Eps 623: Saying “No” to our teens

Today Joyful Courage is, once again, meeting life as it unfolds in a way that grows and forwards me and my relationships. Joyful Courage is letting go of resistance, letting go of trying to transfer pain to another person, and instead, using it to get clear on what it is that I DO want.

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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.
[00:01:24] Okay. Hi. Welcome back to the podcast. We have a brand new show today with me. With me and you. Yeah. Just coming in this morning to record and I just wanna acknowledge that I'm moving through some stuff, you guys, I'm moving through some stuff and I'm really working on. Deciding that I want to do whatever I need to do to feel good, to tend to my emotional state and my thoughts, and really find the path that allows me to be in my highest vibration, right?
[00:02:11] Being in the vibration of love and joy and possibility, even when. There are details currently that are trying to bring me down and I know I'm not alone. You know, I just, I just don't want to be a leaf in the wind, you know? And I don't want my experience to be dependent on everybody doing the right thing or doing what I think they should do.
[00:02:45] So anyway, I just feel like I can't record without naming that which is alive in me in this moment. So send me good vibes, send me, well, you don't have to send me anything 'cause I'm taking care of myself. I'm resourced. I know that I have practices and skills to, yeah, to take care of my emotional wellbeing and my spiritual wellbeing.
[00:03:15] Um, yes. Yeah. So I'm giving myself a pep talk here on air. Feel free to use my pep talk if you need it, if you need one too, because Yeah, life keeps life in. Life keeps life in my friends. Okay. Onto what's the topic for today? So, um, this is something that is coming up with my clients and definitely came up for me with my kids.
[00:03:45] I had one kid who would ask me, you know, Hey mom, can I go do this thing? And. I'd gather more information and then I'd either be a yes or a no. And he was pretty good at rolling with. You know, like, no, not yet, or not this time, or this doesn't feel like a really great situation. He might've been disappointed, but he would kind of roll with it.
[00:04:13] And then my other sweet, sweet child would throw these wacky ideas at me and I'd ask for more information. And then I remember coming at her with like a, no, this is not something. That I'm comfortable with, and she would just keep coming at me. And it was so hard with Rowan to be a no, like just her, you know?
[00:04:40] She would get pissed, she would shut down like all the things, and it was so nerve wracking for me to try to hold. My firmness that oftentimes I would be like, you know what, okay, fine, and here's the parameters. And then afterwards I'd be like, why did I say fine? You know, she wore me down, goddam it. And I know all of you have probably some variation of one or both of those kids at your house too, and it's hard, you know, it's hard to say no, or maybe it's not hard for you.
[00:05:17] I mean, it wasn't hard for me to say no, but what was hard was following through on the No, that was hard, and following through and holding space for their emotion and. Ugh. At one point I was like, why do you ask me to like, this is, why are you asking me this? This is crazy pants when you know I'm gonna be a no.
[00:05:40] And she would say, well, you never know unless you ask. Ugh. I talk a lot about confident authority and standing in our truth and. In our firmness and staying connected to the kid in front of us. And you know, I realize, I'm just gonna say it out loud, I realize that a lot of what is talked about here is easier said here on the podcast than it is to actually embody when you're face-to-face with your teenager.
[00:06:08] I know this, right? So if you're like, geez, you know. I wish that I could do these things, like I know it's hard. The practice is hard. Yes. And that doesn't mean it's impossible. So today we're gonna talk about, you know, how we move through these experiences with our teens and use validation and curiosity and really the language of, no, not yet.
[00:06:35] Um, and maybe your story is, you know, your 15-year-old wants to go to an unsupervised party. And you know the answer you wanna give is no, but your heart is racing. Maybe like, do you have those experiences and your jaw gets tight and suddenly you're either shutting down or completely launching into a lecture.
[00:06:54] Like, why are you even asking me this? Um, and what's often happening in your body in that moment, right? That panic and uncertainty for a lot of parents. You know, the experiences, you know that your response. Needs to be a no, not yet. And you're also experiencing your growing teen in front of you, like I said, and they're desperate for the Yes.
[00:07:18] And they see themselves as these mature, capable young people ready to take on the world. And we want our kiddos to understand where we're coming from. We don't want them to feel bad. We want them to agree that our no is the appropriate response. Right. And you know. A lot of us don't want our kids to be mad at us, and some of us struggle more with this than others.
