January 27, 2025 • 52 mins
At your wits end with trying to find effective consequences for your teen's behavior? Maybe loosening the reins rather than tightening them might work better! (Hint: Stop 'helicopter parenting' your teen!) On this episode of the Brainy Moms podcast, Dr. Amy and Sandy interview Ann Coleman, an attorney, parent educator, and host of the podcast, Speaking of Teens. Ann shares a deeply personal journey that many parents might find all too relatable. Imagine discovering that your child, already grappling with anxiety and ADHD, has turned to marijuana. Anne's initial reaction was to tighten the reins through control and punishment, only to watch her relationship with her son deteriorate. However, a transformative encounter with a family counselor led her to embrace empathy and understanding, an approach she now champions through her podcast and Parent Camp program.
Ann's story prompts us to question the long-held belief in helicopter parenting and its impact on teen autonomy. As we talk about societal pressures that push teenagers to behave beyond their developmental capabilities, there's a stark reminder of the importance of mutual respect. The conversation veers into the pitfalls of projecting perfect family lives on social media and the real harm it can cause by stigmatizing parenting struggles. We emphasize the need for balance—between stepping in to guide teens and allowing teens to face natural consequences—a critical factor that can significantly influence adolescent development.
Through personal anecdotes and expert advice, we explore the pressures surrounding academic success and the value of redefining what it means to "succeed." From managing the distractions of college life to understanding the significance of setting and negotiating boundaries, this episode offers a comprehensive look at fostering resilience and independence in teenagers. Ann's insights, enriched by her own family experiences, serve as a guide for parents eager to connect with their teens in more authentic and supportive ways. Listen in to discover strategies that respect and nurture your teenager's emerging identity while maintaining a safe and supportive environment.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dr. Amy Moore (00:00):
Hi, smart moms and dads, welcome to another
episode of the Brainy Momspodcast brought to you today by
LearningRx Brain TrainingCenters.
I'm Dr Amy Moore, your host,and I am joined by my co-host,
sandy Zimalis, and Sandy and Iare gonna bring you a
conversation today with ourguest, anne Coleman.
Anne is an attorney turnedpodcaster and parent educator.
(00:22):
After a couple of trying yearswith her teenage son, she
finally figured out how to turnthings around.
For the past eight years, she'shelped thousands of other
parents understand the scienceof parenting adolescents so they
can avoid the mistakes that shemade.
She's the host of the podcastSpeaking of Teens and the
(00:43):
creator of Parent Camp, yourpathway to less conflict,
greater connection and betterbehavior.
Let's welcome, anne.
Hello, hello, hello.
Why don't you give ourlisteners a little bit of a
background about you and how youended up sitting in the chair
in front of us?
Sure?
Ann Coleman (01:04):
Well, my son has been a nervous, anxious child
from day one.
He was always anxious.
He has ADHD.
As he got a little older.
You know I didn't say this tohim but I always called him, you
know, a fit pitcher.
He was one of those kids thatjust would melt down at the drop
(01:25):
of a hat and we didn't reallyrealize it was anxiety or ADHD
until he was somewhere in earlyelementary school maybe third or
fourth grade, had testing andall this stuff done, and for
several years on, up to probablyninth or 10th grade, everything
revolved around that anxiety,ADHD, as it related to school.
(01:49):
So everything was about gettingthe homework done and then,
once we got it done, making surethat he got it handed in and
meeting with the school.
And you know, there was alwaysan issue with, you know, not
doing the work or not staying ontask, or we had to switch
medications, and it was alwaysthat.
And then, when he hit about 14or 15, he decided that he was
(02:14):
going to try smoking marijuanaand we had talked about this
incessantly with him from dayone, because we have addiction
in my family, we have addictionin his birth family, and so we
had talked about this all along.
No, mom, I'm never going to dothat.
(02:35):
I'm never going to do that.
I'm never going to do that.
Well, then we found out that hedid that and unfortunately, I
had a brother who, when we weregrowing up, we were adolescents
he started smoking marijuana andhe actually became I know it's
not really kosher these days tosay drug addict, but he became a
drug addict and he abused everysubstance under the sun and
(02:58):
ended up passing away severalyears ago in his 50s from
methamphetamine and heroin andhe got a terrible kind of cancer
that was associated with that.
So in the back of my mind allthese years I thought I am never
, I'm not going to have kids.
And then we decided to havekids and then my thought was
(03:20):
well, it's not going to be likeit was with my brother and my
parents because he put themthrough sheer hell, and I
thought I am never going toallow that.
My kid is going to know he'snever going to smoke weed or do
any of these things and if hedoes, I'm not going to enable
him.
Like I felt, like my parentshad done.
And then all of a sudden I havea child smoking weed, and I did
(03:41):
not realize it at the time.
But afterwards, when I startedfiguring things out that
triggered me so bad that all Iwanted to do was make it stop,
Anything I could do to make himstop.
So I pulled out the Google andI lectured him about his brain
(04:03):
and I lectured him about how itleads to other things, and I
begged and I pleaded and Icontrolled and I lectured and I
yelled and it just got worse andworse and worse.
Because the more now lookingback I know, the more I tried to
control his behavior and themore I tried to fix him myself
or take him to therapists tohave him fixed or whatever it
(04:26):
was, the worse his behaviorbecame.
We were completely disconnected.
All he was doing was rebelling,he was getting in trouble at
school, Just all the things.
So it finally kind ofculminated in he would have what
I call fits of rage, and wenever knew is that the anxiety?
Is it the ADHD?
(04:46):
Is it a substance?
Is you know what's going onhere?
And so finally, because of someof those fits of rage, he ended
up in a psychiatric ward forabout a week and then thereafter
he went to residentialtreatment for a couple of months
.
And all these years, like therewere at least a couple of years
(05:06):
there where it was reallyintense and we had psychiatrists
, we had psychologists, we hadcounselors, we had family
therapists, we had addictioncounselors, we had everyone
under the sun.
He had been psychologicallytested like half a dozen times.
Not one time during any of thatdid anyone ask us how are you
(05:27):
parenting him?
How are you responding when hedoes these things?
How are you communicating?
How's your connection?
Do you want some tips on how tomake this work better?
Not a single time.
So again, all this time we werethinking, well, they're supposed
to be fixing him, why is he notfixed?
But at home I was still doingthe same thing.
(05:47):
I was still controlling andlecturing and pushing and
punishing and, you know, nailinghis window shut and just crazy
stuff, because I was not goingto let him become my brother.
So when he went intoresidential treatment credit to
the family counselor there herealized that we would get
together on Zoom every weekbecause he was in California, we
were in South Carolina and thefamily counselor would kind of
(06:09):
prep us before we got on thescreen with our son and would
say now remember, you need tovalidate his feelings, but you
need to stand firm in yourboundaries and blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah, and my eyes wouldglaze over.
I would look at him like okay,and so we tried that a couple of
weeks and then, finally, thethird try.
(06:30):
He was like you don't get this,do you?
And I said no, I don't get it.
What are you trying to tell me?
Please explain this to me?
And he said okay, he sent me toa couple of books by Dan Siegel
and Tina Payne Bryson whichwere for parents of toddlers.
As I was reading it, I'm like,wow, he really doesn't think
much of my communication skills,but it was the first time that
(06:54):
anyone had said this is not allabout your son, this is you.
You have a huge role in this.
And I mean I literally it givesme goosebumps to think about it
.
I'm, I'm staying here reading Ithink the first book was no
Drama, Discipline and tears werestreaming down my face because
and I still have that book, itis, I have written all over it I
(07:16):
was marking post-it notes,writing myself notes and going,
oh my God, oh my God, I did this, I did this.
Why didn't I know this?
Why?
And it was just this epiphanylike, okay, now I know now, I
know what the issue is, I'mgonna fix it, I, I I'm okay, I'm
gonna figure this out.
So I kept reading and I keptstudying and I studied about the
(07:37):
adolescent brain and I studiedthis and I studied that.
He came home and it was hard inthe beginning, to you know,
because my thing, my emotions, Iwas totally unaware of what I
was feeling, why I was feelingit.
I was totally unable toregulate myself.
But I had said to myself I amgoing to do this, I'm just going
(08:01):
to stop, I'm just going tofigure it out and I'm going to
do it.
And I did.
And you know, I learned to kindof pause before I said
something and in the beginning Istill didn't really know what
to say.
So that pause would be kind oflong and I would just repeat the
same things in the beginning.
I understand you're frustrated.
I understand because he wasalways frustrated.
(08:23):
So that was pretty easy for me.
I see that you're frustratedright now.
But it got easier and easier.
In the beginning he didn't knowwhat I was doing.
He was like is this the samethat you've been doing and maybe
you're just tricking me?
So he did not respond the way Ithought he would respond in the
very beginning, respond the wayI thought he would respond in
(08:50):
the very beginning, but withinweeks, within weeks, I kept
doing it, I kept doing it, Ikept doing it and within weeks
he had that.
His emotions had come downabout 10 notches, His
dysregulation.
He was able to not get so upsetin the beginning.
He was able to not get so upsetin the beginning and he was
able to.
Once he did, the time that hewas upset was shortened, I mean
(09:12):
exponentially, and I mean it wasjust amazing.
Within a year he was adifferent kid.
He was a different kid, I was adifferent person.
Our connection was back and itwas just like it was miraculous
to me.
I was like, oh my God, I mean Ihave got to tell other parents
about this, because I'm a prettysmart cookie and if I didn't
(09:35):
know this, I know there are tonsof parents out there who are
struggling with the same thingand just don't get it.
So that's you know.
I just kept reading, keptstudying, wrote myself a book
just for me so I can pull fromit, and just started putting
myself out there and trying toeducate parents about the fact
that I guess my whole thing islook, it's not all your kid.
(09:58):
You've got to understand them.
You've got to understand howtheir brain works, You've got to
understand how to communicate,You've got to understand how to
get your own emotions undercontrol, and you've got to
understand what discipline evenmeans and how to do it with a
teenager.
So that's it in a nutshell.
Dr. Amy Moore (10:17):
Yeah, I think you nailed it, you know, when you
said, when you shared yourfrustration, that why aren't
they fixing him right, where youwere finally coming to that
realization at the end.
Oh, I'm the one that needs alittle bit of fixing.
Ann Coleman (10:35):
Yeah, actually, I needed a lot of fixing, I really
did.
I mean, I just didn't get it.
And you know, as parents in youknow, growing up in a Western
society, you know a lot of uswere raised in that
authoritarian, you know mindset.
Our parents were authoritarian,their parents, their
grandparents.
(10:55):
I mean it has been passed downand I mean I would say it's
generational trauma.
