How to parent a teen from a teens perspective

[Music]

[Applause]

one morning shortly after my 13th

birthday i walked out into the living

room and saw my mom reading one two

three magic teen

communicate connect and guide your teen

to adulthood by dr thomas w fallon

my first thought was that she doesn’t

need to be reading this she knows how to

pair me i’m not going to change

yeah i was wrong

the next week i was thinking to myself

what if i wrote a book about parenting

wouldn’t that be interesting

i bet every parent like to know what

their teen’s thinking about their

parenting so when this opportunity

popped up i thought this would be a

perfect topic to talk about

we’ll start with technology because

technology is an area where teens and

parents

usually don’t get along

mostly because of the difference between

technology from today and with my

parents routines

in my opinion i think a child should get

a phone based off of the environment so

what i mean by that if your child lives

in iowa kids usually don’t need a funny

engage but for kids who live in new york

city they have to walk to school and

give boon the city so it’s more

important to have a phone at a younger

age for safety purposes

there’s age but there’s also time to

consider for me i think the talmud

should be anything that the parents can

handle what i mean by that if you are

spending 12 hours on your phone and tell

your kid only a one hour screen time

there’s a problem

don’t set timelines for a kid if you

can’t follow them too i mean come on

parents have a little fairness atonement

should be anything that you can handle

in order to understand your teen you

need to understand what your teen thinks

of you

some teens describe their parents as

certain stereotypes these stereotypes

fall into two categories the boss and

the lucy goosey

the boss is a strict parent that you

might hear saying what i say goes and

when you make the money then you can

make the rules the lucy goosey lets

anything slide for example a team could

stay up all night but the lucy goosey

won’t have a problem with that

also a lucy goosey could also be okay

with one thing and be strict on another

for example a team could have a very

strict bedtime but have as much screen

time as they like

the parent that i like to see is not the

boss nor the loosey goosey but in the

middle i call this parent the listener

the listener gives directions but let

their teen have options the boss and the

lucy goosey aren’t bad parents but the

listener takes the good out of these two

and then leaves the bad

imagine your teen wants to quit the

basketball team and get a job at

mcdonald’s the listener would ask

questions before the team would make a

decision

the listener would also give directions

on places to work if they didn’t want

them to work that place

but how can you listen to your teen if

he or she is so mad or how can your teen

listen to you if you’re so mad let’s

talk about emotions

so emotions we all have them but teen

emotions are very special according to

marwa azab in our phd article why are

teens so emotional the part of the brain

that controls the emotional system is

called the limbic brain structure the

limbic system is slower to develop than

our logical system

it takes some time for a teen to connect

your emotional system and her logical

system

basically when i’m feeling sad or mad

the emotions feel very intense

when i’m feeling sad or mad it feels

like a wave is just crashed into me

i’m not thinking why i’m sad mad it’s

just there

one day after tense practice i was

thinking to myself

i don’t really want to join the team it

was a lot of work and it was every day

so i asked my mom about in the car

she said that we’re committed to the

team

and all of a sudden i started crying i

couldn’t stop that wave emotions just

hit me and i cried all the way home and

my mom was so calm about it that made me

even more mad

i was expecting my mom to get really mad

at me but when she didn’t that got me

really mad

when i got home and calmed down i was

thinking about what just happened i just

had my first mood swing and i didn’t

even know it

so what i learned about parenting from

my first mood swing is that when your

teen is experiencing a wave emotions the

key for parenting is to stay calm

if you stay calm your teen’s way of

emotions will pass and they’ll realize

that they’re being silly

but if you fight back your teen actually

has a reason to be mad they won’t think

about how they just had a mood swing

they’ll think about how you just yelled

at them

so parents if your teen’s experiencing a

mood swing stay calm and realize it’s

not you it’s emotions

as a beginner team i’m starting to learn

about emotions understanding technology

and seeing different types of parents i

also understand since i’m the oldest my

parents are freaking us out too

and by the way i love my parents and

this is not about how bad they are

parenting this comes from a variety of

places and my realization on wow it’s

really hard a parent routine

we all experience like what is to be a

teen with a little bit of listening

we’ll all get to the finish line

thank you

[Applause]

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

you