April 15, 2025

138: How to get your teenager out of their bedroom - even one who's into gaming.

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So many parents feel a deep loss when their teenager begins to separate from them; staying in their room and behaving as if the person they used to adore is the most embarassing thing they have ever witnessed.

In today's episode I brought in Anita Cleare, author of How to Get Your Teenager Out of Their Bedroom, to discuss the challenges of parenting teenagers.

In her book she covers the key things that drive adolescents to push against us:

1. Separation – from the family
2. Autonomy – taking control of their own lives and decisions.
3. Individuation – defining themselves and their unique identity.
4. Assimilation – learning to fit in as a member of their society.

And the six common thinking traps parents fall into.

Overgeneralising – we reach a negative conclusion based on just one incident.
Catastrophic thinking – tends to involve worrying way into the future. Parents especially prone to this thinking trap when we identify additional factors which seem to add weight to our catastrophic thoughts.
Should/Shouldn’t – usually happens when our expectations are not met. My teen should know better by now, they’re x years old, they should be able to remember simple instructions.
Mind reading – we assume we know what’s going on in our teen’s mind without asking them.
Comparisonitis – If your teen is truly struggling with their self-esteem or mental health, even simple everday event like turning up to watch a sports match knowing that theyour tene is at home because they can’t face it can set off heart-breaking comparisons.
It’s all about me! – we want our efforts to be recognised and appreciated, which when it comes to teens, is a bit of a problem. Teens are deeply self-absorbed and trying to separate from you to become independent.

We explored how we parents can better manage ourselves - and our own expectations - so that we can build emotionally supportive connections with our teens which will encourage them to come out of their room.

Anita highlights the significance of phones and gaming in teenagers' lives, suggesting strategies to manage screen time and maintain positive relationships.

We also addressed the importance of recognizing that bad behaviour can be hiding low moods. What to look for and how to provide a supportive environment.

ANITA CLEARE:

https://anitacleare.co.uk/

BOOK:

How to Get Your Teenager Out of Their Bedroom by Anita Cleare

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I don't have medical training so please seek the advice of a specialist if you're not coping.

My email is teenagersuntangled@gmail.com
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Susie is available for a free 15 minute consultation, and has a great blog:
www.amindful-life.co.uk

00:00 - Understanding Teenage Behavior and Development

03:46 - The Four Key Drives of Teenagers

06:58 - The Role of the Teenage Bedroom

09:15 - The Emotional Brain and Social Pain

12:32 - Common Thinking Traps for Parents

24:12 - Building Positive Relationships with Teenagers

26:17 - Teenagers and Their Phones

33:52 - Managing Gaming and Screen Time

43:46 - Recognizing Low Moods in Teenagers

47:21 - Final Thoughts and Resources

WEBVTT

00:00:02.399 --> 00:00:21.140
Rachel, hello and welcome to teenagers. Untangled, the audio hub for parents going through the teenage years. I'm Rachel Richards, journalist, parenting coach, mother of two teenagers and two bonus daughters. Now you've been asking, and I've listened your Once open, loving, sweet child has disappeared into their room.

00:00:18.120 --> 00:00:40.280
When they do emerge, they're monosyllabic, rude or just seem to have zoned you out. So you're left wondering what happened and how long is this horrible stage going to last. Well, here to help us is Anita Claire, director of the positive parenting project and author of How to get your teenager out of their bedroom. Hi, Anita, thanks for being here.

00:00:41.000 --> 00:00:43.719
Oh, Hi, Rachel, thank you so much for having me.

00:00:43.960 --> 00:00:44.200
What

00:00:44.200 --> 00:01:15.959
a joy. Now in our discussion, we're going to talk about things that are in your book, which are the four key drives that make teenagers behave the way they do, six common thinking traps we parents fall into, and how we can save ourselves, why teenagers are obsessed with their phones, building your teenagers self esteem, getting them to open up, dealing with a gamer, which I think is a really interesting one, because I have not managed so far to get somebody to come on and talk about gamers, in spite of the number of people who say they're experts on it.

00:01:13.920 --> 00:01:23.719
But I think it's a really important one. And also spotting low moods. So there's a lot of material there. Let's hear how we get on. But firstly, what made you write this book? Anita,

00:01:24.680 --> 00:02:58.719
well, it came out of a combination of both kind of professional and personal experience. So I've been working with parents now for about 20 years on all aspects of parenting and all ages. And my first book was about younger children, and I had just got to the end of some very difficult experiences with my own teenagers, and one of them had had a very hard time. And when I was in the middle of that, I wrote an article for the Huff Post, and it really was a cry from the heart. I wrote it all in one go. You know, sometimes you things just come out in one big gush. And it was it I was crying as I wrote it, and it was very much about how much I missed my son, even though he was still living in my house, and that sense of enormous loss that I was feeling and rejection and and obviously, whether, because it was such, it was such a genuine kind of moment that I wrote it in, but it sparked so much reaction, so many parents who said it made them cry that they people found my email address and wrote to me to talk about what I'd written. And it just had got such a big response. And I thought, goodness me, we don't talk about this enough that we are that this dislocation, this alienation that's happening in our families, and particularly where there's there's poor mental health as well that so many teenagers are experiencing.

