Pedro & Claudia Part 3 of 3: When Nagging Your Kid Doesn't Work

Is there an epidemic of overparenting? And if so, where does it come from?  Is it parenting from a place of fear, from a place of information overload, from the anxiety that is all around us, the drive to make our children perfect or is it from the frustration of trying to raise a child who doesn’t do what you want them to do?  In this third and final session with Pedro and Claudia, Leslie explores these questions.  Pedro and Claudia want to be the best parents they can be to their 16 year old son LIam, but are overparenting and doing too much undermining their efforts? Leslie turns her attention to the “overparenting problem” that’s shaping the next generation, and leaving them with lasting consequences. Together Leslie, Pedro, and Claudia discuss how to pivot from being “nagging” parents, to “chill” ones, and how to do that while still instilling your child with your core values and healthy limits.

Time Stamps

3:10 The impact of “less is more” motto on the parent-child relationship (yes we are well aware of the reversal in the podcast where by Pedro and Leslie said “more is less”

5:15  Parenting is forgiving

8:43 Three ways to change your behavior as a parent

1. 9:29  Shift from “I can’t do this” to “I will feel so much better if I do this”
2. 9:46 Get some support from partner who give you reminders and help out with the change
3. 10:35 Permission-giving. Getting the okay from someone else, someone you trust

14:25/16:39 The benefits of being a bit more “CHILL”  

14:52 Finding the balance - the middle path of parenting (see the video in the show notes)

17:25 Overparenting as result of parenting from a place of fear

19:40 The myth of the parenting “deadline”

21:25 The metaphor of a plant growing and the space it needs (see video below)

24:04 Understanding who your child is to is in order to build a foundation for them

• Biological make up
• Social environment

29:43 Parents have the privilege of seeing every side of their child

30:29 We want to send the message that a child is a whole person, and that includes the good the bad and the ugly

35:16 What are you missing? What is your child’s perspective? Parents often skip this step

36:50 How would you validate your child (clue to finding their perspective)

39:07 Reframing from “my child is taking the easy way out” and “manipulating” to “he’s doing what works”

44:14 Have faith that your child will be able to solve their own problems as they grow as adults

44:39 We don’t want our children to be afraid of growing up - what can parents do about this?

Show Note Links:

• Leslie’s Video: Plants Need Space and So Do Kids 
• Leslie’s Video: Stop Repeating Yourself
• Handout on Parenting Dilemmas from DBT
• Leslie’s Video: Walking the Middle Path to Balance the Dilemmas

Leslie-ism: Beware of Overparenting. Remember Less is More!

For a full transcript of this episode and more information about the host visit https://lesliecohenrubury.com/podcasts/ . You can also follow Leslie’s work on Facebook,  Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. Join the conversation with your own questions and parenting experiences.

Credits:

Transcript

[Music: The Wilds Beyond by L-Ray Music]

0:02  Claudia:  Can you imagine spending your whole life with two people that nag you and annoy you and tell you things 500 times a day? Like, who likes that? I try to think of that, too; like, how does it feel for him to have the over-parenting?

0:21  Leslie Cohen-Rubury:  No one likes to be nagged, and yet, as parents, we all seem to do it. Yes, over-parenting is a common tendency, and it often comes from a place of good intentions, of wanting to protect or teach your child. But there's a cost to over-parenting, and I see the cost in therapy all the time. I'm Leslie Cohen-Rubury, and this is Is My Child A Monster?, a parenting therapy podcast where you get to listen in as real parents and caregivers share their trials and tribulations in therapy sessions recorded live. And, no, your child is not a monster. 

Today is my third and final session with Pedro and Claudia, who want to be better parents for their teenage son, Liam. Their homework from last session was to let Liam get the last word, to resist the urges to teach Liam, and to only say things once and then move on. And they both really took this less-is-more assignment to heart, and it paid off. 

So how do you create that healthy balance between micromanaging your child's every move or being too removed and detached from your child? That's what I explore with Pedro and Claudia today. Now, as a reminder, all the names and identifying information have been changed. And though I'm a licensed clinical social worker, this show is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for therapeutic intervention. So let's begin.

2:06  Leslie:  Hi Claudia, hi Pedro.

2:08  Pedro:  Hi Leslie, how are you? 

2:10  Leslie:  I’m good. And how are you, Claudia?

2:12  Claudia:  I’m doing good. 

2:13  Leslie:  Beautiful. Okay, how's family life?

2:15  Claudia:  I think it's going okay. It's pretty stable. Nothing crazy to tell you today, which I'm happy about.

2:23  Pedro:  Yeah. Liam is on summer vacation, and he's spent some time just chilling, not doing much. Now he's in summer school, in which they do some activities. So it's kind of a little bit of a different dynamic than what we're used to. But I think it's been more chill in general. I think that we're keeping with the more-is-less situation. And I think in general, it's been positive. And, yeah, we still fall into some of those, let's call it traps from the past, but it's way fewer.