I mean because the wholeauthoritarian you know mindset
is, you do as I say, and we'reall about outward behavior,
outward performance.
Children are supposed to actlike adults, even though they
(11:17):
don't have an adult brain andthey don't know how to act like
adults.
They don't have the capacity toact like adults, but we expect
that of them and we have thisingrained in our brain that you
know, like I said, has beenpassed down, that our kids are
supposed to do what we say andthey are supposed to respect us
(11:38):
and jump when we say jump, andwhat we don't get is guess what.
By the time they hit puberty,they want to be respected, they
feel like an adult.
They need that same kind ofrespect and dignity that you
know that we want.
So and by the time you hit thatage, it is no longer a
(12:02):
management situation, even ifyou were managing them more as
they were children and tellingthem what to do and setting the
rules, and everything isunilateral.
It is no longer that way.
When they hit puberty you haveto work as a team or you are
going to get pushback from thevery beginning.
And what I find is as soon asparents start getting that
(12:24):
pushback and that little snarky,those little snarky comments
and you know kids try pushingback a little bit they the
parent jumps in and says, oh no,you're not pulling that stuff.
And then they get tougher andthe kid starts pushing harder
and the parents start gettingtougher and it just becomes this
(12:47):
out of control spiral.
So it's just aboutunderstanding how this works.
Sandy Zamalis (12:55):
And thanks for sharing that.
That was such a vulnerablestory to share Because from a
parent especially because Itotally see myself in that as
well and you know it's hard towhen you're having trouble with
your teenager at home it'sreally hard to kind of wrestle
with that openly, because wehave the same problem so we're
not sharing with our friends.
Ann Coleman (13:18):
Oh yeah, so we're not sharing with our friends
that our kids are struggling orthat things aren't going well at
home.
Sandy Zamalis (13:23):
We're hiding all of that.
Ann Coleman (13:26):
So just being able to talk about it.
Sandy Zamalis (13:27):
Is that first step Right?
Ann Coleman (13:29):
I mean, you know it's such a phenomenon that you
know parents will share allabout their colicky babies or
their toddlers who are gettinginto everything or not sleeping
or throwing fits, but once theyhit puberty and it just it feels
like there's so much morecompetition among, especially
(13:50):
among moms, that oh, you know,no, not my kid.
You know you don't want anyoneknowing these things.
And unfortunately, because ofsocial media, we all put our
best foot forward on socialmedia and no one thinks anyone
else is struggling with thesethings and some of us struggle
(14:12):
more than others because some ofus, our kids, have more
struggles than others.
We have kids who have ADHD oranxiety or trauma or any of
those things that you know.
I call them.
You know, teenagers squared,they're going to have all the
issues that typical teens have,but they're just magnified.
(14:33):
And no, we don't want to, wedon't want to tell anybody
because I mean it's embarrassing.
I was embarrassed.
I was embarrassed when my kidwas smoking weed and I think
even selling weed and, you know,getting in trouble at school.
It was embarrassing.
And then we have other moms whoare still in that authoritarian
mindset going oh well, I'm notletting my kid do that.
(14:56):
If my kid did that, this iswhat I would do, and you've just
got to put your foot down andyou've got to do this and da, da
, da, and I listened and so Idid it and that's what got me
where I was.
And so that's another reasonthat I knew other parents didn't
get this.
There were a lot of parents thatdidn't get this and, yeah, it's
(15:18):
scary because you do, lot ofparents that didn't get this and
yeah, it's scary because you do.
I felt so alone and sodesperate, so desperate to know
that someone else had beenthrough it before me and had
gotten through it and that therewas hope.
That's what I, you know, on thecomputer every night I was
Googling.
(15:38):
My teenager was at troubledteen or out of control, and now
they're okay.
I was literally Googling thingslike that to see do people get
through this?
Do they get through it?
Is it okay?
And luckily we did.
We got through it and thingswere okay, so it's possible.
Dr. Amy Moore (15:59):
So, speaking of parenting styles, you talk a lot
about helicopter parenting andthat's one of our favorite
topics to talk about.
So let's talk about helicopterparenting.
I mean, I love that you have awhole like down.
You might be yeah, you might bea helicopter parent yeah, so
(16:21):
like talk about uh, because Ithink there are people out there
who are helicopter parentingtheir kids and they don't
realize they're helicopterparents.
Ann Coleman (16:30):
Oh yeah, there's a lot of that going on well, and
you know it's funny, I I've, uh,one of my friends sent me a
real the other day, or I thinkmaybe it was a Facebook thing
where these teachers werereading the text that they had
received from parents of theirstudents, and I want to say they
were middle schoolers.
But guys, I mean, I'm tellingyou we are way, way, way too
(16:56):
involved with our kids' lives,especially as they get to these
older stages.
You know, things like you know,don't call on him because you
know he's embarrassed.
Or you know, not accommodations, but just ridiculous things.
And parents, we this was reallyhard for me because my son had
(17:17):
ADHD, dyslexia, dysgraphia, allthe things, and so it was really
hard to find that balance ofhow far do I get involved in
helping him not mess up.
How far do I, you know, step into prevent a mistake?
And I think I probably did stepin too far.
And what we don't realize is,you know, it's the other extreme
(17:40):
of, you know, control.
We are controlling, we'rethinking that we're doing good
because we're trying to control,you know, in a good way.
We're trying to help, we'resmoothing the way.
You know, we don't want them tobe hurt, we don't want them to
make mistakes and mess up, butin doing that we are removing
(18:02):
their ability to actually learn,because the only way any of us
learn is by making mistakes.
You know, I learned reallyquickly that I don't leave my
heels out with my new puppybecause he chewed up every pair
of heels.
Okay, lesson learned.
You know, I wouldn't havelearned that if my husband had
walked in and said no, no, no,we don't leave our shoes in the
(18:25):
floor, miss Anne, we need to putthose up in the closet.
You know, you learn throughmistakes.
So I tell parents all the timeyou've got to back up when there
are things that your kid canhandle themselves, to back up
when there are things that yourkid can handle themselves.
Maybe you don't think they canhandle it, but the important
(18:47):
thing is to give them a shot atit because again, once they
reach puberty, they feel like intheir head, they feel like an
adult.
They feel like, you know, theyknow as much as we do.
I mean, obviously everybodysees that they feel like they
know as much as we do.
They want to be given thatautonomy.
And so when we remove thatautonomy by either doing things
(19:07):
for them or making things easierfor them or, you know, fixing
their mistakes.
We are threatening theirautonomy in the same way we
would if we said you can only doit this way and I'm not going
to let you leave the house untilyou do.
I mean, it's the same thing.
We are controlling them eitherway.
(19:28):
And some kids with thehelicopter parenting.
Some kids will accept that kindof help and will let their
parents kind go in and changeall the things and help them.
But even if they do, whatthey're internalizing is my
parents don't think I can dothis.
I can't do this by myself.
(19:49):
I suck at all this stuff.
That's why they're helping medo all these things.
I will never be able to do thisalone.
I mean, I can remember my fatherwas like this.
He would come into my bedroom Iremember when I was little and
he would take my pillow awaybecause it made me too hot and I
got sweaty in the middle of thenight.
I still remember this and Ivowed to myself I am not going
(20:14):
to do things like that to my kid, because by the time I left my
parents home I didn't think Icould do anything, because I
wasn't allowed to do anything bymyself.
I wasn't allowed to makemistakes.
Everything was smooth.
I raised my hand in fourthgrade and said I had a hamster.
I didn't have a hamster.
Everybody else was raisingtheir hand.
I raised my hand.
Guess what?
(20:34):
I had a hamster to take in thenext day to school because my
parents went out and bought oneat Woolworths before they closed
.
I mean, doing things like that.
I had no self-esteem, I didn'tthink I could do anything.
When I went off to law school, Iremember thinking they're going
to send me back home within aweek when they say how stupid I
am, when they figure out that Idon't belong here, I really I
(20:57):
was looking over my shoulderthat first semester.
I thought I'm going to flunkout.
I know I'm going to flunk out.
I want to go home and that'swhat we do to our kids, our kids
in college.
Right now, the freshmen 30%, 30%of those kids end up going home
after the first semester,whether it's because they are,
(21:17):
you know, too anxious to do itor they can't.
I mean, I've heard stories.
You know, kids can't get alongwith their roommates.
They're calling their parentsevery day.
They don't know how to picktheir own classes.
Hell, parents, organizations,companies are making parent
packets, welcome packets forgraduating college students who
(21:38):
get a job with them, because somany parents are calling jobs
and saying what does my kid needto do?
What did they, you know, tomake sure I get my grown you
know I'm not gonna cuss, butgrown kid, you know,
understanding how to do theirjob that they've just gotten
hired for it.
It is insane so that, in anutshell, we are creating a
(22:03):
generation of kids who don'tknow how to do anything on their
own because we are so afraid oftheir failure.
We're afraid for them and we'vegot to let things happen the
way they're supposed to happenso they will have enough
self-esteem and have enoughconfidence to go out into the
world and figure things out forthemselves, because that's the
(22:26):
way it's supposed to be.
We didn't, most of us did it.
Maybe I wasn't so great at it,but most of us did it.
Dr. Amy Moore (22:31):
So yeah, it's sad , well, and I think that it's
not just that they aren'tcapable of doing tangible things
.
I think it's also that if youhaven't learned how to handle
disappointment in the emotionalsafety of your own home and
those relationships with lovingparents and supportive parents,
(22:55):
then you get out into the worldand how are you going to respond
to disappointment?
Exactly Not well.
Ann Coleman (23:02):
Yeah, you have to let them do these things while
they are with you.
So you're there to guide them,you know, not fix it, but you're
there to, you know, respond totheir emotions appropriately and
help them understand that allis not, you know, horrible here.
You're going to figure it out.
But, yeah, when they get offand on their own and they faced,
(23:24):
you know, some kind of horribledisappointment, a lot of these
kids are falling completelyapart because they don't know
how to manage it.
We, you know and it's reallykind of crazy that we, you know,
because I'm thinking about howI did it.
I mean, my thought was I can'tlet him fail.
I can't let him fail.
What if he fails?
(23:45):
And you know, in doing that, weare, you know, that fear.
It's our fear.
Just like our fear creates us,you know, makes us want to
control the bad things or thebad behavior they're doing, it's
our fear that jumps in andprevents them from failing at
any level and that's on us.
(24:05):
That is not our kid.
Kids don't even know to benervous about these things a lot
of times, until we start makingit.
So we start making it a thingto be nervous about.
Oh, are you sure?
