#31 "Connecting with Your Teen: Empowerment :Thriving Through the Teenage Years" with Anna Bohuslavska

00:15 - 00:48
Cheryl - Host: Welcome to another episode of Teen Minds Redefined, where we try to reimagine our relationships with our teens and allow them to foster themselves to become their own authentic human beings as we push them off into this big, huge world of ours. And today we have a beautiful guest, Anna Bogusławska. So brace yourselves parents, because Anna from Inner Bloom is about to drop some serious wisdom bombs on understanding and connecting with your team. Welcome Anna, it's so nice to have you.

00:49 - 01:03
Anna - Guest: Welcome, I'm glad to be here. Thank you for inviting me and I'm glad to share my story and my knowledge with all parents out there. So their relationships with their teens will be much easier.

01:04 - 01:15
Cheryl - Host: Yes, I love your energy around the whole subject already. So tell us first, tell us about you, tell us your story. What inspired Inner Bloom? What's your mission? Like give us all the, give us all

01:15 - 01:55
Anna - Guest: the fans. Yes, I am, now I'm focusing on as a transformational coach and I help women to live a happy joyful life and fulfilling life but all for me started more on parent-kids relationships and basically for me my journey in coaching and psychology started when I became first time my mom. And I remember holding my son, he was crying and I couldn't calm him down. And I remember I was standing in a hallway trying to calm him down and I felt like this instant urge to stop him crying like no matter what and how and it

01:55 - 02:36
Anna - Guest: literally scared me scared me like what's going on why I'm rocked this way and My relationship with my mom was not perfect and the way I was raised I thought that it's not like the way I want to raise my kids So I had no someone to ask like give me some advice is how to be able to deal with that so I went studying and learning And I was lucky enough that I faced an online Facebook community and went on the courses of the Gordon Newfield. It's 1 of the top lead in parents-kids relationships and

02:36 - 03:12
Anna - Guest: I was lucky enough to meet him in person, to learn from him. And those knowledge changed and shift a lot of understanding of myself, a lot of understanding how to raise my kids and those knowledge was so powerful that I started the support group for parents and I started helping other parents to build their relationship with kids. While I shifted more from that because the more I worked with parents, the more I saw that if mothers themselves will be healing inside, then it would be much easier for them to build the relationship with kids. So yeah,

03:12 - 03:12
Anna - Guest: that's

03:12 - 03:14
Speaker 1: how it started for me.

03:15 - 03:23
Cheryl - Host: So tell me what was maybe your top 3 takeaways from Newfield? I know there's a million, but yeah,

03:23 - 04:07
Anna - Guest: it's a million. It's hard to distill, but yeah, I would say that we all have this inner potential to be the best person. And we have like everything we need within ourselves. The second 1 probably is that it's never too late. It's not too late like when your kid is just born, It's not too late to rebuild relationship with kids. It's 3 years old, teen, and so on and so forth. It's never too late. And third, probably just understanding the underlying psychology of our behavior have tremendous effect on my relationship, not only with my kids, but

04:07 - 04:09
Anna - Guest: with anyone around me.

04:09 - 04:47
Cheryl - Host: Yeah, so and whenever I say, you know, talk about you as a teen, I always kind of prophesied with our parents did what they did with what they knew. And everything was out of love. It just sometimes wasn't perfect, but it was out of love. So having said that, what is your teen story? And how would this mindset would have been different for you if your mom knew Neufeld, if your mom did these things? How would that have changed you as a teen?

04:49 - 05:36
Anna - Guest: Well, yeah, and I will start my story a bit earlier than the teen because teen it's like the top of iceberg but there is a lot underlying. And basically while I was raised and coming to the teen age our relationship got so apart like I didn't felt the emotional connection I didn't felt their emotional support and from the early childhood like literally from the first grade probably I have this thought that I need to deal with my emotions on my own. And that, like, there was 1 of uses of like timeout, but it was in a

05:36 - 06:14
Anna - Guest: way that go cry to your room when you're ready to come out. And basically what it's saying to the kid in their brain that you are not accepted with those emotions. Go deal, put yourself in a cookie cutter and come back to me. That's why when I came to the teen age, whenever I faced like this first crash, first heart broken and all the stuff that any teen go through, I had no 1 to come to ask for questions for support and I was lucky because I found this natural way of releasing emotions through poetry and

