Ep 69: It's Not Luck! How to Parent Preteens without Conflict!

We all change. We all evolve, it is part of our human nature. But how have you been doing → evolving WITH the people in your life? Your significant relationships will change as you do, and as they do. This is especially true in parenting. 

No one gets lucky. Good kids don’t magically appear.  Kids that make healthy decisions, regulate their emotions and have connected relationships with their parents, as more to do with how you grow with them through the years. 

If you can embrace the notions of this growth in parenting, you can stop worrying, and on this week’s episode we are talking about how to make this happen! 

Let’s Dive in!

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Transcript

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Welcome back to The Peaceful Home Podcast. My name is Pam, and I am your host. And today we are talking all about the evolution of parenting, specifically parenting those preteen and teenage years, and why it can be so difficult and what to do about it. So if that is you, if your kids are in this stage or are about to be in this stage, and by the way, pre-teen starts at about eight or nine years old. So if that's you, let's dive in. And if it's not you, maybe you'll pick up some tips along the way. I hear it all the time. Why is my child so difficult? All they do is talk back. God, can't I just get a break? The idea, the notion, every time I talk about this idea, this concept in public, On social media at trainings that I'm offering, or on my podcast, the statement that I always get from moms, what you are always telling me is that when you are sliding into the preteen years, when your child is 8, 9, 10 years old, what you start to hear from people in your world is, oh, good luck. As a matter of fact, I had a mom comment recently on one of the platforms, I think it was TikTok. That she was so grateful to hear that parenting this age does not have to be hard because she has three kids moving into this developmental stage and has been told by people in her life that she's got about a decade of hell in front of her. Now, can you imagine being told that in the context of parenting your children, these kids that you love, it's crazy, right? But it's true, and it's how we have perceived as a culture, parenting this age. Now parenting any age comes with its own challenges. You've probably noticed that when you're pregnant, people told you their horrific birth stories. When you had an infant that was not sleeping or not eating well, or maybe you didn't have anything going on, but you had an infant, so people started telling you about how their baby didn't sleep and about how you can look forward to at least a year of no sleep about how they were fussy and they wouldn't eat and they didn't like those foods, and don't feed them that food because they won't like it. They tell you their own stories, their own experiences, and we take this on. Then you get to the toddler years and it's oh, that's terrible. The terrible twos, and then you get through the. That age, the two, and then they go, oh I forgot to tell you that threes are worse. You and I, we have these beliefs that have come from other people. I remember when my daughter was three or four years old thinking, okay, so what is this that people are saying that toddlers. And preschoolers are so challenging. Well, the reason they're challenging is because that is the first time developmentally, that they want to be separate from you, that they wanna do it themselves. And I've heard stories, I've heard adults tell me about themselves when they were 2, 3, 4 years old. And the stories that get repeated back to them was, you were so stubborn and independent and you always wanna do it on your own. Well, yes, it's a survival mechanism. It's something that we do and something that we experience developmentally so that we can see ourselves as separate than our mothers. It's the only way we'll survive. But as moms, we personalize it, right? We go like, why is this kid acting this way with me? And I'll be honest with you. It's this personalization that actually causes the problems. So you have these toddlers that are acting out. You're taking it personal. You're making it mean something about you. You're a bad mother. You didn't do something right. Whatever other stories have been told to you in your past about what is the right way to do things. If you're not doing it that way, then you contribute your child's behavior. To that. And you make it about you and your parenting. That's not, what's going up. It's not about you and your parenting. It's about, there need to be separate from you. Developmentally. Then we move into preschool into elementary school age. And kids start getting influenced from the outside. As soon as they're in school, whether they're going to preschool at three years old, or whether they're in first grade or kindergarten. As soon as they start going to school, you start seeing behaviors in them. And we start attributing it to spending time with other kids. Oh, my kid learned how to spit by being with this other child. Oh, my kid is now saying mine and hitting or swatting there. Younger siblings or me. Or being demanding of me or whatever other things, whatever other behaviors or actions we're seeing in our young school aged children. And we equate that to the