Hi, I'm Nicholeen Peck and I'm an expert on teens. I'm a previous foster parent of
multiple troubled teens. They were all between the ages of 12 and 18 years old. And I've raised
four children of my own to adulthood. And I know quite a bit about what you should and shouldn't
say to a teen. In this video, we're going to talk about 10 things you should never say to teens.
I'm known for teaching families all about self-government and how to teach themselves
and their children self-government skills and principles. So, there are 2 goals with
self-government. The first goal is good communication. The second goal is to be
understood. All 10 of these things that I'm going to be sharing with you definitely do not work for
good communication or being understood. The first thing you should never say is,
"What were you thinking?" Number 1, this insults their intelligence. Number 2, lots of times when
you do something that might be a little brainless, you don't actually know how to analyze what you
were thinking. And I know many parents think they want to be a psychologist at this time and really
get to the root of something. But that's just a demeaning way of saying, "You're stupid." So,
don't say what were you thinking to your child. Instead just talk about what did happen, what
was said and what results it had and then what they should have said or done instead. Number 2,
"You are ___" fill in the blank. Liar, snowflake, thief, all these labels. They are not productive.
What do they do? What does it benefit the child to be called a name by their parents? In fact,
I've heard people call their children things like boogers, butt heads, you know, all kinds
of stuff like that. Why would we call names to our children? That just disconnects them from
us. Even teens don't think it's funny. They want to be loved by you. They want to know that you
respect them and care about them. So, don't call them names and don't label them as anything. Just
love them. Number 3, don't ever say, "Grow up". Because you know what? They feel pretty grown up.
Now, you know that they're not completely grown up yet but there are a lot of things
they can do. They're learning all the time. They want to test their abilities and their skills.
They don't like someone to keep reminding them that they are somehow too small to do
things. Besides, it's just rude. Speaking of insulting their intelligence, don't ever say,
"Oh, you wouldn't understand." They might. They might understand. If you're having a conversation
that you don't want them to be part of and you are doing it around them, you've picked the wrong time
and the wrong place. So, if you're going to have a conversation and they're there, then you probably
ought to let them in on it. Treat them like a person who has an opinion that might be valued.
And you know what? That will bring their heart closer to you than almost anything else. Number 5,
"Leave me alone." Don't ever say that. Do you know that even though that teen sometimes is putting
up walls, they're not wanting to talk to you about certain things, they actually want to be with you.
They care about you. They want to bond. They want to feel loved and important to you. So,
when you push them away by saying, "Leave me alone." You're saying that whatever you're
doing with your phone or your friend or your project is more important than them. You only
have them for a certain period of time. Make it something that's beautiful. Let them know
how important they are to you during that time. If you've been enjoying these so far,
give us a like. Give us a little thumbs up if you have a teenager or if you are a teenager.
And you feel like, "Hey, more people need to know about this." Number 6, never say, "Oh,
you always do this. Just like last week when we told you to take out the trash and you didn't..."
You know those experiences that you dredge up out of nowhere. Don't do that. Don't rehash past
mistakes. It doesn't do anybody any good. In fact, in the Teaching Self-Government Parenting program,
we always talk about dropping the subject and how powerful it is to be able to just drop the subject
and not think about something anymore. Just move on and start taking proactive steps.
So, this is definitely one of those moments. Don't be tempted to bring up a past mistake just because
a mistake just happened. Number 7, don't say, "Whatever." Don't roll your eyes, don't have
attitude problems. I know you probably think you're totally justified in doing that because
some of the teens in your life might have attitude problems from time to time. But you really need to
be setting an example. You need to be showing them that they matter to you. Even though they possibly
could be showing you that they're trying to push you away or that you don't matter to them. Which
really isn't true. They love you. They want to be connected to you. But they are learning
how to communicate and they're testing some of their independence and their abilities. And so
when they do that, sometimes they feel a little bit superior at certain times even though that's
not appropriate to act that way. But don't you act like a teenager. If you act like a teenager too,
then who are they going to follow. They need a leader in their lives and that leader is supposed
to be you. Number 8, don't say things like, "Don't you walk away from me." That's a threat, right?
Ooh! What are you going to do? Don't threaten your children. It doesn't do any good. In fact,
it just leads to a power struggle. The second you say, "Don't you do __" whatever it is,
if you have a teen who's oppositional, they're going to do exactly that thing. Whether they think
they're going to get a laugh out of you or get an angry rise out of you. They're going to test it.
So, don't tell them don't do. Just set an example for what to do. And if they are walking away from
you or being disrespectful, you need skills in place so that you can help them communicate better
with you and so that you can communicate better with them. You need skills for how to correct
troubling behavior or negative behavior. In the Teaching Self-Government Parenting program,
we teach 7 steps for how to correct negative behavior and how to correct out of control
behaviors. This could be really helpful so that you don't find yourself having anger matches and
trying to intimidate your children with threats. Number 9, do not say statements that make it seem
like you know all the thoughts in their head or everything they care about. Don't say something
like, "You think you know everything" or "You only care about yourself." There is one thing I know
after years of raising teens and helping them master themselves. The last thing that I know
is exactly how they think. I may know a lot. I may observe a lot. I may have had a lot of experience
but I should never be the type of person that assumes that I know what's going on in somebody
else's head. Don't assume that. It's incredibly condescending. And it makes them think that you're
not going to value anything that they will share with you anyway. And isn't the goal to have good
understanding open communication? I think so. All right, here comes number 10. But after number 10,
I've got a bonus for you. As I've been thinking about what we really shouldn't say to our teens,
I realized, "I've got more than 10." Even though I told you there would only be 10. So,
here's number 10. Don't ever tell your teen that they can't. That they can't do something. That
doesn't mean you can't give them a no answer like, "No. You can't go to the party" or "No, you can't
watch that show." But when you say, "You can't do this, your brother's going to have to do this."
Or "You can't do this. Dad will have to do this." You know what? They might have more abilities than
you think. And that seems like you're talking down to them. I hope that you've understood
through this list of what we shouldn't say to our teens that the last thing we want to do is speak
condescending to them. There's just no reason for that. There are people that are growing up,
they're almost adults. They need someone who has confidence in them. Who lets them take risks and
challenges and who supports them along the way. Here's the bonus: Don't make emotional statements
like, "You never lift a finger around here." Number one, that's not completely true. Because
you know that that child has done something. Even if they've been on the couch the whole day,
there was one time where they did something. So, saying never is just not going to be honest. As
soon as you start saying statements that have these absolutes in them like, "You always,
you never", you're on a slippery slope there now because you are not telling the truth. So, if you
need to talk about somebody's productivity or lack of productivity, just say, "I've noticed that in
the last few hours you've just been sitting on the couch. Let's do something different now." Don't
start making some statement that makes it sound like they don't ever do anything useful. It's just
rude. I've been giving you tips throughout all of these don't do statements for what you can do
to help your child self-govern better and what you can do better as a parent to self-govern yourself
in your communications with your children. But maybe you want to know more about what it means
to self-govern as a child. Well, that's the next video you're going to want to watch. So,
go ahead and click on the video What Does Self-Government as a Child Mean?