It can drive you nuts. What do you do when your teenager is out of control?
I've got a special guest to help fill us in on just that. Brock Matthews is a Live
on Purpose certified coach. That's right. And he knows some things about this
because it's not that long ago that you were a teen. Oh yeah. It's a lot more
recently than for me - yeah. So what what do we do with an out-of-control teenager?
First thing to understand is what is there to control. You have your teen and
you have you. What are you in control of and what's your teen in control of? Now
they're getting older, they're going to have more control, right? Brock, you know what
you just nailed something because it's all about control. Even as we introduce
this topic today. What are you doing you're teenagers out of control, right? So
there's this control issue and some things you control and other things you
don't. Right and so a lot of the times we feel like our teen is acting out of
control. It's actually because we're not in control of them and so when you see
that they are making bad choices, we feel like they're out of control. And you know
what, I've done this exercise sometimes with parents in my office. Where we make
it T-chart. You know so that if you can just picture a great big capital T and
at the top of one column you put your name. At the top of the other column, you
put your teenagers name and then you start listing under that everything that
you control - right -about your teenagers life - Hmm - yeah. And they realized
things really quickly - right. And so luckily, the teen wants the things that
we control and we want to be able to control the teen. And so, we can trade
those two lists. Can we hit some examples around that? Yeah - because I'm thinking
how this usually plays out. What our mom and dad concerned about? Good choices.
Good choices like what are they doing with school, how are they handling
themselves with friends or around the issues of substances or whatever right?
And guess whose list all of those things are on? The teens, right?
Right. But that's what mom and dad want. Well, what do the kids want and I think
you said earlier well the kids want to have some freedom, some control over
their own life, right? So, who controls that kids access to telecommunications?
Parents - for example - oh that's on the parents list. Transportation is parents
too - transportation. What you provide basically is a parent. That's what you
control - right, exactly. And you might be thinking you know what? I don't control
anything about my teen's life. Well, you don't control the things you're
concerned about. But you do control things that your teens are concerned
about. The second point I want to touch on is the discipline. Discipline needs to
be feel like it's not happening at all. And so what I like to do or teach the
parents to do is sit down and figure out what the teen wants and be clear about
what your expectations are. You know Brock, you're hitting on another really
important topic here and that's communication - right - because even though
we're talking about discipline, we're talking about discipline with a teenager -
right and you know what, I can't tell you how many parents were coming to my
office and they're like, "Dr. Paul, this is not my kid. He's doing this and he's
doing that and he's..." And I'm like, "You're right! It's not your kid. It's your
teenager. We have to remember that their bodies are going out of control, hormones
are out of control, their appetite. Girls and boys are losing cooties. They don't
know what's going on either. And so we need to remember and understand yeah,
those teenage years were hard and we needed to be patient with them and and
understand that. And they're different from childhood in a lot of really
important ways. So this communication element, you said sit down with them and
talk to them. Now a little disclaimer here. Who controls whether your teenager
is willing to sit down with you? Your teenager, right? So they might refuse and
there's ways to handle that too because we go back to our list of what it is
that we control and and then we use that to encourage
a conversation. I love what you're saying here Brock because once you get a
communication started, where we're actually sharing real ideas and your
teenager is able to do some thinking that your kid wasn't able to do, that
gives us a basis for setting up the transaction - right. What is important is
when the teenager feels like there's no discipline when the parents
sits down and the teenager sits down and it's clear concise about what the rules
are and what happens when they get broken. And so when they make good
choices, they get rewarded with resources. When they make bad choices, they're clear
on what's going to happen if those choices are made. And now they can't be mad
at you because they agreed on the punishment. There's another powerful
element here that comes from the psychology of this whole thing. So as a
parent, let's just establish this right now. You are a benevolent, generous, loving,
positive parent and that's important because you're not going to take
anything away. No, we're not taking anything away. We are making things
available depending on the choice of our teenager. Do you hear the difference
there? And it sometimes feels like the same thing. You know like, "Well, if I don't
do my homework then you're going to take my phone away - correct. We just switched
that enough that it feels like the phone is available to you when or if - right - do
you hear that subtle difference? Yes. I'd like to share a story when I was a young
out-of-control teenager, I had a filthy habit of slamming a door when I was
upset. So my parents sat down with me and said, "Look, this is a problem. We need to
fix it. What happens next time you slam the door? And I thought and said, "Well, you
can take my door away." And so me as an out-of-control teenager like to test my
parents. Last next fight, I slam the door. Came home the next day, there was no door.