[00:07:44] I know I had a tender spot around this for sure. We question ourselves while we're running the worst case scenarios through our brain and hyperdrive, and again, perhaps we have a kiddo that is leaning hard. Into everybody else can do this. Why are you so out of touch? Like, you know, they're backed in that corner and they say what they need to say and it just feels like so much.
[00:08:09] And there's that gap between knowing intellectually what boundary needs to be set, what the answer needs to be, and actually being able to stay present. And calm while setting it. And that's what we're gonna dig into today. It seems on the surface like it should be basic. And again, maybe you're listening and you're like, this isn't an issue for me.
[00:08:29] Okay, great. It is hard for most of us and it's so dang messy. It's so messy. And for this show. We're not gonna hold the phrase boundaries as our personal boundaries, right? Like as how we're willing to let others treat us, although that definitely comes into play, especially with a kid who is pushing back so hard that they're leaning into personal tax.
[00:08:55] But we are talking about boundaries and rules and expectations that are tied to safety and maturity and just what's developmentally appropriate. And I think it's important for us to kind of dig into the nervous system reality. So many parents I work with know what healthy boundaries look like, but they still struggle in the moment because when you're face to face with your teen, with a teen that really wants what they want.
[00:09:23] It's intense, right? There's high emotion around the requests they've made and maybe big anger or disappointment when they hear no. And the parent nervous system can easily get super hijacked by what the teen does or says in the heat of their anger and disappointment. And here's what happens in the nervous system.
[00:09:42] When our teen is angry about our response and their requests, we experience what's called neuroception. Neuroception, our nervous systems. Automatic subconscious threat detection system kicks into high gear. So within milliseconds, the immediate response is that our amygdala detects their anger cues, right?
[00:10:06] Their raised voice, their facial expression, their body language and tone. And before our thinking brain can even begin to register what's happening, our body is already responding. Right? And I definitely. You know, like, think about it, right? For me, when I get totally thrown off by something, it is a pounding heart.
[00:10:29] It is shaking, it is shortness of breath, right? The body response, stress hormones, such as cortisol and adrenaline just become flooded into our system. And it's a full body experience. It can be a full body experience, and humans are wired for co-regulation, so we naturally sink our nervous systems with those around us when our teen.
[00:10:55] Is dysregulated and angry. Their nervous system is essentially inviting hours to match that state. It's called emotional contagion. Their dysregulation can pull us into dysregulation. We lose access to our prefrontal cortex, right? And we're just riding the train. We're riding the emotional freight train that is our teens.
[00:11:19] Right. Our nervous system interprets their anger as a threat, and we like almost automatically default to those survival instincts. So we either fight, we get defensive, argumentative, louder. We try to match their intensity or we flight, we do flight. We wanna escape, we wanna end the conversation, we wanna withdraw.
[00:11:39] Maybe we freeze. This used to happen to me. We go blank. We can't think, we feel paralyzed. Oh my God, what do I, what am I supposed to do with this? Or we fawn, we cave immediately. We abandon the boundary to restore the peace, right? Most of us fall into one of those four. Or maybe a combination or maybe we start somewhere and then we move somewhere else.
[00:12:05] Uh, it's making my nervous system kick into gear just talking about it. This is evolutionary wiring. Our children's distress is designed. To activate us, we have attachment history. Their anger can trigger our old wounds or fears of disconnection or our own childhood experience with angry adults. We're dealing with two threats simultaneously.
[00:12:32] The external threat, which is their anger, their response, and the internal threat. Our fear of damaging the relationship of being a bad parent, of losing their love, of doing the wrong thing. And these are valid, like that's what I want to say, right? These are valid. The very moment we need to stay regulated, right?
[00:12:55] That moment. We need to hold the boundary clearly and calmly. This is the moment our nervous system's being pulled the hardest towards dysregulation. Their angrier is like a riptide, and staying grounded requires enormous nervous system capacity that most of us haven't been taught to build. Notice that language.
[00:13:16] We haven't been taught to build it. It is possible to build nervous system capacity, right? We talk about it on the podcast, I'm talking about it a lot next month in the Living Joyful Courage Coaching Week, building our nervous system capacity. Is anybody relating to this? I know that I can definitely go back in time, like I've already mentioned a few situations with my own kids.