I mean, I was working with alady the other day who her
daughter had been cut out of afriend group and so her focus
(24:30):
was constantly on what are yourfriends doing today?
Have they invited you?
Are you going to be able to dothis?
Are you going to be able to dothat?
You know who are you going tohang out with.
And she was perpetuating thatanxiety in her daughter because
she was anxious about it.
You know, it goes back to a lotof times what we experienced in
adolescence, you know, andwe're kind of projecting some of
(24:53):
that stuff on our kids, and ifwe instead just took a deep
breath and let them handlethings a lot of times, it would
work out so much better.
Dr. Amy Moore (25:04):
Well, speaking of letting them handle it, you did
this amazing episode of yourpodcast on missing assignments
in the dang parent portal.
Ann Coleman (25:17):
Oh my Lord, I tell you, the bane of every parent's
existence Is it not?
Dr. Amy Moore (25:23):
That was the exact phrase I used when we were
talking about your episode.
Sandy Zamalis (25:28):
Yeah, it's horrible.
I mean, yeah, I mean I have aweekly meeting about the parent
portal what?
Because I work with kids andparents, with kids who are
struggling in school, and so youknow they're trying to
understand the parent portal.
They don't understand it.
So you have a couple different.
You have the people who are allin it, right, and they're
micromanaging every task.
(25:49):
But there's also the ones thatare like I don't get it, Like I
don't get it, I don't understandI don't get it.
Ann Coleman (25:54):
How are they doing?
I can't even see your tongue, Iknow Well, and the thing too is
that they don't realize that,okay, teachers have to take a
couple of days sometimes to getcaught up in the parent portal,
you know.
So they're constantly wiggingout because it says you didn't
turn this assignment in, or itsays you didn't do this, and
instead we have got to get backto the point where we can trust
(26:17):
our kids to do things forthemselves and that.
But I also see that, as youknow, a lot of times the
teachers are reaching out to theparents too and saying you know
your kid's not doing this, orthey're not doing that.
And for for parents whostruggle with this already and,
you know, trying to be on top oftheir kids constantly, you know
(26:39):
, this creates a dynamic at homethat is not good between the
parents and the kids, and soI've even told parents before
look, tell the teacher, that'sbetween you and little Johnny.
I am out of it.
I am not going to fuss at himevery day, all day, about
turning in his assignments.
I am not going to fuss at himall day, every day, about doing
(26:59):
his homework.
It is creating a, you know, adisconnection between us and our
, our home, and this is schooland if he's not turning in
assignments, give him the gradehe deserves.
Let him make a zero, I don'tcare, it's not my grade.
I've been through school.
I did my years in school.
(27:22):
That's what I kept telling myson.
I've already done this.
I have done this before.
I don't want to be doing thisagain.
And you know what we don't haveto.
We don't have to.
My parents were clueless aboutwhat I was doing in school.
I mean completely clueless.
They never told me to dohomework.
They never knew if I didhomework.
They saw my report card becauseyou had to get the dang thing
(27:45):
signed back then, but they wereclueless If I made a bad grade
it was on me.
Dr. Amy Moore (27:50):
I had to figure out.
Ann Coleman (27:51):
Hmm, do I really want to make a bad grade again
or do I want to do somethingelse?
So yeah, the parent portals.
Something else.
So yeah, the parent portals.
We have got to learn to back upa little bit, not stress out so
much.
Which leads me to the otherconversation about you know
(28:11):
school in general and grades andperformance and putting all of
your eggs in your kids.
You know grades and performanceat school and thinking that,
okay, if they can just makestraight A's or in some cases,
this is the kid themselves too,putting this pressure on
themselves.
I mean, societally, we putpressure.
You know it's the grades, it'sgetting into the right college
or getting into college anddoing this and this so that they
(28:34):
will be quote unquotesuccessful.
Well, it took me a little bitto realize that success looks
different to every one of us.
You know I quit practicing lawand making money to do this,
this educating parents andhelping parents with their
teenagers.
This is success to me.
(28:56):
I'm changing lives.
I didn't change many liveswriting contracts, so you know
that was not made money.
But we all have to decide forourselves what success looks
like.
My son did not want to go tocollege.
I did not blame him.
He has ADHD and dyslexia anddysgraphia and anxiety and
(29:17):
school was not fun.
It sucked for him.
It sucks for a lot of kids.
I just published, I think, asub stack about that.
School sucks for a lot of kidsand so I had to realize that.
You know what, going to collegeis not his thing.
He loves snowboarding, he lovesoutdoor sports, he loves being
in the mountains.
That's his thing.
(29:39):
That's what makes him happy.
And you know what?
I want him to be happy.
I want him to be satisfied inlife.
And if he is happy workingretail or you know whatever, if
he's able to pay his bills anddo what he wants to do and he's
happy, in my opinion that issuccess.
(30:01):
So you know, the parent portalthing to me is tied directly to
that.
I think it's tied to our idealsof what we want our kids to be.
We all have this little moviereel in our heads of what our
kids were going to turn out likeand what they were going to be
and what their character wasgoing to be.
And that little picture in ourhead really messes with us,
(30:26):
because when things go offcourse a little bit, then we're
like, oh my God, oh my God, Igot to get back.
I got to get them back.
They got to be doing this thingand when we do that and that
control sets in, we build thedisconnection and nothing works
out.
So, understanding that, yes,grades matter Of course they do.
You don't want your kid toflunk out.
(30:46):
You have to do what you have todo there.
But even if they do fail aclass or fail a grade or
something like that, they aregoing to be okay in the end,
with you as the parent guidingthem and helping them get back
to where they want to be.
Most kids do not want to failin any capacity.
(31:09):
There are very few who aregoing to allow themselves to
flunk out of high school orflunk a grade or anything like
that.
So, stepping back and realizing, if they make C's, well, guess
what?
We've forgotten this.
But C's are average, Average,the middle.
(31:31):
It is okay to be average.
I was extremely average, if notbelow average, in high school
my grades, and it was not untilI motivated myself because I
wanted to run for cheerleader tomake better grades.
When kids are motivated becauseof something externally, you
(31:51):
know it's really hard for themto sustain, but if they are
internally motivated to dosomething, it's much, much
better, it's much easier.
And, as parents, if we'reconstantly on them externally,
they're going to push backagainst that thing that is
pushing them externally andthey're not going to be able to
(32:12):
be successful or live up totheir potential or whatever it
is.
But if we back up a little andwe let them realize that hey,
failing or not doing so well isnot much fun, it doesn't make me
feel good Then that internalfeeling takes over and hopefully
they do better.
But we've got to realize thatif our kid wants to go to
(32:33):
college, they can go to college.
You can go to college with a1.5 GPA from high school.
You can go to community college.
You can get good grades for thefirst semester or second
semester.
You can transfer somewhere else.
It is not the end of the worldif your kid does not go to
Princeton or Duke or Brown orHarvard.
(32:54):
It's just not.
Life goes on.
I don't know about you guys,but I didn't go to any of those
places.
Dr. Amy Moore (33:00):
I'm fine.
No, I walk around saying that Imean, I've got a PhD, I'm
actually getting a seconddoctorate and I went to either
state schools or for-profitschools.
Exactly, and I'm just fine forsure.
Exactly.
Sandy Zamalis (33:15):
I wanted to share real quick, amy.
So you know I loved your storyand you know, just listening to
you explain all of that and forparents that are listening in my
family, in our case, you know Ihad two very capable kids.
I did not hover a whole lotonce they got into public school
.
Where the trouble happened wascollege.
(33:36):
So you know, thinking about that30% statistic that you threw
out, I really do feel likecollege is the new high school
ground anymore.
Just with all the changes inthe world and technology and the
consequences are different inhigh school than they were when
we were in high school.
So I think our kids are kind ofgetting into those murky,
(33:57):
uncomfortable growing placeslater and later.
Ann Coleman (34:01):
And so now college?
Sandy Zamalis (34:02):
is that ground?
where they really have to learnthat, and that was definitely
true for my son.
You know he went intoengineering school and it did
not go well.
Oh no, really hard to gothrough at the time.
(34:25):
It was not easy.
There was a lot of tears on thephone.
It was just heart-wrenching asa parent, because my son is a
very capable young man andeverything was easy for him up
until then.
And so I'm like where mostpeople, I think, would have
bailed a lot sooner.
The minute they got a poorgrade, he was determined to
suffer and get himself throughit, and we actually had to go
and do a little bit of a meetingwith him in college and go like
(34:48):
I don't, I just don't, youdon't enjoy this, this is not
where you need to be.
Let's rethink this.
Let's transfer college, youknow, or?
you know, just within thecollege, let's transfer to
another major.
Let's figure out what excitesyou.
You know and that worked outreally well and he stuck it out.
He had to do an extra year ofcollege, but I think that
(35:12):
pendulum has swung or thattimeline has moved a little bit,
for our kids.
We need to kind of have that.
And now they're even aftercollege.
Ann Coleman (35:47):
You've still got to have that buffer.
It is getting later and later.
Adolescence has extended, youknow.
25, 30 is, you know.
You're still kind of in thatzone of I can't quite do it on
my own yet.
And yeah, college, to me it'skind of a scary place and I
(36:09):
think my son would definitely,even if we had pushed him to try
to go, would not have done wellbecause of the you know the
substances and the parties andthe you know all the
distractions.
And I think that is one reasonthat a lot of kids do end up
coming home, you know, is thatthey're not mature enough to
(36:32):
handle those things yet.
18 years old is not an adult.
It is such a ridiculous thingto even have laws that say they
can make any decisions on theirown at 18.
Their brain's not going to befinished for, you know, another,
possibly 10 years from then.
So, yeah, those making thosedecisions being on their own.
(36:52):
There are a lot of kids thatneed that year at home, a gap
year, a community college, a youknow some kind of program that
they can go into to get somelife skills, maybe move off a
little bit further away fromhome and be on their own before
they try to go do these things.
It's usually like when I was inlaw school, there were a lot of
(37:16):
older people in my class andthey were the ones that studied
harder and did better.
And because you need thatmaturity sometimes to understand
what this is that you've got infront of you, you know this
opportunity and you know I don'twant to mess it up, or it's not
that big a deal and I need toswitch majors, or you know it's
(37:38):
just and it's a level ofmaturity that 18 year olds do
not not have Most of them don't.
There are some that you knowthey're like 40 years old when
they're 18, but not many, notmany.
Sandy Zamalis (37:53):
Yeah, it is estimated that there are over 6
million children in the USdiagnosed with ADHD.
Most children diagnosed withADHD have a cluster of weak
cognitive skills that we allrely on for focusing and staying
on task, skills like workingmemory, long-term memory and
processing speed.
