Eps 574: Positive Discipline for Teens Part 5 – Why do they act like that?

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Transcription

JC Ep 574 (5.19.25) - FINAL
[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 O'Roarty. 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.
[00:01:24] Hey. Hi. Hi everybody. Hi. Hi. Hi. Welcome back to the Joyful Courage Podcast. It is Monday and I have a new show for you. You've gotten a few repeats, revisit replays the last few weeks. I've been busy with travels and bringing my boy home from college, so. The good news is I have 10 years of content to draw from and to cover me when I can't make it to the mic to record something new.
[00:01:58] But you don't have to worry about that this week because this week you're getting new stuff, new stuff, and what you're getting is, I think this is part four, part five of the positive discipline for teens. Book review and book meander. I'm basically going through positive discipline for teenagers, which was written by Jane Nelson and Lynn Lott.
[00:02:25] The last revision was in 2012, and I am rereading it and reviewing. You know, does it still hold up so far? I would say yes. So the last part, we talked about chapter 11 and chapter 10. I love chapter 10. It's all about building life skills during this time of life. That's what this time of life is all about.
[00:02:50] Not only building life skills, but giving our kids room to develop life skills so that when they launch. They know what they're doing enough, right? They are resourceful enough. They are able to stay in that growth mindset to figure things out. Speaking of figuring things out, did I talk about it on here?
[00:03:11] I don't know, but my son was really struggling with math and he had all sorts of reasons why he was struggling The. Teacher was so slow when he taught and the TA didn't speak great English and was hard to understand and the syllabus changed and he wasn't checking the portal every day, blah, blah, blah.
[00:03:28] Anyway, he missed a bunch of quizzes. He missed some homework. He didn't really know what was going on. So a few weeks ago we did a little back and forth via text. I'm a big. Supporter of texting conversations with our teens and young adults, and we talked about math and prompted him with some curiosity around what could you do differently to get some different results?
[00:03:50] And he. Really worked the last three weeks in math and pulled off a 95% on the final exam. He said, that's the good news. The bad news is I'm left with a 75% for the final grade. And I said, wow, man, your grade was really low. He said, yeah, good thing I got that 95%. So, you know, and then of course my next question was like, awesome.
[00:04:15] So what did you know? Think about what you're learning from this. Semester of math and what you can take from it that you can bring to the semesters ahead. And that was it. Done and done. We, you know, high fived it out. He feels good about his other grades and yeah, life skills, resourcefulness, growth mindset, pulling it off in the end.
[00:04:35] Right? Cramming all of that. All of that is good stuff. So yeah, I loved chapter 10. Chapter 11 was the how Wired are our kids. I do think there is a lot of room for improvement in that chapter just because it's, you know, 12, 13 years later and holy cow, like ai, I keep getting a lot of pitches from people who wanna come on the show and talk about AI and kids and.
[00:05:00] We'll see. I haven't been wowed by any of their pitches, but I do think that talking about AI on here is important, right? Because on one hand the, just the misinformation conversation is so real, right? I mean, I. We all get caught up in the misinformation superhighway. Everything looks real and you gotta do your due diligence and not get sucked into the headlines.
[00:05:25] I'm the queen of that. I love a good headline, and yeah, it matters. It matters to check it out, see what's going on. Anyway, ai, so stay tuned for those conversations. Today I am just gonna focus on one chapter because it is such a powerful chapter and I think it's so important and it really, to me sets positive discipline, the program, the parenting philosophy apart.
[00:05:51] I. From all the other programs. You know, I realized that positive discipline kind of lives under this umbrella of positive parenting, but it really stands on its own. And so this chapter is chapter 12, and the title of this chapter is so great. It is. Why do they act like that? Do you ever find yourself asking that question?