[00:13:42] And my body gets tight just thinking about these kinds of moments. These kinds of moments suck. They're so hard. And I remember feeling like everything was smooth. And then one of these kinds of requests would come up and I'd be like, oh God, no, you can't do that. And then it felt like everything would crumble, and I very much felt like I was really aware of.
[00:14:04] You know, they could get sneaky. They could do it anyway, you know, what am I willing to do? And that was a mind melter too. And you know what typically happens when we lay down a boundary or a no from that heightened state of dysregulation when we continue to engage, even when we're spinning out from the place of worry or fear, we create even more dysregulation or disconnection and it becomes harder to recover, right?
[00:14:30] It's not useful. So the aftermath is not our kids considering. Whether or not it's a good idea for them to drive across state lines with their brand new, you know, driver's license and go to a concert. But instead we want, what we want them to sit inside of is like, yeah, I guess this makes sense. But instead, most of them are sitting inside of my parent is the worst.
[00:14:53] They don't get it. I can't trust them. I'll show them I can do it anyway. I want them to hurt as much as I hurt. Like they just, you know, they're in that unskilled. Reactive state, which is not, you know, it's not useful. It's not a place where they learn. When we do the work of staying grounded through these tough conversations and keep our nervous system intact, staying off of their emotional freight train.
[00:15:24] Remember the emotional freight train? I write about it in my book. I've talked about it on the podcast. It's that. Automatic pickup of the nervous system. And then we're, you know, the next thing we know, we're freaking out. Emotional freight train. We wanna stay off their emotional freight train. And then we're creating an environment when we can do that.
[00:15:43] Stay grounded, stay, keep our nervous system intact. We're creating an environment that's more likely to help them accept the boundary, even when they're kind of mad or annoyed or disappointed about it.
[00:16:04] So let's get into it. Curiosity. I talk so much about curiosity on the podcast, and I've spent a lot of time talking about curiosity as a communication tool, right? Something that supports our kids in their critical thinking development curiosity to help them ask those questions as they moving through the world or making decisions.
[00:16:30] Well, today we're gonna talk about. Curiosity as a tool for co-regulation. And there's another tool I think that's really important in this kind of scenario, and that's validation. Equally valid, separate realities is what comes to mind here. Oftentimes when our kids come to us with something that they want, which is typically like a plan or an event or something that is like, oh my God, no.
[00:16:57] We're thrown off and that's, you know, like I just demonstrated our immediate response is like, uh, hell no. Right? Some examples that I've heard recently from clients and my own kids, right? Can I drive two states away to visit a friend? It's only 12 hours and I'm a good driver and they've had their license for two months.
[00:17:16] Can I go into the city for a concert on a weeknight, right, two hours away in a car full of kids with a teen driver? Can I go to this party I heard about on Snapchat there's a $30 cover fee and no adults will be there. It's an abandoned house. Uh, I've heard this. This is the thing. Can I stay out till 3:00 AM with no explanation of why they need to be out so late?
[00:17:38] Can I stay over at a friend's house and it's a friend and a family that you've never met before? You catch my drift, right? You. You know what I'm talking about. And I remember when these kinds of requests, they just felt relentless and I started to feel resentful, like I said earlier, why are you asking me about these things that are obviously gonna be a no.
[00:17:59] I actually asked my kid that one time, like I said, and, and she was like, well, I never know until I ask. You know, I wonder too, thinking about the relationships that I've had with my kids and how open they are and how willing my kids are to bring me things like this is kind of. The dark underbelly that it's like, oh, right, you're gonna talk about things with me and you're gonna request things and you're gonna let me know.
[00:18:24] I remember one time freshman year, and there was a request, like, oh, there's this party and the old older sibling rented an Airbnb for all of us, and there's a bunch of kids going and. Everybody's spending the night and yes, there's gonna be drinking and pot smoking and I mean, laid it out. And at the time I remember asking like, do you think other kids are asking their parents about this?
[00:18:52] Or do you think they're just creating like, I would've done, uh, good solid lie to get to do what they wanna do, you know? And we had a conversation about that and we had a conversation about how uncomfortable it was for me. To know all the details while also appreciating that that's where our relationship is.
[00:19:14] Ugh. So messy, right? It's so messy. And so yeah, we get thrown off even before there's any kind of nervous system hijacking, if that makes sense. And in that. You know when we say like, hell no. Or some version of it, maybe we are convinced or maybe we're convinced to be a yes, and then we have to go back right in the moment.
