Nov 10, 2018
Biggest Takeaways:
- Many times, our teen’s behavior does not have the intentionality we give it.
- Seeing our teen’s behavior as developmentally appropriate can help us reframe it and respond, rather than react, to it.
- Defining a behavior as developmentally appropriate doesn’t excuse inappropriate or unhealthy behavior.
- When I know it’s developmentally appropriate for teens to go through certain stages as they’re changing from kids into adults, I can now respond to their misbehavior rather than react to it.
- Understanding what is developmentally appropriate frees parents and teens from condemnation and shame.
- This is not who your teen is – it’s how they are becoming an adult.
- As parents, we’re still going to focus on setting boundaries and behaviors and keep them moving toward what is healthy – they don’t get a free license to do anything they want just because they’re going through this stage.
- Recognizing what is developmentally appropriate in your teen is meant to be an internal dialog to help you reframe your teen’s behavior in a non-shaming, process-focused way. It is NOT something you tell your teen, because that can be condescending or belittling.
- Teens hate being told why they do what they do, or that they don’t “get it” because they’re teenaged. That will shut down any kind of connection with them.
- There’s no prescribed timeframe for how teens move from being a kid into being an adult. There are a couple of tasks they need to do to become a whole individual person who chooses how they’re going to live their lives. And the process is messy.
- “Good enough parenting” - there is no perfect parent. If we can consistently fall into the big, wide, gray area of “good enough,” we’re parenting well.
- Examples of developmentally appropriate tasks teens need to go
through (it doesn’t mean they are manifested in “good” ways, but
they need to experience these to emerge into adulthood):
- be emotionally reactive and impulsive
- be self-centered and overly self-conscious
- value their peers’ opinions over their parents’ advice
- Your measure of success as a parent is not your teen’s immediate response – it’s being able to say yes to the question “did you create the space for them to grow toward something healthier?”
- You cannot give space when you are condemning, shutting down, or invalidating.
Referenced in this Episode
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