00:02:54.280 --> 00:03:20.219
And I thought, right when I'm over, maybe my own personal experiences a little. I'm going to find some distance, and I'm going to write about that, and I'm going to try and do something in that space. So I kind of, yeah, I didn't want to use it as therapy. I needed to sort of be in a space where I could speak with a little bit of distance from it. But yeah, that's where it came from,

00:03:20.400 --> 00:04:05.759
yeah. And I think so many of my listeners can resonate with that that I get so many emails about parents saying, why is my child pulling away? This is very painful, and it's really hard for us to manage. So we'll, we'll talk about how we manage it, after we've talked about this, this development project that teenagers are going through, which is what sort of starts this. And you can, you know, once they shut that door, or you start seeing them pulling away, you know that their brain is going through something rather special, and we, we often we're not ready for it. We don't realize it's just around the like, we'll go, Oh, I'm ready for the teenage years. But you'll never we. Never, are are we? So there are developmental drives that you talk about, and these are kind of hard wired into our teens, can you explain there are four key things that are happening. Can you explain what they are?

00:04:06.840 --> 00:04:12.659
So the overall goal for a teenager is independence. Ultimately, that's what they're trying to achieve.

00:04:12.659 --> 00:04:36.439
But independence has got a few different elements to it. It's got different things that they need to practice and skills they need to get good at in order to achieve that. So I talk about separation, separation from family, from parents in particular, and it's that need to kind of pull away in order to be able to become independent.

00:04:31.399 --> 00:04:45.879
The other drive is around kind of, you know, identity, The Who am I trying to work out if I'm no longer under this comfortable umbrella of my family, who am I?

00:04:45.879 --> 00:04:54.519
Who am I going to be in this new adult kind of independent person? Then there's assimilation. How do I fit in?

00:04:54.639 --> 00:04:59.920
How do I What's my place in the world with my peer group? If I.

00:05:00.000 --> 00:06:28.759
No longer under that family umbrella, and then autonomy kind of making our own decisions. And what I try to explain to parents is that most teenage behavior, if we really look at it, we can see at least one of those drives in action, sometimes all four of them, and sometimes it's a bit ping pong, they will lurch from one to the other. So one minute, you know, they'll be trying to separate, and the next minute, they're actually finding the outside word a little bit scary, and the assimilation isn't going well, and they're kind of back under your wing wanting a cuddle and but, but often, when we look at their behavior, that's what we see. And of course, the reason I tried to explain this to parents was that it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking teenagers are doing these things deliberately. The idea of a developmental project is they're not doing this deliberately. In the same way that a toddler does not bounce on its legs to strengthen them out of any kind of intention. They are driven to do that, and our teenagers are driven to fix these four muscles, and kind of practice these drives. And as they practice them, they get stronger, they get better at them, and they gain kind of ground towards independence. But it's a secular, a circular kind of process where they have to keep doing these things again and again and again to get a little bit better at them. Yes, and

00:06:28.759 --> 00:06:58.720
I think the the general response tends to be that it's about us, and we keep talking about this in the podcast, that it's not about us, because it's very hard not to take it personally. So actually, knowing that those four things are going on, and being able to sometimes look at it and go, Oh, I can see that that's what that thing is, can help us to calm our system and just be able to separate ourselves from the emotions of it. And so when they go into their rooms, they're practicing those things in their drives absolutely

00:06:58.720 --> 00:07:11.399
so they're a bedroom is like a little testing ground for, you know, where they can practice all of those drives. And, of course, the separation bit is obvious, because there's, you know, there's often a closed door, you know, that bedroom door is closed, they're separated off.

00:07:11.399 --> 00:08:30.319
It's like they've got their teenage only domain. But it's a safety ground because it's inside the home still. So, you know, there's, it enables them to to kind of practice these things in a slightly safer context, then they've got identity, you know that trying to work out who they are, the identity issues, and that might be through the things they're watching, if they've got any kind of device in there, the posters, or the way they've decorated their room, their Music they're listening to, they're trying with clothes, exactly, hairstyles, makeup, whatever it is, you know, I had boys. They often had dumbbells in their rooms as well. So there's, there's all the stuff around identification. And then we've got the assimilation clearly, if they've got any kind of device, you know, that they're communicating with friends in there, then there is really trying to work out how they fit in, how they present themselves, and even if they don't, because I, you know, I'm old enough to have grown up in a time where we didn't have handheld devices in our bedroom, but we still practice those things, because we almost like scripted things that we would say about the bands that we liked, or, with, you know, I'd go through in my head, you know, the clothes that I like, so that I could then go out and and present those with my friends.

00:08:27.139 --> 00:09:07.740
So even if they're not on a device, there's some of that going on. And then just making decisions, having the right to say, Nope, this bedroom is going to be the way I want it. And if I want pants on the floor, the pants are on the floor. And, you know, I'm rebelling against the rest of the house, and, you know, and doing it my way, taking control and also taking control of their bodies as well in that context. So bedrooms are kind of these places where teenagers get to practice those those drives. We know, sadly, they're not always as safe as they used to be now that they often have devices in them, but it's that sense of a little training ground for them. Yes.

00:09:05.580 --> 00:09:07.740
And

00:09:07.740 --> 00:09:19.980
I love one of the points you make in the book is that even when kids, they're smelly and they're not actually making an effort, they reject their peers or society in order to not be rejected themselves.

00:09:16.980 --> 00:09:19.980
Yes,

00:09:19.980 --> 00:09:31.580
and that's we think of independence quite often as adults, we think, Well, if they were independent, they'd be out there, they'd be doing things, they'd be making good decisions. But that's not the way child development works.