[00:19:38] It's like they make a compelling argument. How could I say no? I don't have a good reason to say no, so I'm gonna say yes. And then we sit on it and we're like, oh God, that is not. Okay, so we have to go back and say, actually the more I think about it, the more this is a no, not yet, not now. And maybe that's when the dysregulation happens.
[00:19:59] Either way in the moment of the request, if we can keep our wits about us, the most useful thing to do. Is to meet them where they're at, to let them know that you hear them, and it could sound like, wow, that's a big request. Or that's, you know, I, I, I get that, that sounds like a good time. I understand why you'd wanna do that.
[00:20:20] Right? Meet them where they're at and validate that it makes sense that they're asking for this. And then we get to move towards curiosity. And here's the thing about curiosity. When we train ourselves to go there, we activate the seeking system in the brain, which is a different neuro pathway than the fear or threat system.
[00:20:41] So curiosity engages the prefrontal cortex, which again is our thinking brain, which sends calming signals down to the amygdala. It keeps us. Regulated and grounded. We literally cannot be fully curious and fully in threat mode. At the same time, they're competing neuro states, right? So we wanna activate the seeking system.
[00:21:08] We wanna activate curiosity. It's like shifting the gears in the nervous system from that defend attack. To the explore and understand. And as we do this for ourselves, we're also sending energetic signals to our teenager in front of us, right through being less sharp or defensive. Our body language can shift from like that closed protective fighter stance, slightly more open.
[00:21:37] Our teen's nervous system picks up on these cues through their. Neuroception, right? Their system senses that we're not in attack mode, and this can begin to deescalate their anger because they're no longer perceiving us as a threat to fight against. Right? And this is not about being fake nice. This isn't about faking it.
[00:21:59] Genuine curiosity is not the same as performing calm or pretending to be okay. It's the authentic. I don't have all the information yet. Stance, right? It creates some spaciousness, a momentary gap between stimulus and response, right? This spaciousness thing, it's real. It slows down the train. It slows down the moment.
[00:22:24] It gives you a chance to recognize, okay, this worries me. I'm not into this request. I'm starting to dysregulate, and that's not helpful. I know that's not helpful. I need to take care of myself to be with this in a way that is useful, right? Even if we're still gonna hold the boundary, curiosity buys us the seconds that we need to keep our brain in the thinking brain mode, right?
[00:22:51] Curiosity sounds like a lot of things. So let's play with language when they first make the request. Right. Instead of the immediate like, oh hell no. You might say something like, tell me more about this party. What's drawing you to wanna go? Help me understand what you're picturing for how the night might go.
[00:23:12] What feels important about going with this specific group of people? Walk me through what you know about the setup. Who's hosting, what's the plan? I would also, I, you know, and something I also asked would be like, tell me about how you're gonna stay safe if things get weird. You know, I wanted to hear from them what was going on in their brain.
[00:23:34] Right? And when you feel your body tightening, you might be able to buy yourself a little bit of time to regulate. By saying things like, I'm noticing that I'm having a big reaction to this and I wanna understand what you're asking before I can respond. Tell me more. Right? Or it could sound like, hold on, I really want to hear you.
[00:23:57] What are you most excited about with this? Or, I need a second to think, but first, help me understand what you're imagining. And when we have delivered, like, Nope, sorry babe. Not this time. Not yet. How do we show up? What's the language when they push back? How can we be curious when they're pushing back instead of defending our stance or lecturing about why we're taking the stance we're taking, we could lean into curiosity and, and it could sound like you sound really frustrated with me right now.
[00:24:31] What feels unfair about this to you? I hear that this matters to you. Tell me what you think I'm worried about. What do you wish I understood about why you're ready for something like this? And you know, you could say even, I'm curious, what do you think would need to be different for me to feel okay with this?
[00:24:54] Right. So again, you're using curiosity One to keep your brain regulated. Two, to create a bridge, you know, for them to step across and stay regulated. You're gathering information, you're getting a better picture of the kiddo in front of you, right? You're helping them move into a space of acceptance.
[00:25:19] And sometimes we have to name that developmental piece, right? So when we frame the not yet with curiosity, it could sound like, you know, I wonder if part of what makes this hard is that you feel really ready for more freedom then you really are. 'cause there's a lot of variables that. You know, are exist in this situation.