[00:06:14] Maybe it sounds more like, what the fuck were you thinking? Or maybe you don't swear and it just sounds like, what were you thinking? Right. The only thing that kind of rubs me, not the wrong way, but just kind of is a little prickly to me, but maybe not, but the first chapter or the first section of this chapter talks about how, and remember this is 2012, the last time this book was revised, and this chapter starts off talking about how the current model of looking at teen behavior is really a disease model.
[00:06:50] Oftentimes our kids get discouraged, they get challenging, and more and more often we are turning towards medications, prescriptions, inpatient, you know, that's the extremes, right? But. Psychologists, counselors, therapists there, there is a big, much more of a push towards a medicated solution for our teen's discouragement than there has been in the past.
[00:07:18] And I think now, 13 years later, post covid, post social media explosion. I think now more than ever, we are really seeing that, and I think it's also becoming ever more normalized. And I feel like the tone about medication at the start of this chapter, it's obvious that the authors clearly believe that our teens are overmedicated.
[00:07:43] And like I said, in a lot of cases they're right. But I wanna say before we dive into the psychology and what this chapter's all about, that I do believe there are times for teens to get the extra help they need through medication and. Coupled with working with someone, a trained professional, to increase their skills, decrease their discouragement, increase the likelihood that they will look for opportunities to lean into resilience and develop their perseverance.
[00:08:14] And as I read this beginning of this chapter, I think about, of course, my own experience. I can't not think about my own experience and wonder. If I could have done things differently with Rowan. Right. But you know, I remember early days, eighth and ninth grade, then 10th grade, and then really peaking in 11th grade, you know, anxiety.
[00:08:39] She didn't even do any medications really, I guess until much later. But anxiety was real and it wasn't like, oh, I've got a kid that's stressed out, like anxiety, imprisoned my child. I. Could I have headed that off at some point? Maybe I could have been a little firmer around a few things. Maybe I was a little too loose around certain things.
[00:09:07] I don't know. I mean, I. At the end of the day, we are where we are and she's thriving and amazing. And if whatever choices we made results in the kid she is today, go us, go her, because she's amazing. And there's definitely things, when I look back, I'm wondering like, Hmm, I wonder. I wonder if I could have handled that differently and the results we're seeing today maybe could have shown up sooner.
[00:09:35] I don't know. All I know is that parenting a discouraged teenager is deeply personal and hard work, right? Deeply personal and hard work. And if you didn't know already, some of you know this, but positive discipline is based in. Alerian theory. That's where positive discipline, the philosophy the program comes out of.
[00:10:00] It's backed by Alerian theory, Adlerian therapists. I'm just gonna read directly from the book here. Adlerian therapists use early memories and other techniques to help them understand the private logic of their clients. Their focus is on understanding the perceptions. Beliefs, private logic or separate reality that inspires the behavior or point of view of each individual.
[00:10:30] I love this. I love this. I love that it's not someone just like, Hey, let's try this parenting thing out. But it's really taken from the work, the research of Alfred Adler and Rudolph Driker. They're really the fathers. Of modern psychology and Alfred Adler had radically different thinking about human nature and motivation than his contemporaries at the time.
[00:10:57] So he was alive 1870 to 1937. And then Rudolph Driker, which was his colleague, really embraced social equality, mutual respect, encouragement, holism and human potential. So much of their work is embraced and repackaged by people all over the place that, but they don't get a lot of credit. So I'm gonna take some time to just say, shout out to Alfred Adler.
[00:11:23] Rudolph Ryker. Shout out to all of you Adlerians that are listening, that are working with people that are bringing this. Practice and the science and the psychology into the mainstream. I just really appreciate you and what I love so much about their work is that there is this idea that behavior is purposeful.
[00:11:50] Behavior is purposeful. Popular culture would have you believe that teenagers are just kind of idiots, that they're not smart, that they're super impulsive. And it makes sense because if our kids are really wanting belonging in significance, which is what Alfred Adler and Rudolph Dreger really leaned into, that human behavior is motivated by belonging in significance.