06:15 - 07:05
Anna - Guest: I wrote a lot of poems to release those emotions and put it all in a paper. And it helped me. And it was, I would say, this safe space for me to put it on a paper and release and I think it saved me because the thing that I was going through different phases, looking back it was harsh and I was lucky that I found this but not everyone found. So that's why it's important before teenage comes to save this relationship, to be them safe for kid to come to you to ask questions to seek for

07:05 - 07:15
Anna - Guest: support because at the teen it could be a bit late to like fully extend but it's definitely manageable it just would take longer.

07:16 - 07:32
Cheryl - Host: Yeah yeah So as you went through high school, like your social, those connections, how did that go for you? What did you think of high school? Like did you love it? Did you hate it?

07:33 - 08:17
Anna - Guest: Well, I think it was a roller coaster for me because I was raised in Ukraine and we have a little different structure of school itself so basically you don't change classes every single year. You have like this strict 30 kids that come into the first grade and all the way to the 12th grade. So you know those people and you don't change the surrounding. Well, if someone moves, yes, but basically the same people. So you pretty well know all these people. And for teens, I think it's hard than, in a way that if you change inside

08:17 - 08:43
Anna - Guest: it's harder to like be yourself in the surrounding where everyone knows you different because I remember when I graduated from school and went for the college how much relief I felt that I can be myself I can spring my will And relationship that was built with me was totally different than was at school. Because like there's new people, they don't know you're a blank slate for them.

08:43 - 08:50
Cheryl - Host: Yeah, That's interesting. I had no idea the Ukraine school system was like that.

08:50 - 08:51
Anna - Guest: Yeah, it's

08:51 - 09:27
Cheryl - Host: very different. Yeah. So, okay, let's say, never too late. So for parents now, what can they start looking for in their teens where they're going to go, oh, we need to do something here. What kind of behavior, not even behaviors, because to me behavior is just a communication, but what would signal a parent to say, oh, we need to sit down, we need to change gears, we need to do something different?

09:28 - 10:20
Anna - Guest: Well, I would say If the teen is totally looking for role models in his peers, this is a big red flag. Because teens, they're supposed to be in the surrounding of them like Pearson building relationship knowing but still they're like role models should be other old people, so they can share some wisdom some knowledge and it's all started a bit earlier and but if you are here and you see that your teen is like super oriented to others it's better to try pull him in but in a sort way not just like forbid to play with

10:20 - 11:05
Anna - Guest: us. No, it's will cause just more harm. First of all, you can invite those peers to your house and build with them relationships so they all like under your wing. Also, you can introduce your team to another trusted adults who can guide them. It could be aunts, it could be some like neighbor and someone who you trust that they will share the wisdom and it could be through activity for example your team will go like mow the lawns with your uncle but do some chores with other like interacting with different adults and inviting them to do

11:05 - 11:44
Anna - Guest: things together. And I know that a lot of parents like, but we have totally different interests, like they interested in video games, but I don't like that. Well, be curious for a moment, Be curious what it's looking there, why there's interest. Maybe you can find something that will be like interest for both of you. And it's like this building connection because we need to understand that parents, when they, parents for the small kid, they're like, I know for them they like this greater model that know everything. But at the teens, it started to shift and teens

11:44 - 11:52
Anna - Guest: like see flaws of y'all. They see like, mom is not perfect. She make this mistake and they will underline it.

11:56 - 11:57
Cheryl - Host: You're so right.

11:58 - 12:38
Anna - Guest: Yes. And, And also they see like, okay, in the world there's like different parents, that parent do different and they have this ideal picture that started to crash and turn into pieces. They see that the world is not ideal. And they also have these emotional swings when 1 day there's as a little child mommy feed me from the spoon another day I will do all on my own. And they basically on the bridge between adulthood and childhood but it's not a smooth ride it's like this swinging swing back and forth back and forth and we need

12:38 - 13:11
Anna - Guest: to like try to pull them in and see how we can support them and it starts basically from like genuine interest in what they interested in about. Imagine if it's your friend, like, basically our relationship with kids in teen age should shift from parent kid to mentor kid. Like, we're there to support, we're there to give advice, but we're there to give them a chance to make their own mistakes and pick them up and help them to find the way out of that mistake.