At LearningRx, we create aone-on-one brain training
(38:15):
program that's tailored to helpaddress the root cause of your
child's biggest challenges.
Visit LearningRxcom to learnhow we're helping kids and teens
with ADHD significantly improvetheir cognitive skills.
Get started at learningrxcom orhead over to our show notes for
links for more helpfulresources, including some free
(38:36):
brain training exercises you cantry at home.
Dr. Amy Moore (38:41):
So I love how you write.
Ask yourself could it bedangerous, unhealthy, illegal,
unethical or likely to closesome door left open?
If it doesn't fit into theabove categories, it falls
within their personal domain todecide themselves, because I
(39:21):
think, if you have a tendency tohelicopter, if you have a
tendency to want to be incontrol which is an illusion, by
the way but if you have thistendency to want to control?
Ann Coleman (39:25):
but you have listened to any of this.
You need some parameters, right, you need to be able to go okay
, well, when should I step inand when should I not?
Right, right, well, and that Ican't take credit for that, that
is Dr Lawrence Steinberg, whois a world-renowned adolescence
researcher, brain researcher,and I thought that was brilliant
.
So I told him I was going tosteal that from him and so I've
kind of made it my own.
But it's so true.
You know people, parents wantyou know to know well, what
(39:48):
should I have rules about andwhen should I step in and not
allow consequences?
And you know what should I sayabout their clothes or their
hair, or you know these kind ofthings.
And if you use those parametersdangerous, unhealthy, unethical
, illegal or likely to closesome door, better left open you
can say, okay, I can allowconsequent natural consequences
(40:12):
unless they're dangerous.
So I'm not going to let my kiddrink and go, get in the car and
take off down the road.
That's dangerous.
So I'm going to step in.
And illegal, yeah, and illegal,yeah, it comes under all kinds
of the headings.
Yes, exactly, so you know therules that you make same things.
I don't need to have a rule andyou know I hate to break it to
(40:36):
y'all, but a dirty bedroom or amessy bedroom doesn't fall into
any of those categories.
I agree, you know it's hard,it's hard as a parent, but you
know what.
And unless there are bugs androaches and mice and then you
can say, okay, that's unhealthy.
But truly we have to know thatif it's not a big deal, it's not
(40:59):
a big deal and we need to letthem decide.
If they want to color theirhair pink, purple or shave it
off, then we have to let them doit.
That's not our concern.
Okay, it's embarrassing.
Yes, because my son was dressing.
He was wanting to wear the goldchains and the big diamond
(41:20):
crosses and things like that bythe time he started high school.
I'm like, oh my God.
And we had some of the biggestarguments over that stupid
necklace because grandmotherbought it for him.
I didn't, she bought it for him, but we had the biggest
arguments over there.
It was not worth it.
It was not worth it.
They are trying to decide whothey are and where they fit in
(41:44):
and their self-image, and theyneed to try these different
personas on and do these thingsand we don't need to step in and
say, no, that looks stupid orno, you're not wearing that
anywhere, it's wrinkled orwhatever.
Get over that stuff.
And and when you're makingrules about things, that's what
you need to look at are thoseparameters.
(42:05):
And if it's not a dangerousthing, then you don't need to
have a rule about it.
If they come to you and say Iwant to do X, y and Z, those are
the parameters you need to belooking at.
So they've come to me andthey've asked me to go to a
concert.
They're 16.
They want to go with a20-year-old to a concert that's
(42:27):
in the next, you know, countyover, or something like that.
Okay, that could be dangerous.
We need to talk about that.
My thing is negotiation andbrainstorming and you know, if
you can learn how to have adecent conversation with your
kid where you listen fully towhat they're saying and you
listen to their argument, let'ssay, for wanting to go to this
(42:50):
concert.
And that's the first step.
You have to listen, because ifyou just jump in like most of us
do, no, that's not happening.
You are not a 20 year old.
What are you talking about?
In the next county and you'renot getting home till 3am?
No, no, no, no.
Instead, if we would just stopand let them tell us all about
(43:14):
the concert, let them tell usabout this friend, let them tell
us why they want to go,acknowledge that you know what
that does sound like fun, and Iget why you like that band.
I know you've been listening tothat band and, yeah, you know I
know Sally's a very responsible20-year-old.
Let me tell you my concerns.
Here are my concerns, and thenyou let them know.
(43:36):
Here's where I'm coming from.
But you know, is there any waythat we can like make it so that
you can hang out with Sally onFriday night, but maybe not go
to the concert, but maybe youcan do something else, maybe you
can do something down the roador maybe I could go to the
(43:56):
concert with you.
Would you consider that?
So it's all about negotiating,because once we start doing that
no, that's not happening.
That's when we get in trouble.
We've got to learn yes, we cansay no, we can absolutely say no
, but we need to finesse that alittle bit.
It's, you know, you just I'msorry, but with with adolescents
(44:20):
, you have to finesse that no,and you have to allow them to be
and you have to allow them tobe heard and you have to show
them that you get it and thatyou understand.
And then here are my concerns,and let's see if we can work out
a compromise.
If we can't, darling, I'm sorry,but I just can't say yes, I
just can't, and you know so.
It's like breaking it to them alittle easier.
(44:42):
It's validating, it'sacknowledging that they are.
You know so.
It's like breaking it to them alittle easier.
It's validating, it'sacknowledging that they are, you
know, to the point where theyfeel like an adult.
And so now they've been heard,they've been listened to and
everything's been acknowledged,not saying they're going to be
happy, but you're not going tohave a knockdown drag out and
it's not going to be, oh, I'mgoing, I'm going anyway.
You know it will be a muchbetter scenario for you.
Dr. Amy Moore (45:11):
Well, and you've given them the opportunity to
help think of alternativesolutions and problem solve
there.
And yes, there's thisphenomenon called psychological
reactance, and it happens whenyou are told, no, you cannot do
this, and so the phenomenon isthat then you feel extra
motivated to do the thing thatyou were told you could not do.
Oh yeah, and then you knowthat's when negotiations shut
(45:35):
down, right, Because you are nowpushing a stress response oh
yeah, you can't negotiate in astress response.
Stress response oh yeah, youcan't negotiate in a stress
response.
Ann Coleman (45:45):
Yeah, when I came home and asked my parents if I
could date a guy, go out on adate with a guy, I was about to
turn 15, but I was 14.
He was 19.
And I didn't really even wantto go, but I was flattered that
I had been asked.
So I was like, yeah, I don'tknow, I could take it or leave
it.
Well, my parents had a fit.
(46:07):
You are not.
You know the whole thing notgoing to happen, not going to
happen, not going to happen.
Well, I begged and I begged andI pleaded and I made up my mind
I was going to go anyway.
And I did and didn't even wantto go out with him.
Right, ended up marrying him 10years later and divorcing.
So yeah, some of us can reallydig our heels in when we are
(46:33):
told no, I mean it's just and Ilove it.
Tell me again what that'scalled Psychological reactance.
Okay, that makes total sense andthat is if we can learn that.
You know, all right, how can Iput this or how can I slow down?
And and I know I'm probably notgoing to say yes in the end but
(46:57):
let's hear them out, let'svalidate why they want to do
this thing out, let's validatewhy they want to do this thing
and then, you know, I willgradually try to work in a
solution.
And if we can't problem solve,then I'll just have to hold my,
you know, hold the boundary andsay no, which is, you know,
(47:18):
that's something that nobodyteaches us how to do this.
I think some people do have thatin them already.
Some parents are good at this,I think, just from day one.
They're calm enough to be ableto think things through and just
innately understand that.
Kids need that, you know, theyneed that acknowledgement and
(47:41):
they need that discussion.
But some of us, like me, whoare ADHD and anxious and have
all kinds of emotionalreactivity anyway, we have to
really work on some skills.
We have to understand thesethings first and then we have to
really practice and work onourselves so that we can be the
(48:05):
best parent for our kid.
Sandy Zamalis (48:07):
Yeah, and I just love that you really highlight
that, the work that really hasto go into it on the parent side
, and I know you know just fromour conversation that you really
want to give hope.
So I wanted to ask a questionand feel free to say no if you
don't want to answer thequestion.
But with all the you know youhad gotten to a place where
things were really bad betweenyour son and yourself.
(48:29):
When did you know you'd finallyturn the tide?
Ann Coleman (48:33):
Well, it took it.
I mean, it probably took a fewweeks before I felt like I could
see changes in him and thingswere changing.
But within a year, within ayear of sticking to it I mean,
he was a different kid Ourrelationship, where he had just,
(48:53):
I mean, I felt like he hated us.
You know, we had gotten to thatpoint where, you know, there
were no kind words between us atall and within that year, he
was hugging us.
I love you, it was.
You know.
I felt like I had my kid back.
He, you know, he had reallyturned the corner and he was
(49:15):
able at that point to then moveaway, be by himself, meet a
whole new group of friends andstart a new life halfway across
the country.
And we still do have that same,you know, bond and we are still
able to communicate in that way, and it's just a beautiful
thing.
Dr. Amy Moore (49:37):
So, Anne, how can our listeners learn more from
you?
Find you, work with you, Tellus where you are.
Ann Coleman (49:44):
Sure, can you give me one second?
Can we edit this out?
Because I told my husband Isaid do not bring my mother back
.
He had to take her to thedoctor.
Do not come in the store until3.00.
It's one minute.
Let me close the store so thatthat won't, okay.
Hold on one second, guys.
(50:05):
I'm still on the thing.
Did you hear me?
Did you hear me?
I had to yell in.
I'm still on the thing.
Still on the thing.
Keep her in there, Don't beyelling.
Okay so, all right, give it apause here.
Okay so, people, right, give ita pause here.
(50:26):
Okay, so people can listen tomy podcast.
I have a podcast calledSpeaking of Teens.
It's on all the podcasting apps.
I'm also on Substack, speakingof Teens.
I write a weekly article andthose are probably the best
places to jump in From there.
I have links for free parentingguides and something I do
(50:47):
called Parent Camp a couple oftimes a year.
So I would start with thepodcast or the sub stack.
Dr. Amy Moore (50:54):
Yeah, and your free resources are excellent.
So, listeners, I absolutelyencourage you to quick and easy.
Sandy Zamalis (51:02):
They're just easy things to grasp, but nothing
too deep or heavy, something youcan take away.
Ann Coleman (51:08):
You probably haven't looked at the
challenging adolescent brain onethen, because it's 40 pages.
I got a little carried awaywith that one.
It's a little much, but youknow I'm thorough.
Dr. Amy Moore (51:19):
Right, well, that's wonderful, all right.