00:09:31.580 --> 00:10:31.279
They can be in their bedrooms practicing things and looking to all intents and purposes like they've gone backwards from their development because they're not being responsible or doing the things that we you know, we thought they understood they should do, but it is that moment of either rebelling and having somewhere safe, because the world is quite a scary place for a teenager if you're constantly on alert. For thinking about, do I fit in? Am I acceptable? What are people thinking about me? What are they saying about me? Then that constant level of, you know, anxiety about whether or not you're assimilating, whether or not you're fitting in one way to deal with that is just to reduce that load and kind of take on some of that work in a private space where you don't feel so vulnerable. It doesn't mean you're not going to make that that leap into the world, but you're practicing it in a slightly different way.

00:10:31.580 --> 00:10:47.980
Yeah, and it's space, and I love that. This is a really great way of moving on to the idea about how the brain develops, and the fact that the limbic system, which is our emotional center tends to get all the development first, and then slowly, the thinking part of the brain begins to catch up.

00:10:48.100 --> 00:10:55.299
But in the meantime, we're left with this very emotional brain center that's firing on all cylinders, right, exactly.

00:10:55.299 --> 00:11:21.860
And you know, teenagers, on a neurological level, they feel the highs and they feel the lows really intensely. And I think we can forget as adults that you know they're not being overly dramatic. That is how they are feeling at that moment and and that's a tough place to be as a teenager when I think everything. But

00:11:21.860 --> 00:11:36.799
you said that in the book that actually in MRI scans, the in the social pain that a teenager will feel with rejection, or any of these things would register in an adult brain as physical pain.

00:11:32.240 --> 00:11:36.799
It's the same level of Yes,

00:11:37.519 --> 00:12:29.419
is that equivalent? So? And it's particularly social threat. So the threat of social exclusion or humiliation or being disrespected kind of spoken down to those things being left out in some way, all of those things are really huge triggers for the teenage brain, more so than younger children, more so than than with adults. So not only do they feel the highs and the lows, not only is that limbic system, kind of, you know, operating on on full gas, you know, it's also got specific triggers around socialization and identity and fitting in, which means that there is no point saying to your teenager, worry what people think about you, because their brain is firing going, I'm worried. I'm worried. I'm worried.

00:12:29.600 --> 00:12:31.879
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

00:12:29.600 --> 00:12:54.460
And it's great that you mentioned that, because I know that in David Jagers book 10 to 25 he talks about how, you know, suddenly what they really care about is respect. And that's exactly what you're saying there. And our as parents, we have some really strong thinking traps that we can fall into, which can just catch us out, right? So would you like to go through? What? What? What those are?

00:12:55.539 --> 00:13:38.779
I think most parents of teenagers can probably identify these in themselves. And the biggest one for me, certainly on a personal level, is the sort of catastrophic thinking, the sense that we over interpret some of the stuff that happens and almost in our heads write them off. Maybe they do something ill advised. Maybe they do something that contradicts our values, you know, maybe they're just not stepping up and behaving in a way that we think they should be. They could just be being rude. But from that we extrapolate, and we think, Well, that's it. They're always going to be like that. They're this type of person, you know, that they're not revising, they're just never going to get a job.

00:13:38.779 --> 00:14:18.059
They are going to end up living in my basement, and before we know it, we've gone on this train of worry where it's this one small thing that's happened in their lives, this one time bound, context specific thing becomes in our heads the defining, most threatening thing that is, you know, in their lives right now, and that we've somehow got to deal with it, and we go charging in to kind of try and manage that, when actually, you know, really what we're responding to this is the catastrophic thinking, not the actual incident whatsoever. So that's one of my favorites. I don't know. Were there any that you particularly, yeah, I

00:14:18.059 --> 00:14:41.259
mean, there were. One of the ones is the there, shouldn't, you know, there's shooting all over ourselves, which I think was brought up by the woman who I talked to about ADHD, that we, we had this sense that they should know, they should know this by now. They should, you know, they're at this age. They should and they, we compare them with people, their peer groups, or just just our imaginary friends, and think they're failing.

00:14:42.039 --> 00:15:12.179
Yeah, absolutely this should, shouldn't trap one of my absolute favorites. And I think also, there's the mind reading, thinking that we know what's going on in their heads, or that we're interpreting their behavior according to certain intentions that we're just never there. They're just not the way they think. Think that they don't think like us, and therefore we know, we start assuming that we know what's going on in their heads, and we forget to ask. We forget to work out what's going on there. Yes,

00:15:12.179 --> 00:15:24.919
and as I've got better at this kind of how to have to talk to teens, I have got much better at asking those questions, and then quite often, I'm blindsided. I think, Oh, you think that, and it's completely different from what I expected.

00:15:25.220 --> 00:15:56.019
And I learn. I'm learning from it. So it's very helpful for me too. And I love also this kind of it's all about me, where we just want, you know, as an adult, quite often, if you've given up a job, or if you're at home and you're spending a lot of time, or you're investing huge amounts of energy, even if you haven't given up your job, you're investing huge amounts of energy into this child. You really want recognition. You really want to feel like you know what you're doing is worthwhile, and you're getting none of that back. Yeah, and I'm going to give it to us.

00:15:56.559 --> 00:16:15.360
No, they're not, but we are particularly vulnerable to that as a generation of parents, because we've been told that we are really important, that what we do is incredibly kind of influential on our children and the way they grow and develop.

00:16:12.240 --> 00:16:26.600
Now it's not that that's not true, but I think sometimes we get sucked into this way of thinking, that everything I do is important, every single decision that children are the sum total of their parenting.

00:16:26.779 --> 00:16:35.120
And then when they turn around and they're objectionable in some way, when they're teenagers, we think it is all about us. What have I done wrong?