[00:25:43] Does that make sense? Or help me understand, do you feel ready for this or does part of you feel kind of nervous? I remember that request to go to the Airbnb party. I remember asking my kiddo like, I could see how this sounds super fun. And I'm wondering like, how do you feel about this? Like when you really think it through, is there parts of this that make you feel uncomfortable?
[00:26:08] Or it could be, I'm curious about what you think the hard parts of this might be if you're being honest. And again, if it feels like you're leading them into a trap, they're not gonna respond from that really honest, self-reflective place. And you can name that too. These questions probably feel like a trap.
[00:26:29] They're probably feeling like I'm leading you to where I want you to go. But honestly, genuinely most important to me. Is creating a space where we can both be critical thinkers, right? And sometimes we hear from our kiddos like, well, my friends get to do it, and blah, blah, blah. And we could stay curious instead of defensive there too.
[00:26:51] Right. Tell me more about what your friend's parents said yes to. I'm curious what their thinking was or. I wonder if it feels like I don't trust you when it looks like other parents are trusting their kids. Is that what this brings up for you? And what do you imagine is different about how your friend's parents see this versus how I'm seeing it?
[00:27:12] Right. So asking questions, and you know, like I said, there's also the reality that a lot of kids don't share. They don't ask. They roll with it, they make it happen. They get sneaky, they lie. Right, because they don't believe that they can talk about this stuff with their parents. And curiosity is useful when we do fly off the handle and we lose it and we aren't our best selves and we get hijacked by the teen nervous system or our own emotional freight train, right?
[00:27:44] Curiosity can also create repair. So it could sound like I didn't, I wasn't, I didn't stay curious. I went straight into fear and control. Tell me what that was like for you, or I'm wondering what you needed from me when you made that request in that moment that I didn't give you, or help me understand what would've felt better, even if the answer was still gonna be a no.
[00:28:08] So you get to grow through these experiences together. Curiosity creates this opportunity. To grow and be better for each other, right? Especially when it's coupled with authenticity and humility and transparency. It can just be such a powerful mender of re not only mending relationship, but strengthening relationship and your tone behind the words matters, right?
[00:28:42] You want to be. Genuinely curious and not slide into manipulation. So something to keep in mind is pace, right? Pausing and waiting for their answer. Recognizing, and this is something that's really real and alive for me right now. I'm an external processor. Like I can talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. I wanna talk, talk, talk, talk, talk.
[00:29:08] Is it useful? Maybe it's. Maybe it is to a degree and then maybe it stops being useful. Maybe it's a tool to kind of hurt. I don't know. I have to explore my own stuff and recently I got into, I had a situation happen and the other person is not an external processor, and so I really am working on like being in their space of quiet, like, how are we, what could it look like to move through this?
[00:29:38] Their way, which feels a little, feels a little passive aggressive. Anyway, side note. Okay, so pace. You actually pause and wait for their answer. Body language. You lean in, lean in a little bit, lean towards them. Soften your face. Unc unclench your jaw, right? Let your body tell a story of I've got this. We've got this.
[00:30:02] I'm okay with this. I can be with this. Your tone. Is there Wonder when you are curious, is there wonder in your voice? Or is there sarcasm or is it an interrogation? Right? And then intention, you're asking, you're asking these questions because you genuinely don't know their internal experience, not because you're setting a trap, right?
[00:30:26] I think that's so, God, that's so powerful in so many situations. You don't know their internal experience, right? And so curiosity from a place of, I wanna understand, I wanna understand this, I wanna understand what's going on for you, versus I want you to say something that I can continue to be mad at, or, you know, or passive aggressive about, or hurtful or, you know, weaponize.
[00:30:58] That's, that's manipulation. That's not curiosity. The key is that curiosity sounds like an invitation to be known rather than a cross examination. Oh man, this is so powerful. It sounds like you have space inside yourself to hear something you don't already know, even if the boundary isn't gonna change and you are offering a genuine experience to your teen of feeling seen and heard again, even if you're a no.
[00:31:25] Right? Not yet. You're sending a message of what you want matters to me, and I'm interested in how you're thinking about this. I'm open to hearing you out. Hearing them out may lead to alternative plans that can become win-wins. This is useful, right? It could lean into some joint problem solving, some collaboration.
[00:31:44] It could strengthen relationship. And when our team believes that we're open to listening and considering what they have to say, we're nurturing relationship, we're nurturing the possibility that they are gonna continue to wanna share with us, and. Full permission to say no, not yet. You're the leader of the household, right?