Ann Coleman, thank you so muchfor being with us today.
Ann Coleman (51:25):
You are so welcome.
Thank you for having me.
I enjoyed it.
Yeah, ann Coleman, thank you somuch for being with us today.
Dr. Amy Moore (51:28):
You are so welcome.
Thank you for having me.
I enjoyed it.
Yeah, so, listeners, thank youfor joining in today.
You can find us on social mediaat the Brainy Moms, if you
would rather see our faces.
You can find us on our YouTubechannel at the Brainy Moms.
You can find Sandy on TikTok atthe Brain Trainer Lady if you
want to watch her do some coolbrain training demos and learn
(51:48):
some more stuff about the brain.
And if you love us, we wouldlove it if you would leave us a
five-star rating and review onApple Podcasts.
That is all the smart stuff wehave for you today.
We hope you feel a littlesmarter.
We're going to catch you nexttime.
Hi, smart moms and dads, welcome to another
episode of the Brainy Momspodcast brought to you today by
LearningRx Brain TrainingCenters.
I'm Dr Amy Moore, your host,and I am joined by my co-host,
sandy Zimalis, and Sandy and Iare gonna bring you a
conversation today with ourguest, anne Coleman.
Anne is an attorney turnedpodcaster and parent educator.
(00:22):
After a couple of trying yearswith her teenage son, she
finally figured out how to turnthings around.
For the past eight years, she'shelped thousands of other
parents understand the scienceof parenting adolescents so they
can avoid the mistakes that shemade.
She's the host of the podcastSpeaking of Teens and the
(00:43):
creator of Parent Camp, yourpathway to less conflict,
greater connection and betterbehavior.
Let's welcome, anne.
Hello, hello, hello.
Why don't you give ourlisteners a little bit of a
background about you and how youended up sitting in the chair
in front of us?
Sure?
Ann Coleman (01:04):
Well, my son has been a nervous, anxious child
from day one.
He was always anxious.
He has ADHD.
As he got a little older.
You know I didn't say this tohim but I always called him, you
know, a fit pitcher.
He was one of those kids thatjust would melt down at the drop
(01:25):
of a hat and we didn't reallyrealize it was anxiety or ADHD
until he was somewhere in earlyelementary school maybe third or
fourth grade, had testing andall this stuff done, and for
several years on, up to probablyninth or 10th grade, everything
revolved around that anxiety,ADHD, as it related to school.
(01:49):
So everything was about gettingthe homework done and then,
once we got it done, making surethat he got it handed in and
meeting with the school.
And you know, there was alwaysan issue with, you know, not
doing the work or not staying ontask, or we had to switch
medications, and it was alwaysthat.
And then, when he hit about 14or 15, he decided that he was
(02:14):
going to try smoking marijuanaand we had talked about this
incessantly with him from dayone, because we have addiction
in my family, we have addictionin his birth family, and so we
had talked about this all along.
No, mom, I'm never going to dothat.
(02:35):
I'm never going to do that.
I'm never going to do that.
Well, then we found out that hedid that and unfortunately, I
had a brother who, when we weregrowing up, we were adolescents
he started smoking marijuana andhe actually became I know it's
not really kosher these days tosay drug addict, but he became a
drug addict and he abused everysubstance under the sun and
(02:58):
ended up passing away severalyears ago in his 50s from
methamphetamine and heroin andhe got a terrible kind of cancer
that was associated with that.
So in the back of my mind allthese years I thought I am never
, I'm not going to have kids.
And then we decided to havekids and then my thought was
(03:20):
well, it's not going to be likeit was with my brother and my
parents because he put themthrough sheer hell, and I
thought I am never going toallow that.
My kid is going to know he'snever going to smoke weed or do
any of these things and if hedoes, I'm not going to enable
him.
Like I felt, like my parentshad done.
And then all of a sudden I havea child smoking weed, and I did
(03:41):
not realize it at the time.
But afterwards, when I startedfiguring things out that
triggered me so bad that all Iwanted to do was make it stop,
Anything I could do to make himstop.
So I pulled out the Google andI lectured him about his brain
(04:03):
and I lectured him about how itleads to other things, and I
begged and I pleaded and Icontrolled and I lectured and I
yelled and it just got worse andworse and worse.
Because the more now lookingback I know, the more I tried to
control his behavior and themore I tried to fix him myself
or take him to therapists tohave him fixed or whatever it
(04:26):
was, the worse his behaviorbecame.
We were completely disconnected.
All he was doing was rebelling,he was getting in trouble at
school, Just all the things.
So it finally kind ofculminated in he would have what
I call fits of rage, and wenever knew is that the anxiety?
Is it the ADHD?
(04:46):
Is it a substance?
Is you know what's going onhere?
And so finally, because of someof those fits of rage, he ended
up in a psychiatric ward forabout a week and then thereafter
he went to residentialtreatment for a couple of months
.
And all these years, like therewere at least a couple of years
(05:06):
there where it was reallyintense and we had psychiatrists
, we had psychologists, we hadcounselors, we had family
therapists, we had addictioncounselors, we had everyone
under the sun.
He had been psychologicallytested like half a dozen times.
Not one time during any of thatdid anyone ask us how are you
(05:27):
parenting him?
How are you responding when hedoes these things?
How are you communicating?
How's your connection?
Do you want some tips on how tomake this work better?
Not a single time.
So again, all this time we werethinking, well, they're supposed
to be fixing him, why is he notfixed?
But at home I was still doingthe same thing.
(05:47):
I was still controlling andlecturing and pushing and
punishing and, you know, nailinghis window shut and just crazy
stuff, because I was not goingto let him become my brother.
So when he went intoresidential treatment credit to
the family counselor there herealized that we would get
together on Zoom every weekbecause he was in California, we
were in South Carolina and thefamily counselor would kind of
(06:09):
prep us before we got on thescreen with our son and would
say now remember, you need tovalidate his feelings, but you
need to stand firm in yourboundaries and blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah, and my eyes wouldglaze over.
I would look at him like okay,and so we tried that a couple of
weeks and then, finally, thethird try.
(06:30):
He was like you don't get this,do you?
And I said no, I don't get it.
What are you trying to tell me?
Please explain this to me?
And he said okay, he sent me toa couple of books by Dan Siegel
and Tina Payne Bryson whichwere for parents of toddlers.
As I was reading it, I'm like,wow, he really doesn't think
much of my communication skills,but it was the first time that
(06:54):
anyone had said this is not allabout your son, this is you.
You have a huge role in this.
And I mean I literally it givesme goosebumps to think about it
.
I'm, I'm staying here reading Ithink the first book was no
Drama, Discipline and tears werestreaming down my face because
and I still have that book, itis, I have written all over it I
(07:16):
was marking post-it notes,writing myself notes and going,
oh my God, oh my God, I did this, I did this.
Why didn't I know this?
Why?
And it was just this epiphanylike, okay, now I know now, I
know what the issue is, I'mgonna fix it, I, I I'm okay, I'm
gonna figure this out.
So I kept reading and I keptstudying and I studied about the
(07:37):
adolescent brain and I studiedthis and I studied that.
He came home and it was hard inthe beginning, to you know,
because my thing, my emotions, Iwas totally unaware of what I
was feeling, why I was feelingit.
I was totally unable toregulate myself.
But I had said to myself I amgoing to do this, I'm just going
(08:01):
to stop, I'm just going tofigure it out and I'm going to
do it.
And I did.
And you know, I learned to kindof pause before I said
something and in the beginning Istill didn't really know what
to say.
So that pause would be kind oflong and I would just repeat the
same things in the beginning.
I understand you're frustrated.
I understand because he wasalways frustrated.
(08:23):
So that was pretty easy for me.
I see that you're frustratedright now.
But it got easier and easier.
In the beginning he didn't knowwhat I was doing.
He was like is this the samethat you've been doing and maybe
you're just tricking me?
So he did not respond the way Ithought he would respond in the
very beginning, respond the wayI thought he would respond in
(08:50):
the very beginning, but withinweeks, within weeks, I kept
doing it, I kept doing it, Ikept doing it and within weeks
he had that.
His emotions had come downabout 10 notches, His
dysregulation.
He was able to not get so upsetin the beginning.
He was able to not get so upsetin the beginning and he was
able to.
Once he did, the time that hewas upset was shortened, I mean
(09:12):
exponentially, and I mean it wasjust amazing.
Within a year he was adifferent kid.
He was a different kid, I was adifferent person.
Our connection was back and itwas just like it was miraculous
to me.
I was like, oh my God, I mean Ihave got to tell other parents
about this, because I'm a prettysmart cookie and if I didn't
(09:35):
know this, I know there are tonsof parents out there who are
struggling with the same thingand just don't get it.
So that's you know.
I just kept reading, keptstudying, wrote myself a book
just for me so I can pull fromit, and just started putting
myself out there and trying toeducate parents about the fact
that I guess my whole thing islook, it's not all your kid.
(09:58):
You've got to understand them.
You've got to understand howtheir brain works, You've got to
understand how to communicate,You've got to understand how to
get your own emotions undercontrol, and you've got to
understand what discipline evenmeans and how to do it with a
teenager.
So that's it in a nutshell.
Dr. Amy Moore (10:17):
Yeah, I think you nailed it, you know, when you
said, when you shared yourfrustration, that why aren't
they fixing him right, where youwere finally coming to that
realization at the end.
Oh, I'm the one that needs alittle bit of fixing.
Ann Coleman (10:35):
Yeah, actually, I needed a lot of fixing, I really
did.
I mean, I just didn't get it.
And you know, as parents in youknow, growing up in a Western
society, you know a lot of uswere raised in that
authoritarian, you know mindset.
Our parents were authoritarian,their parents, their
grandparents.
(10:55):
I mean it has been passed downand I mean I would say it's
generational trauma.
I mean because the wholeauthoritarian you know mindset
is, you do as I say, and we'reall about outward behavior,
outward performance.
Children are supposed to actlike adults, even though they
(11:17):
don't have an adult brain andthey don't know how to act like
adults.
They don't have the capacity toact like adults, but we expect
that of them and we have thisingrained in our brain that you
know, like I said, has beenpassed down, that our kids are
supposed to do what we say andthey are supposed to respect us
(11:38):
and jump when we say jump, andwhat we don't get is guess what.
By the time they hit puberty,they want to be respected, they
feel like an adult.
They need that same kind ofrespect and dignity that you
know that we want.
So and by the time you hit thatage, it is no longer a
(12:02):
management situation, even ifyou were managing them more as
they were children and tellingthem what to do and setting the
rules, and everything isunilateral.
It is no longer that way.