00:16:35.360 --> 00:16:38.240
What does it say about me as a parent? Yes,

00:16:38.299 --> 00:17:18.240
yes, when actually, it doesn't say anything about you as a parent at all. It's nothing to do with you. And then we tune out from listening to what's actually going on with our teenager, because we're just completely, you know, captured by our own thoughts and emotions in that situation. And I think the hardest thing I mean children of all ages, but particularly with teenagers, is managing our own reactions in order to be thoughtful in our reactions to them and noticing and I put these thought traps in them, because sometimes they're quite funny, but it's you need to notice them. You need to go, Oh yes, I am doing that

00:17:18.539 --> 00:17:30.500
thing, yeah, and being kind to ourselves and managing those sorts. And when we can recognize them and identify them, then we can catch them and challenge them before they set in. Yes,

00:17:30.559 --> 00:18:47.559
exactly. And managing those kind of, those kind of thoughts, and not over generalizing, not comparing them to, you know, other other teenagers, because, yeah, that in particular. I think the comparisons that we make can be we can use those as sticks to beat ourselves with. So not only do we sometimes use it to kind of maybe feel like our teenager should be stepping up to the mark a bit more in some other way, they should be achieving more or doing better things, but we also use that to beat ourselves up. And social media promotes that I remember kind of, you know, scrolling through my feed and my friends who also had teenagers, there would be pictures of them with a smiling teenager, and you're like, my teenager won't spend more than than a minute in my company, let alone smiles, let alone let me take a photograph of it, you know. And we we therefore start to get desperate about all of it. And one of the big messages of the book is hope and positivity about your teenager is incredibly therapeutic. So if we give into these kind of thought patterns, we make it much harder to believe in them, and they need us to believe in them. I

00:18:47.558 --> 00:19:20.959
love and that comes through the entire book, this absolute vital importance, which I talk a lot on the about a lot in the podcast, is that we need to hold up an idea of how great they are every single day, remind ourselves every single day, because if they won't be thinking that and believing that, they will be doubting themselves every step of the way, and if we are holding up that image of them, not what they can achieve, just that they're wonderful people, then they will be able to start to believe it, because they really care what We think, even though they pretend they don't

00:19:21.680 --> 00:20:06.660
exactly and particularly when they're having a hard time. We forget. As adults, we've been around the block a lot of times with emotions. We've been disappointed, we've been hurt, we've had hard things happen to us. For teenagers, those things are happening for the first time, those difficult thoughts and difficult feelings and experiences, and one of the simplest things we can do is hold out that hope for them. It won't always be like this. You won't always feel this way, you know. And that in itself, sounds so simple, but is so powerful, that little dose of hope, even if they're not having a hard time, they're not. You know, really able to believe that themselves, knowing that you believe it gives them just something to hold on to, and

00:20:07.019 --> 00:20:42.700
this sense that they're not broken, because we we've been through life, we've know a lot of people, and if we're sitting there making them feel like they're broken, they're going to think there's something terribly wrong with me. You know, we need to sort of hold our calm, don't we? And another thing you talked about is handing over some of they're desperate for to want power, finding ways that we can hand over responsibility to them so that they there isn't that tussle constantly, and it's just finding the safe ways to do that. That's why I gave my kids the allowance when they hit teens, which they absolutely loved, because it made them feel so much more empowered. Yeah,

00:20:42.759 --> 00:22:33.440
any way that we can treat them as the independent young adults that we want them to become, then you know that even if it's just in the way we speak to them, not necessarily in the freedoms that we give them, but any way that we can empower them treat them as equals, or as you know, as young adults, we're less likely to activate that threat mechanism in their brain. We're less likely to get that emotional response and to get that defensive response and to end up in conflict. And that might be really simple things, like having ways of talking to them that get round conflict. So I taught both my teens, because I'm as reactive as any other parent. Doesn't matter that you're that you know this stuff, or that you're trained in it, you know, I still fly off the handle if they come in and and ask something outrageous. So we came up with these little code words where if they were going to ask me something that I didn't like, that they'd give me a bit of warning about it so that I could manage myself. So they'd come in and they'd say, Mum, I have a proposal. And what that meant was I had knew that whatever was going to come next, my instinct would be to say no, but that my pledge to them was if they came to me in that spirit and asked me, that I would stay calm and I would give it good consideration, and I wouldn't knee jerk reaction to it. And then I'd say, Okay, this isn't a good moment for a proposal, right now. Can you give me five minutes or Okay, yeah, right. Tell me what it is, and I would try to manage my emotions. And by by doing that with them, we were trying to model, how do we manage other people's sensitivities? And I would do the same to them. I'd say to them, Look, I've got something to talk about with you that you won't necessarily like.

00:22:28.940 --> 00:22:59.019
Is this a good moment, or shall we do it later? And most of the time it was, shall we do it later? But at least it's kind of starting to introduce that idea that I'm going to be asking you to manage yourself. And I really think that when we treat teenagers as, you know, as competent, you know people, and we treat them with respect, they tend, they're more likely, shall we say, to respond in kind.

