Every week, I answer people's parenting questions on my Teaching Self-Government
support group. And multiple times, the question has been asked,
"Why don't teenagers listen to their parents?" People just want to break
through to their children. They want to have
the type of communication where it seems like everybody respects where everybody
else is at. And that the children respect and
honor where the parents have been so that they listen to the advice that they
need. Well, we need to learn more about
self-governing in order to understand why we're having
a problem and what we can do to fix it so that your teenagers will listen to
you.
I actually have a lot to talk about on this topic because
I remember vividly not wanting to listen to my parents.
And because I've parented some of the most difficult children that my state
had to offer doing treatment foster care for troubled teens. So, I decided to break
this topic into 2 videos. In this video, we're
going to talk about why they won't listen
and in the next video we'll talk about what to do to help them
listen. I didn't listen to my parents very often. I knew they were wise people.
They had a lot to offer you know, in comparison to other parents out there
but they just seemed kind of out of touch. In fact, one of the things
that showed me they were out of touch was because they didn't know how to read
a lot of the cues that I was giving them. Now, maybe as a
young person, I didn't even understand my own cues that much.Bbut
once a parent starts lecturing a child, the child gets the
impression, "Oh, you don't even understand what I'm
saying. You're just gonna talk and talk and talk until
I'm done listening." And it feels like a power struggle because
actually, the majority of lectures are a power struggle.
So, lecturing is never a good idea. And lots of times when parents lecture,
children just shut their ears down. In fact, a good rule of thumb
is you have about 30 seconds to really make a difference and to hook them
in to what it is you're going to say next. So, it's okay to actually
plan out some of the things that you will say
in order to make sure that they feel invested
in listening to you. Another thing that my parents did
was they got emotional. So, when I wouldn't listen
or when I didn't seem like I was easy to reach, then they would start to let
their emotions show. Once they got emotional and they
started taking my behavior personally, then I felt like they weren't actually
somebody that i could relate to. They weren't somebody I wanted to listen
to. That they were probably just trying to control me. Another thing
that my parents did sometimes is they would complain.
They would complain to their friends about my misbehavior and they would
complain about even having to have to do the
talking to me about the problems and how much time it would take
and how hard it is raising children. We've got to be careful about that, don't
we? Let's make sure that we don't just
become complainers and our children think of themselves as just one of our
projects. We need to be people, we need to be
united. That was one of the struggles I had with my parents is
really getting on the same page with them
and uniting with them. And it didn't happen until
I was probably about 14 years old that I started the process of unifying with
them. And it actually was me that started the process at that time.
And that's because I made some deliberate choices for myself
that allowed me to decide changing my own behavior for a desired outcome
was actually a good idea. And it wasn't anything that they gave me the idea to
do. I had a need. My need was to be
understood. And I didn't feel like my parents really understood
where i was coming from. So, I would push against them again and again. Every time
that they would tell me stuff or try to correct me about things,
I would start pushing. Emotionally pushing,
verbally pushing. My body language and behavior
was pushing because I just wanted them to care about what I had to say.
But I was going about it completely wrong. I was being controlling and very
selfish. I was only worried about what I was
getting out of it and what they were doing to me.
And I felt slightly used and abused and definitely controlled. The thing is
I wasn't calculating at all that they had needs, that they wanted to
be understood as well. And had they said to me, "Well, you're not
understanding us. Well you don't care about us."
I don't think that would have made any difference to me. Because I would have
seen it just like a fight. When I got in that selfish
frame of mind and I started trying to control my
parents by not listening to them, by putting up
the walls and stuff, then what happened is I started
to drive from the emotional part of my brain.
So, the middle part of your brain or the back part of your brain
are the emotional parts of your brain. The motions are down in the center
of the brain. And I started catering to those emotions.
So, then every single thing they said to me became
an emotional attack. Something that I chose to take personally. You know, the
interesting thing is I have vivid memories
of all of those thoughts I had. Maybe those are just
a special gift that i get so that I can be good at doing parenting
and teaching people what children are thinking. But I remember
knowing i'm going out of control. I am choosing
to think this. But it just felt like the right thing to do.
My emotions were firing. I wasn't being understood. I felt like I needed to just
give in to that so that I could feel something that seemed
powerful. So, I did and I would get emotional.
And this did not help my relationship with my parents. So, how did I get myself
back in the right brain? I had to prepare ahead of time
so that in the minute, I would actually be in the correct
position of my brain. And there was a special neighbor
who helped me prepare ahead of time to make a plan
for what I would do so that I wouldn't be trapped in this situation again.
So, this particular neighbor extended a challenge to me.
She said, "Nicholeen, have you ever thought of just saying okay and being okay
every time your parents tell you to do something or not to do something?"
I was convinced that idea was insane. That it would never work.
Then my parents wouldn't listen to me just because i all the sudden became
passive. She wasn't asking me to be passive.
She challenged me to be assertive. To take control of myself and to make a
difference in my relationship with my parents.
That challenge changed everything for us. I wish I could say it was something my
parents did that helped transform me. But it didn't. It was
something I did. Although now I know what parents
can do to help their children have changes of heart
like I was lucky enough to have because of a kind neighbor
who took an interest in me. So now that we've covered
why they won't listen to us. Let's talk about
what to do when your teenager won't listen to you.
That's the next video, part B to this series.
Go ahead and click on that video now so that you can get the strategies and the
skills that you need to actually help them listen to you when
they need to.