When they hit puberty you haveto work as a team or you are
going to get pushback from thevery beginning.
And what I find is as soon asparents start getting that
(12:24):
pushback and that little snarky,those little snarky comments
and you know kids try pushingback a little bit they the
parent jumps in and says, oh no,you're not pulling that stuff.
And then they get tougher andthe kid starts pushing harder
and the parents start gettingtougher and it just becomes this
(12:47):
out of control spiral.
So it's just aboutunderstanding how this works.
Sandy Zamalis (12:55):
And thanks for sharing that.
That was such a vulnerablestory to share Because from a
parent especially because Itotally see myself in that as
well and you know it's hard towhen you're having trouble with
your teenager at home it'sreally hard to kind of wrestle
with that openly, because wehave the same problem so we're
not sharing with our friends.
Ann Coleman (13:18):
Oh yeah, so we're not sharing with our friends
that our kids are struggling orthat things aren't going well at
home.
Sandy Zamalis (13:23):
We're hiding all of that.
Ann Coleman (13:26):
So just being able to talk about it.
Sandy Zamalis (13:27):
Is that first step Right?
Ann Coleman (13:29):
I mean, you know it's such a phenomenon that you
know parents will share allabout their colicky babies or
their toddlers who are gettinginto everything or not sleeping
or throwing fits, but once theyhit puberty and it just it feels
like there's so much morecompetition among, especially
(13:50):
among moms, that oh, you know,no, not my kid.
You know you don't want anyoneknowing these things.
And unfortunately, because ofsocial media, we all put our
best foot forward on socialmedia and no one thinks anyone
else is struggling with thesethings and some of us struggle
(14:12):
more than others because some ofus, our kids, have more
struggles than others.
We have kids who have ADHD oranxiety or trauma or any of
those things that you know.
I call them.
You know, teenagers squared,they're going to have all the
issues that typical teens have,but they're just magnified.
(14:33):
And no, we don't want to, wedon't want to tell anybody
because I mean it's embarrassing.
I was embarrassed.
I was embarrassed when my kidwas smoking weed and I think
even selling weed and, you know,getting in trouble at school.
It was embarrassing.
And then we have other moms whoare still in that authoritarian
mindset going oh well, I'm notletting my kid do that.
(14:56):
If my kid did that, this iswhat I would do, and you've just
got to put your foot down andyou've got to do this and da, da
, da, and I listened and so Idid it and that's what got me
where I was.
And so that's another reasonthat I knew other parents didn't
get this.
There were a lot of parents thatdidn't get this and, yeah, it's
(15:18):
scary because you do, lot ofparents that didn't get this and
yeah, it's scary because you do.
I felt so alone and sodesperate, so desperate to know
that someone else had beenthrough it before me and had
gotten through it and that therewas hope.
That's what I, you know, on thecomputer every night I was
Googling.
(15:38):
My teenager was at troubledteen or out of control, and now
they're okay.
I was literally Googling thingslike that to see do people get
through this?
Do they get through it?
Is it okay?
And luckily we did.
We got through it and thingswere okay, so it's possible.
Dr. Amy Moore (15:59):
So, speaking of parenting styles, you talk a lot
about helicopter parenting andthat's one of our favorite
topics to talk about.
So let's talk about helicopterparenting.
I mean, I love that you have awhole like down.
You might be yeah, you might bea helicopter parent yeah, so
(16:21):
like talk about uh, because Ithink there are people out there
who are helicopter parentingtheir kids and they don't
realize they're helicopterparents.
Ann Coleman (16:30):
Oh yeah, there's a lot of that going on well, and
you know it's funny, I I've, uh,one of my friends sent me a
real the other day, or I thinkmaybe it was a Facebook thing
where these teachers werereading the text that they had
received from parents of theirstudents, and I want to say they
were middle schoolers.
But guys, I mean, I'm tellingyou we are way, way, way too
(16:56):
involved with our kids' lives,especially as they get to these
older stages.
You know, things like you know,don't call on him because you
know he's embarrassed.
Or you know, not accommodations, but just ridiculous things.
And parents, we this was reallyhard for me because my son had
(17:17):
ADHD, dyslexia, dysgraphia, allthe things, and so it was really
hard to find that balance ofhow far do I get involved in
helping him not mess up.
How far do I, you know, step into prevent a mistake?
And I think I probably did stepin too far.
And what we don't realize is,you know, it's the other extreme
(17:40):
of, you know, control.
We are controlling, we'rethinking that we're doing good
because we're trying to control,you know, in a good way.
We're trying to help, we'resmoothing the way.
You know, we don't want them tobe hurt, we don't want them to
make mistakes and mess up, butin doing that we are removing
(18:02):
their ability to actually learn,because the only way any of us
learn is by making mistakes.
You know, I learned reallyquickly that I don't leave my
heels out with my new puppybecause he chewed up every pair
of heels.
Okay, lesson learned.
You know, I wouldn't havelearned that if my husband had
walked in and said no, no, no,we don't leave our shoes in the
(18:25):
floor, miss Anne, we need to putthose up in the closet.
You know, you learn throughmistakes.
So I tell parents all the timeyou've got to back up when there
are things that your kid canhandle themselves, to back up
when there are things that yourkid can handle themselves.
Maybe you don't think they canhandle it, but the important
(18:47):
thing is to give them a shot atit because again, once they
reach puberty, they feel like intheir head, they feel like an
adult.
They feel like, you know, theyknow as much as we do.
I mean, obviously everybodysees that they feel like they
know as much as we do.
They want to be given thatautonomy.
And so when we remove thatautonomy by either doing things
(19:07):
for them or making things easierfor them or, you know, fixing
their mistakes.
We are threatening theirautonomy in the same way we
would if we said you can only doit this way and I'm not going
to let you leave the house untilyou do.
I mean, it's the same thing.
We are controlling them eitherway.
(19:28):
And some kids with thehelicopter parenting.
Some kids will accept that kindof help and will let their
parents kind go in and changeall the things and help them.
But even if they do, whatthey're internalizing is my
parents don't think I can dothis.
I can't do this by myself.
(19:49):
I suck at all this stuff.
That's why they're helping medo all these things.
I will never be able to do thisalone.
I mean, I can remember my fatherwas like this.
He would come into my bedroom Iremember when I was little and
he would take my pillow awaybecause it made me too hot and I
got sweaty in the middle of thenight.
I still remember this and Ivowed to myself I am not going
(20:14):
to do things like that to my kid, because by the time I left my
parents home I didn't think Icould do anything, because I
wasn't allowed to do anything bymyself.
I wasn't allowed to makemistakes.
Everything was smooth.
I raised my hand in fourthgrade and said I had a hamster.
I didn't have a hamster.
Everybody else was raisingtheir hand.
I raised my hand.
Guess what?
(20:34):
I had a hamster to take in thenext day to school because my
parents went out and bought oneat Woolworths before they closed
.
I mean, doing things like that.
I had no self-esteem, I didn'tthink I could do anything.
When I went off to law school, Iremember thinking they're going
to send me back home within aweek when they say how stupid I
am, when they figure out that Idon't belong here, I really I
(20:57):
was looking over my shoulderthat first semester.
I thought I'm going to flunkout.
I know I'm going to flunk out.
I want to go home and that'swhat we do to our kids, our kids
in college.
Right now, the freshmen 30%, 30%of those kids end up going home
after the first semester,whether it's because they are,
(21:17):
you know, too anxious to do itor they can't.
I mean, I've heard stories.
You know, kids can't get alongwith their roommates.
They're calling their parentsevery day.
They don't know how to picktheir own classes.
Hell, parents, organizations,companies are making parent
packets, welcome packets forgraduating college students who
(21:38):
get a job with them, because somany parents are calling jobs
and saying what does my kid needto do?
What did they, you know, tomake sure I get my grown you
know I'm not gonna cuss, butgrown kid, you know,
understanding how to do theirjob that they've just gotten
hired for it.
It is insane so that, in anutshell, we are creating a
(22:03):
generation of kids who don'tknow how to do anything on their
own because we are so afraid oftheir failure.
We're afraid for them and we'vegot to let things happen the
way they're supposed to happenso they will have enough
self-esteem and have enoughconfidence to go out into the
world and figure things out forthemselves, because that's the
(22:26):
way it's supposed to be.
We didn't, most of us did it.
Maybe I wasn't so great at it,but most of us did it.
Dr. Amy Moore (22:31):
So yeah, it's sad , well, and I think that it's
not just that they aren'tcapable of doing tangible things
.
I think it's also that if youhaven't learned how to handle
disappointment in the emotionalsafety of your own home and
those relationships with lovingparents and supportive parents,
(22:55):
then you get out into the worldand how are you going to respond
to disappointment?
Exactly Not well.
Ann Coleman (23:02):
Yeah, you have to let them do these things while
they are with you.
So you're there to guide them,you know, not fix it, but you're
there to, you know, respond totheir emotions appropriately and
help them understand that allis not, you know, horrible here.
You're going to figure it out.
But, yeah, when they get offand on their own and they faced,
(23:24):
you know, some kind of horribledisappointment, a lot of these
kids are falling completelyapart because they don't know
how to manage it.
We, you know and it's reallykind of crazy that we, you know,
because I'm thinking about howI did it.
I mean, my thought was I can'tlet him fail.
I can't let him fail.
What if he fails?
(23:45):
And you know, in doing that, weare, you know, that fear.
It's our fear.
Just like our fear creates us,you know, makes us want to
control the bad things or thebad behavior they're doing, it's
our fear that jumps in andprevents them from failing at
any level and that's on us.
(24:05):
That is not our kid.
Kids don't even know to benervous about these things a lot
of times, until we start makingit.
So we start making it a thingto be nervous about.
Oh, are you sure?
I mean, I was working with alady the other day who her
daughter had been cut out of afriend group and so her focus
(24:30):
was constantly on what are yourfriends doing today?
Have they invited you?
Are you going to be able to dothis?
Are you going to be able to dothat?
You know who are you going tohang out with.
And she was perpetuating thatanxiety in her daughter because
she was anxious about it.
You know, it goes back to a lotof times what we experienced in
adolescence, you know, andwe're kind of projecting some of
(24:53):
that stuff on our kids, and ifwe instead just took a deep
breath and let them handlethings a lot of times, it would
work out so much better.
Dr. Amy Moore (25:04):
Well, speaking of letting them handle it, you did
this amazing episode of yourpodcast on missing assignments
in the dang parent portal.
Ann Coleman (25:17):
Oh my Lord, I tell you, the bane of every parent's
existence Is it not?
Dr. Amy Moore (25:23):
That was the exact phrase I used when we were
talking about your episode.