00:22:59.440 --> 00:24:24.920
I love that. I think that's a really lovely, sophisticated way of sort of making that bridge into that communication. My daughter has perfected the Mommy, don't get angry with me before she says something. And by doing that, I just think, why would I get angry? That's you're saying, that I'm going to, you know, overreact. And it's so funny, because she knows that I take great pride in not overreacting, and so by doing that, she's making sure I'm calm before she says anything. And it works. It works on me. I don't particularly like being accused of maybe overreacting. But you know, whatever works for you in your setting, and I love it, because you also, when you're talking about, let's talk about, sort of getting them out of the bedroom or getting them to do things, and we don't want to set up this oppositional relationship. And one of the things you mentioned, which I love, and we talk about this as well in terms of just tidying your room and stuff, is just asking yourselves, why does it matter so much to us? You know, if our kid doesn't want to do something, is there a thinking trap in that. And, you know, perhaps before we start challenging our kids and saying, oh, you know, they're not coming out, they were not coming to Grandma's house, or they're not, you know, maybe thinking, Well, why is it such a big thing? And then giving them an opportunity to be collaborative in terms of planning ahead, and, you know, like, I guess you may not want to go to grandma's, but I'm just wondering, you know, and having a conversation about it, rather than demanding,

00:24:25.578 --> 00:25:00.898
yeah, and, you know, I think many parents of teenagers, especially when they're just tipping over into those teen years, they may only be 11 or 12, but you know, we make the mistake of trying to coerce them to do things. It's like, well, you're coming, and that's that and and often it doesn't end up in a great experience. And there's only, there's a limit to how often or how long you can do that for, and then they start avoiding us even more, because we set up a pattern of unpleasant interactions, and we want to avoid that if we possibly can.

00:24:55.959 --> 00:25:16.858
And that question. In. Why is it so important to me that my teenager does this? Why is it so important to me that my teenagers bedroom is tidy? Why is it so important to me that, you know, they come to this family event, and often that's the all. It's all about me trap.

00:25:16.858 --> 00:26:29.959
Really. It's because I will feel like a bad parent. I will feel embarrassed. I will feel like I have to explain if they're not there, actually, if there's nothing in that for them, we need to acknowledge that, you know, there's no real you know, if it's like, well, it's not going to be much fun for them, it's not going to be pleasant, it's not going to be we can, we can call on their good nature, and I think that often does work well to say, you know, I know this isn't your idea of fun, but you know it would matter to the people who you know, your family, etc, that you do this, so have a think about it, but giving them the opportunity to think, to make their own decision and decide for themselves whether they want to do it, as long as We can come up with a compromise, but that collaborative approach for planning, if we can do it with getting them out of their rooms and doing stuff, it works on so many other things. Once you can establish that pattern with them of joint problem solving, you've got a mechanism for solving lots of the other problems that come along with teenagers as well, and they are far more likely to want to be with you if they feel like being with you makes them feel respected and more grown up.

00:26:30.259 --> 00:27:10.019
All of that. I love that. Absolutely love that in your book, and I really recommend people buy it looks like this in the book, you actually have some great tips for getting them out of their room, but I'm not going to go into them because they're kind of just like films and just like films and, you know, look great, lovely things I but I wanted to sort of dwell on the sort of the undercarriage of all of this. So one of the other things that really bothers parents is teenagers and their phones. And what I love is coming back to those drivers that you talked about at the start, which is so, so important, they can relate directly to why kids are so obsessed with their phones.

00:27:05.339 --> 00:27:16.380
Could you talk about how those drivers then connect with what's going on in their phones, what's going why are they so desperate to have that relationship with their

00:27:17.578 --> 00:28:25.398
phone? I think we often when we talk about tech and digital devices, we talk about the kind of addictive quality of those in terms of, you know, them being pleasant experiences, or, you know, the dopamine effect. But if you look at teenagers, what do teenagers care about? They care about working out who they are, separating from parents, you know, assimilating with their peer group, and being autonomous, and all four of those drivers can be met so well in their phones. Their friends live in their phones, you know, or indeed, it might be any other kind of digital device that they're they're communicating with, whether it could be a gaming headset that achieves that. It's not always just a phone. They can explore who they are. They can play with who they are. They can present themselves in different ways, with selfies and and social media. They can look at other people. And there's everything that they need to do in that teenage developmental project. They can do it via those devices. So we've got this huge kind of, I'd say double whammy of the magnetic pull of technology anyway, which we all experience.

00:28:25.398 --> 00:28:37.638
I experienced that and that amplified teenage kind of drive to explore in that way that makes them almost impossible to put down for them. Yeah,

00:28:37.700 --> 00:28:40.480
yeah. I totally agree.

00:28:37.700 --> 00:29:33.019
And I, I one of the wonderful things you talk about in the book is that when they do look up from their phone, don't have it be a parent who's saying something horrible to them. You know, we want to make the room the real life experience with their family a positive one. And I had a really interesting exchange with my daughter quite a while ago where I sort of sidled up to her and I said, Are you stuck? Do you want some help with that? Because she was kind of on her phone, and she turned to me, she said, you know, why I do this? And I said, Why? Why do you do that? And she said, You know, I go on my phone when I'm feeling but bad. And it's a kind of ways for her to escape as well. So it fills all those things, and it's almost like her own little bedroom where she can shut the door and she's away from things. So I think it. You know, there are so many ways in which they're utilizing their phone and actually just asking them questions and asking them how it makes them feel. Can help them, but it's this, not trying to fix them, because they can smell fix from a mile off, can't they

00:29:33.859 --> 00:30:12.000
absolutely and why do we want to get them off their phones? Because we don't think they're good for them, and they that may well be true. You know there's there's certainly some truth in that, but we're not going to make them feel better or want to come off their phones more if we're having a go at them, if they're already ridden with anxiety about whether or not they are fitting in and going for all of that doubt that comes with the teenage years and they're seeking refuge. In that online experience, and they come back to the real world, and what they get from us is, is negativity, or, you know, get off your phone for goodness sake. Why do you care about that? They feel misunderstood.