13:11 - 13:36
Cheryl - Host: Yes, yeah, you said about 3 things I want to nail right now. And finding a trusted adult, like it doesn't, I think that might break a few hearts for parents, like, but I want it to be me, but I want it to be me. But if you're not at a stage where it is you, there has to be somebody. So you might have to just kind of put

13:36 - 13:36
Anna - Guest: that aside. And you know,

13:36 - 14:16
Cheryl - Host: your kid will see you connect with somebody else as well, and allow them to connect with somebody else for their best interest. So it won't go blind that you've done this for your kid either. But I do find like sometimes for whatever reason, it just doesn't click at first that relationship, especially I think if you're switching gears really quickly, they're like, what the hell are you doing? What happened? But to, yeah, put them in the place of an aunt or a coach or whatever and allow them to and not be, I want to know everything they

14:16 - 14:24
Cheryl - Host: said, but just be able to feel safe with that adult and have those conversations. I really like that you said that. So I think that's really important.

14:25 - 14:48
Anna - Guest: And especially if the relationship is not in ideal place when you find yourself in the teenage, it would be hard for them to come to you for advice. And that's why when there is a trusted adult that you trust, they will support, they will find this not in the peers or internet on how to deal with this stuff but in a trusted adult.

14:48 - 15:29
Cheryl - Host: Yes, so good, so good. And again, when you said, you know, from parent to mentor, I almost say the same thing, I say coach, but your kid is the main player and we can't control how all that's gonna go. And you're right, I think it's so important that we let them just make their mistakes. They know they have a safe place to fall. I'm not gonna fix the mistake. Maybe I'm gonna help you support that mistake and learn like, what did you get from this? Because if they don't start finding the ability to fail and recover

15:29 - 16:07
Cheryl - Host: with the little things, the big things are insurmountable, they can't do it. You know, when you find this with I spent 25 years in high school, working with parents, and I you know, you find that kids get pampered and helicopter parents and everybody, you know, telling them how their life is going to go and fixing all the mistakes and then they lose their first job or they fail their first exam in university and they have no idea how to handle that. And so that makes such an impact, being able to just back off, stand behind them,

16:07 - 16:07
Cheryl - Host: right?

16:08 - 16:34
Anna - Guest: Yeah, yeah. And I think we have this duality in society when we're like, I am your parent and you need to listen to me and do what I say. But at the same time, the moment you out there in the big world, you need to be on your own and do the stuff all by yourself. But we need to prepare them for them. Yeah, parents, especially the teams to prepare them to be in a big world out there by themselves.

16:35 - 17:04
Cheryl - Host: Yes. So do you have, you know, in your in your parenting, like in your coaching conversations, do you have specific techniques or strategies where parents and teens are going through that very difficult transition where parents have said, okay, I need to switch gears and the kids kind of resisting. Are there other strategies and things to say, you know, activities, whatever to try and foster that?

17:05 - 17:52
Anna - Guest: Yeah, well, first thing I would say, and probably someone wouldn't like this, but I need to say this, that most of the times, like 99% of the times, we dislike something in behavior of others that we do not allow ourselves. And oftentimes when kids do something and we react, we need to ask ourselves why? Is it because it's really bad or is it because I like there are some triggers pulled inside of me, I wasn't allowed to do it And especially if your way of parenting is totally different from how you were raised, there's tons of

17:52 - 18:34
Anna - Guest: hidden bumps in there. So yeah, first, first I would start just there just asking yourself, why was this happening? And also, the second layer would be probably not the personal reasons but societal reasons. Because sometimes kids do something and we're like, oh, this is bad, but why is that? Well, in general society, everything think it's bad, but is it person that are bad? Like, is it really bad because we have like this society rules. They're good. They help us maintain like healthy, but sometimes they outdated, I would say, and not as fast progressing as change and

18:34 - 18:35
Anna - Guest: shift in our lives.