Sandy Zamalis (25:28):
Yeah, it's horrible.
I mean, yeah, I mean I have aweekly meeting about the parent
portal what?
Because I work with kids andparents, with kids who are
struggling in school, and so youknow they're trying to
understand the parent portal.
They don't understand it.
So you have a couple different.
You have the people who are allin it, right, and they're
micromanaging every task.
(25:49):
But there's also the ones thatare like I don't get it, Like I
don't get it, I don't understandI don't get it.
Ann Coleman (25:54):
How are they doing?
I can't even see your tongue, Iknow Well, and the thing too is
that they don't realize that,okay, teachers have to take a
couple of days sometimes to getcaught up in the parent portal,
you know.
So they're constantly wiggingout because it says you didn't
turn this assignment in, or itsays you didn't do this, and
instead we have got to get backto the point where we can trust
(26:17):
our kids to do things forthemselves and that.
But I also see that, as youknow, a lot of times the
teachers are reaching out to theparents too and saying you know
your kid's not doing this, orthey're not doing that.
And for for parents whostruggle with this already and,
you know, trying to be on top oftheir kids constantly, you know
(26:39):
, this creates a dynamic at homethat is not good between the
parents and the kids, and soI've even told parents before
look, tell the teacher, that'sbetween you and little Johnny.
I am out of it.
I am not going to fuss at himevery day, all day, about
turning in his assignments.
I am not going to fuss at himall day, every day, about doing
(26:59):
his homework.
It is creating a, you know, adisconnection between us and our
, our home, and this is schooland if he's not turning in
assignments, give him the gradehe deserves.
Let him make a zero, I don'tcare, it's not my grade.
I've been through school.
I did my years in school.
(27:22):
That's what I kept telling myson.
I've already done this.
I have done this before.
I don't want to be doing thisagain.
And you know what we don't haveto.
We don't have to.
My parents were clueless aboutwhat I was doing in school.
I mean completely clueless.
They never told me to dohomework.
They never knew if I didhomework.
They saw my report card becauseyou had to get the dang thing
(27:45):
signed back then, but they wereclueless If I made a bad grade
it was on me.
Dr. Amy Moore (27:50):
I had to figure out.
Ann Coleman (27:51):
Hmm, do I really want to make a bad grade again
or do I want to do somethingelse?
So yeah, the parent portals.
Something else.
So yeah, the parent portals.
We have got to learn to back upa little bit, not stress out so
much.
Which leads me to the otherconversation about you know
(28:11):
school in general and grades andperformance and putting all of
your eggs in your kids.
You know grades and performanceat school and thinking that,
okay, if they can just makestraight A's or in some cases,
this is the kid themselves too,putting this pressure on
themselves.
I mean, societally, we putpressure.
You know it's the grades, it'sgetting into the right college
or getting into college anddoing this and this so that they
(28:34):
will be quote unquotesuccessful.
Well, it took me a little bitto realize that success looks
different to every one of us.
You know I quit practicing lawand making money to do this,
this educating parents andhelping parents with their
teenagers.
This is success to me.
(28:56):
I'm changing lives.
I didn't change many liveswriting contracts, so you know
that was not made money.
But we all have to decide forourselves what success looks
like.
My son did not want to go tocollege.
I did not blame him.
He has ADHD and dyslexia anddysgraphia and anxiety and
(29:17):
school was not fun.
It sucked for him.
It sucks for a lot of kids.
I just published, I think, asub stack about that.
School sucks for a lot of kidsand so I had to realize that.
You know what, going to collegeis not his thing.
He loves snowboarding, he lovesoutdoor sports, he loves being
in the mountains.
That's his thing.
(29:39):
That's what makes him happy.
And you know what?
I want him to be happy.
I want him to be satisfied inlife.
And if he is happy workingretail or you know whatever, if
he's able to pay his bills anddo what he wants to do and he's
happy, in my opinion that issuccess.
(30:01):
So you know, the parent portalthing to me is tied directly to
that.
I think it's tied to our idealsof what we want our kids to be.
We all have this little moviereel in our heads of what our
kids were going to turn out likeand what they were going to be
and what their character wasgoing to be.
And that little picture in ourhead really messes with us,
(30:26):
because when things go offcourse a little bit, then we're
like, oh my God, oh my God, Igot to get back.
I got to get them back.
They got to be doing this thingand when we do that and that
control sets in, we build thedisconnection and nothing works
out.
So, understanding that, yes,grades matter Of course they do.
You don't want your kid toflunk out.
(30:46):
You have to do what you have todo there.
But even if they do fail aclass or fail a grade or
something like that, they aregoing to be okay in the end,
with you as the parent guidingthem and helping them get back
to where they want to be.
Most kids do not want to failin any capacity.
(31:09):
There are very few who aregoing to allow themselves to
flunk out of high school orflunk a grade or anything like
that.
So, stepping back and realizing, if they make C's, well, guess
what?
We've forgotten this.
But C's are average, Average,the middle.
(31:31):
It is okay to be average.
I was extremely average, if notbelow average, in high school
my grades, and it was not untilI motivated myself because I
wanted to run for cheerleader tomake better grades.
When kids are motivated becauseof something externally, you
(31:51):
know it's really hard for themto sustain, but if they are
internally motivated to dosomething, it's much, much
better, it's much easier.
And, as parents, if we'reconstantly on them externally,
they're going to push backagainst that thing that is
pushing them externally andthey're not going to be able to
(32:12):
be successful or live up totheir potential or whatever it
is.
But if we back up a little andwe let them realize that hey,
failing or not doing so well isnot much fun, it doesn't make me
feel good Then that internalfeeling takes over and hopefully
they do better.
But we've got to realize thatif our kid wants to go to
(32:33):
college, they can go to college.
You can go to college with a1.5 GPA from high school.
You can go to community college.
You can get good grades for thefirst semester or second
semester.
You can transfer somewhere else.
It is not the end of the worldif your kid does not go to
Princeton or Duke or Brown orHarvard.
(32:54):
It's just not.
Life goes on.
I don't know about you guys,but I didn't go to any of those
places.
Dr. Amy Moore (33:00):
I'm fine.
No, I walk around saying that Imean, I've got a PhD, I'm
actually getting a seconddoctorate and I went to either
state schools or for-profitschools.
Exactly, and I'm just fine forsure.
Exactly.
Sandy Zamalis (33:15):
I wanted to share real quick, amy.
So you know I loved your storyand you know, just listening to
you explain all of that and forparents that are listening in my
family, in our case, you know Ihad two very capable kids.
I did not hover a whole lotonce they got into public school
.
Where the trouble happened wascollege.
(33:36):
So you know, thinking about that30% statistic that you threw
out, I really do feel likecollege is the new high school
ground anymore.
Just with all the changes inthe world and technology and the
consequences are different inhigh school than they were when
we were in high school.
So I think our kids are kind ofgetting into those murky,
(33:57):
uncomfortable growing placeslater and later.
Ann Coleman (34:01):
And so now college?
Sandy Zamalis (34:02):
is that ground?
where they really have to learnthat, and that was definitely
true for my son.
You know he went intoengineering school and it did
not go well.
Oh no, really hard to gothrough at the time.
(34:25):
It was not easy.
There was a lot of tears on thephone.
It was just heart-wrenching asa parent, because my son is a
very capable young man andeverything was easy for him up
until then.
And so I'm like where mostpeople, I think, would have
bailed a lot sooner.
The minute they got a poorgrade, he was determined to
suffer and get himself throughit, and we actually had to go
and do a little bit of a meetingwith him in college and go like
(34:48):
I don't, I just don't, youdon't enjoy this, this is not
where you need to be.
Let's rethink this.
Let's transfer college, youknow, or?
you know, just within thecollege, let's transfer to
another major.
Let's figure out what excitesyou.
You know and that worked outreally well and he stuck it out.
He had to do an extra year ofcollege, but I think that
(35:12):
pendulum has swung or thattimeline has moved a little bit,
for our kids.
We need to kind of have that.
And now they're even aftercollege.
Ann Coleman (35:47):
You've still got to have that buffer.
It is getting later and later.
Adolescence has extended, youknow.
25, 30 is, you know.
You're still kind of in thatzone of I can't quite do it on
my own yet.
And yeah, college, to me it'skind of a scary place and I
(36:09):
think my son would definitely,even if we had pushed him to try
to go, would not have done wellbecause of the you know the
substances and the parties andthe you know all the
distractions.
And I think that is one reasonthat a lot of kids do end up
coming home, you know, is thatthey're not mature enough to
(36:32):
handle those things yet.
18 years old is not an adult.
It is such a ridiculous thingto even have laws that say they
can make any decisions on theirown at 18.
Their brain's not going to befinished for, you know, another,
possibly 10 years from then.
So, yeah, those making thosedecisions being on their own.
(36:52):
There are a lot of kids thatneed that year at home, a gap
year, a community college, a youknow some kind of program that
they can go into to get somelife skills, maybe move off a
little bit further away fromhome and be on their own before
they try to go do these things.
It's usually like when I was inlaw school, there were a lot of
(37:16):
older people in my class andthey were the ones that studied
harder and did better.
And because you need thatmaturity sometimes to understand
what this is that you've got infront of you, you know this
opportunity and you know I don'twant to mess it up, or it's not
that big a deal and I need toswitch majors, or you know it's
(37:38):
just and it's a level ofmaturity that 18 year olds do
not not have Most of them don't.
There are some that you knowthey're like 40 years old when
they're 18, but not many, notmany.
Sandy Zamalis (37:53):
Yeah, it is estimated that there are over 6
million children in the USdiagnosed with ADHD.
Most children diagnosed withADHD have a cluster of weak
cognitive skills that we allrely on for focusing and staying
on task, skills like workingmemory, long-term memory and
processing speed.
At LearningRx, we create aone-on-one brain training
(38:15):
program that's tailored to helpaddress the root cause of your
child's biggest challenges.
Visit LearningRxcom to learnhow we're helping kids and teens
with ADHD significantly improvetheir cognitive skills.
Get started at learningrxcom orhead over to our show notes for
links for more helpfulresources, including some free
(38:36):
brain training exercises you cantry at home.
Dr. Amy Moore (38:41):
So I love how you write.
Ask yourself could it bedangerous, unhealthy, illegal,
unethical or likely to closesome door left open?
If it doesn't fit into theabove categories, it falls
within their personal domain todecide themselves, because I
(39:21):
think, if you have a tendency tohelicopter, if you have a
tendency to want to be incontrol which is an illusion, by
the way but if you have thistendency to want to control?
Ann Coleman (39:25):
but you have listened to any of this.