00:30:09.059 --> 00:31:37.759
They're just going to head straight back into that other world where, you know, where they will so I think that that I talk about unconditional, positive regard, that sense that when they see us, when they look up from their phone, what they see is somebody who cares, who's on their side, who isn't criticizing as their first, you know, port of call. That doesn't mean to say we approve of everything they do, but that we're curious about what's going on, that we're empathetic about the fact that, you know, I wonder what is going on with you if it's this, you know, and we're prepared to kind of stand in their shoes and that we accept that phones are important to them. That doesn't mean to say we accept that they should be on them 24 hours a day, but we accept that they have an importance to them, rather than denigrating their phones or them for wanting to be on them. And that baseline of kind of respect and curiosity and empathy is, to me, a counterbalance for what's going on in their phones. Is going to make them more happy to spend time with us in the in the real world, more happy to have conversations with us about what might be going on there, and if we're worried about what's going on on their phones, we're going to achieve something far better through that approach than by criticizing them, which will just alienate more completely

00:31:37.759 --> 00:32:23.119
agree. And actually, one breakthrough for me with one of my daughters was one day she was on her phone. We were in the kitchen, and I said to her, you know, I've just suddenly realized, because it's about inspecting our own feelings, isn't it? And I said, I just realized that the reason I find it hard for you to be on your phone is actually that I missed you and I feel alone when you're in the room and you're on your phone and I'm here, I feel like I'm in a group of friends, like you're all talking, and I'm alone. And she totally understood that it made it and it suddenly. I hadn't really thought it through before I said that, but I think it really helped both of us to understand why I always insist, you know, we just put your phone away when you're with other people, because it feels really, you know, alienating, doesn't it?

00:32:24.079 --> 00:33:24.259
Yeah, and I think with teenagers, we can grow relationships with them that have more possibilities and that real ability to connect if we are prepared to be vulnerable with them, be honest with them, to try and reach out to them in those ways, rather than feeling that we're responsible. And that fits it. Thing of, you know, wanting to fix them is usually because we think right my job, my job is to make sure you turn out all right, yes. And it's the opposite of being curious about, actually, I don't really know who you are anymore, because you're becoming somebody you are in an act of becoming, right now, in which you don't know who you are, and I don't know who you are, and I'm really curious to see who you're going to be, rather than panic about, have I got this right? Are you going in the right direction, you know, and how does this reflect on me?

00:33:24.380 --> 00:33:24.680
I

00:33:24.680 --> 00:33:59.980
love that, and I think it's this, get to know the person. Because one, one person, when I first started the podcast, said that sometimes we have to mourn the child we thought we would have before we can really look at and love and understand the child that we have, and we just have to lean into that's our job. Our job is to get to know the child that we have and really love them and help them fly by giving them, you know, some self respect. And I do want to talk about gaming, because I think you've, you've written some great stuff on gaming. You had a gamer, didn't you? You've got, yeah,

00:33:59.980 --> 00:34:05.700
so he, you know, he certainly wasn't as bad as some teens, but that was partly because we did have boundaries.

00:34:05.700 --> 00:35:06.719
And, you know, I was, I was quite strict on those, but I definitely had one who was more prone to getting sucked in and using it as a, probably, as a way of managing thoughts and feelings, for killing time, for avoiding, things for procrastinating. And, you know, lots of parents will, you know, will I identify with that? But in a social way, there were other people on that, on the games with him. It wasn't that he was completely isolated, but the thing about gaming is the amount of time. It's like this black hole of time. But they start off just playing a game, then it goes on forever and ever and ever, and it's like the universe stands still for them as they do it. And it can be really difficult to call them away from that. And you can get quite negative, quite aggressive reactions when you when you try to do that. And. Put boundaries around it so it is a I think it's a slightly different problem than than just the phones, exactly,

00:35:06.719 --> 00:35:33.079
and that's one of the reasons I You said something that I thought was really, really insightful, which is that when you're in a sort of social gaming setting, being the first person to step away from the game, put the console down, go and do something your parents have asked you to do. Can feel shameful. It can be, you know, like you're letting the side down, or you're walking away, and you're scared of what might happen when you're not there. So that's one of those key drivers where kids don't want to be outside the group,

00:35:33.860 --> 00:36:44.739
yeah. And, of course, a lot of gaming has kind of a lot of bravado in it, the characters in gaming, it's all about, you know, you know, conquering the world and, you know, and saving the universe and building cities and and then actually, to go, Oh, I've got to go. It's tea time. My mom says it's time to turn it off. It's just that goes against everything, all of that status, all of that threat mechanism, all of that sense of shame, of of, you know, of not being, you know, adult enough. Somehow, games allow teenagers to pretend to be heroes and pretend to be adults. They may be sitting in their pants and eating crisps and surrounded by teddy bears, but in that gaming world, that's not who they are, and they you often hear they have different voices, they use a different vocabulary. They've got a deeper voice, a totally different way of speaking when they're when they're on that that headset, that they've kind of stepped into, different characters their play acting. And when you're play acting an adult, you don't want to suddenly go, actually, I am just still a child. So yes, yes, because you're

00:36:44.739 --> 00:37:18.179
having you're suddenly having to go back to your messy room or your whatever. And also, the great thing with games for these boys and girls who are doing it is that the cheat, the parent, isn't there telling them what to do, so they can escape into a completely different world. And it's also, they're designed to hit our reward buttons. And that's become more extreme. I mean, I think in the same way that all tech, the the great minds of the world are focused on, how do we keep people, how do we just give them enough to keep them feeling like it's this is going to make keep give them a reward that they want? Yeah,