18:36 - 19:14
Cheryl - Host: Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's really good. I mean, there's people, you know, when I hear people say, oh, back in the day, you know, my mom and dad did this and there was nothing wrong with that. And I kind of go back to, well, if you needed surgery tomorrow, do you want the surgeon from back in the day? Or do you want the surgeon that like is still working now, you know, learning all the new stuff, getting all the new technology, life changes, time changes, we need to change. And and if we don't, it's just going to be

19:14 - 19:37
Cheryl - Host: it's not a good impact on your relationship. And I love to hear parents say, I love this stage. Instead of like, if you go on all the parenting groups in Facebook, there's so many like, just get me through the teams just gone, help me get me through the teens. But there's a way to change that, so you don't have to do that.

19:39 - 20:22
Anna - Guest: And also I think that we created so like a lot of scares around the teenage that people are really like projecting their worst fears on that stage and guess what happens? It becomes a reality because what we focus our mind on is becoming a reality so we with our fears we're creating this reality where our kids don't listen, our kids misbehave and all that stuff. Just because a lot of us underdiminish the powerful power of our thoughts, power that how we project it will happen because our brain basically work on making a reality what we think

20:22 - 20:22
Anna - Guest: of.

20:23 - 20:55
Cheryl - Host: Yeah, yeah, that's so true, that's so true. So Are there ways that parents can, we talked about being, you know, letting them make mistakes, are there ways that parents can support but allow them to, you know, have their challenges? Like, how do they know? Like, are there ways they can go, oh, maybe I should back off here. Oh, maybe I should interfere here. Like, what would you tell the parent if they were concerned about that?

20:56 - 21:43
Anna - Guest: Well, I would probably tell them, first of all, trust your God, because our God will tell us when we step the line. And but for that, we need to be totally in tune to ourselves and self aware. And it's also an important process for all parents and all population in general. But yeah, trust your God and also feel there's a lot of resistance. Because sometimes we like given kind of advice, but in a way that it perceived as like strictly like go do that. And it's good to have like this communication with your team like I'm

21:43 - 22:17
Anna - Guest: giving you advice and this is my advice it's not like mandatory to do it on your own, you need to take this decision on your own and for some things it needs to be said out loud because they automatically like will feel that it's like just the way you need to do and not opportunity and also it's a good thing to help them reflect like how do you think what would happen if you do this way or this way or this way just ask those kind of questions that will help them to reflect on what possible

22:17 - 22:49
Anna - Guest: outcomes of this decision and this decision so they can really outweigh and choose the best that feels right for them and not push like if you see that they choose their own 1 do not push if you If it's not like the matter of life or death, let them choose and just be prepared to hop on and like help them stand back. But please, please, please do not say, I knew that would happen.

22:49 - 22:54
Cheryl - Host: I was waiting for that. No, I told you so. No, I told you so aloud.

22:54 - 22:57
Anna - Guest: You can say it in your brain, but not out loud.

22:57 - 23:29
Cheryl - Host: And if we're checking in as parents if we're checking in and feeling something our kids doing is triggering us, and we're checking in, it would be really effective to maybe say to the team, how does that feel? If you did this, how does that feel? And They may not even know what the hell you're talking about at first, but if you continually repeat that, how does it feel? Like, do you feel, does it give you a stomach ache? Do you feel happy? Do you feel a little bit of relief? Like really giving them little bits and

23:29 - 23:34
Cheryl - Host: pieces of skills of being aware of themselves and how things go.

23:34 - 24:07
Anna - Guest: Yeah, and I think this practice would be great even much earlier than teens, but it's never too late to start. And I think also it's important, especially with the teens, not with small kids, like up to 7, I probably would say, or 10, but with older kids, it's nice to share your thoughts when you choose something and it's not working like I decided to go this way and it's not work and I think like not to put the weight of your choice on them, but just to emphasize that while it's a life, sometimes you make the

24:07 - 24:17
Anna - Guest: decision and it turns out not as you wish, but it's okay, we can change shift and everything's fine, be alive, Nothing's happened.

24:18 - 24:23
Cheryl - Host: And nothing wrong with apologizing to your kid if whatever decision made was not right for them either.

24:23 - 24:24
Anna - Guest: Yeah, for sure.