You need some parameters, right, you need to be able to go okay
, well, when should I step inand when should I not?
Right, right, well, and that Ican't take credit for that, that
is Dr Lawrence Steinberg, whois a world-renowned adolescence
researcher, brain researcher,and I thought that was brilliant
.
So I told him I was going tosteal that from him and so I've
kind of made it my own.
But it's so true.
You know people, parents wantyou know to know well, what
(39:48):
should I have rules about andwhen should I step in and not
allow consequences?
And you know what should I sayabout their clothes or their
hair, or you know these kind ofthings.
And if you use those parametersdangerous, unhealthy, unethical
, illegal or likely to closesome door, better left open you
can say, okay, I can allowconsequent natural consequences
(40:12):
unless they're dangerous.
So I'm not going to let my kiddrink and go, get in the car and
take off down the road.
That's dangerous.
So I'm going to step in.
And illegal, yeah, and illegal,yeah, it comes under all kinds
of the headings.
Yes, exactly, so you know therules that you make same things.
I don't need to have a rule andyou know I hate to break it to
(40:36):
y'all, but a dirty bedroom or amessy bedroom doesn't fall into
any of those categories.
I agree, you know it's hard,it's hard as a parent, but you
know what.
And unless there are bugs androaches and mice and then you
can say, okay, that's unhealthy.
But truly we have to know thatif it's not a big deal, it's not
(40:59):
a big deal and we need to letthem decide.
If they want to color theirhair pink, purple or shave it
off, then we have to let them doit.
That's not our concern.
Okay, it's embarrassing.
Yes, because my son was dressing.
He was wanting to wear the goldchains and the big diamond
(41:20):
crosses and things like that bythe time he started high school.
I'm like, oh my God.
And we had some of the biggestarguments over that stupid
necklace because grandmotherbought it for him.
I didn't, she bought it for him, but we had the biggest
arguments over there.
It was not worth it.
It was not worth it.
They are trying to decide whothey are and where they fit in
(41:44):
and their self-image, and theyneed to try these different
personas on and do these thingsand we don't need to step in and
say, no, that looks stupid orno, you're not wearing that
anywhere, it's wrinkled orwhatever.
Get over that stuff.
And and when you're makingrules about things, that's what
you need to look at are thoseparameters.
(42:05):
And if it's not a dangerousthing, then you don't need to
have a rule about it.
If they come to you and say Iwant to do X, y and Z, those are
the parameters you need to belooking at.
So they've come to me andthey've asked me to go to a
concert.
They're 16.
They want to go with a20-year-old to a concert that's
(42:27):
in the next, you know, countyover, or something like that.
Okay, that could be dangerous.
We need to talk about that.
My thing is negotiation andbrainstorming and you know, if
you can learn how to have adecent conversation with your
kid where you listen fully towhat they're saying and you
listen to their argument, let'ssay, for wanting to go to this
(42:50):
concert.
And that's the first step.
You have to listen, because ifyou just jump in like most of us
do, no, that's not happening.
You are not a 20 year old.
What are you talking about?
In the next county and you'renot getting home till 3am?
No, no, no, no.
Instead, if we would just stopand let them tell us all about
(43:14):
the concert, let them tell usabout this friend, let them tell
us why they want to go,acknowledge that you know what
that does sound like fun, and Iget why you like that band.
I know you've been listening tothat band and, yeah, you know I
know Sally's a very responsible20-year-old.
Let me tell you my concerns.
Here are my concerns, and thenyou let them know.
(43:36):
Here's where I'm coming from.
But you know, is there any waythat we can like make it so that
you can hang out with Sally onFriday night, but maybe not go
to the concert, but maybe youcan do something else, maybe you
can do something down the roador maybe I could go to the
(43:56):
concert with you.
Would you consider that?
So it's all about negotiating,because once we start doing that
no, that's not happening.
That's when we get in trouble.
We've got to learn yes, we cansay no, we can absolutely say no
, but we need to finesse that alittle bit.
It's, you know, you just I'msorry, but with with adolescents
(44:20):
, you have to finesse that no,and you have to allow them to be
and you have to allow them tobe heard and you have to show
them that you get it and thatyou understand.
And then here are my concerns,and let's see if we can work out
a compromise.
If we can't, darling, I'm sorry,but I just can't say yes, I
just can't, and you know so.
It's like breaking it to them alittle easier.
(44:42):
It's validating, it'sacknowledging that they are.
You know so.
It's like breaking it to them alittle easier.
It's validating, it'sacknowledging that they are, you
know, to the point where theyfeel like an adult.
And so now they've been heard,they've been listened to and
everything's been acknowledged,not saying they're going to be
happy, but you're not going tohave a knockdown drag out and
it's not going to be, oh, I'mgoing, I'm going anyway.
You know it will be a muchbetter scenario for you.
Dr. Amy Moore (45:11):
Well, and you've given them the opportunity to
help think of alternativesolutions and problem solve
there.
And yes, there's thisphenomenon called psychological
reactance, and it happens whenyou are told, no, you cannot do
this, and so the phenomenon isthat then you feel extra
motivated to do the thing thatyou were told you could not do.
Oh yeah, and then you knowthat's when negotiations shut
(45:35):
down, right, Because you are nowpushing a stress response oh
yeah, you can't negotiate in astress response.
Stress response oh yeah, youcan't negotiate in a stress
response.
Ann Coleman (45:45):
Yeah, when I came home and asked my parents if I
could date a guy, go out on adate with a guy, I was about to
turn 15, but I was 14.
He was 19.
And I didn't really even wantto go, but I was flattered that
I had been asked.
So I was like, yeah, I don'tknow, I could take it or leave
it.
Well, my parents had a fit.
(46:07):
You are not.
You know the whole thing notgoing to happen, not going to
happen, not going to happen.
Well, I begged and I begged andI pleaded and I made up my mind
I was going to go anyway.
And I did and didn't even wantto go out with him.
Right, ended up marrying him 10years later and divorcing.
So yeah, some of us can reallydig our heels in when we are
(46:33):
told no, I mean it's just and Ilove it.
Tell me again what that'scalled Psychological reactance.
Okay, that makes total sense andthat is if we can learn that.
You know, all right, how can Iput this or how can I slow down?
And and I know I'm probably notgoing to say yes in the end but
(46:57):
let's hear them out, let'svalidate why they want to do
this thing out, let's validatewhy they want to do this thing
and then, you know, I willgradually try to work in a
solution.
And if we can't problem solve,then I'll just have to hold my,
you know, hold the boundary andsay no, which is, you know,
(47:18):
that's something that nobodyteaches us how to do this.
I think some people do have thatin them already.
Some parents are good at this,I think, just from day one.
They're calm enough to be ableto think things through and just
innately understand that.
Kids need that, you know, theyneed that acknowledgement and
(47:41):
they need that discussion.
But some of us, like me, whoare ADHD and anxious and have
all kinds of emotionalreactivity anyway, we have to
really work on some skills.
We have to understand thesethings first and then we have to
really practice and work onourselves so that we can be the
(48:05):
best parent for our kid.
Sandy Zamalis (48:07):
Yeah, and I just love that you really highlight
that, the work that really hasto go into it on the parent side
, and I know you know just fromour conversation that you really
want to give hope.
So I wanted to ask a questionand feel free to say no if you
don't want to answer thequestion.
But with all the you know youhad gotten to a place where
things were really bad betweenyour son and yourself.
(48:29):
When did you know you'd finallyturn the tide?
Ann Coleman (48:33):
Well, it took it.
I mean, it probably took a fewweeks before I felt like I could
see changes in him and thingswere changing.
But within a year, within ayear of sticking to it I mean,
he was a different kid Ourrelationship, where he had just,
(48:53):
I mean, I felt like he hated us.
You know, we had gotten to thatpoint where, you know, there
were no kind words between us atall and within that year, he
was hugging us.
I love you, it was.
You know.
I felt like I had my kid back.
He, you know, he had reallyturned the corner and he was
(49:15):
able at that point to then moveaway, be by himself, meet a
whole new group of friends andstart a new life halfway across
the country.
And we still do have that same,you know, bond and we are still
able to communicate in that way, and it's just a beautiful
thing.
Dr. Amy Moore (49:37):
So, Anne, how can our listeners learn more from
you?
Find you, work with you, Tellus where you are.
Ann Coleman (49:44):
Sure, can you give me one second?
Can we edit this out?
Because I told my husband Isaid do not bring my mother back
.
He had to take her to thedoctor.
Do not come in the store until3.00.
It's one minute.
Let me close the store so thatthat won't, okay.
Hold on one second, guys.
(50:05):
I'm still on the thing.
Did you hear me?
Did you hear me?
I had to yell in.
I'm still on the thing.
Still on the thing.
Keep her in there, Don't beyelling.
Okay so, all right, give it apause here.
Okay so, people, right, give ita pause here.
(50:26):
Okay, so people can listen tomy podcast.
I have a podcast calledSpeaking of Teens.
It's on all the podcasting apps.
I'm also on Substack, speakingof Teens.
I write a weekly article andthose are probably the best
places to jump in From there.
I have links for free parentingguides and something I do
(50:47):
called Parent Camp a couple oftimes a year.
So I would start with thepodcast or the sub stack.
Dr. Amy Moore (50:54):
Yeah, and your free resources are excellent.
So, listeners, I absolutelyencourage you to quick and easy.
Sandy Zamalis (51:02):
They're just easy things to grasp, but nothing
too deep or heavy, something youcan take away.
Ann Coleman (51:08):
You probably haven't looked at the
challenging adolescent brain onethen, because it's 40 pages.
I got a little carried awaywith that one.
It's a little much, but youknow I'm thorough.
Dr. Amy Moore (51:19):
Right, well, that's wonderful, all right.
Ann Coleman, thank you so muchfor being with us today.
Ann Coleman (51:25):
You are so welcome.
Thank you for having me.
I enjoyed it.
Yeah, ann Coleman, thank you somuch for being with us today.
Dr. Amy Moore (51:28):
You are so welcome.
Thank you for having me.
I enjoyed it.
Yeah, so, listeners, thank youfor joining in today.
You can find us on social mediaat the Brainy Moms, if you
would rather see our faces.
You can find us on our YouTubechannel at the Brainy Moms.
You can find Sandy on TikTok atthe Brain Trainer Lady if you
want to watch her do some coolbrain training demos and learn
(51:48):
some more stuff about the brain.
And if you love us, we wouldlove it if you would leave us a
five-star rating and review onApple Podcasts.
That is all the smart stuff wehave for you today.
We hope you feel a littlesmarter.
We're going to catch you nexttime.
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