Hi, I'm Nicholeen Peck and I teach all about communication, parenting, building,
good strong, family relationships all over the world through the lens of self-government
and in this video I'm going to be talking about how to handle rude teens.
In this video I'm going to talk about common mistakes that people make as they're trying to
handle rude teenagers and I'm also going to talk about what teenagers really want. What are they
hoping to accomplish from this rude behavior and how we can help them get more of those
things that they want. When teenagers are rude to adults usually that's when the worst adult
behavior comes out actually. So, teenagers will do things like they'll talk back to adults, they will
purposefully do things just to get a rise out of them, they will talk bad about them in public
in front of other people. They will be rude to other people to see if they can get a rise out of
the adults as well or out of the other people to try to be controlling. These are just a few things
that would constitute rude teenage behavior. Sometimes teenagers do not show appreciation for
things, they don't help out with things around the house. These are other complaints that i get from
parents that these are rude teenagers and they don't seem to care about anyone else except for
themselves. When parents see this type of behavior, they have a tendency to take it emotionally.
They feel personally attacked because the child that they have given so much attention to,
so much money, so many years of their life raising is acting so rude to them and you can understand
why a person might feel this way. However those types of feelings and the actions that come from
those types of feelings are actually not very productive. So, we all have feelings, some of them
are productive, some of them are non-productive and each of those feelings lead to thoughts.
So as parents, we've got to recognize that once we feel offended by our child or we feel like
they don't appreciate us or we say something like that in our head, our behavior is going to distance
ourselves from the child which means then we decrease our ability to impact them in any kind
of a positive way and we also are going to start to think negative thoughts about them, which means
we might avoid them, we might say something that we might regret later and in the end we
are going to end up damaging the relationship just because we chose to take their behavior personally
and emotionally. So what do you do with those feelings then so you don't take that behavior
personally and emotionally? Let's talk about the ability that we have to control thoughts inside
of our own heads. So when we feel something, maybe we feel that the person is being disrespectful so
we feel disrespect. If we think in our heads they are so disrespectful, they are so rude immediately,
we have jumped to a place of offense and we will disconnect from them, which then means anything
we say to them will probably have the wrong tone to it and then it will create more power struggle
instead of helping the situation. So instead what I would do if a person is being disrespectful to me,
I would think to myself that person is behaving in a way where they are trying to get my attention in
a negative way, that's negative attention seeking. What is it that they really want? So, now I'm going
to put on a fix-it hat and that fix it hat will then encourage me to engage with the child in a
productive way instead of disengaging from the child and hurting our relationship by possibly
creating a power struggle because of hurt feelings. Should the child be rude and hurting feelings?
No, of course not but we have to remember that they're learning all the time. Our job is to teach
them, we are the teacher. They are the learners. If we pull away from our job, they don't get to learn
anything and the problem just becomes worse. In fact sometimes they will stop learning altogether
because they'll feel like we're not relevant to them, that we don't really care. Do you realize
that lots of times they just want to know that you care and they're just engaging with you in
a way that is not accomplishing what they really want? So let's talk about what they want. They want
to know you care, they want to know you're there, they want to know that you respect them, respect,
that is one of the key things that they want from you. So, how do you help them overcome that rudeness
and deliver respect to them? What does that look like? We're going to talk about how we can show
respect to our teens that might behaving in rude ways and how we can show them that we're there
and we care about them while also consistently teaching them the lessons they need for their
good social development and behavioral control. But before we do that, click on the subscribe button
now. There are so many videos on this channel that are going to benefit you as you are working
with a possible strong-willed teen or a teen who doesn't feel understood. Click on the subscribe now.
When teens are rude or misbehave, so often parents make assumptions and they don't actually address
the situation in a very deliberate way. They just assume that the child is thinking this or wants
this and they don't talk about stuff deliberately and so then both people are playing a game on
either side of the interaction, that is a very strategic type of power struggling that happens.
