Transcript
WEBVTT
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Hello and welcome to Teenagers Untangled, the audio hug for parents going through the teenage years.
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I'm Rachel Richards, parent and coach, mother of two teenagers and two bonus daughters.
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Hi there, I'm Susie Asli, mindfulness coach, mindfulness therapist and musician, and mother of three teenagers, two of them are twins.
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Now Susie.
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I was messaged by Stacy, whose nearly 15 year old son came home with a hickey.
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I got a fight on his neck.
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Now this was the second time.
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The first, she and her partner or husband had asked him not to let it happen again.
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I asked my daughter what she thought and she looked at me blankly and went like, why is that a problem?
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Yeah, yeah, yeah, we've experienced that, have you?
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Yeah, yeah yeah, well, I won't ask you what was interesting, what did you do?
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It was family dinner time.
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Suggested he went and put on a hoodie.
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Is that so that you didn't have to look at it?
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No, it was so that his siblings wouldn't take the mick, and my parents were coming for dinner.
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Let's just cover it up, but he wasn't that fussed.
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It wasn't a big deal and we talked about it because it happened a couple of times.
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It wasn't a big deal.
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It's like, oh, it's just, you know, people do that which in my day was like ooh, ooh, that was a big deal.
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I don't think it is.
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And I think that's what's interesting is because when we react to something, I guess we just need to check our own feelings about it, and why is it this?
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Is such a big thing for me, and how do they feel about?
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It and then try and work your way through that as to whether this really is a big deal, because I think quite often people feel like it's a reflection of their parenting, perhaps particularly when they're young.
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And when you're teenager becomes sexual, it can feel very confrontational.
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Yes, because a lot of us aren't ready.
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No, it is quite a statement, isn't it?
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It's very visual.
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Yes, and I think there's an element of marking your territory when people do this.
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We'll talk about that in our discussion because actually it's a fascinating area.
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She's not the only one who I know who got upset about it.
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I was at a party where my mother said exactly the same thing about a boy who was exactly the same age and she felt it was very disrespectful.
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So we'll talk about that.
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Anyway, I thought it was a great way of discussing the whole dating scene for teens, because it can feel actually quite triggering for us parents.
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It's not how it was in our day.
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It's not in my day.
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No, we just stood around in semi-detached houses drinking Southern Comfort lemonade and snogging, whoever went past.
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Of course, that's my past and you've had a son in a mysterious relationship, so that's really useful.
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And I've got two bonus daughters, so I've got some.
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Anyway let's talk about nuggets first shall we?
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Yeah, my nugget is unrelated to that and it's this week.
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One of my twins has timekeeping challenges.
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No.
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And it very much comes to a front in the mornings and there's a train time.
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You either miss get the train or you miss it.
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Timekeeping is important and we have a big field they have to cross in the mornings and it's really wet at the moment.
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There's loads of dew and my daughter has a hole in her shoe, so that's a whole other story.
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So I've been very kindly, I think, driving them to the station, which is literally two minutes away.
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So my son has been getting later and later and one morning we raced to the station and I felt that that was dangerous for me and I was kind of went, this is not okay, I'm not doing that again.
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That's crazy.
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So we have like, if you're not down by 56 past the hour, then you miss the lift.
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You have to get the next train, okay, okay.
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And he was pushing the boundaries, pushing the boundaries, so it's 58.
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I'm like, come on, it's happening again.
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And I said if you're not there one morning, it's really calm, you're not going to make it, you still eating your breakfast, and it's like 55.
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Wow, I said I will drive, like I will go, and he didn't quite believe me.
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I don't think so I did.
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Oh, absolutely.
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You can't threaten things and not follow through.
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Yeah, and my daughter was sitting there going come on, we have to go, and so we did, and he was a bit cross about that, but totally fine, so you can be cross if you like, but he got it as well.
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And the same morning I also made him pay for the gate key that he's lost.
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Right.
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So I said well, let's just go all in.
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And can you also give me, is it really expensive, the stupid keys?
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And it costs 25 grids, which is really expensive, so he had that and the key and he was unbelievably gracious about it.
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He was annoyed.
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I said you can be annoyed and you'll be really gracious.
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That's really cool and his timekeeping has slightly improved.
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It's an interesting one because when I was coaching parenting, this came up a lot and it's really important that when we put in place boundaries or we say this is what's going to happen, that you follow through, because when we don't, for the next four or five times, they won't believe you know and you have to sort of in.
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And the worst thing is don't put in place something that you're not prepared to go through with.