shift in school and they're learning these new things and now look at what's happening we have a problem on our hands and this might even be reinforced by the school system. Because this is the timeframe, this elementary school kindergarten, first grade, second grade. This is the timeframe we're asking our kids to learn how to conform. To stand in line, raise their hand, ask permission to speak, to use the bathroom, or we're creating this environment. Or we're putting them into this environment that is creating for us. Kids that obey. And if your child is not one who obeys, if your child is one who has opinions and pushes back. We see that as great leadership qualities and adulthood, but a lot of times educational systems, grandparents, sometimes even the co-parent and sometimes ourselves, we look at a child's behavior. We look at our kid's behavior and we go. There's something not right here. There's a problem here. This child is not conforming. The way that these other kids are. They're not obeying. We can have a whole conversation about this concept. But that is what occurs in early elementary school. Yes. They learn their letters and their numbers and they learn how to read and write and how to do basic math arithmetic. They start to learn more complex. Educational matters. The relationships start to get a little bit more complex because you're not the one that is. Regulating the relationships. Then they start to slide into the preteen years. Now, the preteen years start as soon as third grade. Now. What do I mean by this? When I say preteen or pre adolescents, what am I talking about? Developmentally the preteen behaviors start in third grade. This is where we start seeing kids. Driven by their social connections. They get kind of cliquey at school. This is where you very clearly see if your child is one who fits in with their peers or does not as an outlier. There's nothing wrong with that. But from a teacher perspective, teachers are gonna look at that and go, your child is developing normally socially or not. I need you to understand, you need to take that with a grain of salt, because so much of that has to do with who your child is as a human being. And then I have a parenting that you've offered them. And honestly the healthy and well-adjusted adolescent is not one that in third grade conforms, it is not one that in third grade, Starts to be driven by their peer associations. And falls into cliques and starts following a leader of sorts. Those are out the healthy relationships. The healthy relationships. Are those that have healthy relationship skills? Are the ones that start to buck the system. The ones that start to go. I don't think so. I don't think this is what's going to drive or motivate me. And then the major shift comes. And the major shift being, they start to develop opinions of their own. They start to push back. You put a limit in place. They pushed back on it. You communicate a need, a want or desire, and they don't agree with you. This is the timeframe developmentally. We, you start saying my God, I have said to them like a thousand times, and then you repeat the statement that you've said to them a thousand times that they just don't seem to be getting, because what's happening is instead of you being their primary guide, They start to rely on themselves, their peers. Or. Others outside of you. To guide them. I need you to understand that this is developmentally appropriate. It also means that if you want to continue to be a resource and a guide to them at this point, And beyond this point, you have to start evolving how you parent them. The attitude of, because I said so does not work. Anymore. And as they get further and further into these pre-teen years, They start to develop their own opinions about you. And about the value that you are offering. Offering them. This means there might be more conflict. There might be more resistance, more defiance. There may be more eye-rolling more walking away, more storming off. They may be less likely to be willing to accept. Your truth at face value and want evidence. Now for some of us, this is okay for others. Remaking it mean something about us as parents. And oftentimes if you have a story about not being a good parent, or you're saying that some behavior, attitude or practice of your child is making you not a good parent or is looking poorly on you or reflecting poorly on you, or you get worried about things like being on time and the way that your kids are dressing and all the other kind of external factors. Chances are you are carrying around a story that says there is a formula. There is a specific set of rules for good parents and you're not following it. This is a story. This is not a truth. This is a story that you're experiencing or belief that you have in your own head. And you now get the opportunity to challenge that. Because there is no one perfect parent. There is no one perfect parenting style. There's no one. Choice or decision or moment in your parenting career? That makes or breaks it. So even if you're parenting a 15 year old and you're thinking. Gosh, I lost them five years ago and it's been conflict ever since, and I don't know what to do and I just throw up my hands and I go, nevermind. You have the opportunity to evolve. Have the opportunity to approach the situation differently. See the thing about parenting at this stage. Is not