Transcript
WEBVTT
00:00:03.359 --> 00:00:13.582
Rachel, hello again. My Funtanglers. It's Monday. I'm Rachel Richards, and in my little universe, that means it's time for community. Catch up.
00:00:10.057 --> 00:00:34.968
How was your weekend? Mine was full on. Sometimes with teenagers, it's really lazy. You don't see much of them. And then other weekends, they need 100% support, emotional work, you name it, and it's usually the one where you have a big event to prepare for. Anyway, as I said to my friend who came out of her weekend feeling broken, it's either feast or famine.
00:00:31.384 --> 00:01:05.519
Props to our lovely listener and Malta, who holds down a full time job with four kids anyway, first of all, an apology. You know, I said that you can text me by hitting this button on the podcast notes. Well, you can do it anytime I read them all. We had a lovely listener from Moorestown, New Jersey, who did just that saying in episode 114 weight and body image. That's the one I did with my daughter, Phoebe. You mentioned a good book you were reading. Are you able to tell me what that book was? I can't seem to find it in the show notes. Whoopsie.
00:01:06.719 --> 00:01:10.859
I forget sometimes I'm sorry.
00:01:06.719 --> 00:03:23.719
Anyway, I think it was inventing ourselves, The Secret Life of the teenage brain, by Sarah Jane Blakemore. She is absolutely brilliant, and I loved the book because she talks about how now they have, you know, functional MRIs, which mean that you can see a brain in action. But of course, it's really expensive, so there isn't a huge amount of that going on, but there is that stuff going on, and it's a really up and coming science. So I hadn't understood all of that until I read this book. Anyway, the thing that she was talking about was the fMRI scans that show what happens in teenage brains when parents actually I think it was mums nag their kids that research also came up in the recent episode on how to motivate young people. Then the scans found the way to motivate is not nagging, right? I hope that's helped. I also got an email from a great mother who is really worried about her 14 year old daughter who's in quite a serious relationship with a 15 year old boy. I don't think I need to tell you what's worrying her, because I think you can guess. Anyway, I sent her a detailed response, but you know, I have actually done extensive research into this topic, which is in Episode 39 called relationships and sex. How young is too young. But I wonder now, if I gave that the wrong title, is it hard to find, or has the podcast material become so much that it's actually quite hard to sort of sift through it? Maybe a little club where I can kick start a topic and say, here's the episode. Let's talk about how things are working out in your world. I don't know, let me know teenagers untangled@gmail.com now I was going to talk to you about something I've been noticing in my teens, but that will have to wait, because I received a fascinating email from a lovely listener with a dilemma, and I thought we could all maybe help her, or at least just have a think about the way we would go through it ourselves. She says, I need some advice about how to handle my son's lie to my ex husband. The kids had a fun Halloween night, and many of the kids were staying home. The next day, I made the decision to let him have the day off. When the ex husband asked why they didn't go to school, my son told him that I didn't want to get up and take him.
00:03:24.979 --> 00:03:45.819
I did let my ex know that that was not the case, but I'd like to find a way to discuss the importance of why this was disappointing to me. I suspect that the dynamic in his father's house is more of a fear based discipline style. How can I let my son know that I cannot allow this and what kind of consequences fit. Thank you for your wisdom.
00:03:48.580 --> 00:03:52.900
So I'd love to know what you think do message me our mum.
00:03:53.199 --> 00:04:11.159
This mum has given us lots of information, but we don't know everything, which is always the case. So always ask lots of questions, which I can't really do, so I'm going to just wing it. What we do know is that her son is straddling two homes, and clearly there are two styles of parenting in this situation.
00:04:11.340 --> 00:04:59.920
She's been the Fun Mom and given him an opportunity to let off steam and have fun, and we need that sometimes, right? He's not on his phone at home. He's out with his friends. That's great in my school district. In fact, I think that's true of all of England. Halloween happens during a school holiday. So this is not a scenario I've had to deal with. And I don't really understand why schools that know this thing happens every year don't just organize a day off or something. I mean, well, whatever. So I get why this mum made that decision. I also understand why the dad would feel it's inappropriate. I have always said to my kids, if you're going to go out and have fun, that's great, but you must prioritize your school responsibilities, which means you make sure you can get out the next day and function. I'm not asking you to kick the ball out of the park.
00:05:00.240 --> 00:05:52.540
But I am saying your teachers had to drag themselves in after any fun nights they've had, and I sincerely hope they do have them, so you need to show them some respect and offer the same level of commitment. But that's just me. I'm not saying I'm right. I'm not saying she's wrong. I'm just saying that's how I work. Anyway, the mum knows her ex has a different approach, and she's the one who made this choice, and the important thing in all of this is that she's the adult. So her question was, How can I let my son know that I can't allow this and what kind of consequences fit? Right? So he told his dad a different story from what his mum believes happened. So he lied in her mind. Here's the reality, this child is in an incredibly difficult situation.
00:05:45.519 --> 00:06:01.740
He loves his mum and he loves his dad. That's just hardwired into our kids. So he has a great time, and he thinks, Oh, my mom's the best. This is great.
00:06:01.740 --> 00:06:21.259
I'm gonna have the day off, and he's confronted, then with his stricter dad, who wants to know what's happened. We all know that teens and many adults live in the present, so I think that if I was that kid, I would probably panic, because I wouldn't want my dad to think less of me, or to have to deal with his punishments and anger.
00:06:18.540 --> 00:06:32.300
Because now I'm staying with him for the whole weekend, so I don't have any backup. I'm exposed, right? So maybe the kid deflects because he doesn't have the adult big picture for how that really makes his mum look.
