#95 "And That's a Wrap-Netflix Adolescence Bonus Commentary"

#ParentingTeens #TeenAdvice #ModernParenting #TeenCommunication #ParentingTips #FamilyDynamics #TeenConnection #ParentingPodcast #CherylPankhurst #InsightToImpact

Welcome to Episode 5 of "Parenting Teens: Advice Redefined for Today's World." In this episode, host Cheryl Pankhurst wraps up the Adolescent Series with a comprehensive summary of the first four episodes. Cheryl dives deep into the challenges of parenting teens in today's fast-paced, technology-driven world. She shares valuable insights on how to connect with your teens, set clear expectations, and have meaningful conversations that build trust and understanding. Discover how to navigate the complexities of modern parenting and create a supportive environment for your teenagers to thrive.

Welcome, welcome, welcome to another episode of Parenting Teens Advice Redefined for Today's World. And today we are on episode five of the four-part episode for the Adolescent Series and I'm your host Cheryl Pinkers and today we're just putting a bow on everything today. I just wanted to say too that let's talk about the first, I'm going to just summarize the first four episodes just so you know where we're at. If you've never watched the show please for the love of God shut this off because it's a total spoiler alert and then come back.

So, um, Netflix adolescence episode one, there's four episodes. The first one is this 13 year old Jamie is arrested for a serious crime. He's found in his bedroom like a typical 13 year old would be. Um, parents are completely shocked and confused.

And in the first episode, they go through the full arrest process. You can always go back to my solo episodes one, two, three, and four to get the whole take on the whole process. I'm just summarizing it quickly before we move on here. And episode two is the detectives going to the school and really getting a better picture of what was happening here and what's going on in the school.

In the schools and the whole different environment that the kids are dealing with in school, we get a really good take on how teachers are managing and how principals are managing and it's really disturbing when you get into that. Episode three is they have a psychologist come into the prison and start freaking figuring out the mental capacity of Jamie as a 13 year old and what would, you know, provoke him to do what he's being accused of doing. We do see in the first episode there is closed caption video so we see exactly what did happen. Uh, and episode four is 13 months after he's been incarcerated right before the trial.

Um, dad gets, um, some, uh, pedophile insinuations written across his van. He can't wash it off. Um, and Jamie decides at the last minute, he is going to admit that he is guilty. He's going to change his plea, which, which really changes a lot of the conversations at home.

So through these four episodes, it's interesting to see that there's this thread of insinuation that that the father is a little more to blame. They're kind of like throwing these little digs over the four episodes that his father did this, his father had rage, his father had this. You know, I wanted to say first, this is not my belief at all, not even in the show, but it's not my belief that, you know, in the 25 years that I've done teaching, in the 25 years I've worked with dads in any capacity, Dads are wonderful, wonderful, wonderful parents, and they parent differently than moms, but everyone comes at this with love.

And I know there's different roles in parenting between masculine and feminine, but, and it isn't until the final episode that the mom starts taking some accountability in signs that she ignored. So they parented very differently. And I just wanted to make sure that You know, I've worked with parents for, like I said, 25 years, and it's a very equal responsibility and accountability there. And parents do well when they can.

And when they can't, it's because they can't and they need some support. So having said all that, What does this series teach us? I'm telling you, the three points I got out of this are, number one, and I say this all the time in the podcast, we cannot parent the way we were parented. Life is drastically different now.

It's faster, it's louder, it's more connected in more dangerous ways, technology, social media, and all these external influences that kids are dealing with now that we have absolutely no idea about as parents. Another one is our children are not here to please us. They are not extensions of us. They are individuals with their own wiring and their own purpose.

And I think if we can really step back and understand that, You know, they're not here to fulfill the dreams that we once had. I want to give my kids everything that I didn't have. I want them to do what I couldn't do. But I think it's time to put the lens on that our kids are individuals born into this world.

by us, through us, for sure, but not for us. So I think when we are able to put that kind of a lens on and look at our kids as individuals, I think it changes the game. It definitely changes the game. If we want to guide our teens, we have to be willing to watch them, not just correct them.