[00:12:17] It can feel like the behavior we're seeing from our kiddos is not behavior that they're hoping to build belonging and significance with. It feels like. They're trying to make us crazy. Right. And it was interesting. I was on the airplane today, this morning, and I was listening to the Seven Habits of Highly Successful People by Stephen Covey, and so I was kind of half listening and half looking at my calendar.
[00:12:45] I don't know what else I was doing, but what I loved was out of nowhere. He started talking about, I think it's in chapter three, his son, and how he and his wife really struggled with one of their sons. Who was having a really hard time at school, doing poorly at school, but also really not great socially, kind of embarrassing himself and making it hard for people to wanna be around him socially.
[00:13:10] I. There was a lot of angst in this kiddo, and it was, you know, bleeding out in the family and Stephen Covey and his wife tried all the things that they knew to try. He started talking about the work he was doing in leadership at the time, and all of a sudden, like I said, I was kind of in and out listening.
[00:13:30] But all of a sudden he was talking about perspective and he was talking about the lens that we see the world out of. Right? We all have our own lens for seeing the world, and our lens is created over time through experiences in our childhood. Earliest childhood memories. The relationships that we had with caregivers very early on and through adolescence, right?
[00:13:58] It's developed through just all the twists and turns of life. Our lens is informed and developed and inspired. Based on all of that, and then our lens is what we see the world out of. And all of a sudden, Stephen Covey was like, you know, there's something to be said for making sure that we're looking at our lens as well as through our lens.
[00:14:23] Meaning I have a perspective and I'm curious about my perspective. Where did my perspective come from? Where do my beliefs come from? And that's really what this chapter is all about. That behavior is motivated by an individual's perception and their perspective, and I love it. In the chapter, there's a story about a kid named Kevin, 13-year-old Kevin, and something I love about it is.
[00:14:56] That it was all about discovering Kevin's perception of himself and his beliefs about how to manage his world. This is all of us, right? We all are developing perceptions of ourselves, and we all have beliefs. About how to manage our worlds. And I know this is me saying the same thing I always say in maybe a new and different way or maybe the same way, but this is the work you guys.
[00:15:25] This is our work as individuals. We get to remember that our perception, our perspective, our separate realities have been developed over time. Through experiences, they're valid. They matter, and we get to take a look at them. We get to notice when and how they are influencing how we're managing our world, right?
[00:15:51] And our world. I mean that in the micro, like how we're managing our day-to-day, our, our perceptions supporting and encouraging us, or are they getting in the way and discouraging us? Hmm. We won't know unless we look, I. But keeping in mind that all behavior is motivated by each individual's perception of what is true.
[00:16:15] That's what they say in the book. I like it. I like it. It, I mean, right? It's true. All behavior is motivated by each individual's perception of what is true.
[00:16:37] So, like I said, ad Lian theory, and as you've heard me say before, it's all about belonging and significance. And when we do activities in live classes or online classes, we'll do a role play or some kind of activity. And the first question is, what are you thinking followed by? What are you feeling? I. What are you deciding?
[00:16:59] What is the action that you're gonna take? Because as they say in chapter 12, unconscious thoughts lead to behavior by creating feelings that provide the fuel for actions, thoughts, create feelings and feelings, create actions, and all of this happens automatically until we learn to recognize the pattern and change it.
[00:17:22] If we want to right autopilot when we're an automatic pilot, when we're shooting from the hip, it's because we've been thinking, feeling, deciding for so long that those grooves become a pattern, become habitual behavior, and we start to believe, well, this is who I am. This is what I've always done. But I think it's really important to remember that the brain is wired for.
[00:17:52] Marination, right? That's why when you practice something over and over and over, you get better and better and better at it. It becomes easier and easier to do so. When I was in Tucson the last couple days, I got to spend some time with my college roommate. Shout out to Erica Herman. She is a therapist.
