In the previous video, why don't teenagers listen to their parents? We
talked about some of the emotional things
that are going through the teenagers minds and what we need to be aware of to
help them listen to us. And to help them better connect with us
so that they can solve their problems. Now in this video, we're going to talk
about what to do when your teenager won't listen. I'm Nicholeen Peck,
parenting and relationship expert. This is part 2
on helping you get your teenagers to listen.
We're going to look at this problem of children not listening to their parents
through the lens of self-government. So, what is
self-government? Self-government is being able to
determine the cause and effect of any given situation
and possessing a knowledge of your own behavior so that you can control
them. So, one of the key principles behind these solutions for how
to help your child listen to you is to actually
teach them how to master themselves so that they
give themselves instructions to invest in what you're having to say
and so that you can improve your bond. Good parenting
involves having a good bond and some good
teaching that provides skills for a person that they can use for their
entire life. We've already talked about why teenagers
won't listen. But now we're going to talk about what
to do. I'm going to share with you some of the good things
my parents did when I was the teenager not listening.
The things that i remember and recognized did have an impact
even though as I mentioned in the last video they didn't do everything exactly
perfect. But also, I'd like to share with you how the
brain works and what types of ways we can instruct
our children when they need it most and are starting
to go out of control and just really not care about the
conversation that needs to be had. We're also going to talk about
correcting and a whole lot more. There were 2 things my parents did
when I didn't want to listen to them as a teenager
that really did make a difference. One of those things
was they maintained their proper role. So, they knew who they were in the family.
In fact, parents used to do better at maintaining
their proper roles than they actually are nowadays. We've had a lot of
confusion with what the role of parent is. And the busier we get,
we start to abdicate some of our roles to other people,
other devices and conveniences. But back when I was a child, my parents knew
we are the parent we need to maintain the parental authority. Now, they didn't
always do it perfectly or with calmness. But they did do it. And they made sure
that I always knew that I was the child that needed to learn
from them. They were the teachers that was part of their role.
Now, if you want to examine the concept of roles a little bit more, I do have a
book called Roles: The Secret to Family
Business and Social Success which is all about a family whose roles
are a little off. And what happens to that family when the
roles get in the right place. In fact, it's kind of a fun one to read
with your teenagers. It's designed for just such a study.
Anyway, that was number one. I knew they were the
parents. And even if I thought I knew more than
them or I thought I was smarter than them,
I knew that i was never going to take that power or authority away.
In fact, that provided a lot of security for me even though I was being
oppositional for a period of a few years. The second thing that they did that was
really good for me to see was they kept trying. Even though I
didn't want to listen, they didn't stop reaching out to me. And
that was huge. Because they knew their role, because
they knew what was most important which was the bond and in the family.
Even though the bonds weren't perfect, they did still keep trying to repair
those bonds. And I saw that effort. And when you see a
parent put forth that effort, there is a point in a teenager's mind
when they're mature enough to recognize, "You know, they're trying really hard and
I'm on purpose making this so that it doesn't work." It really
is my fault that we're not getting along right
now or that we're not able to talk openly with
each other. So, what do you do when your teenager
won't listen to you. Think about that. What is your go-to? What
do you usually do? Do you yell? Do you withdraw?
Do you try to force ideas down their throat?
I hope that you're taking cues because there's a lot of things that go on
inside their brain when they are choosing not to
listen. In fact, probably certain chemicals are
firing that are taking over some of their brain
function that they need to be able to listen and apply
the good things that you're telling them. So, what are some of the cues that we
should be looking for? If you're talking to them and they all
of a sudden start looking a different direction,
if they all of a sudden start tapping on something, they're probably going
to a different place in their brain. And when they go to a different place in
their brain, they're not going to be able to
problem-solve with you. So, what you need to do at that point is get
them to calmness first. Your only direction that you should be
pointing if a child won't listen to you and they're giving you cues that they
aren't paying attention is to get them to calmness. Leave the
topic alone. Maybe they took the car without asking.
Leave that alone. You'll get back to it after they're calm.
There's no point in talking about something with a teenager or with
anyone for that matter. If they're not calm first,
you can't solve the problem. So, first things first. Let's get them to
calm. One of the ways that we help them get to calm
is by appealing to the right part of the brain. And I don't mean the right part. I
mean the right part. The correct part in the front of the brain. So, the front
of the brain does your logical processing. That's your
prefrontal cortex. When a person is in the emotional part
of their brain and they're going out of control,
you need to give them instruction, pre-teach,
direction that is pointing toward the solution.
Not the solution to the thing they're mad about. But the solution to their
immediate problem which is they're not being calm. They can't listen,
they can't talk because they're not being calm.
So, we give a series of instructions. In the teaching self-government parenting
course, we talk about giving a pre-teach an
instruction and then a correction multiple times. We do this in a skill set
that we teach called the Rule of 3. This rule of 3 is designed to help a
person go from being not calm to calm. And it's designed to help you
have calmness all at the same time. To prepare your child to listen to you
at any time, the first thing you need to do
is pre-teach. So, pre-teach the child about the skill listening
and about the skill being part of a conversation.