that. There's one best way to do it. It's kind of like Goldilocks and the three bears. That there are some. Strategies, some approaches that work better. For some kids and some approaches that work better for other kids. And your job as a parent is defined that just right fit for your child. But that begins with understanding what their needs are. And if you've ever parented an adolescent. You know, That most of them are not great about telling you what their needs are. Not in words. Anyway, they don't specifically say, Hey mom, I'm struggling with this. Emotion or this thought or this experience, or I feel out of control and I'm not really sure what to do with it. They're most of them aren't saying that. Most of them are stomping up the stairs, slamming their bedroom doors, screaming at the top of their lungs that they hate you. Most of them are acting in a way that has you as a parent going. Gosh, what is the best consequence or punishment or what do I need to put in place to get this child to stop behaving this way? And I'm just going to tell you that doesn't work at this stage. It doesn't work. And you already know that. If you're parenting at the stage, you already know. That yelling and taking things away and giving them consequences and grounding them and punishing them and limiting their access to the things that they enjoy. Like spending time with their friends or being on technology. That doesn't work. It doesn't work. It doesn't change the behavior. Not long-term, it's not a solution. Now. You might be thinking well, when I yell at my kid, they stop yelling at me. When I take away their phone, they respect me. They stopped talking back. That's not what they're doing. They're shutting down. And this shutting down, this begins as early as infancy. When a human being is startled. Or afraid. And they don't feel like their needs are going to be met. They shut down. So if an infant is crying because they need something. And it's not being attended to. And a parent or a caregiver screams at them to shut up. Guess what they're going to. And I saw this. Back. 25 years ago when I first started working in the field. And I was a parenting educator. I thought all the time, because population I worked with at that time, Was families that were at risk of abuse and neglect. And they've just didn't have the skills. And they would say to me, well, it works when I yelled them, it works. Of course it works. Their nervous system tells them. To not feel to not show emotion because it puts them at risk. The same holds true with adolescence. The same holds true with adults. When you yell at them enough. One of two things happens. Usually in a lot of cases, both things happens. You get the same behavior mirrored, back to you. And the result of that behavior, that interaction. Is someone who is disconnected. And someone who is numbing. Not feeling emotionally. And you know what happens when we numb. When we start out in childhood or adolescence, numbing, trying not to feel. It becomes hard because this is the developmental phase where emotions get bigger. They're supposed to have bigger emotions. They're supposed to have an attitude they're supposed to storm up the stairs because they're mad at you and they don't know how to process it. That's what they're supposed to do. And your job is allow them to do that. Because when you don't, when you tell them not to stop up your stairs and who do they think they are, and if they slam their door, you're going to take it off the hinges. And what you're telling them is they're not allowed to feel. And when they can't feel they need to do something with it. So they stuff it. But you can only stuff emotions for so long. Especially if they're still in there in their emotive state. So they start to numb. This is why adolescents. I start to resort to things. That as parents, you don't want them doing smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol, smoking, weed, getting high on other substances. Cutting. Self abusive or self mutilating behaviors. All of that stuff comes from a place of not being allowed to feel. Being told that feeling is bad or wrong. And then as a result, they are bad or wrong. I can't regulate my emotions. I can't regulate my thoughts. I can't make myself feel okay. So I'm going to find something that allows me to not feel at all. And as adolescents, they have access to substances. And I'm not talking about going out to parties. I'm talking about, you know, drinking a bottle of Robitussin that's in your medicine cabinet right now. I'm talking about taking your meds, pain pills, whatever is around the house. Benadryl right. Allergy meds, whatever they can get their hands on. To feel a little bit less. And if that's, if you're like, oh my God, I'm terrified of that. Yeah, you should be. I mean, you should be, this should be a driving force in how you parent your pre-teens, your adolescents, your, and your teenagers. And I don't want you to sit in the closet and be afraid. I don't want you to sit in your closet and be terrified and pack about it. I want you to recognize it. That is a risk. So to mitigate risk. We teach our kids how to feel. We allow them to feel we embrace their feelings. This is what the evolution of parenting looks like. You stop telling them how to feel and what to do in situations you start empowering them to make their own choices. And I'm not just talking