Ever wish granting your teenager's requests wasn't such a minefield? We're here to guide you through an innovative approach that starts with your teen, enabling them to brainstorm their wishes, categorize their timeframes, and understand their trustworthiness from your perspective. In this episode, we also challenge you to consider how to handle requests that defy family values, and how to encourage your teen's dreams while maintaining boundaries. It's a radical shift, but worth the journey.
Let's not forget the vital role communication plays between parents and teens! We focus on this critical topic and shed light on the communication tools that prime conversations, foster independence, self-esteem, and elevate teens' well-being. We'll share our unique form, designed to boost communication surrounding privileges and beyond. So, join us in this intentional parenting path, because your family's success and happiness should never be left to chance. You are in for an insightful ride.
Ever wish granting your teenager's requests wasn't such a minefield? We're here to guide you through an innovative approach that starts with your teen, enabling them to brainstorm their wishes, categorize their timeframes, and understand their trustworthiness from your perspective. In this episode, we also challenge you to consider how to handle requests that defy family values, and how to encourage your teen's dreams while maintaining boundaries. It's a radical shift, but worth the journey.
Let's not forget the vital role communication plays between parents and teens! We focus on this critical topic and shed light on the communication tools that prime conversations, foster independence, self-esteem, and elevate teens' well-being. We'll share our unique form, designed to boost communication surrounding privileges and beyond. So, join us in this intentional parenting path, because your family's success and happiness should never be left to chance. You are in for an insightful ride.
There are as many ways to parent as there are parents in this world, but there is one way to parent that wins every time, and that's doing it intentionally. This show is about helping things go right before they can go wrong. Each episode is chosen to help parents like you, who may be overwhelmed or uninspired, find the ideas and motivation to give their best efforts to the people and place that matters the most. I'm Dr Tim Thane, author of the book and host of the podcast Not by Chance. I believe that a family's success and happiness is not by chance, so welcome to the podcast, built especially for intentional families. Let's jump in. Hi thanks for joining me for the Not by Chance podcast, and today I want to address something that I think is universal.
Speaker 1:In just about every family, you know, parents have children, and those children grow up, and when they become teenagers and even earlier, they have requests that they make to their parents that oftentimes are beyond what the parents are comfortable giving them, because maybe they don't feel like they're mature enough, or that there's not a big enough trust there, that you're afraid that they will misuse that privilege, and so that thing becomes a conflict point inside the family and inside the relationship between a parent and a teen. Well, if that's happened to you and if it happens on a repetitive basis around a particular request a teen has, I think this podcast is going to be helpful to you. So let's talk about why it doesn't work normally. And the reason that doesn't work normally is because a lot of times, there's not very good communication going on between the teen and the parent. There's a lot of heightened emotions when the request is being made. There's often words said that kind of stop the whole thing from happening. A lot of times it can escalate to a point where there may be shouting and swear words and punching walls, et cetera, and so it's one of those things that we tend to want to completely avoid because we don't have a good answer as to how we should go about doing that Well.
Speaker 1:So we set out on the mission to figure out how can we walk a family through this process so that it completely changes the game. It completely changes that narrative that they have in their mind about addressing this issue, and it begins actually with the teen in this case. The thing that they all have in common is that they have something that they want that their parents are not yet ready to grant them, and they just need a better way of doing it. So let me go through this in kind of a step-by-step manner so you can see what this is all about. And we've created, actually, a form that's ultimately going to be a part of our trustee app, but for now it's just a form that guides the team through a series of steps that enable them to communicate their wants and their desires in a much more mature way to the parent.
Speaker 1:The guide begins with having them brainstorm all of their desires and their wishes, all the things they want, everything from, maybe, their favorite meal that they'd like their parent to cook for them, to wanting an Xbox gaming system, to being able to get their driver's license, to having use of the family car, etc. And it begins with them listing all of these things, because isn't it true that we really want them to have all of these things, assuming that it's not against our family values and it's not against the law and that it's age-appropriate and that they're mature enough for it? All of those things come into play, and maybe the cost could be a factor as well, but we needed a process to help the team kind of step up into their wise mind where they could look at this through the lens of a wiser person and even particularly through the lens of their parents, and that would give them an ability to come up with a plan for addressing the concerns the parents might have. That would solve the problem of them being mature enough to be able to move forward with their desire. So, once they have got the list all made, we have them start to categorize that into how long do you think this should take for you to get there.
Speaker 1:You know, all of us have this instant gratification crave. We would like to have everything that we want. We'd like to have it now, without effort, without long time to get there. And so teens are no different, maybe even a little more so that way, and we can't really expect anything different but this process and ask them to then list how long do you think this particular thing, given kind of where your trust level is today, where your maturity level is today in the eyes of your parents, how long do you think that would take you to achieve the goal of receiving this privilege or this freedom? And it might be a week, it might be a month, it might be six months, it might be a year, but we want them to take that whole list of things and then decide how long do they think it's going to take for them to get there.
Speaker 1:The next step is to have the teen identify what the parents have already said about what is required for them to earn that reward, and I think in most cases parents have communicated that. If you have not communicated that clearly to your teen, I think that's a really important thing. A piece of information for them to understand Is that this is not something that you're against, but there are things, clear things that you can articulate that if they would do over a period of time, you could totally see them receiving that reward. Another thing we want them to do is to evaluate their trustworthiness in the eyes of their parents. So again, they have to kind of put themselves in their parent's shoes and they go through a series of questions about specific pillars of trust Everything from reliability to their intentions around that thing, to their respectful behavior and there are eight things that we have them measure.