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So you know, no television for a week is a really bad thing when they're little, because you're the person who will probably suffer most.
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Just straightforward, here's that, here's the boundary, and and it's staying, it's not moving great well, done you to pay for the key.
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So for me, I had one of those weeks where I had a lot of conversations with my teenagers that involved big emotions for various reasons and it was fascinating because these, these waves, these things that they experience us, this sometimes straw men, but they can be very upsetting in their world and it's there all sorts of things that would trigger really big emotions in a teenager.
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And they call me, talk to me about these things and I wanted to talk about how it makes us feel as parents, because it's it can really be triggering again that word but it actually makes you feel like either you're transported back to being a teenager or that you want to rescue them, your parents, you're just, your child is suffering.
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I want to go and you can feel physically furious because you've gone into that fight, flight, freeze yourself and I'm helpless, or helpless, and it's you up all night thinking, oh, my goodness.
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But what's fascinating about it is and I've talked to my teens is that we kind of need to be a bucket for their emotions that they can pour them into and and then maybe just kind of look into the bucket together and just say so, you know, and unpick some of the stuff that's been going on, maybe suggest things, maybe not give them a chance to actually work it out themselves.
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And what's really interesting is that we're left with this sense of trauma.
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You know what's we've?
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Our kids have dumped all this on us.
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I sort of made me understand what it must feel like to be a therapist at times where you listen to very, very difficult things.
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They get up, walk out feeling lighter and happier.
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The problem is, your team might run, you know, hung off and gone off, and the next day they're perfectly happy.
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And you're still mulling over the problem because you still feel like you need to fix it.
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And it's as a therapist, it's harder with your teenagers, I would say I exactly that's the thing, because as a therapist, you're not emotionally involved.
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It's not your triggers, your own stuff to deal with that Exactly how to separate and it's harder.
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You can do that with your teenager, but it's harder.
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I love the idea of the bucket.
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It's really important that they feel that they can dump in the bucket.
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Yes, just like literally, and they've said that to me.
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They said, you know, it just makes a big difference just to be able to just drop it all, and then they're relieved and they can go away feeling better.
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So, coming back to dating, there's a lot of categories for dating now, so first of all, should we have a quick review.
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Yeah, I have two lovely reviews here.
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One of them is called great down to earth advice.
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I love listening to your podcast.
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It is a great mixture of research, wisdom nuggets and examples from everyday life, great topics and always spot on advice.
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Sometimes it is even enough just to hear that I'm not the only one having a hard time with my teenagers.
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Yeah, that's kind of why we do it and that's how.
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I feel that way too.
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Exactly.
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Special thanks for taking time researching and talking about twins and emotional intelligence.
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I found it fascinating.
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You're so welcome.
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Thank you for the lovely review.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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And another really good suggestion Short one saved my sanity.
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Oh, that's quite a big thing.
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We went through a period of struggling with our 14-ager listening.
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Listening to teenagers untangled has provided me and my husband with priceless insight and many tools to cope.
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Oh, thank you very much.
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That's really lovely.
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Yeah, wow, well, yeah helping people with their sanity has got to be good.
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Yeah, I'm not quite sure about my own.
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Yeah, that's quite impressive, right?
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So coming back to dating, there seem to be a lot of categories now.
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You know, when I was a teenager, you were kind of Going out with someone, or you weren't.
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Now I've heard the terms talking, walking.
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So talking is when you're chatting to somebody.
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but you're not going out with them.
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And walking is kind of similar where you go out on, you go out with them, but you're not going out with them.
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You just kind of wondering around aimlessly, right?
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I don't know these terms.
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I've heard a lot of these terms linking, which is apparently friends with benefits Situation ship.
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No one has a clue what's going on.
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You're together but you're not exclusive.
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Necessarily until you actually go exclusive.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I am.
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This actually extends into the sort of twenty year olds I've seen that where they date but until they've actually both agreed that they are exclusive, they're not.
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Wow, that's my boyfriend, but you're not actually assuming that they are exclusive see presume you're not exclusive until you actually say the opposite.
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It's not interesting, yeah, and what's really interesting with the twenty year olds, because of course, I got bonus daughters and.
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I have access to all these little bit higher generation.
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I've seen some married with a house mortgage dog, yes and some who their attitude is I'm enjoying my freedom.
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You got to try it with your guy friends, see if there's something there, and then you settle into friendships and so it's a much more relaxed attitude for some of them.
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Yeah, right not all of them we got.
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We've got quite a range.
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That which is fascinating, right.
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So I, on terms of teens, I dig around for dating stats.