00:37:18.179 --> 00:38:01.619
and it's not as simple as, you know, like a TV program, a TV program just finishes, and it's like, okay, I'll turn it off when it finishes. And adults, we sometimes think, well, the game's finished, or you're at the end of this bit of the game, you've got to finish. It's like, no, because at the end of that game, there is this real teaser, this real desire to move on to the next bit of it, because I'm going to lose, you know, my points, my lives, whatever it is, unless I keep going. And that status button of, you know, of is a big reward for for teens, of how well they've done and how, how good and skills they got at that so there's, there's a huge amount going on, playing on their brains and and keeping them, yeah, it's a lot to fight against as a parent, you know, it's

00:38:01.619 --> 00:38:33.380
a lot, and you've got some really great tips in the book of, sort of, how to structure time around games, how to create a contract so that it because contracts are great, because, in a way, they play to that sort of adult responsibility and and allowing consequences to do the heavy lifting. And I've seen that time and again, where, if you actually have consequences in place, then it's not you that's the person to blame. It's the consequences. So it takes away that confrontational role. But again, their amygdala will be really fired up playing games.

00:38:30.139 --> 00:38:38.719
So don't expect to have a very good reaction when you step in and say, by the way, time to stop, right? Yeah.

00:38:39.380 --> 00:39:10.980
But equally, brains get good at what we practice, and I think that's why we can't also just treat teenagers as incompetent as people who can't do things, because in the act of practicing doing things, they get better at it. So accountability, and, you know, being held to account for the choices that they make, even if you know that the odds are really stacked against them on the choices, especially if they're neurodiverse, but you know that they're really stacked against them, but they will get better at making those choices

00:39:11.099 --> 00:39:36.079
and making those decisions before that, before they're trying to gain, before they're in the heat of the moment having a sit down and saying, Okay, here's, you know, here's how many hours per week we think is reasonable go for a low, low number, so you've got some wiggle room, but, you know, and then saying, Okay, we've agreed to that. Now, how are you going to allocate those hours, or whatever you want to do? But actually, having had that conversation, you're making them responsible, and that then hands over that power.

00:39:36.679 --> 00:39:47.500
And I have an analogy for this, which is actually from when I was, I probably was about five, and I've always had a big thing about biscuits. I love biscuits.

00:39:47.559 --> 00:40:41.679
It's my real weakness, and I certainly did when I was a kid, and I somehow or other, got hold of the packet of biscuits in the house. And I don't think I ate quite all of them, but I ate a lot of them. I. And my mom sort of turned around and said, Well, no, you know, you can have two biscuits a day. That's, that's how many you're allowed. And now you've actually eaten this many of them. So that's you've eaten up all these days supply already. And I think we can do that a little bit with teens, thinking about this is a healthy amount. Yeah, you made a bit of a mistake. You ended up gaming for eight hours into the night, but you've kind of used up everything that you were going to have for this week. And that's that, you know, that was a choice that you made that you need to stick by. So next time, you may decide to do the same thing again, but this will always be the consequence if we're really sure about balance?

00:40:41.980 --> 00:40:42.219
Yeah,

00:40:42.219 --> 00:41:16.559
and I've done the same thing. That's why my allowance works, because my kids, they get a certain amount of money if they ask me for a loan, it's a no. You know, you have to actually manage your own finances. And you know, to start with, they would spend all their money immediately, and now they're saving. It's great. And one of the things you talk about is motivation, and that if we nag our kids, what we're doing is we're working harder than our teens. They're not listening to us. Their emotional side of their brain sort of lights up, the front shuts down, and they they stop listening, and then lying in bed makes your teen feel like they're taking control.

00:41:17.639 --> 00:41:28.460
Yeah, so you're taking the responsibility for being the part of their brain that says, You know what, you really ought to turn off and do your homework or whatever it is.

00:41:28.940 --> 00:42:17.280
But of course, because they need to separate from us, and they need to become autonomous and independent, then that stimulates that, that drive of No, I'm not going to do what you say. So we make it less likely that they're going to do the right thing, whereas, if we say right, this is your choice. This is your decision. This is what will happen. You know, these are the two different routes you can go down. Then they have to take responsibility for that. And I and I think that again, comes back to we feel like when our teenagers get things wrong, it reflects badly on us, and we have this tendency, therefore, to try and stop them getting things wrong beyond the point at which, actually it's far more useful to let life do the heavy lifting and for them to learn through, oh, I got that wrong.

00:42:17.400 --> 00:42:25.099
Actually, I'm now in a slightly uncomfortable position. Maybe next time I'll, you know, I'll make a slightly different decision about that. And the

00:42:25.099 --> 00:42:32.780
natural consequences can be positive praise from us or their friends. There can be negative feedbacks. You know, there's natural consequences.

00:42:30.739 --> 00:42:48.940
They're late, they get a detention, or they can be consequences that we put in place to nudge them in a direction that you've all agreed to. I love your audit on nagging. The audit on nagging is to look at exchanges with your teen in messages. What do they look like? I love that

00:42:49.539 --> 00:42:57.039
I did. The reason I put that in was because I did it myself. And I was so shocked.

00:42:51.880 --> 00:43:03.719
I if you'd have asked me, I'd have said, Oh, I have lots of positive exchanges with my teens, and I just thought, Well, have a quick look at my phone.

00:43:03.719 --> 00:43:06.840
And I looked, and all I saw was, have you done? Don't forget.

00:43:06.840 --> 00:43:11.159
Have you done? Don't forget.