They only tell people certain things, they only say certain words. These types of things happen
frequently when parents don't take the time to be deliberate with their teens or with any of their
children actually. So, there is a lot of benefit in just deliberately having an open conversation
with your child and you'll want to do this at a time when it's not as big of a problem. I call
these types of conversations parent counseling sessions. So, you'll pull the child aside and
then you talk to the child about something you've noticed maybe as a behavior pattern. So you might
say something like I've noticed that you haven't been showing very much gratitude lately. So people
are doing things for you but you're acting like you just expect it to happen, I'm pretty sure
that's not the message you're trying to send so, let's talk about maybe why that would be happening
and how we can maybe remember to show gratitude to people in the future. So, you see where you're
giving the person the benefit of the doubt, opening up a conversation with them about it, in fact even
saying what type of a plan do you want to put into place and then you're saying now let's get things
going so you don't have to get any more of this negative attention. So, this is good, having
good open conversation, getting some input from the child if they will give it some teens put up walls,
they don't want to talk to anybody about anything and there's a reason for that and that's because
if they talk about it or make a plan for it then they're held accountable to their own words.
So when someone does not want to talk to you, it's because they don't want to be honest because they
don't want to have to follow through. Okay that's a really common thing to happen. So how do we help
the child feel an increase of respect? Well number one talking them to them increases respect. Okay
but first we have to understand what respect of a child actually looks like. People think
that a child respecting a parent looks exactly the same as a parent respecting a child,
that's not true. In fact a child respecting a parent looks completely different because the
roles are completely different. The child role is learner, the parent role is teacher. If the teacher
doesn't teach then there's dysfunction. If the learner doesn't learn then there's dysfunction.
So that's why we have to understand the roles in the family. Super important.
When a person is respecting the role of teacher, what does that look like? That means that they
are learning. When a teacher is respecting the role of learner, what does that look like? That
means that they are teaching. So, a teacher teaches and a learner learns and this is how we respect
each other's roles when we are teacher and learner. Now of course open communication is going to be a
big part of this learning process and making sure that the learning comes through with the
right tone of love and calmness and understanding however, if the teacher does not teach, if they just
go ah that child, they're so rude, they're so whatever and they just stew over the behavior
themselves, they are actually disrespecting the child in that moment. When a child does something,
that requires correction. The most respectful thing you can do is actually lovingly and calmly
do the correction and it actually increases your credibility in the eyes of your child.
They want someone to tell them where the boundary lines are. Even in their teens, they may
act like they don't, they may do some delinquent behaviors here and there but I've got to tell you
something they want to know that someone will say stop. It's part of human development for a person
to in their teen years, do some daring and kind of risky things to push past some boundaries. So, what
they need is someone to keep reminding them where those boundaries are that they're not going to
cross over because they will keep pushing past them just because they feel a craving to do so.
It's part of adolescence, it's part of growing up, flexing some of those bravery muscles so
that they can launch into adulthood. So, we've got to make sure that we set the boundaries for them
and we follow through consistently. This brings me to correction. We absolutely need to correct our
children but we've got to do it in a really calm and loving way. One of the best things is describing
and not reacting. So when I correct children, I start with a description of what happened,
what should have happened and why that would be a good idea and I don't lecture, we keep it very
short. Then we talk about the negative consequences they've earned and where we're going to go from
there. So, that is just in a nutshell how to correct in a way where you won't get emotionally attached.
Now, I say you won't hoping that you already know how to keep yourself calm but if you don't know
how to keep yourself calm then I have something for you. So, I have a calm parenting toolkit and
I would like to give it to you for free. In the description below this video, there is a link
that says teachselfgov.com/toolkit, that link will take you to the calm parenting toolkit for free.
The calm parenting toolkit has 10 short lessons that you can go through and you can learn how to
keep yourself calm when somebody else isn't and how to help them choose calmness without losing
your calmness at the same time. This is one of the basic lessons of self-government and it's a great
start for learning all of the self-government skills that will help you and your teen have
a better relationship and thrive. Click on the link to that video now and I'll see you there.