[00:18:10] She's amazing. Love her. And we were talking about her job. She works with college kids as a therapist. And she described, 'cause we had a couple of college kids at the table with us. She said, you know, you guys right now in your life, your brain, imagine your brain covered in snow, right? And you're on skis.
[00:18:30] And every time you do something, every time you do one particular behavior, it's like you create a groove in the brain, right? Like you're skiing down the same run. The same tracks over and over and over again, and over time, if you keep doing the same thing over and over and over and over, you create this deep groove and then you become 30, 40, 50 and you realize, oh gee, you know what?
[00:18:56] This groove, this thought, this pattern of behavior isn't so useful to me. And it's much harder to change it to pick a different groove when it's been that long. But as. You know, teenagers and young adults, the beauty of that time of life is the groove isn't so deep, and so they can change things up. They can create new grooves.
[00:19:21] I like to think of it as, and I haven't talked about this on the podcast in a while, but I used to talk about this in my class, which is, you know, I live in the Pacific Northwest. The forest is very dense. So if you've ever been in a dense forest and you go hiking, you'll see that the hiking trail that everybody takes is really worn down.
[00:19:38] You can see the dirt. It's brown. It's the brown amongst the green of the trees, right? You barely have to look where you're going because so many people have walked that path. It's automatic, right? But if you start to look around the forest, you might see some indents where the game trails are where the animals go.
[00:19:55] They like to avoid the humans, right? So they have different trails in the forest, and they're also. Better at not wearing out the forest so it's not worn down. But if everybody decided, okay, you know what, instead of taking this trail that I always take, we're gonna take a new trail. We're gonna take this game trail over time.
[00:20:16] That's the trail that would get worn down. At the beginning, it would be really wobbly, right? It would feel wobbly, it would feel. You know, uncomfortable, maybe even a little bit discouraging. You might need a machete. You might need to cut some foliage to create a new trail. And isn't that how it feels to try something new and different?
[00:20:37] Whether it's starting to go to the gym, changing the way you're eating, deciding to be more curious and less judgmental, right? More open and less controlling. It takes time and practice to be different. They also talk a lot in the book about childhood memories and thinking back to a significant memory from your childhood and perhaps connecting some dots.
[00:21:01] How that significant memory fueled, inspired, and fed into perhaps some beliefs you have about you and how to manage your world. So I think this is so exciting. This is such a great chapter, and really the message at the very start is that the kid's perspective. Matters. And if we wanna take a shortcut to long-term change, we get to, and I talked about this last week on the show, we get to know that there is a tip of the iceberg, but instead of getting really hung up on the behavior that we want to stop.
[00:21:39] We get to go under the surface. We get to consider the perspective of our kiddo, consider their experience of belonging and significance, their interpretation, their mistaken ideas of how to get to belonging and significance, and meet them there. Meet them there, right? Again, this is all mistaken goals and the belief behind behavior.
[00:22:04] So I've talked about this before. I think just last week I talked about power and revenge. Two mistaken goals that I think often get mixed up when we're not paying a lot of attention. Today we're gonna talk about mistaken goals. Again, I've done an entire series. I'll make sure that Spotify playlist is in the show notes, but I've done whole series about mistaken goals.
[00:22:27] So here's what I think. I think it's never a bad idea to update your understanding of this concept of mistaken goals. It's super useful to have in your back pocket. It's very useful to remember that there are beliefs going on behind the behavior under the surface of the iceberg. Right? And the important thing is not just knowing that, but integrating that.
[00:22:52] Right. Parenting from a place of remembering that there's something bigger going on. Listen, integration is real. And we all make really broad declarations about how we wanna show up in the world, but the dances that we know, the grooves that have been grooved, it's deep. It's hard to show up differently.
[00:23:14] So one thing I wanna say that is so important is taking care of yourself, taking care of yourself, having some kind of self-care practice that includes some kind of movement, some kind of stillness, some kind of, whether you're talking to a therapist or you're writing in a journal. Something that includes inspiration.