3:07   Leslie:  Great. So what's the impact of your efforts? So there's an impact on you, there's an impact on Liam…can you tell me a little bit more about the impact? And I'm very excited that you've kept this through-line, and you continue to work on it. It's been three sessions, and it's been a while. So you've really taken this seriously, which is great. So tell me a little bit about the impact. 

3:34  Pedro:  For me, it has been…I think we really noticed when we decided to try this the first time and say, “Hey, maybe this is the epiphany that we had, like, hey, let's just do this.” And it had, I think it was spot on. I think he already, I wouldn't call that it addressed everything, but I think it was core for a bunch of the issues that we're dealing with. And what I think we—Claudia and I—saw pretty immediate results just by not engaging all the time. Despite having some failures in the beginning. And we still, obviously, we’re not perfect. So there's still some failures here and there. 

But I think it has become the norm to just shake it off for, like your suggestion last time, “Hey, do the parenting fist bump, give a hug,” and move on with our lives. And I think that Liam has kind of also, I don't know if intentionally or it was a subconscious thing, he's also like, “Oh yeah: hug.” So he just fist bumps, he just moves on. So that has been helpful.

4:43  Leslie:  Okay, so that's referring to that non-verbal way of communicating, which I think is great. The other thing that I hear you saying is that this more-is-less is a wonderful thing, and it's not perfect. You still get…I call it a fall-into-the-parent-trap. Or just get baited by some of those moments when you're vulnerable, which is totally okay and totally expected. And I want to say parenting is forgiving. We do not have to be perfect parents. That's not what I'm aiming for. And so it is a little bit uncomfortable to reduce your goal as to, “I have to be perfect,” to “I’ve got to put an effort out there. I’ve got show up. And sometimes I'm going to do it the way it feels good and it has a positive impact. And sometimes it's going to be like, whoops, we all fell down. That didn't go so well. And that's okay.” That's what I'm trying to say: That's okay. So to remind you that you're doing something different, anyway.

5:48  Claudia:  Yeah, I felt, for me in the beginning, it was hard. I was over-parenting just by default. I was just doing it, and it was so hard to stop. Then once I got into the groove of doing it, it's just so easy. Now it's a lot more natural, because it causes me a lot of stress to be over-parenting. So then once you get it, it's like, “Oh, this is good.” I feel good about that, because I feel like we're still, of course, parenting, because we have to. But we are not stressing too much over things that maybe don't need that much stress over. 

And I noticed, one example was that I had to take him to the doctor, and usually I lead the consultation—the doctor asks, I answer. And Liam just had the consultation by himself. It was like I was not there. He was telling the doctor everything he needed. He was interacting with the doctor. And he remembered things from when he was two years old that he was telling the doctor. I was like, “I don't even have to be here. That’s awesome.” [Laughter] And so, I mean, he's much more aware of things around him than we give him credit for, I think.

7:10  Leslie:  I would agree with that. 

7:12  Claudia:  So when he got to the point where he needed to talk to the doctor about his health, he knew exactly what to say. Details. And I was like, “Wow, he was listening.” So that was cute to see, like how he was, “I know what I'm doing here,” and he did it, and he was perfect.

7:33  Leslie:  Great. Pedro, did you want to add something? I saw your hand.

7:36  Pedro:  Yeah. As Claudia was talking about the over-parenting thing, I think it also allowed us, as parents, to kind of create another language. We just kind of, I look at her sometimes say, “Hey, now don't over-parent.” And sometimes she looks at me, it's like, yeah, just we got there. We kind of just help each other now with a glance. So, hey: now we’re done. And I think that that has been helpful to just kind of help each other, because sometimes we just kind of get into our own selves, like, “blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” And then the other one’s, like, “You're doing it again.”

8:13  Leslie:  Excellent, because that's exactly the question I wanted to ask. Because, Claudia, the last session, you said, “Oh, that was impossible.” You thought it was going to be easy to do. You thought it was great to get permission to do less. And then when you tried it, it was really hard. So now some more time has gone by and you're saying, “Okay, now I'm doing it, and I like the outcome. It feels better. There's less stress.” All of that. But I was going to ask you, how did you go from, “It's impossible not to do so much,” to, “I'm doing less”?

8:46  Claudia:  I think it was because it just felt easier. I just felt less stressed. So I was like, “Why am I going to put myself through more stress if I can do the same job with less stress?” I am going to school. I am like—Pedro can attest to that—it's draining me beyond anything else. And I was like, “Why am I going to add to this already so full plate?” So once I realized, “Okay, this is easier, and I can still get the same job done.” I'm just going to do it. I'm just going to do it.