00:43:06.840 --> 00:43:33.260
Have you done? Don't forget. And there was so much in there that wasn't and okay, that might be the transactional nature of messaging via phone, but there was not an awful lot that was really positive in there. And then you start thinking, well, actually, during the day, do I do the same thing when I see them I come home from work? Oh, have you done this? Don't forget, yeah. And then you wonder why they avoid us. And

00:43:33.260 --> 00:43:41.679
I think you that you cite some research in the book, they have to have something like, I don't know, five good interactions to counterbalance.

00:43:37.940 --> 00:43:43.840
You know, one bad, bad interaction. Is that right?

00:43:41.679 --> 00:43:48.760
Something like that, you know, if you because, because, just to get that sort of sense that they're really valued and you care about them, and

00:43:49.840 --> 00:44:29.599
especially given how sensitive they are to criticism and how you know, easily they feel attacked, it's just even more important that they we want our teenagers to feel that in us, they rest in a safe place where they are positively regarded and loved, not that we agree with everything they do, but they feel that real sense of being valued by us, because they're in a world in which they're not really sure whether they're valued by other people, and they've got all of those doubts and positive interactions really help that if they're not happening, what are we actually doing to convey to them that that's how we feel about them?

00:44:29.840 --> 00:44:30.139
No.

00:44:30.500 --> 00:44:59.920
And finally, I don't want to go without mentioning low moods, you know, the difficulties that we can encounter. And one of the things that you say, which is really interesting is sometimes we don't spot the low mood because we they've got very difficult behavior, and underneath it is that they're feeling very depressed or unhappy. And your rule of thumb was that, if their mood actually makes sense in the circumstances, and they're responding in ways that are providing them with relief that aren't, you know, hurting them.

00:45:00.239 --> 00:45:11.760
That's probably positive. It's not, it's not something to necessarily worry about, but that, you know, it's some, sometimes we need to be really sensitive to like, what are we dealing with here? There's

00:45:11.760 --> 00:45:38.719
a lot of parents of teenagers who've gone on to get a diagnosis of depression, for example, who realize that that's probably been going on for quite a while and they hadn't spotted it because it didn't look like sadness, necessarily. It didn't look it looked like kind of difficult behavior, not doing the things they were supposed to, putting things off, procrastinating, maybe lashing out and being aggressive when they were told they should have done something.

00:45:39.260 --> 00:45:48.460
You know, the kind of behavior that we think, Oh, my goodness, you are just being so difficult.

00:45:41.920 --> 00:46:07.860
And I really would urge parents, rather than thinking, Oh, that's just difficult behavior, to stop and think all behavior comes from somewhere. Something is going on there, something is happening, and to wonder whether, you know, there's an underlying cause of that. And you know, teens do have low moods, difficult things happen.

00:46:07.860 --> 00:46:28.940
Maybe they have a falling out with a friend, you know, maybe there's a romantic relationship that goes wrong, and they are sad for a while, but that pervasive sense of, I don't want to do anything, I don't want to see my friends. I don't want to get up. I don't want to, you know, look after myself. That may not be awkward teenager.

00:46:25.460 --> 00:46:53.860
That might be a sign that, you know, they have got a low mood, and that we need to really think about that. And teens who don't come out of their bedrooms, you know, who really do hole in on themselves, there is a possibility that there is either a social anxiety in there or that there's a low mood, and we need to be alert to that, and it's hard to tell, because teenagers are, you know they are. They do have mood swings.

00:46:50.619 --> 00:47:12.300
You know, they are happy one minute and sad the next. And there's lots of changes that go on in them that we could see as signs of worry, or we could see as normal. But if you as a parent are looking at your child and thinking, this doesn't add up, too much has changed here.

00:47:12.539 --> 00:47:29.420
You know, suddenly they're not into their school work. Or suddenly I've had a call from a teacher that's never happened before. They've always been so good at that. Or suddenly they're no longer they're not involved in these things that they used to. Like that, to me, is a time to go, okay, there could be something going on there.

00:47:30.019 --> 00:47:53.199
I think that's fantastic advice. There are so many things in the book that we haven't even covered. It's not even that big a book. But honestly, I love this book. I think it's excellent. If you would like to read more, please buy the book. You won't regret it, I promise you. Why not help your friends, teachers, even people at work sending a link to this episode, they'll love you for it. And Anita, where can listeners best find you?

00:47:54.219 --> 00:48:22.759
So my website is Anita clear.co.uk, I write a blog, an advice blog called Thinking parenting, and that covers children of all ages. So, you know, do take a look at that. And we send out monthly, I know, more than monthly, monthly kind of roundups of new information. So, yeah, come and find me there. Do buy the book?

00:48:16.139 --> 00:48:51.518
I if I if I could give it to everybody, every single parent of a teenager, I would, because I think more than anything, I set out to write a book that would feel like somebody understood what you were going through as a parent, and that you got a bit of insight into what your teenager was, was going through. So even if you think, Well, my teenager isn't in their bedroom very often, or whatever, I think there's, there's kind of a lot in there that people will find for it.

00:48:51.579 --> 00:49:17.280
From it, I agree. I agree. I think it's a great book. If any of you want to message me, you can use the Text button on the episode. If you do text, remember, I can't see your number, so I can't answer you back if you want something where I answer you back. That's teenagersuntangled@gmail.com my website is www.teenagersuntangled.com where you can find all of the episode reviews. Sign up to my newsletter. I'm now on substack.

00:49:14.099 --> 00:49:24.739
I like substack. There's a big hug from me. Anita, thank you very much for being with us. Oh, it's such a pleasure to talk to You. Rachel, yes, have a great week. Goodbye. You.

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