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There was a research report by Jean tweng of San Diego State University Journal in the journal child development, who said that they found the percentage of 12th graders who had ever gone on a date in 1990 to 1994 was 84%.
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Between 2010 and 2016 they said it was 63%.
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Now, what's your definition of data?
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but this kind of mimics, what we found in teen delinquency remember that episode where we actually found that all these these marks of teenage delinquency, including teenage pregnancies, have dropped, so that actually would indicate the same thing.
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Yeah, really interesting.
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And I just wonder, because I think my experience is that they face time or maybe it's not.
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Yes, not face time is using their video calling yes, and that has quite a big effect, I think, doesn't it?
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Because you're actually having a proper conversation rather than Then.
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So if you don't need to go on so many days, I don't know, I don't know, or need a condom, really.
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Anyway, we do.
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We take teen relationships seriously.
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Well, for teens it's really really important that.
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The truth is, they are, in relative terms, are quite short, and we often look at it and go, oh, sweet, sweet, but for them it's a really big thing, isn't it?
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Having said that, you know, the relationship between teenagers in high school at is only vaguely similar to that about couples, because they're kind of dating in greenhouse conditions, aren't they?
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They?
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They don't have to earn money or rent a house or pay taxes and what you know.
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It's a much less.
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It's less fraught in that way.
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It's more about issues like you know, how do I communicate with somebody?
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Purely emotional, purely emotional.
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It's very kind of interesting just make that distinction.
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So why do they date?
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well, fun fun, fun.
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They've got hormones.
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They first each other and and the hormones are really, really critical.
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So a lot of hormones are triggered with this and you know it's a way of trying out their sexuality, their bodies, all these Wonderful things about it biological.
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Isn't it retracted to people?
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And I think if we look at relationships as From a, from a love perspective and a marriage perspective, it's quite limiting.
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One of the things I hit on when I was talking to my daughters about this was one of the key things is status, and what I mean by that is soon as you start dating Of any type and no people notice it, they're talking, yeah, talking about it, and and it can elevate you.
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So if you've got a boyfriend or you've got a girlfriend, it sort of gives you status, cuz wow you.
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Someone else, someone else.
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Yes, so it's crazy, but it's true it's true.
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it's how we work as human beings, and if I noticed this when I was young, if a boy starts to find you attractive, this works both ways.
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Other boys will go wait, wait, wait, what she got, what she got, and they suddenly everybody starts to notice that maybe your more interesting than they thought.
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So there's a huge data salad to it.
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Yeah, it's also on a more primal level as well isn't it.
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It is biology we get attracted to people.
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It's biology, it's really normal, it's a survival thing, isn't it?
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And it's very exciting when someone finds us attractive and we follow those emotions, we follow that adrenaline, we follow those hormones that then get released upon that, and it's really normal, it's really beautiful.
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I wanted to mention love just because I think we often get confused about what we're talking about here because love is such a really I just think it's a really useless word.
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I think oh, rachel.
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We're so limiting okay, because if you talk about the ancient Greeks, had seven words for different types of love.
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And we use.
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We can say we fancy you.
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It's quite a limiting word and so, for example, eros was passion, lust, pleasure.
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Philia was kind of authentic, the stuff that great friendship is made of, and it can be platonic or it can be a romantic partner.
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So these lots of layers of love here.
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Ludus, which is the non-committal type of love where you can bandit with your friends, engaging in playful conversation, flirting, that would be Ludus Stork I think it's stork which is unconditional familial love, so the family level of love.
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Philotia, which is self-compassion, and that's nurturing yourself, cultivating self-awareness, honoring your own body and its needs.
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Pragma is love built on commitment and understanding and long-term interests, which probably comes in much later.
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And then Agape, which is altruism and pay it forward love, so it's like being selfless and doing things for a community.
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Again, that's not really a teenager's kind of territory.
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So it's actually really interesting breaking down the different types of love and going well you know, rather than controlling it.
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So are they?
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in love, or are they not?
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Yeah, we have a problem with Eros and our teens, don't we?
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The others are fine, yeah absolutely Absolutely, if we have a problem with it.
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I looked up some stats on it and fewer than 2% of people marry their high school sweetheart, and when teens do get married, only about half of them make it to their 10th year anniversary.
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Also, I read that, on average, relationships between 16 year olds tend to last about six months.
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17 and 18 year olds about a year.
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Again, it's an average.
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So you know, and yeah, it's a time of experimentation, isn't it?
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In all areas, and particularly this one.
