The 'do hard things', or 'less validation' model.
The whole point of my podcast is to hand back some agency to parents who've grown accustomed to thinking they don't really know what they're doing, or that they know exactly what they're doing and won't allow any questioning of their mantra. Both come from a place of fear. Judgement is rife in our society, and whilst it can be protective by asking people to pause and question their choices, it can also cause us to hand over responsibility to 'experts' or dig in our heels to prove that we're right.
Teenagers Untangled is designed to give us all a chance to hear that nobody gets it right all of the time. We're all doing the best we can, muddling through, but we can be better at parenting by learning skills that help us communicate, and love each other, better.
I've called it Fearless Parenting because it takes bravery to admit that things are hard, that we don't necessarily have the answers but we're going to keep trying, and that we're prepared to give grace to others who struggle.
I've long known that my kids will talk to me about anything simply because I'm prepared to admit when I'm wrong and apologise, and don't judge them in turn. It comes from a growth mindset, which is the basis of all good parenting, and good teenagering too.
- It's OK to get things wrong and find things hard.
- We can improve by getting feedback from others.
- We need to create an environment where we can offer and take kind, honest and specific feedback.
Organisational psychologist, Adam Grant recently shared research that honest conversations are rarely as unpleasant as we expect. 7 studies showed we're too pessimistic about levelling with those around us. We fixate on what could go wrong, overlooking what might go right.
As psychotherapist, Stella O’Malley likes to say, we parents are the world experts on our kids. We need to be prepared to have hard conversations with them and be honest about the challenges of life.
A recent tweet on the topic of parenting, by Olivia Reingold, resonated deeply.
Her story started around the age of four, when it was clear that she had strong emotional reactions to things. By the time she was in kindergarten she was in therapy. After 15 years of ‘treatment’ during which she’d developed a severe eating disorder and became convinced that her problems were ‘immutable, and perhaps even genetically encoded in (her) DNA,’ she emerged from treatment ‘100% insufferable.’ She says ‘I saw harms everywhere. We even had a word for them in my support groups – “trigger warnings”.’
She goes on to say ‘You know what made me better? Less validation.’
She explains how this happened. She moved in with her beloved aunt Melanie (Melanie we all owe you) who had a ‘fearless’ parenting style that helped her develop confidence. She says, ‘Melanie taught me that I could sit through discomfort – and that in fact, discomfort was my medicine.’
She ended the Tweet with
‘Your kids might be going through something right now, but I want to posit that what they actually need is less validation and these two sentences:
- Yes it’s hard
- You bet you can do it, kiddo.
I absolutely love her sentiment. It’s the foundation of the growth mindset, which we talked about in the episode on how to set high expectations without piling on the pressure.
I have definitely made mistakes with this:
Even when we know what we’re supposed to be doing as a parent we can still struggle to get it right. It set me wondering about why that is.
I suspect many of us who are now parents lived through parenting that was quite harsh. For some we simply learnt how to cope without complaining, which results in the ‘well it didn’t do me any harm’ approach. The problem with this is that we learn to put up with things we shouldn’t tolerate, and insist our kids put up with those things too, simply because we think we’re fine. For others it felt deeply unpleasant so we try to be much kinder with our own kids.
I’ve learned to default to the latter, but when we want to be more gentle and responsive without experience of it ourselves, it can be a challenge to know when we’re tipping into unthinking validation rather than support.
Taking lessons from a real life scenario:
I mulled over the issue when I was ski-touring recently. Whilst the guide was not my parent, his style taught me a lot about how good parenting should feel.
Just for background, ski-touring is how people skied before there were lifts. It involves significant amounts of effort going uphill on skis to get into backcountry areas where the snow is completely untouched and you are at one with nature. It’s very different from skiing on-piste because you’re on your own; just you and the mountains. The downside is that you have to carry your own food, water, body-weight, and extra clothes uphill at high-altitude. It can be tough if you’re not fit, or you lack the skills to ski unpredictable terrain.
I didn’t start skiing until I was 30 because A) I was poor, and there was no way I was going to spend my hard-earned money getting cold. B) Did I mention that I didn’t like getting cold? As a result, skiing doesn’t come easily to me. I always feel a bit lost and panicked even on pisted slopes, but I go because I know that each time I agree to do something I find really challenging I learn things; it also reminds me of what it feels like to be a teenager.