[00:23:34] I listen to audio every day that I love, that is inspiring to me. That causes me to see whatever I'm moving through, through a new perspective. I have my soul navigation cards. Shout out to all the parents that came to the Sprout retreat. They all went home with soul navigation cards and they're just, it's just different ways to invite myself into looking at whatever is challenging.
[00:24:01] Looking at it through a new lens, right, A different lens, and just being curious, integrating what we know about the mistaken goals requires us being willing to do so, right? I hear from so many parents about how their kids are lazy, or you know, they're manipulative or they just don't care, and I'm not buying it.
[00:24:25] It's not true. It's not true. Over time, it might be a protective measure to act like they don't care, or they might be so deeply discouraged. And then we'll talk about this assumed inadequacy, that the best thing they can do for themselves is to make sure that you are not expecting anything from them, right?
[00:24:46] But they're not just inherently lazy. They're not just inherently manipulative, right? Remember the iceberg. Remember the iceberg and. Remembering that our own beliefs and behaviors have been developed over time through experience and really solidified through the relationships of our life. Same is true for our kiddos, right?
[00:25:08] Perception of self. We're always developing and looking for evidence that supports our current perception of ourselves and our beliefs about how to manage the world. So in the mistaken goal chart, there's four mistaken goals. This, yes, this is review and I'm so here for it. So there's undue attention, right?
[00:25:28] The belief of undue attention is what I counter belong only when I'm being noticed or getting special service. I'm only important when I am keeping you busy with me. That's sad, right? And so what do they do? They clown around. You know, they're just always grabbing our attention and we make it worse because they're so annoying.
[00:25:51] We're like, knock it off, go away. Stop. Why can't you stop? Right? And it's not useful in the context of chores. I. And I actually don't call them chores, I call them contributions. So in some families, there's contributions that are expected, and then there's maybe that one kid who's just like, you know, oh yeah, I'll do 'em.
[00:26:11] I'll do, I'll do, I'll clean my room. I'll clean my room. And then the moment you walk away, what are they doing? Not cleaning their room, not staying busy. But if you stick around with them, they get it done right. But if you don't stick around, they're not doing it. So one way to help them. If you're feeling like, oh my gosh, this is so annoying.
[00:26:31] 'cause that's the important thing is how we feel. It's like a pesky fly. Like, you're so annoying. Why do you gotta be like this? One of the things we can do is bring some lightness and humor. Oh, I see you. I see you waiting for me to walk outta your room so you don't have to do anything. Ha ha ha. Right. We get to teach routines to these teens.
[00:26:51] We get to teach the routines, practice the routines, be a part of their routines. Right? And on this side, we get to schedule more one-on-one time. 'cause this is a kiddo who isn't feeling connected. Right? Or feels like they're only connected when they're keeping you busy. It's that whole idea of they just want attention, even if it's bad attention.
[00:27:12] Well, what I think and what I've heard my colleagues say is our kids. Long for connection and they'll settle for attention. Right? So when it comes to contributions, if that's what we're gonna focus on for this mistaken goal, what we can do instead of remind and coax and do things for these kiddos is teach routine.
[00:27:32] Schedule some one-on-one time and really bring in the lightness and the humor 'cause they want to connect with you. Right? And then the second mistaken goal is misguided power. I went into this a lot last week. You know, you're in a mistaken power situation with your teen when their behavior raises your hackles.
[00:27:51] So, hey, it's time for you to clean your room. You are gonna support in some contributions and some chores around the house. No, I'm not doing that. You can't make me right. The belief is I count or belong only when I'm the boss, or proving that you can't make me. We make it worse when we double down, when we threaten, when we bribe, when we try to take more control and show that, actually, no, I'm the adult.