about what they wear for clothes, although that's an easy one. How they cut their hair and that's fine. I'm talking about when they're having an experience. You allow them to experience it. And I'm talking about going, as far as the language, looking at your own language. We have a running joke in my family. That is for sure, not a joke. And it started with one day when my husband said to my 13 year old. Have a good day. And I piped up and said, If that's what you choose. And he was like, what are you talking about? And I was like, well, I mean, if she doesn't want to have a good day, does she have to. Does she have to, because you said somewhere, does she get to choose. And it's not something, you know, you might be like, oh, Pam, you're being ridiculous. And at the time he kind of said the same thing. He was like, What are your ridiculous. But then he thought about it and he was like, yeah, you know, In any circumstance where I'm coming in and giving her direction, even if it's something like it's, that's just uh, a pleasant thing we say. It's a pleasantry. We say to someone we see we're leaving or ending a conversation, you say, Hey, have a good day. You know, but what we're saying to them is that I know better than, you know, And when we're talking about adolescents, like fully formed, fully functional, healthy adults to say to one another, have a great day. What we're expressing is our hope for you. And the other adult gets out. When you say that to a 13 year old. That maybe is not feeling that way. The message that they get is this is how I'm supposed to show up for you. Then my job is to show up for you the way that you want me to show up. And that's not what I want to teach my kid. I want my kid to have the ability to decide. And then we talk about. The. The power and the privilege that goes along with being able to decide. Being able to make the choice. And she'll say things like, cause she's 14 now and you'll say things like I'm so pissed and I'm like, okay. Is there anything that I can do to support you? She usually says no. Okay. And sometimes she'll let it stew and she's I'm just gonna go to my room. Okay. Great. She let it stew for a while and then she'll come back and she'll say I'm still really pissed or she'll bring up something that happened three weeks ago that she was pissed about. And I'll say, I'm curious, are you still mad about that? Are you still hanging on to that? And sometimes she says yes, and usually to be a hundred percent transparent, honest with my kid. It is. Food-related like. And dab dropped my whatever, and then I didn't have it. I'm like, okay. So then I had no leftovers. Okay. Or he left, but left a, I made a homemade pizza and he left the leftovers on the counter all night and he told me he would put them away and he didn't. And so then I had to be thrown away and I didn't get to eat it. And I'm like, Okay, we're still talking about this. Okay. Okay. I got it. And in my head, I might be like, oh my God, Marla. Seriously, but to her, I say, okay, how can I help you? To heal this struggle, this resentment. That's now forming. And then we talk about what resents resentments do. What are resentments, do they poison us? They poison our body. They poison our mind. And she understands. We've had this conversation a million times that. Unspent emotions when you hang onto stuff and you stuff it, and you don't feel it. And. Maybe you're not going to go towards the path of substance use. She is a kid that her father has been in substance abuse treatment. As a provider he's worked in the field of addiction and mental health for 30 plus years. And for the first 10 years of her life, he was the program director at a methadone clinic. And so she heard all about. What methadone is what it does and what the what's going on in the world. Cause she grew up in a timeframe where we were in a epidemic. An opiate crisis and opiate epidemic in the region that we live in. It was in the news every day. People were dying overdoses and yes, that's still going on, but this was as it all bubbled to the surface. And so we talked about it a lot. She heard about it a lot. She's like at five or six years old is talking about how. Heroin is terrible and it kills you. Yup. Sure does. So, she's not a kid that's going to go. To that place. She's not a kid that's going to go and use substances. And she's already said, she's I am all set. I've seen what that does to people. I'm good. I don't want any of that. And it's just how her brain works. She's Nope. I'm going to learn from other people's mistakes. Great. I know that not every kid is like that. I was not like that. I was a kid that was like, I need to learn my own mistakes. It doesn't matter what you've done. My husband was for sure. Okay. That. That needed to learn from his own mistakes. 