00:06:33.139 --> 00:06:39.199
And he decides he'll deal with his mum's anger when he sees her, but that's a couple of days away, so he's fine.
00:06:40.579 --> 00:06:47.139
So she wants to know how she can let her son know that she can't allow this and what kind of consequences fit.
00:06:48.879 --> 00:06:56.920
Personally, I don't think this is a consequences scenario. I think it's a learning situation.
00:06:52.899 --> 00:08:08.759
And if that were my kid, I would say we need to unpick what happened and why you felt the need to say what you did judgment free. So I would literally want to go through the entire process of, okay, this is before Halloween. This is how we planned it would go. How it actually went, what we thought about beforehand, what we didn't think about beforehand, what we decide about school, after fun events, all of it, and say, I can see how difficult this might have been for you. And all of life is about making judgment calls. And the best we can do is look back on the ones we've made which didn't turn out well, and learn from them. And the consequence is that next time you know he can't cope, because he is going to be put in a really difficult situation. So you're not going to let this happen. You say, I can't give you this freedom because it's not fair on you to have to deal with the results. And if you want to go out and have the day off the next day, you need to also be able to get the understanding or the agreement from your dad. Or the other scenario is that you the mum have to have the difficult conversation with the dad and admit to you both parent differently, and you'd like a little bit more understanding between the two of you of how you minimize the impact on your son.
00:08:09.839 --> 00:09:04.799
Maybe the benefit of having this conversation with him is that you will deepen your connection with your son, and he will feel understood and seen. I cannot begin to tell you how valuable this is to your future relationship and the chances that he will consult you and respect you on other things in the future. And I just want to finish up by saying I realize you are managing an incredibly difficult situation we parents who are not having to navigate two different parenting styles households cannot really understand the extent of the stress that this puts people under. I have actually put other episodes into the podcast notes in which we talked about different parenting styles, why kids lie, and consequences, so you can get some more techniques for managing this now. Listeners, tell me, what do you think? Help us out?
00:09:05.159 --> 00:09:14.340
Teenagers. Untangled@gmail.com you know, I don't I don't know everything. I'm just muddling through like the rest of us.
00:09:11.159 --> 00:09:35.120
Hopefully you have some other gems of wisdom, right? What next I want to say thank you to the listeners sharing the love around. I've had a look at which places are seeing a massive upswing, and they are Manchester, Toronto, New York and Minneapolis. If you're passing this podcast on, thank you so much for sharing.
00:09:32.000 --> 00:09:59.919
You have no idea how much it means to me, because, well, I don't actually spend any money on advertising. Funnily enough, I was chatting to a dad the other night who said he hears my voice all over the house because his wife wanders around with me on speakerphone. And I suggested he get some nice earbuds for her for Christmas, and he didn't want to, because he didn't like the idea that she couldn't hear him when he wanted her attention. I'm not going to say anything more about that. I've just listened to this Fauci.
00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:22.460
Episode by Catherine Ryan, and it's the podcast telling everybody everything all the time. And she talks about golfing widows and how her husband just presented himself in a golfing outfit on a Saturday morning, intending to go golfing for five hours, no prior warning. She said, You know, I'm I want him to go and have fun. It's good for his mental health. He does a lot of at home, I feel the same way.
00:10:22.460 --> 00:10:42.159
I'm always like, go, go have fun. Go do your thing. But her complaint is that no woman would do this like no woman would just turn up and decide they're going to do something without consulting everybody else or thinking about everybody else in the family. And it resonated me, with me, because we had a massive crowd around on Saturday for a fireworks night party.
00:10:42.700 --> 00:10:52.240
Where was my husband? He got up, he did a nice, long cross country run, and then he went out and helped his buddies set up for an event next Saturday.
00:10:48.519 --> 00:11:21.440
Communication with me about this zero. Didn't even take the dogs with him. I'm just pointing out this is a difference between men and women. Anyway. Tell me how it works in your house. Do you have a much more even relationship? Do you have an A calendar that everybody shares and everybody puts everything on it? Does the woman in your life rush off and go and do whatever she wants while the you as the man you're kept holding for doing all the work? I'm fascinated. Let me know.
00:11:18.179 --> 00:11:30.200
Finally, you want to know what's on this Wednesday, don't you? Do you remember Mike Nicholson, who did the interview about progressive masculinity? He's the one who said it's not true.
00:11:27.259 --> 00:11:33.740
When people say boys don't like to talk, he can't shut them up.
00:11:30.200 --> 00:12:01.320
Anyway, I have an interview with him about looks maxing, which is apparently a big thread on Tiktok Instagram. It's everywhere, and it's a guy thing. Of course, it is. No girl would come up with the term looks maxing to talk about grooming, which, of course, is another perfectly lovely term for taking care of your appearance, which has now been ruined by perverts. My girls didn't even know what it was.
00:11:57.220 --> 00:12:06.059
It's a social media hashtag, and it's how guys can increase their SMV or sexual market value.
00:12:06.720 --> 00:12:13.500
Yeah, it's like that. So we'll talk about the good and the bad, because it can be good, right?
00:12:10.320 --> 00:12:29.419
There are some parents who would love their teen to explore how to improve their looks, starting with washing their hair occasionally. But as we already know it can be taken way too far too much focus on it. It can become toxic and negative. So we will talk about all of that.
00:12:29.419 --> 00:12:39.200
Don't forget to follow the show so you don't miss it and give me a five star review if you feel like it, or send this to one other person. That's it for this community. Catch up. Bye, bye.
00:12:39.200 --> 00:12:39.559
For now you