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So it's kind of it's a fluid time of I have these feelings, trying them out in a safe and appropriate way of course.
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But I like that.
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You see, and I think it's the reason I'm talking about this is I think we really need to take a breath and think what is going on here, and there's some very, very important stuff going on.
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But if we force them to say, are you going to marry this person, oh my God, you know, there's an element of that of kind of locking people into.
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You know, no sex before marriage or no, which is fine If those are your values, you know that those are your values.
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But there's an element of people learning from having relationships.
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That is very important.
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Really important.
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It's like any relationship that teenagers go through, or children or any of us really, but you know siblings, we learn our boundaries, we learn all sorts of things through our siblings that we've talked about here before, and you know potential relationships.
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Whatever that looks like, it's like a playground of learning of how to communicate, how to you know how to even you know how do we kiss.
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How do we?
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do these things, what do we do?
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And you know, talking about it with friends, talking about it with them.
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It's invaluable.
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Yes, and the minute, we bring shame into it or awkwardness, which it will be, because it's new and different and they, you know, by the nature of it it's a bit awkward with that age.
00:17:27.061 --> 00:17:29.001
It kind of it's a shame.
00:17:29.499 --> 00:17:30.835
And I think it's a hyper learning experience.
00:17:30.835 --> 00:17:32.683
So we we learn every day.
00:17:32.683 --> 00:17:45.522
We learn about interactions and human behavior and things, but when you get into this sort of more relationship status with anybody, you're having to learn stuff really quickly, and I think it can be really beneficial.
00:17:45.522 --> 00:18:11.506
According to one research study, even after accounting for early relationship experiences with parents and peers, aspects of adolescent dating experiences predict romantic relationship qualities in young adulthood, and what they said in this was that adolescents who dated fewer partners in mid-teens and experience a better quality of dating relationship demonstrated romantic partner interactions that were smoother and had an easier relationships.
00:18:13.112 --> 00:18:22.865
Yeah, and the converse is true, that if there was a lot of conflict in their early relationships and they dated a lot more partners, it can result in a more negative.
00:18:22.865 --> 00:18:39.641
Yeah, I'm sure that's right, and I had a friend whose daughter started a relationship as a teenager and it was just lovely because they both made a list of all the things they'd like to do and did them together, and so now you have someone by your side who's supporting you in trying out new things.
00:18:39.641 --> 00:18:42.113
Yeah, and these can be very, very positive things.
00:18:42.394 --> 00:18:43.516
And relationships are also.
00:18:43.516 --> 00:18:53.561
If you're struggling with yourself, then you're attracting a certain type of partner, so it's all connected to how we are in general in the world.
00:18:54.291 --> 00:18:58.221
Yes, and it plants the seeds of self-sufficiency and independence from your parents too.
00:18:58.221 --> 00:19:03.018
So you start to kind of think how would I be if I'm not with my parents?
00:19:03.018 --> 00:19:05.982
If I'm not at home, how am I going to behave in the world?
00:19:06.022 --> 00:19:07.265
Who will I be attached to?
00:19:07.265 --> 00:19:24.413
Yes, and parents play a big role in that because, I mean, my experience was that my parents weren't very keen on me dating or doing anything with the opposite sex If that's your, you know your favour or having any kind of romantic or sexual relationship, and that was really problematic.
00:19:24.413 --> 00:19:30.250
That made it weird and that made it like secret and, yeah, that's not a great option either.
00:19:30.289 --> 00:19:33.119
Yes, and then you're left thinking, well, is there something wrong with me?
00:19:33.119 --> 00:19:39.123
Or you're having to ally yourself with other kids who may not really be thinking this through either.
00:19:39.550 --> 00:19:41.979
So, it is better to have parents who can talk to about this stuff.
00:19:41.979 --> 00:20:02.237
I think it can be hard for teens to take a long view or to step back and consider things calmly, and this lack of executive functioning can also lead to risky behaviour, which is why, again, you want to be inside the circle of safety with your teenager, being able to talk to them so you can guide them, rather than outside.
00:20:02.237 --> 00:20:17.061
There's a study to publish in the Journal of Adolescent Mental Health and the research has found that the early stages of teenage love have similar effects as hypomania, and that's the state of kind of abnormally elevated energy activity mood changes.
00:20:17.061 --> 00:20:19.115
It's a bit like bipolar disorder.
00:20:19.115 --> 00:20:21.931
When you are, this really excited stage, are we?
00:20:21.951 --> 00:20:22.855
not like that as adults.
00:20:23.611 --> 00:20:24.674
I think we can be yes.