9:26  Leslie:  Okay. So it sounds like there was a combination of a shift in your perspective. You went from “I can't do this,” or “I don't know how to do this,” to “It feels better to do this. I'm just going to say less. I feel better.” So this idea that you experience, maybe you saw it with Pedro. Pedro, maybe it was your reminders. Maybe it was a little bit of, “Oh, here's a chance to do less.” Because I really think that many, many parents want to make changes, but they don't know how. 

And we heard that from your last session to this session. You went from, “I don't know how to do it to and I want to do it,” in the last session to, “I did it, and I'm appreciating the changes I'm making.” And so getting support is great. Pedro, if you were helping each other, like you said, I think that's a great way to do it. And also what you said, Claudia, is seeing the consequence or the impact, that if you do this hard thing, saying less, you will actually feel better. And chances are he will feel better. 

10:32  Claudia:  I also feel that it would have been harder for me if I didn't have you telling me it's okay.

10:38  Leslie:  So the third component was its permission given… 

10:42  Claudia:  Somebody that knows what they're doing, because I would feel like I'm doing something else wrong. But having the okay from somebody else reinforces that it's okay to do it. And again, we couldn't even think of the solution by ourselves, because we were so into the problem that we couldn't see much. And then having somebody else from outside saying, “Do this. It's okay. It's going to be fine.” It really helps too. 

11:16  Leslie:  That's great. So two things. Usually when I give my recommendations, it's either backed up by science and we have evidence-based practices that say we see that this works. I also say: go home and try it and see if it works. So don't believe me, although I'm giving you permission. You see the difference, right? It's not a promise. It's just, you can see the difference that there's more peace. 

But I do want to go back to the reason why you were doing this, the reason why you were, so called, over-parenting. You were over-parenting, and we've talked about this a little bit. Pedro, you said something last time which was so heartfelt, which was, “If I'm not doing the stuff I was doing in this over-parenting, if I'm not telling him what to do, if I'm not teaching him how to be a human being, how to do these things, how to be resilient, how to be kind, if I'm not teaching him, am I a dad, or how am I supposed to be a dad?” Have you played with that a little bit since you said that? Because that was very powerful.

12:24   Pedro:  No, not intentionally. I think that, since the last few weeks, I don't know if I necessarily worked on that. It has been something that I already tried before, like coming up with, kind of giving him guidances on how to be a good person, and kind of write them down. And maybe I was extra…maybe I did a little too much there. Claudia was making fun of me that I put this on paper and I laminated it, and the fact that I do this is too official. 

But I think that, I do think that I still feel the responsibility that, as a dad, I need to make sure that he understands certain things. I don't want to sound too old school here, but hey, open the door for others, say please and thank you or whatever. And I think that he gets some of that, but on the day-to-day, it doesn't come across. And that's sometimes where I kind of try to teach him and educate him. You know, “If I make dinner for you, you say thank you for making dinner.” Or, “Once you're done with your dinner, you put your plates without destroying the plates, but inside of the sink.” 

And I can see now that in the past, some of those things, if maybe he just threw the plates in the sink, which is his mode, I would just completely go over it like, “Hey, what are you doing? We already talked about this ten times, blah, blah, blah,” right? Because, let's be honest, we've been dealing with this for the last five years every day. But then it's now more of like, “Dude, you did it again. You already know what to do,” fist bump, you know. So I think it's a lot more chill. And again, it's not like he does it consistently, but he definitely has been doing more. So I think that we're finding a better balance across all that.

14:21  Leslie:  Great. And that idea of doing it a little bit more chill.---I don't know about you, but I like when people around me are more chill.

14:28  Claudia:  I was going to say that. Can you imagine spending your whole life with two people that nag and annoy you and tell you things 500 times a day? Who likes that? I try to think of that too, like, how does it feel for him to have the over-parenting? And, of course, it doesn't feel good, because people are constantly telling you that you should be doing things better, in a different way, right? 

So, totally I think he responds better because it feels better. It's just a natural way to respond. It doesn't feel like everybody's on his case. Because I think that's something that he feels all the time, because he's been having therapy since he's like, two years old. There's always an adult telling him, “Do this, do that, do it differently.” So the knee-jerk reaction for him is to go against that, because he is probably tired of people telling him what to do. He's been doing this. That's what he has had for his whole life. 

15:36  Leslie:  I love the story that you told about taking him to the doctor. And you normally would jump in and give the doctor all the information. But with a teenager who's ready-to-launch kind of thing, you said you’d probably just let him start talking. And you were amazed at how well he was able to communicate with the doctor. 

And so we definitely want to give our children the chance to show us what they know. And when they behave like teenagers, we don't have to say, “Oh, you don't have any skills. You're not doing anything.” We've got to read between the lines and say, “What are they doing when they're on their own? What are they doing if I close my mouth and see what happens when they go to the doctor's office?” So I love that you had that experience, because both of you will start to see that the chill approach, that you said, will actually get the results you want. Which is like, “Oh, I don't need to say it five times or the way I was doing it. Because now, moving on, the message came across, or he's actually showing me that he's aware. 