24:25 - 25:00
Cheryl - Host: I feel like years ago, our parents, including me, I really felt like I need to have all the answers. I never said I don't know. If my kid had a question, I found out. But I never said I don't know. I had to have the answers. And I probably made some shit up too to tell you this. But yeah, very rarely did I say, I don't know. And that would have been great, because I don't have all the answers. I don't have them now. But to have them feel like they can say they don't know, or,

25:00 - 25:10
Cheryl - Host: Oh, she's she doesn't know she's not perfect. So I might screw this up. And if I do then, you know, we'll rethink it as an adult.

25:10 - 25:45
Anna - Guest: Yeah. And also it's not only I don't know. Well, for small kids, it's better not to say I don't know totally it's like for super small kids with the team you can be like with the team everything start to leverage because once they out there in the world you will be like in mostly in the same you will be all adults and our relationship will transit and shift surely we do not should they put all the weight of our life being and saying like I did everything for you now your time to pay and all that

25:45 - 26:03
Anna - Guest: stuff yeah but telling them as there is like, I need time to think about it. I need time to make some research to give you an answer. I'm not sure right now, let's go back to it later on and just to process and to reflect, yeah.

26:04 - 26:12
Cheryl - Host: Yeah, that's great, yeah. So tell us about Inner Bloom. What do you do? How do we work with you? What is it all about? What's the mission?

26:13 - 26:45
Anna - Guest: Yeah, well, my mission is a bit ambitious, I would say. My mission is to bring more joy and happiness in the everyday lives because I know that we all live on the social scripts and like we do all the right things and even with our kids we like telling them do the right things and but a lot of us found ourselves in the adulthood that we did all the right things but we do not feel happy inside. Like we have the degree, we had a good job, we had a family, but we don't feel happy. Why?

26:45 - 27:21
Anna - Guest: And it's my mission is to help people to reconnect with their inner selves and here's comes inner bloom because we have everything is in us to bloom and to be happy and it's All starts with 1 like if you're happy the people around you will read this up and then they will be a bit better and so on. So for instance, we'll have a ripple effects. And yeah, I work in 1 on 1 and I'm working now on creating my group offer. So it's coming soon. I'm excited about it.

27:21 - 27:54
Cheryl - Host: Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome. Good for you. I love I love your message. It just completely aligns with with the podcast, obviously. And, you know, if I think the big thing there is if you might think everything is perfect and then your kid does something and you feel very triggered and you need to go, oh, I think I need to take a step back and check out what's happening here. And there's nothing wrong with that. And letting your kids make the mistakes and just being there to kind of mentor them as opposed to the adult, the

27:54 - 27:58
Cheryl - Host: parent role, I think is. And it doesn't mean be friends with them.

27:59 - 27:59
Anna - Guest: No.

27:59 - 28:21
Cheryl - Host: Right? It's you're still coaching, you're still leading, but you're you're leading from hide now, like a really good leader does in a big company, you're pushing people up. Right? And I think that's, that's if we look at look at parenting like that, once they hit the teenage years, I think it changes relationships and it can be magic, it really can.

28:22 - 28:47
Anna - Guest: Yeah, and if I will take an analogy with a little seed of a tree, when it's small we need to do a lot of work like putting the soil, nurture it, put in the right sun, run temperature, but once it's big tree there's not much we can do. We need to grow, continue nurturing, creating environment, and it will bloom and give the fruits. Yeah,

28:47 - 28:52
Cheryl - Host: I love it. I love it. Good work, Anna. Good work. Thank you so much. Where can we find you?

28:53 - 28:59
Anna - Guest: It's innerwoolmer.com and Instagram Anna Bohoslavska. I will be happy to see you there.

28:59 - 29:07
Cheryl - Host: Okay, I will put everything in the show notes. Thank you again. So grateful for the work that you're doing. And thank you for joining us on Teen Minds Redefined.

29:08 - 29:14
Speaker 1: Teen Minds Redefined with Cheryl Pankhurst. New episodes out every Wednesday.

29:14 - 29:15
Anna - Guest: Thanks for stopping by. Thank you

29:15 - 29:16
Speaker 1: for stopping by.