theirs, and really more often than not is at the root of so much conflict between teens and parents. We're trying to solve problems. We're trying to come up with solutions, but we're dysregulated, so we don't actually have the part of the brain that we need.
[00:19:27] For higher level thinking like solutions and problem solving. We're in our limbic system. We're all worked up and in emotion. All of us parents, kids, you cannot be super angry and super creative at the same time, or empathetic or compassionate. We have to support each other in growing here. We have to model and teach and practice self-regulation over and over again.
[00:19:51] It has to become. Common language in your home. We have to check in with each other and share our mistakes and celebrations when self-regulation happens. This isn't a teen problem. This is a human struggle. We are emotional beings living and loving. Emotional beings, it's super messy bringing it back to school, starting, right?
[00:20:14] I mean, I kind of went off there, but I'm bringing it back to now. Here we are at the start of a, a new school year and your kids might be on edge for the next few weeks. In fact, I would say they will be on edge. On some level for the next few weeks, they might be a little more tense, a little more triggered, a little more emotional.
[00:20:34] They are navigating an insecure environment and trying to make sense of their role in it. They are flowing with their friend groups or trying to find friend groups. They're back in a classroom dealing with teachers and academic expectations. They're crushing on people and maybe those people. Are crushing on them.
[00:20:56] Maybe not. They are concerned about the opinions of others to a fault. Sometimes even the ones who say they don't care, they care. It's tough out there. It is tough out there for our teens. So just to remind you, here's what you can do. You can validate their feelings, validate that it's tough. Listen to their experiences without judgment, criticism, or giving your opinions unless you have permission.
[00:21:24] So ask for permission. Can I offer you something? Can I tell you what I think about that? Do a family brainstorm about how to communicate with each other in a way that feels good to everyone in the family. Make a timeout plan like timeout to right. Take care of yourself and state your boundaries with your teen.
[00:21:51] I hope that this was helpful. I hope that this was helpful today. It feels really good to be back recording a solo show. I've missed all of you. I feel really excited and passionate about the topic today. Super passionate about this work with teenagers. I'm excited for this fall and all of the resources, conversations, and thoughts that I'm gonna be sharing with you about this.
[00:22:16] Crazy time of parenting. Next week I'll be back with a brand new interview. Thanks for being here.
[00:22:28] Thank you so much for listening. Thank you to my Sprout partners, Julietta and Alana. Thank you, Danielle, for supporting with the show notes as well as Chris Mann and the team at Pod Shaper for all the support with getting the show out there and making it sound good. As I mentioned, sharing is caring. 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.
[00:22:56] 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 bespreadable.com. I see you doing all the things. I believe in you. See you next time.