Speaker 1:Parents might worry about this because we're having them dream a little bit and identify a wish list and the parents might say well, what if there's things on that list that we just are against and they're never going to be given a green light for that thing. Well, we want the team to go through a process of identifying barriers that are outside their control. I mean, even if they had a perfect level of trust and were really mature for their age, there may be some reasons why their parents won't grant them that wish, and it could be anything from the cost of the thing, the age appropriateness of it, the safety concerns of their other priorities, their health considerations. There are lots of other things that a lot of times, teens would never think about because they're not a parent, and it's really the parent's job to think of all these reasons and to keep their kids safe and to be thoughtful about timing, of when they would give them something. And so what we're asking the teen to do is to kind of step up and be able to identify what some of those things might be. We're then asking them to craft a plan. Now you've got all this information. What can you request of your parent? Now let me kind of step back a little bit. I'm going to tell a couple stories that will help illustrate this.
Speaker 1:You know I've worked with a lot of families who have a teen coming out of a residential treatment program or a wilderness program and we're always working with them at the very beginning like what's the plan for moving forward? What are the freedoms and privileges they can have coming right out of a treatment program where maybe before there was no trust at all or very low trust. And yet they've grown some since they've been in these programs and we'll get to the point of addressing things like what about curfew? Or going out with friends, or electronics and social media and other access to things on the internet. So let's say, for example, we're addressing the issue of curfew and the parent will say well, I am afraid, because before it was two or three in the morning when they'd come home, and I know they're going to want to do that again, but we can't have that.
Speaker 1:And so what I always do is ask them, to ask the teen, what they think the curfew should be and what they think the consequence of not abiding by that curfew should be, because while they're in these programs they tend to kind of step into a higher level of thinking, a more wise mind, you might say, where they've identified that, gee, if I stay out too late, I've noticed that's when I get into trouble, and so I better not stay out late until I can really trust myself back home again. And so when they find out oftentimes and they ask the teen what should be the boundary in the first place and what should be the consequence if you step over that boundary, the teen will often suggest something stricter than what they would think. So then they have the opportunity to be the benevolent one that says you know, instead of a month grounding, how about you just don't have the use of the car for the weekend? And then you can earn that privilege back again. And so that's what I'd say again here is that we want the teen to express this so that you can see kind of where they're at from a wise perspective, not being confronted by you know the arguments and being caught back in the trap of conflict with you around this issue. I think that they're going to come out with some more wise and thoughtful suggestions about how they can earn that privilege.
Speaker 1:The last step of the process is we're going to have them craft a letter that will request the privilege but then identify the plan, what they intend to do to earn that privilege in terms of building their trust with you and also being mature enough and having the patience to be able to get there, also acknowledging in some cases there may be some things outside their knowledge that's keeping them from being able to receive that privilege. There's something about being able to write all this out without being in a back and forth conversation with your parent that, I think, will change the game completely, as they share this letter with their parents, and so what I ask on the parent side is that they take this information, they really really consider it and they figure out what would be a positive risk to be able to take that would allow your teen to actually earn this privilege. I'm really excited about this. I think it's going to help a lot of families get past this repetitive conflict that they have around these issues, and, because there's something the teen really wants, the teen's going to be willing, I believe, in many cases, to address some of the biggest concerns the parents have in order to get to that thing that they want. Ultimately, this is going to be in the trustee app. It's going to be part of the onboarding for a teen who's going to join the app and, on the parent side, of course, trustee app is going to help the parent do a lot better job of staying calm, providing that reward when the time comes and not forgetting about it.
Speaker 1:Frankly, when I shared this with a couple of my sons the other day, who are now adults, one of them told me he said that would have really helped us back when you took my Game Boy away, back when I was a kid. And I guess we took the Game Boy away and there wasn't a clear path for him to receive the Game Boy back again, and so we hid the Game Boy so well actually that we couldn't find it. When the time came and we felt like he was mature enough to have it, we couldn't find it. It was years later before he finally found the Game Boy, and so he reminded me of that, which was a reminder.
Speaker 1:By the way, I'm far from perfect as a parent. There's lots of things I've made mistakes in in the past, but I'm finding that if we can find tools, ways to be able to communicate with one another and this happens to be a great way to kind of separate the two get the teen to do their work and their internal insight, work that they need to have and to figure out really, how can I receive this thing? I want this privilege in the right way, not the wrong way, not the manipulative way that I've done in the past, but in the right way, because in the end, the benefits to the teen are far greater than just oh, I have a better relationship with my parent now. It's a sense of a boosted self-esteem because they know they did it right and they had to use some self-discipline in the process. They're going to be better communicators because they're going to see how this really actually moves things forward in my life when I communicate in a mature way, and they're just going to have a greater sense of well-being as they do it. So I'm really excited to get this out.
Speaker 1:I'm excited to get the parent's feedback. I sent the form to a couple parents today and said hey, what do you think about this? Give me your feedback and, if you like it, let's have your teens take it. And I got an email back right away and the mother said this looks like a great tool. I can't wait to see how they respond to it Because, again, the parents really want their teen to grow up into independence, to be able to give them the freedoms, the privileges that the teen wants, and so, again, the reality is teens and parents actually want the same thing.
Speaker 1:They just need the right tools to help them get there, and I hope I can help you do the same. So if you're interested in this, please email me at tim at trustycom, and we'll give you a shot at taking a look at this form and allow your teen to take this and help you communicate about these issues on a whole new level. Parents, your time is valuable and I'm grateful you spent some of it with us. What you're intentionally doing in your home life is inspiring and unmatched in its importance and long term effects. Ask yourself, what am I going to do because of what I've learned today?