[00:32:06] You get to have the final say. The invitation that I'm offering you here is to be a leader that is encouraging and pragmatic, and aren't those the leaders that we are currently longing for in all areas right now? Leaders that are encouraging and pragmatic. Leaders that listen, leaders that care. About the experiences of others.
[00:32:29] We get to be those leaders. We get to be confident authorities in our families. This is an energy that we bring to exchanges that we have with our kids. Confident Authority. I've talked about it before, but I think it really fits here. Confident authority is a grounded energy. It's a message of, like I've said, I've got this.
[00:32:50] I can be here with this. I've got you. I can handle the emotions that are coming up. For me and for you, and I can stay in my own experience. Confident Authority is loving and compassionate as well as strong with some resignation like yes. I'm planted. We know our role when we're in this energy, we know our responsibility.
[00:33:17] We feel connected to our values, and we trust that whatever happens, whatever's happening in front of us is temporary, and we lean into trusting the process and trusting ourselves, believing in our teen's ability to move through their emotional distress.
[00:33:43] Confident authorities can say, I know I hear you. You're not happy with my response, and I also know that you can handle it. You can get through it. I know that you growing and maturing, and that the day will come when I can be a yes about this, or you get to choose for yourself about this particular request.
[00:34:04] What confident authority isn't is it's not that big tall power over energy, right? Instead, it's a steady, low connection to the earth. Like just, I don't know. I don't know how else to put it other than like you're just, you're rooted and you're connected. Does that make sense? And we can try. Let's try some embodiment if you can.
[00:34:29] If you're in a situation right now, if you're not driving. I encourage you to do this. If not, take note of the time in this podcast where we're doing this and come back to it. So I want you to close your eyes if it's safe, and picture your teen in front of you asking to do the thing that you know is a not yet.
[00:34:49] And now picture that experience of getting tall and kind of leaning over them. Imagine the energy that comes with that. Hell no. Not in my house. Not while you're living under my roof. Notice your thoughts and beliefs about yourself and your teen. Notice what's happening in your body. Notice their response.
[00:35:09] And when I do this, I see myself in lecture mode, in dictator mode. I, I kind of wanna, I lash out, right? And I see my kids, you know, maybe shrinking away, withdrawing with defiance, going underground, it does not feel sustainable or useful. There's an underlying feeling for me of panic, of desperation of, oh God, out of control, right?
[00:35:36] This feels out of control. Okay, shake that off and take it a deep breath. We're gonna clear that out, and I want you to see that same teen in front of you making the same request, right? And now I want you to feel your feet on the floor. Feel the connection to the earth below you, to the steady presence of the ground.
[00:36:05] Feel the connection. Feel your connection to your values, to your confidence, to your worth, right? Feel the strength in your legs, the flexibility in your body. If you wanna move your shoulders a little bit, open your heart. Notice what happens here. Here you are standing in front of this teen in your grounded response.
[00:36:32] What are your thoughts? What are your beliefs about yourself, about the kid in front of you and what is available from this place? Uh, such a powerful practice, right? It's a reminder that there is so much more possibility. There's, there can be some ease. It does require us to let go, which is tricky, right?
[00:37:01] Let go of needing to be right. That's really hard for me in some relationships that I have that desire to be right, to be told, you're right, I'm wrong. I did the wrong thing. I shouldn't have done that. We get to release that. We get to stay grounded in our values. We get to be the creators of our own experience, right?
[00:37:25] And this is how we build the bridge. This is how we stay. On the path towards how we wanna show up as parents and as humans, even when other people's behaviors push us off the rails. When our kids push us off the rails, when we get to pay attention, we get to pay attention and do, do what's helpful to us.
[00:37:48] Right? We can. You can. This is available to all of us. I can, it just requires practice and compassion. Compassion for yourself first and foremost, because no matter what your human and your emotions will get the best of you, sometimes you will fly off the handle and that's okay. You get to recover and you get to come back and remember what is the most important thing to you.
[00:38:17] What do you want to create? And you know it, you've heard me say it. Parenting is the personal growth and development workshop that you didn't know you signed up for. And I would say really any relationship. You know, I think our romantic relationships are partnerships. Those are also the personal growth and development workshops that you didn't know you signed up for.
[00:38:39] Right. You can resist growth. You can resist looking at your own stuff. I wouldn't recommend it, or you can embrace it and you can let the experiences of being in relationship. Show you where you can continue to expand as a human. And this is a gift to the other people as well as a gift to you, right? The lessons that show up as we move through hard things.