And that's what's so hard about raising a teenager. You could get so confused by their behavior. It's very confusing, because they are behaving in ways that don't make sense, that are very challenging, that can be very upsetting to parents, and that doesn't tell the whole story. That's what's important: It doesn't tell the whole story.

17:17  Claudia:  I wanted to go back to when you asked Pedro about why we were doing what we were doing. And I think for me, it was out of fear, out of fear of failing him somehow. And then he grows up to be a bum. He grows up to be somebody that is not successful, whatever that means, but somebody that doesn't have a proper life, in a way. So it was out of fear, really, that time is passing by and we are seeing these behaviors that we don't like, and I have to do something. So it's easy to fall again in the trap of overdoing it. And I think for me, a lot of it was the worry, the fear of Liam not growing up to be a good adult for society.

18:16  Leslie:  I have a lot to say; but go ahead, Pedro,

18:18  Pedro:  I was going to say that I agree. I think—and maybe this is kind of a part of who I am—when I see myself with a problem, or if I see myself with something a challenge, what can you do but do something? I tend to be more proactive about those things. So, “Hey, what's the plan? What am I doing? What's…?” And, yes, sometimes I can be too much about this. And I think that's what I'm learning. Like, “Hey, we’ve got to over-parent, just because we were parenting,” and it was the action, “Hey, what's next, what's next, what's next?” And that's like, no, what's next: just let it be. 

And I think that that's all we're learning, and maybe this is something for us to continue the conversation. I still think that there is progress that we need to make to get into understanding, accept responsibility, for him to actually be accountable for things. And he actually show action and for life, things which are still part of the struggle.

19:24  Leslie:  Okay, well, I want to hold on to that. My head's spinning because there's a lot of things I want to say. So one of the things is the fear of failing him. This time pressure, which was actually where we ended last session, this pressure that you have to do it all before he grows up. 

Two things I want to say about that. You're not alone. Parents do feel a lot of pressure, that it's their job to fix their child before they're out on their own, because this is the only chance you get. That's a myth. That's not true. A lot of people continue growing, and growing up, way into their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s; like, when do we stop growing? I haven't stopped—I'm doing a lot of work on myself. I keep growing. So, you do not have this illusion that you are holding in your head, that there is a deadline, that if you're not done by his graduation date, that you have failed him. I hope you have the opportunity to continue your relationship with him and grow with him throughout his life, in your life. 

So that's a change in perspective of how I would see it. I'm not on a deadline, and therefore the fear of a deadline, the fear that I have to get it done, I can let that go, because I've got a lifetime. That's another permission-giving thing: to change the perspective. And it's a much more broader perspective of, “Okay, we got plenty of time. We've got all the time we need to help him be a human being. 

The other thing I want to say is about this idea that a child is a problem to be fixed. “Oh, this baby came out, now I’ve got to fix it in order to make it a human being.” And if we use the metaphor of watching a plant grow, it knows what to do to grow. We actually have to give it space to grow. Yes, it needs certain…it needs the basics. It needs soil, it needs water, it needs sun, it needs space. I'm not a very good vegetable…I just started doing vegetable planting. I overcrowded my kale like you can't believe. The poor things got diseases and they got bugs and I completely failed because I overcrowded, I over-parented my poor kale. [Laughter]

So there are ways that what we do in order for my plant to be a healthy plant, I do have to know certain things. So being here and understanding is great, and learning some skills is great. And we do need a very big part of us, as parents, to allow and accept our children to be who they are going to be and to unfold, and to watch them unfold and blossom in their own time and in their own way,

22:32  Claudia:  I really hear you when you say, “their own time,” because my time, your time, Liam's time, they are all different. And we are also working with some diagnoses here that might impact that severely. So yeah, I think that goes a long way, because he might have…he might need more time, and that's okay. And I have to be okay with that, because that's not something that he's choosing to take a lot of time growing up. This is not something that he's doing out of spite or something. So we have to learn to accept that, and also that removes a lot of pressure from our shoulders. So it makes it easier, for sure.

23:20  Pedro:  I generally agree with the sentiment and the conversation. I get the whole lifetime learning thing, those are not problems to be fixed. I get all that. Maybe it's my core belief thing. I still believe that there's a foundation that we need to help him build, though. And maybe this thing about…I don't know if I get this right, but it's just like, “Hey, be responsible, do something for yourself, be a kind person,” or whatever. There's a foundational thing that I want to make sure he gets—again, on his own time—but it's maybe just a part of a core value system that he has.

24:03  Leslie:  So that gets us into the specificity of knowing what he needs as an individual in order to create that foundation, because everyone is different. So understanding who he is in order to create that foundation is two things. One is his biological makeup, which, when you talk about his diagnoses, I might put them in a perspective of neurodivergence. We talked about his neurodivergence. If he has an autism diagnosis, I would shift that perspective to an autistic person. He is an autistic person, and instead of being broken, we need to understand him and understand the environment that he will thrive in and how to function in an environment that's not so easy for him. 