And it triggered some thinking didn't it? Right. And what did I have to do to get
my door back? Well my parents said, "Okay. well you broke
the door and so you need to pay for that door." And so I had to work and do what
was necessary in order to earn my door back. I see a number of powerful
elements here - right. First of all, you might be thinking, "Okay but if I ever did
that with my teenager, I'd have a fight on my hands. But Brock, you pointed out
that the communication happened - right- there was a communication beforehand you
came up with. I was aware it was going to happen - and you knew that it was
inappropriate to slam doors. But as a teenager, it's hard to control your
behaviors and your emotions sometimes. So that communication actually puts you in
a position where you were able to accept the consequence - right.
I was only mad at myself - and you learned something from it? - right. Brock, we've
had a couple of good ideas that have come through. I think it comes down
to a really basic assumption that parents are actually valuable to their
teenagers and teenagers are actually valuable to their parents - right. And if I
think if both parties understood that - yeah - it would be easier to arrange some
of these exchanges that we've been talking about - right - around the
discipline. What have you noticed about the value? Well, I have noticed parents
are very valuable to their teenagers. The teenagers just don't want to admit that.
They are learning and they want to do things for themselves and they're
learning how to be adults and they don't want to ask for help sometimes. The good
thing is that teenagers can also be valuable to the parents. Sometimes it
feels like teenagers are just sucking all the resources. The gas, the food, the
time, the energy. All the stuff the parents are providing - right, exactly. But
we can also use the teenagers to get done some of the things that we need to
and have them pull some of the weight around the house. You know what, I've seen
so many teenagers have the lights go on when they realize they have something to
offer. Something that is really valuable to the parents and your
starting a conversation here about, "Hey, they could do some things around the
house." They're very capable of doing, of contributing in some meaningful ways. But
it's more than that for the parents because you think about what the parents
really value. And as a parent, what is it did you want? A slave? No, you want your
teenager to be making good, mature choices. Now if you're a teenager
watching this, I hope the lights just went on because for you to do that is
enormously valuable to your parents and they've already proven to you that
they're willing to provide all kinds of luxury. Parents are usually really
generous towards teenagers as long as they're doing what they want. Teenagers
can also use to get a little bit more if they use... If they help parents get what
they need. It's an exchange - hmm - economics. There you go. For example, I have a story
I was driving a really old 89 Honda Accord in high school and it got me just
back and forth from school but I wanted something more. I went to my dad and said,
"Dad, I want a new truck". And he said , "Okay, well that's going to cost a little bit of
money out of my pocket unless you're going to go get a job." And I said, "I can't
get a get a job." And so he said, "I will help you pay for the truck if you help
me do the yard work. It's going to cost me however much money a month so if you do
the yard work, I can put that money towards your truck." And so we had a
little transaction there - yeah. Hopefully, that's helpful to you. You may know of
some other parents who would appreciate this video or some teenagers who need to
hear from Brock, you can connect with Brock and our other Live on Purpose
coaches that liveonpurpose.coach where you'll find access to other
coaches who are trained in these models and can help you with what you need. Also,
if you haven't checked out the parenting power-up yet, you'll want to do that. We've
got some links here in the description or right over there on the side, click on
that and see what we have to offer for are you to
become more confident as a parent.
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