If you pre-teach them that you're only going to be talking for a certain period
of time or there's only one topic that you'd like to talk to them about
and you'll just take whatever time is necessary. But if you have a good
conversation, it probably won't take that long.
Then that helps them go, "Oh, I'm actually kind of in the driver's seat on this
and I can talk to them about something in a quicker way so that this can get
over quicker", right? So, pre-teaching. And how does a person
listen to another person? Well, there's a skill for that, right? And
you can teach somebody how to do that.
So, after you've pre-taught exactly what they need to succeed
in the communications with you, then all you have to do is instruct them in the
minute. So, when you tell a person, "We need to
have a conversation. I think it's probably only going to take
about this much time. I've only got one topic to talk to you
about and really depending on how much more you have to say or if we have to
wait for you to communicate it all. then that
will determine if this conversation goes longer or not.
But I just want to remind you that this is the plan. And that you can follow
instructions during this. And this is how you follow instructions."
And you just instruct them toward what they are going to need to succeed.
So, after you pre-teach them how it's going to go,
then you just make sure that you instruct them forward after that by
using a skill you will have already taught them
called following an instruction. So, when you teach someone to follow an
instruction, you teach them 5 steps. To look at the
person, to keep a calm face, voice and body,
to say okay or ask to disagree appropriately. Do the task immediately
and then check back. In this instance, you're going to be
teaching them or instructing them to follow the instruction of listening.
That's what you're going to be instructing them to do. And they
can always disagree appropriately with you.
Usually, if you instruct them in a certain way and you say,
"You know what? I'm going to talk to you. This is what's going to happen. Okay, this
is what you need to do. That solves all the problem right there."
Usually you don't even have to pass that and go on to any corrections at all. But
sometimes, you do have to correct. As I've been
discussing this with you, I realize it could be better if I simplify this
just a little bit. I don't want this to be hard. I want it
to be something you feel like you can do. So, let's take some of these
steps that i'm talking about and even make them easier. So, the step
pre-teach that we've spent some time talking about.
You can even just pre-teach at the very beginning that
they're going to follow an instruction. So, you can say to them, if you've taught
them how to follow an instruction, those 5 steps,
then you can just say to them, "Right now I'm going to
give you an instruction. Do you remember how to follow an instruction?"
And then they can say yes that they do. They can report back. You can pray to
them and then say, "Great. Here's your instruction." And you
can then just give them the instruction that they need.
Because for many people, that's what the child's not listening to.
Maybe it's not a deep conversation. I started thinking about that. I thought
sometimes you just tell them "I need you to do your dishes." And they sit there and
ignore. Well in that case, let's make this really
simple. Not a time where we're having trying to
have an open communication or trying to have a problem-solving situation
with one of our teenagers. But just getting them to listen to what we have
to say on a basic level. Could be step number
1 for us, couldn't it? So, you say, "I'm going to give you the
instruction. These are the steps. Here's the instruction." And when you give
an instruction, use NEED. "I need you to take your dishes over."
or "I need you to vacuum your bedroom" or whatever it
happens to be. Then at that point, see what happens.
Then step number 3 would be to check yourself. And to see if
you're calm and ready to give that proper teaching
to your teenage child. If you are not calm,
you need to go and get calm. That is super
important. In fact, I have a calm parenting toolkit that you can have for
free that is in the description of this video.
So, go find that and click it maybe after this.
And maybe you can get more help with your calmness. Part of your calmness is
planning your words and the things that you'll say to your child. Another
thing that you do when you're calm is you focus on the
heart of the person. When a person is going to learn
self-government whether you or your child, it's all about having a
change of heart and feeling like it's okay to get your
heart aligned with truth and back in the right place. So, when my
child is out of control or doesn't want to listen to me,
I check myself and say, "Am I calm?" And then i go to them and I look at them
and I look into their heart. And then the next step
is to actually do the correction. And there's a 7 step process that I go
through on how to do a proper correction. We
start out by describing what happened. And then give a rationale for why it
wasn't a good idea. We describe what should have happened.
Then we tell them what they earned. So, we apply cause and effect
and teach them through negative consequences help them develop their
character as they accept those negative
consequences. We do some other practicing teaching and skill development within
the corrective teaching. I'm not going to go through
all of it right now. That's a video for another day.
But then we do that correction after we know we're calm and I'm
sending that love to them. Then after that if they're still not going to
listen to me. And they're going to go out of control,
maybe go all the way to back brain where they can't even think very clearly.
Then remember we have to appeal to front brain.
And when we appeal to front brain, that's when
we do intensive teaching something that we call
the rule of 3. The rule of three is that process where we do 3 things,
3 times. We do a pre-teach an instruction and
then a correction potentially 3 times unless a person
chooses to come into calmness. If you did not
hear part one of this topic,
then I invite you to go to the part one video which is
Why Don't Teenagers Listen to Their Parents? Because you're going to find a
lot in there about how their brain is working and
some of the things we might do in order to make it so that they're
not wanting to listen to us. And so there's
some vital information in there. Also, you can check out that Calm
Parenting Toolkit which is down in the description if you're really needing
help on more calmness. But if you are looking for
another great video that will help your children have more responsibility, then
you're probably going to want to listen to my next video which is How
to Instill Responsibility in Your Child?