So we want to be able to understand who he is, the biology, his biological makeup, and really, really understand that. And I know you've done so much to understand it, and I would say: don't stop there. I think there's more understanding, in terms of who he is. That's one thing—we'll come back to that. 

The second is the social environment. The social environment is everything, including school, parents, community. It's everything around him. It's his environment around him. And we've been working on changing the environment to make it a little bit more chill, because an autistic person actually gets easily overwhelmed. And he usually does one thing in the moment, and shifting might be difficult. 

Everyone's different, but these are some general things we know about an autistic person, and he needs to know these things. So when you say, “Oh, I've got three things for you to do,” does he say, “Hey, Mom, I can handle one thing at a time. Can you give me one instruction, not three instructions,” so that he actually can advocate for himself? Because I don't want it to be a secret that you guys know about him, and his teachers know about him, but he doesn't know himself. So the environment needs to understand who he is and meet that. 

And the other part about the environment is the modeling, the foundation of being respectful, being kind. It really does get me when parents come in and say, “Our children are disrespectful.” And then I have the parents in my session, and they are fighting with each other in such a mean way. I'm sitting there going, “Do you do this in front of your children?” And the answer is, “Yeah, we fight all the time.” And I'm like, “Okay, so how's that foundation working?” 

Remember, the foundation is what the children see. And I've gotten to know you in three sessions, and there is so much respect between the two of you. Do I think your son's growing up in an environment where he sees respect and tolerance of each other? Last time, we talked about the panic attacks and how, Claudia, you felt Pedro was supportive of your panic attacks. And there was so much respect. So do you have to teach him, or are you modeling it? 

27:11  Claudia:  And I think that the problems that we see as problems, I don't want to say, “Oh, it could be worse,” but it could be worse, right? There are teenagers out there doing things, doing criminal things, and I know for sure, and Pedro knows for sure that Liam would never, like, never…

27:34  Leslie:  That's called perspective you've put your child in. And you want to see him as, “Okay, he's not cleaning up his dishes quietly, or the way we want him to, and what can we do about that?” But you have perspective in terms of what are the problems you're dealing with.

27:52  Claudia:  Yeah, we know his heart in a way, and we know how kind he is, and we know how respectful…and I think that's also one of the things we know: his potential. And when he doesn't do that, it's so frustrating, because we know that he can do it, and then we are like, “Why you are not doing it? Because we know that you can do it.” So I think that's part of…and Pedro is just like, “Yes, that's what it is.”

28:18  Pedro:  Yeah. Like, yeah, she nailed it.

28:20  Claudia:  “Why don't you do it? If we know that we can and you do it so well, like, Why? Why?” [Laughter]

28:28   Pedro:  We see the moments of brilliance. It's like, sometimes he says some remarkable thing, and he completely gets it without us having to say something. And we're like, “Yeah, that's the Liam that we know you can be.” But we get the sense that he refuses to do so. It's like, “Oh, he just doesn't do it consistently enough.” And maybe that's part of the frustration. We've seen the parts of the peak, we've seen the upside. But most of the time we keep dealing with the bottom, the bare minimum. 

29:06  Leslie:  Do you have strengths and do you have weaknesses?

29:12  Claudia:  We all do, right? 

29:15  Leslie:  Yeah. And when you go to your doctor, do you ask him if he does his dishes, or does he leave him around for his partner to clean up? Do you ask your doctor if they get 30 minutes of exercise a day? Do you ask your doctor how many sugar sweets they eat, whatever? Do you see the downside of your doctor? Or do you just see the potential, which is lovely, and their skill and all the things that you want. Parents have the privilege of seeing their whole child.

29:49  Pedro:  That's what I was going to say. I mean, I'm seeing the doctor from the lens that I'm there to talk to him about. I'm not seeing the whole thing. And I think you're bringing up, “Oh, you see the whole of your child all the time.” So maybe we don't get to hone in, right? 

30:04  Leslie:  I think it's a privilege to see someone's vulnerability, to see someone's shadow side, to see someone's weaknesses, to see someone in their best, their worst, the good, bad and the ugly. That's a whole person, because each and every one of us is a whole person with all of it. And I think that's a really good takeaway here, because we want to send the message that you are whole, and being whole means making mistakes. Being whole means annoying your parents. Being whole means being a pain. Being whole is all of it, is your potential and your undeveloped parts and your annoying parts. How can you love all of him? 

Do you think you're sending him that message? This is a hard question. Do you think you're sending him the really deep message, we love all of you, or we love your potential side?

31:05  Claudia:  Yeah. I think we are sending the message of the potential for sure. Yeah.

31:10  Pedro:  We definitely talk about it sometimes. We definitely make it. “Look how great this was.” Sometimes we do that. So yeah, we probably need to rethink them.