[00:28:14] It makes it worse. It's not useful. What we can do instead is lean into our own humility. 'cause guess what? You can't control your kiddo. You have to share power. There's no other way if, if your long-term goal is to. Maintain relationship and teach life skills and nurture your teen's inner dialogue about their ability to create the life they want.
[00:28:40] Then you've gotta share power. You just have to. So there's the humility there, right? There's making amends. Gosh, you know what? I've been really controlling. Sorry about that. Let's look for ways where we can share some power here. Our expectation is that everybody. Contributes to the household, what could that look like for you?
[00:29:01] Right? You can co-create agreements, offer choices, share power in other places during the day. That's something that came up in the talk that I did in Louisville, Kentucky last week, where, you know, we did this activity around curiosity questions versus just telling our kids what to do. And one of the parents, one of the moms said, well, you know, sometimes I need to just tell 'em what to do.
[00:29:25] I said, yeah, sometimes we do need to do that, and it's gonna be a lot more likely that your teen will be easygoing with you in those moments where it's like, you know what? I'd love to give you choice, but we gotta get out the door. Here's what I need you to do. If their bank is really full of opportunities of shared power.
[00:29:47] So that's key. And then the third mistaken goal, again, I talked about it in depth last week, is revenge.
[00:30:03] Right? Revenge. We know we're in a revenge cycle with our kiddo when their behavior feels like a punch to the gut. Right when it hurts. When we're left feeling like, ah, what disbelieving. Hurt, disappointed, right? And then we hurt back. We respond from that hurt place only feeding into more of the hurt because our kiddo's belief is, I don't think I belong, so I'll hurt others as I feel hurt.
[00:30:33] I can't be liked or loved. That's a sad place to be, isn't it? That's a sad place to be. So yeah. I need you to do your chores. I need you to do your contributions. You know what? Screw you. You don't care about me. All you care about is that I clean my RI is my is appearance. Oh, how about that? All you care about is how we look.
[00:30:54] You don't care about me. Mm. That's brutal, right? How do we respond? I. How do we respond? Well, first thing, invitation. Quit taking it personally. Quit taking what your kiddo is saying to you personally. It's not about you. And get curious, right? I think that one of the things we get to train ourselves to do is when there is an interaction or there is a behavior that feels hurtful to receive on our end, we get to practice saying, oof.
[00:31:28] Wow. That hurt. I wonder what's going on with you. I wonder what's hurting you? I think we get to be explicit about our experiences so that our kiddos have a broader lens around what they're doing and how it's affecting other people. But it's actually also kind of pitching it back to them and saying like, I care about you.
[00:31:55] I wanna know more about what's going on with you because this isn't like you. Right, or maybe it is like them and you've got a cycle to break, which happens, and you can do it other things. If this is your situation, you get to, you know, really lean into encouragement. Like I said, making amends is actually very encouraging.
[00:32:16] Making amends sounds like. I wonder if there's something that I've done that's been hurtful to you, or maybe you already know. Maybe you already know what you've done and you own it, and you don't ask for forgiveness. You don't have to ask for forgiveness. Please don't. Actually, it makes me cringe when people ask for forgiveness.
[00:32:35] Because that's an awkward place to put our kids in. Instead, just own your stuff. Just own it. Apologize, and move on. Actually own it, apologize, and then talk about what you're gonna do differently the next time you feel that way so that you don't create the same hurt over and over again and you're modeling what it looks like to take personal responsibility.
[00:32:57] So yeah, encouragement, create routines. Being willing to get vulnerable and use emotional honesty. Practice deep listening. Hear from them what their experience is without trying to deny or fix or talk them out of it. Just hear it and then validate that sounds really hard. It makes sense that you feel that way, right?
[00:33:20] That's gonna support you. That's gonna get you further along on the relationship slash life skill development journey than. Staying in this cycle of, you hurt me, I'll hurt you. How dare you. Right? And again, last, I think it was three shows ago, maybe three, five. I actually, I think it's five. I talked about power and revenge, those two mistaken goals 'cause they're similar and different.