We have to be able to really listen deeply. And it means accepting that what lights them up might not be what lights you up. You know, whether it's art or gaming or fashion or music, we need to be curious about what lights them up and what their purpose might be in life. It's not going to be ours.

And when we do this, when we really see our kids for who they are, then we are not giving them a life that they have to go back and repair afterwards. If we're allowing them to be who they are now, meet them where they're at now and help them grow as individuals, then again, it's not something they have to go back and, you know, restore their childhood. So when we're talking about our teens, the reason I did this is because I feel like there's a lot of hidden messages. There's things that we don't know are happening in our kid's world and things to look out for.

So if you're noticing that it is spending way more time in their room, if they are spending way more time on their devices. If you are noticing they are having less conversations about what's happening at school or less conversations about what they're doing with their friends. Are they spending more time in bed? Do they seem distracted all the time?

Do they have like a flat affect? There's no emotion. They're not really happy, but they're not really sad. Are they dressing really differently all of a sudden?

Have their eating habits changed all of a sudden? One thing you can do if they're still in school, it's not summer holidays, is can you connect with the teacher to see if things are different at school so you have a little collaborative effect? And it's not to disclose confidential information to the teacher, but just to find out what's going on in school. Are they getting things done?

Are they still hanging out with the same people? Do you see them having lunch with somebody? Just do you have some kind of basis. I think the one thing to notice about our kids, and we use this term in school all the time, is look at their baseline.

Has their baseline changed? If you have a kid who's always very emotional and continues to be emotional, then their baseline's not changing. But if you have a kid who is pretty even, has a normal reaction to different events, and incidents, and then all of a sudden you see the spike in emotion, then that's different from baseline. So that's where you start looking at, is there something going on here?

So if you're noticing these things about your kids, yes, we need to have some conversations. But also, do your kids understand what the expectations are in your house. Do they understand, you know, are you going off, say, oh, you just spent all night on your phone and you didn't do anything here and you didn't do anything there, but they really had no idea what you expected. Do they know?

how much time is appropriate in your eyes for them to be on their phones, for them to be in their rooms? Do they know exactly what is to be expected when they get home from school? We need to get our kids very clear expectations and collaborate with them on the expectations so there's no surprises. So for example, say your kid is coming home from school just like Jamie did in the show and spending all night in their room on their device.

Can you say to them, okay, here's what I expect. I expect an hour you can spend on your phone when you get home from school. You can spend another hour, maybe after dinner on your phone, on your device in your room. And maybe you spend 30 minutes before you go to bed on your device in your room.

If you make this very clear to them, they may say to you, okay, and it might happen, it might not happen, but if they don't know the expectation and you just let it build and let it build and let it build, and then all of a sudden you catastrophize the whole thing. You're always in your room, you're always on your phone, but they really have no idea what you're expecting. We need to give them very clear expectations and have them be a part of those expectations.

I've noticed that you spend five hours a night in your room. from four o'clock until nine o'clock and you don't come out and you're always on your phone. Well, this is a challenge for me. And this is why you have some responsibilities in the house.

I really enjoy when you sit and have dinner with us. I think we need to have some family time because being together, we get to see what's going on in your life. So how about this? How about you spend an hour after school, an hour after dinner and 30 minutes before bed?

Does that sound reasonable to you? And they might say yes. And they just to shut you up or they might say, well, no, I need more time. So can you negotiate something?

Okay. An hour and a half after school and negotiate an expectation. And once you've negotiated this expectation, that gives you a basis. Now, now, when they come in, And they are spending way more time than the negotiated time.

That's when you sit down and say, OK, you know what? I've noticed you're not meeting the expectations we made together. What's hard about that? And it could be anything.

It could be a very simple fix. It could be. Well, I you know, my friend needs my help after school and i'm helping them with homework And that's not really just being on facebook and scrolling. That's something different And you can work together to collaborate on a different expectation If they're part of the collaboration, they're going to be part of the solution And they can understand Where your challenge is if the expectation is not being met clear clear clear communication We also really

need to understand we're going to have some very difficult conversations with our kids. And a really good idea for that is Rehearse how your conversation is going to go. Rehearse what difficult questions you're going to ask about in your room by yourself or with your partner. Rehearse it and come up with as many really challenging answers you might get so you're prepared so that the whole emotional piece is gone.