31:20  Claudia:  Yeah, I feel we need to be more positive about the things that are positive. And I think that's going to go a long way for all of us, because I think nobody's going to thrive in an environment of negativity. And I think we just got to a point of so much worry and fear and frustration that we need to have that mind shift. We need to have that mind shift.

 [Music: Acoustic Motivation by Coma-Media]

32:08  Claudia:  One of the things that I wanted to say is that a few times this past week, Liam has asked me to talk to Pedro about things for him, so I don't want him to be scared of talking to his dad about whatever, right?

32:24  Leslie:  Do you have an example?

32:25  Claudia:  He was like, “Whenever I don't have school,” because he's going to have a few weeks in August, “...whenever I don't have school, can you ask Dad to give me more screen time?” And I was like, “Wow, you have a mouth—use it, talk to him.” And then he goes,” Yeah, but he only listens to you. And every time you say something, he does it.” I was like, “Well, you wish.” [Laughter]

But anyway, he was like, “If you say it, he's gonna do it.” And I was like, “But I want you to be able to advocate for yourself.” I didn't even say, like, “I don't want you to be scared of your dad,” because I don't think he was coming from that. He was coming from a point of: if she does it for me, it's going to be a certain win here. And I was, like, “I want you to be able to explain to him why you think you deserve more time, and why you think you should have more time.” 

And if anything, I know that Pedro will appreciate the effort of seeing Liam going there, explaining himself and working for what he wants. And then I told him that I'm not going to ask, “Because I think you can do it.” And then he was kind of complaining about it. And I was like, “You can do it. Because when you really want something, you go for it. So you can do it. I'm pretty sure you can do it.” And then he goes, “But what if he says, No?” I was like, “Well, then we see…then you listen to your father, and you understand why he's saying no, right?” There's learning there. You talk, he listens. He talks, you listen, and then you understand his point of view…which is hard for an autistic person. But that's one of the things that happened. And I was like, “You need to speak up for yourself.”

34:20  Leslie:  I have something to say. Pedro, looks like you have something to say. 

34:25  Pedro:  I was going to say that maybe this stuff that I'm trying to work out with him, it's like, “Look, there's nothing worth having in life that you don't have to work a little bit for it. You always have to put in a little bit of effort, right? So, yeah, if you want a little bit of screen time, go talk to me. And we'll talk about it.” And oftentimes, then I understand the projects that he's working on and whatever, and that it's cool we engage on that. And yeah, screen time has been a loaded topic in our family for, like, years ago. But I think more now, it's been a more like: No, if he asks about it, I'll just give it to him, because we are kind of past that, in a sense.

35:14  Leslie:  So I'm going to test you guys a little bit. Is that okay? And I hear that you're encouraging him to talk to Dad, and I hear, Pedro, that you're saying, “Yes, it's been an issue in the past, but I've changed, and it's different if he comes and talks to me,’ I hear all that, and that's wonderful. What I'd like to know is: what are you missing? You're thinking about when he brings that issue to you, you're thinking about how you want to respond. What are you missing from his perspective?

35:47  Pedro:  From the context of screen time itself, or in general?

35:51  Leslie:  From this example, from what are we missing, which I think is really important. When parents are trying to work with their children, you want to know what you're thinking, what your perspective is; and on the other hand, meaning we have two hands, what is his perspective? And I think you're missing something there.

36:08  Pedro:  Okay, I can tell you, from my perspective out of this, I just want him to own it. I want the responsibility. I want him to “Hey, I want screen time. I'm going to talk to who controls the screen time.”

36:17  Leslie:  Okay, that's your perspective. Excellent, beautiful perspective. That's your perspective—still missing his perspective.

36:25  Claudia:  I'm failing this test. I cannot answer that. So maybe we're missing another piece here. I don't know. 

36:36  Leslie:  I think you are, and that may be because you also…and many people have difficulty understanding the other person's perspective. So if I said to you, if I come at it a different way, and I said, “Okay, before you solve the problem, how would you validate him?” Because that's understanding his perspective. How would you validate him? This is like me giving you a hint. 

37:0  Claudia:  So, we would appreciate the fact that he is asking for something that he wants, and that he is approaching something that might be hard for him, and that he's going to explain to Pedro why he deserves the screen time. Because we always say that it's a privilege to have all the screen time you want in your life. So validating his reasons why, and validating the fact that he is doing something that might be hard for him for whatever reason. We don't have to get into the reason why it's hard for him, but the fact that he is doing it.

37:41  Leslie:  Why is it hard for him? He told us.

37:44  Claudia:  I think a little bit, he's scared of Pedro, to be honest, from all the interactions where Pedro is fast in losing his patience for all the things that we know already. And I think it's also hard for him, because it's hard for him to accept that he needs to work for things, sometimes. He will take the easy way, any day of the week.