[00:33:50] And then finally the fourth mistaken goal is assumed inadequacy, which is really giving up and wanting to be left alone. So, oh, this is really hard. It's really hard and heartbreaking to have a teen that is this deeply discouraged and this mistaken goal leaves us feeling despair, hopelessness, helplessness.
[00:34:18] I know that some of you out there are here with a kiddo. I see you in that. It's really hard. The most important thing we can do for ourselves is take care of ourselves. 'cause it is emotionally exhausting to have a kiddo that's this deeply discouraged, right? So we might tell them to clean their room or take out the garbage, or do some sort of routine and really not get any response.
[00:34:42] It's not like a pushback. It's not a, you can't tell me what to do, or, no, you care more about chores than you care about me. It's really a lack of response. And so what can we do differently? Our kids' belief is I can't belong because I'm not perfect. So I'll convince others not to expect anything of me.
[00:35:03] I'm helpless and unable. No use trying 'cause I won't get it right. Hmm. So what can we do? We can take baby steps. We can for a while really do the things with them side by side. Parallel. Take time for training. We can engage in regular one-on-one time with this kiddo. Not with a lot of pressure, not with a lot of conversation, but consistently and regularly we can encourage name and encourage their strengths, right?
[00:35:35] What, you know, lives inside of them, but maybe has gone a little dormant. I have a great show about naming our kids' strengths. If you go on the website and go to the search bar and just search for strengths, it should come up. I'm not sure the episode number right now. The other thing we get to do with our kiddos that find themselves, that we find in this.
[00:35:56] Assumed inadequacy space is we get to trust and have faith in them. We get to trust and have faith that this is a snapshot, this is a moment in time, and that their life tapestry is long and big and that they're gonna move through this. This is temporary, right? We don't have to, it's not about saying it to them, but it is about holding them inside of that like.
[00:36:22] You know, like in my head I'm thinking I'm not worried. I mean, this is, you know, not great right now, but I trust and believe that there is something in this experience that is going to be of service to my kiddo, and I'm not going anywhere, and I'm gonna lean in and I'm gonna, you know, take those baby steps.
[00:36:46] I'm gonna keep mentioning their strengths, but I'm also gonna trust and believe that we can get through this. Right. So when our kiddos are stuck in that undue attention, belief, keeping you busy with them feels like pesky fly. Imagine their hidden message being, notice me, involve me usefully when they're stuck in misguided power and they just wanna prove You can't boss them, they're the boss, right?
[00:37:13] Feels like your hackles are raised. You get to translate their behavior into, let me help and give me choice. If you find yourself in that revenge cycle with your kiddo, and there's that oof punch to the gut, oh man, I can't believe you said that. Did that. That really hurts me. Right? Instead, we get to translate their behavior into, I'm hurting, validate my feelings, and finally that mistaken goal of assumed inadequacy when we find that our kiddos are stuck there.
[00:37:48] The hidden message is, don't give up on me. Even as they say, get out, close the door. I don't wanna talk. We can translate what they really need as Don't give up on me. Show me a small step, right? Believe in me.
[00:38:08] So good. There's a fifth mistaken goal that's only in the teen era, the adolescent era, and that is excitement seeking, right? Dan Siegel calls it novelty. Our teen brains are wired for a novelty seeking, excitement seeking, and really the idea here is I'm bored. I'm looking for a rush. And it shows up in all four of the mistaken goals, right?
[00:38:38] So if it's undue attention, it sounds like, you know, doing risky things, kind of with the messaging being like, look at me, see how cool I am? Misguided power, you know, engaging in risky behavior with misguided power can look like, you know, sound like no one can stop me. I'm invincible If it's a revenge, excitement seeking behavior.