Now you can come at the questions and the answers even And you know, you can't keep saying to a kid, you know, just tell me the truth. I won't get mad. I won't get mad. And then when they tell you the truth, your face starts contorting and look like you're having a seizure because you're actually mad.

That's not something that they're going to trust and they're going to shut down and they're not going to trust you with these conversations. So do your rehearsal. This is what i'm going to say. This is what they might say.

This is what they might say This is what they might say and you will totally desensitize yourself to the emotional reaction. You're going to get from a very difficult answer Best place to have conversations as we go through this list is in the car I can't tell you how valuable it is to offer to be the taxi driver Until they no longer need a taxi driver They get in the car, they're not making eye contact, put on the song that they like and start asking questions. And just start small.

This isn't the way you have been parenting lately and you wanna try it. This is the long game. This isn't, okay Cheryl, I tried this on Monday, it sucked, I'm never gonna do it again. This is the long game.

We have to build small layers of trust with our kids, especially if, We have not had these conversations before, not knowing we even needed these conversations before. So can you start off with questions about not just how was your day? Fine. What did you do?

Nothing, which is very typical. Could you start with, did you have lunch with today? Did anything make you laugh? Did anything make you feel really good today?

Did anything, did you struggle with anything today that I can help with? You know, you can talk to them about things like, The emojis on social media, you can talk about, oh, I saw this podcast, Parenting Teens, and they talked about these emojis on Instagram. Do you know what they mean? Is that something you use?

Is that something that I need to know about? You know, just being very, very curious and not coming at this with blame and accusation is going to be probably the most impactful part of your conversation. And again, it's a long game. So can you schedule with them once a week?

and get them to pick the activity. You could be just going for a drive. Let's just go to Starbucks every Monday at four o'clock. And even if you sit and just have their favorite frappuccino, moppuccino, foamy with whipped cream, even if that's all you're doing, it's not a forced conversation.

It's just building trust. It's getting them comfortable in your company that isn't just part of a disciplinary thing or just dinner. It's really welcoming that whole relationship. You want to build this relationship.

And you can even start with these conversations at Starbucks or in the car. You know, you could come up with a reason to show your vulnerability, something you found really hard in high school. You know, were you bullied? Were you a bully?

Did you see kids get bullied? What did you do about it? And even if you did the wrong thing, what would you do differently? Our kids need to understand that we're human.

You know, I spent a lot of time raising my teens thinking they had to think I didn't do anything wrong. And then I knew the answers to everything. And if I could go back I would definitely start telling them stories about my high school experiences, things that I did that were not so nice, things that I watched and could have stood up for somebody that I didn't. You know, just that whole I'm human piece that moms don't have to be perfect.

Big mistake I made that I would change in a heartbeat. And when your kids start feeling these emotions, when they're telling your stories, or they're telling you about a friend they're upset about, or something happened in school, don't correct their emotions. We're very quick to say, don't worry about it, it's okay, you'll get over it. You know, we need to validate their emotions so they understand that they can have them, and then we can help them regulate them, but they have to be able to have an emotion.

They have to have room to have this emotion without you even jumping into and parents. I know moms do this. I did it. I gotta fix it.

I gotta fix it. I gotta fix it. And if we are trying to fix it, What are we telling our kids? We are telling them that we don't have faith in them to fix it themselves.

And this goes with any kind of situation that they're getting into, whether it's school or friends or sports, if we keep jumping in to fix it. then we are not giving them the skills to fix it themselves. We just need to be behind them. Listen, I'm here, I got your back.

If you need some advice on how it might go, or if I've been through it, I can help you work through it. But they need to know that they can fix these situations themselves. They can deal with the tough stuff themselves without us jumping in to fix it. Could you even ask them, What's something you wish adults understood about being a teenager now?

And open it up. Maybe there's something you have absolutely no idea, that you are not understanding, that they're feeling and they feel like they can't tell you because of your reaction. But if you're opening up the gates to these conversations, then they're going to feel a little more welcome. And again, it's a long game.