38:08  Leslie:  So, I'm not going to agree with that last statement, because I know that he's worked hard on certain things. But let me stop there, because you did—that was helpful—you were able to understand his perspective. When I asked you to validate him, you validated that it would be hard for him. You validated that he wants more screen time. You validated that he did ask, he did advocate. He did it with you. He didn't do it with Pedro. But then he has fear that's getting in the way. 

What if I said to him, “Hey buddy, you're really clever. It's very clever for you…you know what you want to get something, you want to get more screen time. And you have figured out that if you ask Mom to ask Dad, there's more likely a chance you're going to get screen time. That's actually pretty clever.”

38:56  Claudia:  Yes, it is.

38:57  Leslie:  I know it has a downside to it. It may be that I'm scared of Dad. It may be that he's not asking directly. It may be that. But we don't only have to see it as he's manipulating you, he's taking the easy way out. I actually see it as he's doing what works. He's doing what works in this situation. And I'm going to honor that. I'm going to respect that, and then say “Yes, you're doing what works. You've come to me. I'm glad you were able to advocate for yourself. Now I'd like you to go to Dad. Can you tell me, are you scared of asking Dad, or do you just think you're going to get a No?”

39:35  Claudia:  I think in this situation, he was scared—and quotes here—of the No, because because he really wants the screen time. It was not something that he was scared of Pedro in a way—it’s not that. He was just like, “I really want the screen time, so I'm going to use my mom to ask him, because that's going to work. So yeah, he was being smart.

39:56  Leslie:  Absolutely. And guess what? He may have wanted to avoid a lecture about screen time. We want to listen to our children because they help us parent them. So understanding his perspective… Slow down—you'll have a lot of things you can work on if you slow down. And when he comes to you with any little thing—the dishes, the screen time, any little thing—these little examples give you a big opportunity. 

Understand his perspective. Understand your own perspective. Validate both sides, validate your side, and validate his side, and see what were the positive steps. He came to you, he figured out that asking Mom was more effective than asking Dad. And I would say, if I were you, Pedro—and I lecture, and I do a lot of that too—I might say, “Hey buddy, I bet you avoided asking me because you didn't want a lecture about screen time”. And he’d go, “Yeah, Dad, I love you, but you know, you do lecture me a lot on screen. You lecture me on a lot of things.” And then you go, “Great, I'll work on it.” You know what I mean? It's such a lovely exchange. But if you don't start with what's his perspective, what am I missing here, then you miss that opportunity for a real growth of interpersonal…what we call interpersonal effectiveness.

41:27  Claudia:  I think I struggle a little bit with this for him, mainly because, again, he's been having therapy for so long, and everything is based on rewards. You do this, you get that. And I struggle with that, because you shouldn't be doing the good because you're going to be rewarded for it. You do the good because it's the right thing to do. No matter what, you do the good, even if you get nothing out of it. I want that for him, where he will do the right things in life, not because in the end he's going to get more screen time, or because he's going to get whatever. 

But then at the same time, why do we go to work to be rewarded with money? People don't do things just sometimes out of the goodness of their heart. So I struggle with that. I want him to be more like, “I'm going to do this because it's the right thing to do, and I know that this is the right thing to do.”

42:24  Leslie:  So go back to that two pronged approach. Biologically, who he is. And then what's the environment we're creating? If you are doing things and you need to be rewarded for everything, if you do things and it feels good, and he knows that—remember, what you model is really important. 

And if he's in an environment where he's gotten rewards over and over and over again, then yes, he may be somewhat dependent on that. But I'm not sure that's true. That's an assumption we're making. I don't know that that's true. It could be true. And if that's what he's going to have to learn, he's either going to reward himself, you know, “Oh, I’ve got to start an exercise program. I'm going to take myself out to dinner if I do a month of exercise.” Not the worst thing in the world. He will have to figure that out for himself. 

Again, he's got time, and I want to respect him so that I leave him his own problems to solve. Like “All right, so that may be a problem. You've had a lot of rewards. You've been on a lot of reward systems for motivating your behavior, if that's what's going to go forward in life, and you're going to have to figure that out, I know you'll figure it out when you're ready.” Again, you feeling pressured is not going to help solve that problem. You identifying it and naming it without judgment and without pressure gives him the opportunity to look at it and say, “Yeah, maybe I will have to deal with that one day, or maybe I won’t.”

44:01  Claudia:  And I also don't want him—and he has verbalized that before—I don't want him to be scared and worried about growing up, because he said that before. Like, “I don't know what I'm going to do when I grow up. What if this happens?” And then he starts going, the catastrophic way, because that's how his brain works sometimes. And I don't want that for him, because growing up is already scary, just by itself. But I want him to be confident that he can grow up to be a good person, quotes again.

44:33  Leslie:  Yes, I'm glad you said that. That thought went through my head during our session. I think the idea that children can be afraid to grow up is currently a big problem in our society. I say this to a lot of parents and a lot of kids that I think your child is afraid to grow up a little bit. Why? Because we as adults make it scary-looking, because we put a lot of pressure: “Do this right, do this, right, do this, right.” 