[00:39:02] The messaging is like, I'll show you. Right? And then finally assumed inadequacy. When our kiddo is feeling assumed, inadequacy and engaging in risky behavior, it's really the belief becomes, this is all I'm good for. It doesn't really matter. Right, and so I'm gonna read straight from the book about this excitement seeking leads, teens to go after novelty, risk taking, and intense sensations.
[00:39:30] Remember that I think we all do discourage teens seek excitement in negative ways sometimes to show off, sometimes for a power surge, sometimes to get even for your lack of faith in them. Sometimes because they feel so hopeless. There's no point. Trying anything else, but what we can think and translate the behavior into when our kids are really leaning into risky behavior, excitement seeking behavior, is that they're saying, help me find positive and safe excitement.
[00:40:06] And the chapter goes on to tell a few stories about that. And of course again, it's stated that the, the easiest way to understand which mistaken goal your kiddo might be engaging in is how the behavior is making you feel. So yeah, I love that. I mean, I think mistaken goals are so important. I feel like having awareness of them really supports us in looking under the surface of the iceberg.
[00:40:33] And it's also interesting. To think about, especially power struggles, right? Like kids that wanna control the situation tend to have parents that wanna control the situation, right? We get to take a look at our own behavior. We get to take a look at how we're contributing to what is happening. For sure, for sure, for sure.
[00:40:56] What else does this chapter talk about? Oh, the other thing it briefly touches on, we go a lot deeper in our live classes. Which is the four different personality types. The activity in positive discipline is called top card, but basically it is our patterns of behavior that we engage in when we're feeling stressed.
[00:41:20] And there is a piece in the book that kind of breaks down the four different personality types. I promise you, you'll fit somewhere. And you know what? We long for how this personality type, you know, the pros and cons, what we need most, how we can improve, and it's about us. It's not about what are our kids' personality types.
[00:41:41] It's about adult personality types, which again, have been developed over time through experiences and relationship coupled with our temperament. The more we can get to know ourselves, the better we can support our kids. I think. So I really love this chapter. I think it holds up. I read it to reread it today on the plane and took notes, so, so good.
[00:42:10] And you know, the mistaken goal cycle can be broken. It can be broken. So the important thing for you to do is to explore it a little bit further. So read this chapter and figure out how you might be part of the problem. Right? Talk with an objective friend or therapist. Write in your journal. Ask your kid, what do they notice about you?
[00:42:34] What are your tendencies? What are your habits of behavior? And really use that mistaken goal for ideas and suggestions 'cause it is chocked full. And I love at the very end of the chapter, you know, you guys have heard me talk about living out loud. One of the things they suggest is to make some guesses out loud to your teen about what you're thinking might be going on.
[00:42:58] And if your guess is correct, meaning mistaken goal. You'll hit a responsive cord, your child will feel understood and will acknowledge the accurateness of the guests. And if you're wrong, they'll let you know that too. So, yes, I'm into this chapter. I think it's really useful. The reason that I only did one is because next week we're gonna talk about chapter 13, which is what do you do about scary behavior?
[00:43:26] We're gonna talk about when your teens have friends that you don't like when they're engaging in substances, when they're being, you know, overly sexual and risky in their relationships. It's good stuff, and I figured I'd dedicate a whole show to it. We even are gonna talk about suicide and eating disorders.
[00:43:46] Listen, there are parts of the next chapter again, that I think could be updated. With more current research, and we'll talk about that too. But yeah, that's what I've got for you today. That's what I've got for you today. Thank you to Jane Nelson and Lynn Lot for writing Positive discipline for teenagers.
[00:44:04] I think it's such a useful guide for all of us who love and live with and work with teens. The more educated we can become, the more willing we are to do our own work, the better we can show up for them. The less baggage they move into young adulthood and adulthood with. So do your part, read the book, listen to the pod, and I'll see you next week.
[00:44:32] Thank you so much for listening. Thank you to my  Sproutable partners, Julietta and Alanna. 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. 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.
[00:45:00] 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. I see you doing all the things. I believe in you. See you next time.