15 times before he got it. And still sometimes he didn't get it. So. She comes by it honestly, but totally fine. She's a kid that's going to learn from other people's mistakes. Great. But you know what else? Happens when you don't feel your emotions when you stuff them. When you. Push trauma into your body is with women in particular. As we start to experience. Injury. Pain. Illness and disease. So you might have an area of the body or well, I don't know what happened, but I have a little injury there or something tweaked there. And then it's oh, now I'm experiencing some pain and now there's more discomfort. And now there's more illness there. And then that becomes disease. When I was a college professor. I would say probably. I was a college professor in social work. So the majority of my students were female. And I would say a good 70% of them in every single class I taught because I taught human. Biology. For social, the social sciences, we talked about the nervous system and all the different body systems and how they're all interconnected and how all that works. And I would say 70% of the classes. Of my students in my classes over the years that I taught that class. Discussed things like IBS. Food allergies, other digestive health disorders. Crohn's disease colitis, diverticulitis all sorts of different. Digestive health illnesses. And I'm like, yeah, usually this is the digestive track. Usually it is the digestive track that. Things start to show up. Stress starts to show up. And so. Having this understanding of how the system is all connected together and inflammation and chronic inflammation and what that looks like. And yes, I can do more content on that. If you're interested, let me know. But Marley's like, dude, if I'm not going to feel these emotions and I'm not going to share what I'm experiencing, I'm going to get cancer. And I'm all set with that. And that's her understanding of all of this, because we talk about it. So there's another, there's a driving force behind having these conversations is that you're teaching them not just how to feel, but you're teaching them how to think about their feelings, how to experience the world and how to navigate relationships. And because in all of this, we talk about if you're in a relationship with somebody. And it doesn't feel good. What does good feel like if it doesn't feel good? What do you do with it? How do you put boundaries in place? How do you communicate your needs? These are the things that we need to be teaching our adolescents. And instead we're fighting with them about. Doing the laundry or putting the dishes away. Or. I have parents say to me all the time, my kid doesn't listen to me. It's not that your kid doesn't listen. Is it your kids not doing what you want them to do? We call that obeying. That's not listening. So. What I want to challenge you to do in today's podcast episodes. I want you to start thinking about. Looking at an exploring. How your parenting your kids today. And how you can start to evolve that parenting. How you can start to teach them things that are appropriate based on what's coming next in their life. You teach. Your kindergartner, how to tie their shoes. Because you're not going to be there every day to tie them. And no fourth grade teacher wants to be on the playground tying everybody's shoes. So it's something that you teach them so that they have the ability to do it themselves to execute it themselves. This is no different. You know, we teach our kids at a feed themselves, how to what their own butts. No teacher is going to do that in elementary school. They've got to know how to do it themselves. So you teach them. This is the same. It is literally the same. All I'm asking you to do. Is to look at what challenges are they facing or could they be facing next? And what do I do with that? And you're in luck. If you're like, I have no idea, Pam. That I do have a free training on this. I do have a free training called parenting redefined. Oh, you look at the evolution. Of parenting and the things that you need in order to. Stop fighting. That being in conflict. Stop irritating each other. Stop annoying your kids and having your kids not annoy you anymore. That's what it's all about. It's about learning the strategies that you need to see. You can hear them so you can communicate with them. And so that you can take action. That is going to help them move forward in this more evolved and aligned way. So keep an eye out for that. It is. Probably out by the time you're getting this podcast episode. So keep an eye out for that. It is available right now. And I will link it up in the show notes. That is your homework though. That is your task. That is where the work is for you right now. Is to look at how can I grow and evolve with my Canon. I don't care if you're parenting a two-year-old or if you're parenting a 12 year old or from your parenting, a. 17 year old. Each of those developmental phases has comes with its own challenges. And. For some reason, once kids start pushing back. And I know what the reason is. But once kids start pushing back. Like in that middle school age. All of a sudden we develop an attitude about it. You've never had an attitude about it when they were two. And they were saying, no, it was cute. Then. And now when they're 12 and they're saying now it's oh, they're the worst. They're the worst. Or I'm the worst, right? There's no in between. There's no just recognizing that we're both on our own journeys. And we need to figure out how do we do this together? So thank you guys. If you have questions, let me know. I would love to hear your thoughts on this episode. And I will see you next week for more on parenting. On self-work on relationships. We are diving in deep this summer. To the parenting component and the relationship component. Because now you have the time we have the time our kids are around. We have the time to help them grow and evolve. So take care. And I'll see you soon.