And so I go back to the idea of: see your child as a whole being, and give him time. He gets to have his strengths, his weaknesses. He does not have to, by the time he's 18, be a perfect human being who knows exactly what they want to do with all their passions and everything's figured out by the time they leave home. So when he says, “I don't know what to do,” say, “Great. That's a great place for you to be.” And I think a little admitting, “We have put pressure on you to grow up to be a certain kind of person. We want you to grow up to be you. And the pressure where, if you've noticed, we've been working on being a little bit more chill.” 

Be real with him. Say, “We're working really hard because we think we have been feeling the pressure of raising a child, and if we feel the pressure, then we might have been putting that pressure on you. And hey, we want to apologize if that's what we've been doing. We're working on it. We're doing that fist-bump-chill-parenting, and we're going to keep enjoying it. And we hope that you can feel the effects of that as well.” How's that sound for you guys?

46:08  Claudia:  It sounds like we still have more work to do.

46:11  Leslie:  We all do, yes. And that's okay. 

46:15  Claudia:  I feel that it all makes much more sense now. And I think we are already doing, which was apparently the worst for me, to stop over-parenting. Again, I always want to come from a point of yes, of positivity, of love. And it shouldn't be hard, right? But we get so…,

46:39  Leslie:  Oh, it's so hard. It's so hard. And I see how much you care. I see your big hearts. We started the first session with seeing that you two have such big hearts, and you care so much. And he knows that. I'm going to make that assumption, I know I'm not talking to him, but he feels that he cares. And you two are doing a beautiful job, and we all can keep growing and keep learning. 

So you're here, you're learning, you're finding some things that have been helpful to you. And, try some of these things as well. This is a work in progress. It's a beautiful work in progress. And keep giving yourself the support. I mean, I want you to feel the support. It's sort of like the push-pull from Dr Doolittle, where it goes both ways. We want to push you to keep doing better and say: you're doing a great job and just enjoying the ride a little bit more. It's not an easy one. There are some bumps in the road.

47:43  Claudia:  Yes, for sure. Thank you so much, Leslie.

47:47  Pedro:  Yes, thank you.

47:48  Leslie:  Thank you.

[Music: The Beat of Nature by Olexy]

48:01  Leslie Cohen-Rubury:  As hard as it was for Pedro and Claudia to change, they did it. It took practice and commitment and even faith in the process. I so enjoyed being part of their journey, and the journey continues. Parenting is ever-changing, and Pedro and Claudia have recently shared with me that they have continued to successfully practice what we talked about in these sessions, especially the less-is-more approach.

48:29  Pedro:  Taking a step back on the extreme parenting we were doing gave us and Liam opportunity to actually see more positive results out of our engagements. And Liam has also surprised us a few times, like showing that the values that we've been trying so hard to teach him are kind of already there. Thank you again for this amazing opportunity. It’s exactly what we needed at this time.

48:57  Leslie Cohen-Rubury:  It's been really incredible to witness the major perspective shift we saw in how Pedro and Claudia viewed their child. They came in with the frustration and fear that many parents of teens feel. They worked to tame the fear and replace it with faith that they could do less. Nagging is an expression of that fear and frustration, and the fear and frustration is what the kids are responding to. So while you're trying to make a point of teaching them chores and to be responsible, your efforts to do so becomes the problem and just gets in the way. You're tripping over your own feet. 

I want to be clear, I wasn't upset with Claudia and Pedro, but the amount I see this over-parenting in therapy and the damage it does is personally upsetting. And to be very honest, I did it, too. Now I want to shout out to everyone: you can be more effective by doing less. One of the costs of over-parenting and parenting-by-fear is that kids are afraid to grow up. We can make the adult world look more inviting by taking some of the pressure to succeed off of ourselves and our children. 

So what's the antidote? Give your child time and space, which circles right back to doing less. If you want to explore how you can find that balance in your approach to parenting, check out the show notes for a worksheet and join the discussion on Is My Child A Monster? community Facebook page. 

[Music: The Wilds Beyond by L-Ray Music]

Join us next week for an episode with special guest Dana Abraham, host of Calm The Chaos parenting podcast, for a discussion about raising neurodivergent kids. 

Subscribe to Is My Child A Monster? wherever you get your podcasts. And please rate and review on Apple podcasts to help spread the word. You can also find a full transcript of this episode or sign up for my newsletter at ismychildamonster.com. The Is My Child A Monster? team is Alletta Cooper, AJ Moultrié, Camila Salazar, and me. Special thanks to Eric Rubury and Dale Rubury. Our theme music is by L-Ray Music. I'm Leslie Cohen-Rubury. Thanks for joining me. And this week, check your over-parenting and remember: less is more you.

Transcribed by Eric Rubury