We need to have these conversations about the small things because the big issues are going to come. We're going to need to talk to them about sex and drugs and screens and social media and peer pressure and all of that. And if we can establish this foundation of a good relationship, that's reciprocal, we're gonna get the answers that we want from them. We're gonna be able to support them through it.

And they're gonna feel like they can come to you with anything. There's so many times I've heard parents say, yeah, I told them, I told them, they can just tell me anything and I won't get mad. But then they told me that and I got mad. And so we have to check ourselves.

We want our kids to trust us more than anything. We want our kids to trust us. So what are we watching for? Too much time in their rooms and not making assumptions of them just doing homework or they're just, you know, hanging out with their friends and because they're quiet and not causing any trouble, then there's no reason to worry.

And I'm telling you, watch the series, because we know there's every reason to start worrying. So you know what? Parenting is the hardest thing in the world. I will never deny it.

But if we can take the lens off of, I'm a parent, and I need to always be right, and get more curious and more humble and be more present and, you know, ask more questions about what they're doing and what they're interested in, what they love. We're going to get to a better place with them. And this is, it's never too late. If you're in the middle of the snow, if you're in the middle of the ship storm, I live in Toronto, so it's always a snow conversation.

If you're in the middle of a ship storm, you can stop. You can take a breath. You can connect with me. You can take a step back.

You can, if you've made a mistake with some of the freedoms you've given them or the choices you've allowed them to make, you're the parent, you're still the parent. You can take a step back and say, you know what? I made a mistake. I'm not comfortable with all this social media.

I'm not comfortable with TikTok. I'm not comfortable with, we need to back up and take a step back and figure something else out. But for now, This is coming off the table. And it was my mistake, and I'm sorry, I shouldn't have allowed it.

I didn't know enough about it. Now it's making me very uncomfortable. Yes, they're gonna get mad, but listen, your main job is to try to keep your kids as safe as possible. We can't protect them from anything and everything, but we can protect them from some things.

And if everything we do, we're concerned about having a fight about, because we want to take something away to keep them safe. We always know you weighing the pros and cons, keeping them safe is always going to win. So if the series moved you, if you are concerned about your teen, if you're worried about these conversations, I invite you to go even deeper. I have created a course for parents just like you that teaches you how to have hard conversations with your teens, how to start them, how to continue them, what to say, how to back off, when to go forward, conversations about the things that no one talks about, about

porn, about cyberbullying, self-harm, peer pressure, identity, and more. Because you deserve more than just guesswork. You deserve the tools and the strategies and the real language that opens up, not shuts down communication. This is for the parent who's tired of feeling like you're walking on eggshells and constantly reacting.

This is your reset. This is your invitation to rebuild a connection with your team. I will put everything you need in the show notes. I appreciate you joining me today on the Facebook Live and I appreciate you listening to the podcast Parenting Teens Advice Redefined.

Feel free to reach out and send me your comments. Agree with me or don't agree with me. I'm open to it or if you have questions. Just let me know and dm me in the fate in facebook or send me an email or cherylpankers.com You will find everything you need to know about the podcast Have a beautiful day again.

Thank you again so much for joining me and thanks for joining me on facebook And uh, have a beautiful day. This was fun Thank you for listening to another episode. I just wanted to share something with you because, you know, parenting teens is not just about managing these challenges that we talk about on all the episodes. It's also about evolving alongside them.

And I'm Cheryl, and not only the host of this podcast, but I'm also the creator of Insight to Impact, coaching and consulting. And I help you moms of teens reconnect with your true selves so you can lead with purpose, you can parent with clarity, you can create stronger, more meaningful relationships with your kids. Because here's the truth. The transformation starts with you.

Together, we will break free from the stress and overwhelm. We will rediscover your power. We will create the life and the family dynamic you always dreamed of. If you're ready to start this journey, let's do it.

You might just not recognize your life in the next 90 days. It all starts with a call. There's no pitch. There's no pressure, just a call to see if I can help.

We'll talk about your goals. We'll talk about what's making you feel stuck and what might be getting in your way. And everything you need to connect with me is in the show notes. Again, I'm Cheryl.

Thank you so much for joining me here on Parenting Teens, advice redefined for today's complex world and the creator of Insight to Impact Coaching and Consulting. Have a great day.