[00:39:07] For the context of this podcast, it's through the season of, you know, hard teen years. There are plenty of lessons here for us. There are plenty of opportunities. To direct that curiosity to ourselves. And when I work with parents that are open to growth, there's ease and possibility in our phone calls, in our coaching calls, right?
[00:39:29] And when I've worked with parents who only see the challenges in their home being about their kiddos, and don't lean into how they may be influencing the dynamic. Things remain hard and disconnected and there isn't ease. Right. I've had a few instances where I'll work with a couple and one of the parents is kind of being dragged in and the energy, right.
[00:39:51] I noticed for me, when I was a less experienced coach, I realized like, oh, I have to convince this person that what they're doing isn't useful. Right, or I have to convince them that I'm giving them good quality coaching and, and that is not, you know, now I'm very clear when a couple wants to work with me to ask like, is everybody ready to grow?
[00:40:17] Is everybody ready to look at their own stuff and how they're influencing the dynamic? That is part of the explore call. And if the answer is not a yes, then it's not a good fit, right? So what do you want? What do you want to create? What do you want for your kids and yourself in the long term? How do you wanna feel about navigating challenges?
[00:40:39] When you look back 10 years from now? And again, we're talking about teens, but this could be so many different scenarios and relationships in your life. What do you want? What do you wanna create? What do you want for the long term? How do you wanna feel about the way you're navigating challenges when you look back 10 years from now?
[00:40:58] These are important questions to ask yourself and to get honest about. This is deep and important work, right? This is bigger than just how to say no, so they don't freak out. Think about this. A generation of parents engaging in these questions and these practices, a generation of parents who lean into being confident authorities, compassionate and curious, they are raising a generation of kids that will show up better for everyone.
[00:41:28] And man, God, do we need that right now? Yes. Yes. Okay, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna lay on the plane now. Thank you for listening. You've got this, you've got this, and you don't have to do it alone. I'm just gonna remind you that I have places and spaces for community and support, and I'm sure that there are local places for you to find parents support groups as well, or circles of friends that you're just deciding.
[00:41:56] You know what, I'm gonna be a little bit more forthcoming. I'm gonna share a little bit more honestly about what I'm going through, and maybe we can grow together. You know, here's what I've got for you. The Joyful Courage for Parents of Teens Facebook group. It's free. I pop in there every now and again.
[00:42:11] The community is really supportive and encouraging and you know. Again, it's free. It's a free space for parents of teens to ask questions. I've got the Living Joyful Courage Membership Program, which is a year long program where I'm doing workshops, I'm doing group calls. You get individual one-on-one coaching, and if you're listening in November, 2025, I have an amazing program that is happening the first week of December.
[00:42:41] You probably heard an ad for it as you came into this show. Probably got an email about it. If you're on my newsletter list, you probably saw me post something about social media. I'm blanketing the joyful courage ecosystem with marketing about this program 'cause it is so amazing and I want you to come.
[00:43:01] It's called Living Joyful Courage Coaching Week. Right? And I'm gonna be offering what a month of membership looks like in one week for a very low price point. Because I want you to see it. I know applying and joining a program that's a year long and you don't know anything about it can feel like a big step.
[00:43:19] So I'm giving you a little step
[00:43:25] Ljc Coaching Week, December 1st through the fifth. You can find out about it at the sprout.com/ljc. Coach Week, all one word. Or if you're like, you know what? I need to go even harder and I need to do some one-on-one work. Let's get on a call. Let's, let's do a call. I do free 15 minute calls. You can go to b sprout.com/explore.
[00:43:48] I've got you. I know this is tricky. I've walked the path, I'm walking the path. This is the work, right? How are we showing up to the experiences that we're having? How are we growing as humans? And how are we resourcing ourselves to do it? This is the work of being human and you know, no better time than now.
[00:44:14] You can do it. You can do it. And I've got you. Alright, thank you so much for being here. If you have any questions or follow up or wonders about this pod or things that I brought up. Shoot me an email [email protected] and uh, yeah, just keep growing through what you're going through, friends, and I'm over here doing the same.
[00:44:36] Love you. Love you. Bye.
[00:44:42] 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 Pods 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.
[00:45:10] 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 [email protected]. I see you doing all the things. I believe in you. See you next time.