I find off-piste particularly difficult, because things are changing all of the time, and my skills feel both inadequate and rusty. After a day of proper ski-touring we chose to ski the Vallee Blanche near Chamonix, armed with equipment to tour over a ridge and ski a back route.
We took the lift to get high then donned crampons and roped ourselves together to complete the walk down and across a narrow ridge to get to the ski area, panting because of the lack of oxygen. By the time I started skiing my inner chimp was screaming; the wind was blowing a gale, my fingers were freezing, and I couldn’t seem to get my skis to turn. My legs were burning because I’d already spent the previous day working at my limit, and I hadn’t slept well.
In desperation I caught up with my guide, Frank, and said, ‘I can’t do this.’ He peered at me silently, through dark mountain sunglasses. I tried again. ‘I just can’t turn my skis, I can’t do this. I’m not good enough.’ He shrugged, blew out his cheeks and said ‘Pwuff, is normal. Is wind-blown, breakable crust. Is difficult.’ He stabbed at the snow with a pole and bounced in his skis, as if to prove his point. He let his words sink in then said, ‘OK, let’s go.’
As I watched him head off I realised that even though I was scared and frustrated he wasn’t going to indulge me. These guides are old hands, they can see when someone has genuinely ‘lost it’, rather than just feeling anxious because they’re outside their comfort zone. On reflection what I felt at that moment was relief that it wasn’t just me; we were all finding it hard but I’d assumed I was broken, and I was worried I might be holding everyone up.
It made me think about our teenagers who frequently feel this sort of fear; sometimes for as small a thing as having to pick up the phone and call someone. They look around at everyone doing swan impressions and decide there’s something wrong with them. Our job is to do a Frank or Melanie, ‘yes it is hard, but you can do it’. If we comfort them too much we risk inadvertently telling them that they’re right; they genuinely can’t do it and should give up.
Later on, I started to struggle again. We had agreed to skin up the glacier, and I was worried that it was going to break me. I had a headache and my legs were on fire. We stopped.
Frank: ‘OK, now we go over there.’ He pointed up the glacier.
Me: ‘I have a headache.’
Frank: ‘Ave you drunk enough water?’
Me: Good point. My husband hands me a Nurofen. Damn. ‘You guys go ahead, I’ll wait here and watch you.
Frank: ‘No, we stay together.’ Silence.
Me: I scan the glacier. I waver. It’s not that steep.
Frank: ‘You think you can try a liddle bit? We stop when you want.’
Me: Realising I don’t feel as bad as I’d thought. ‘OK.’
Here’s the thing; I loved it. The muscles I was using were different from the ones I use to ski, so it was a bit like having a break. The landscape was stunning, the quiet motion of my skis sliding on the snow, and my heavy breathing calmed my chimp and my mind began to relax and wander.
After about half an hour Frank paused to check if I wanted to stop or continue. I asked where we were heading, he pointed to a spot about another half and hour further up where we would be able to see the full extent of the glacier. He made sure I knew how far we were going and I felt in control.
Me: ‘OK’.
I learned from this that when we give our kids agency over the challenge they’re presented with, and a sense that they won’t have to keep going forever, they’re much more likely to try things that look hard. Who knows, they might even enjoy it, and that needs to be the aim. We can’t expect them to keep going if they never feel good.
Our lunch spot
To summarise, I think the main difference between this kind of ‘parenting’ and the type of tough love I experienced as a child is that my fear and difficulty would not have been acknowledged; it would have been undermined and minimised. More of a ‘don’t be ridiculous, it’s easy,’ approach or ignoring me completely. I would push through fear, but ultimately felt deeply unsafe in life.
Frank's approach made me safe enough to try, which then gave me the chance to experience pleasure in doing something I thought I couldn’t or didn’t want to do.
Surely this is what we are all reaching for on our parenting journey; coaxing our kids to try things even if it scares them, helping them to understand that discomfort can be their medicine and can also take them to places that eventually bring joy.
The back of a rescuer. It made me smile. I think about it every time I’m scared.
