Parenting Youngsters – This Ain’t No Fairy Story
“It’s 11pm on a Friday night and Sarah said she’ll be home by 9pm.”
“Reggie said he was hanging out at Steve’s but I just saw Steve’s mom at the grocery store and she said Reggie wasn’t there.”
“I just got another email from Jay’s English teacher saying he didn’t turn in his last two assignments.”
“Jo was caught on the train without a valid ticket. Again.”
These are situations that are often described by the families I work with – parents raising teenagers describe feeling angry, frustrated and overwhelmed. Yet within these stories lies a seed of hope that can reduce parental stress and teenage distress, and help rebuild relationships between parents and their children.
We are storytellers
We are storytellers and story receivers. Storytelling is an integral part of the psychology of being human. This helps explain the Hollywood blockbuster, the must-see TV series, and the New York Times bestseller list.
But our connection to stories goes much deeper than entertainment. We create our own stories every day, share them with our friends and family, and listen to their stories in return. We also tell each other stories – all the time.
We tell stories about our bosses, our colleagues, our partners, our children. We have stories about our haircut and why the lawn mower broke. These stories help us understand the world, inform our choices, and shape our emotions. They help us know if we are living by our values and making progress towards our goals.
But our stories are also shaped by our thoughts and emotions. When our stories accurately describe events but focus our thoughts and emotions in ways that limit our ability to respond effectively, they are less than helpful. They pull us away from the life we want and the hopes we have for our children.
Article below…
Sometimes our stories are “wrong”
Too often, our stories lead us astray. Sometimes they are completely wrong.
People’s actions are caused by:
- their own attitudes and beliefs (internal factors)
- the situations they find themselves in (external factors)
- or a combination of both
A basic psychological principle, called fundamental attribution error, describes our tendency to overestimate the role of attitude and underestimate the role of external factors when considering the behavior of others. Our explanations, the stories we tell ourselves, develop automatically. They are the normal way we explain the cause of an event. So even when we describe the external factors of “what happened,” we often make assumptions about the internal factors, the attitudes that shape them. For example, when parents tell me stories about teenagers like Sarah, Reggie, Jay, and Jo, they might say things like:
“Sarah just does whatever she wants just to annoy me!”
“This is the third time this month Reggie has intentionally lied to me.”
“Jay just doesn’t care about school anymore. He just wants out and expects us to take care of him for the rest of his life!”
“I don’t know why Jo is so drawn to the risk of getting caught without a ticket, I guess she just likes the thrill.”
It’s not surprising that parents of teenagers feel more angry, more frustrated, and maybe even despair with these statements. These are natural responses to the parent’s belief—the story we tell ourselves—that our child’s actions are intentional. Unfortunately, a parent’s most likely response to these thoughts and emotions is to become more irritable, frowning, controlling, and using more punishment.
Why tightening the reins doesn’t necessarily help when parenting a teenager
“Why is my child doing this to me?”
“Obviously I’m too soft. I have to make her understand the consequences of her actions.”
When things aren’t going well in our lives, the natural response is to “be more tense,” to exercise more control to prevent things from getting worse. In this case, we try to control our children’s lives to protect them.
But instead of getting the help they need to develop the knowledge and skills to avoid such situations in the future, our children learn to expect assumptions and shame on top of their own frustration at their mistake. No wonder they become defensive and withdrawn. They are less likely to turn to the people who are best placed to help – their parents.
While it’s normal for parents to make up these kinds of stories, it’s particularly unhelpful when raising teenagers, especially when they have ADHD. Even if our explanations about their behavior were 100% true, our control responses are almost guaranteed to perpetuate the problematic behavior we hope to change.
What else could be true?
Now imagine if we were wrong. What if these teenagers’ actions weren’t premeditated? What if they feel just as bad as we do, if not worse, about what they did? What else could be true? Be curious and imagine stories that offer alternative explanations:
Sarah was late because she had lost track of time (ADHD time blindness).
Reggie made an ADHD-impulsive decision to see a movie with a Steve, and it didn’t even occur to him that he wouldn’t be where he told you he would be.
Jay stayed up late to do his last task, with a typical last-minute ADHD high, but then did an equally ADHD thing and forgot to turn it in
Jo had money for a train ticket but got distracted by texting you when she got to the station and forgot to buy one. Ironically, she tried to do the right thing by texting you where she was going.
What do you think is different when parenting teenagers, when your story focuses your attention on helping your child overcome a challenge rather than assuming they are doing things to you or because they are being “nasty” on purpose?
Pause the story
Despite our best intentions, our stories likely contain both external and internal explanations. We can’t stop thinking them just because we want to.
However, we can interrupt the story and choose to react differently.
It’s even easier than it sounds. We literally just have to stop and separate what we know (e.g. “Sarah was late…”) from the explanatory stories we tell ourselves (“…just to annoy me!”). While it can be helpful to think of alternatives (“Maybe she had a good time and forgot the time.”), it’s okay if we can’t think of one at the moment.
The important thing is to stop. The pause helps reduce the emotional impact of the auto story, and it also helps us choose answers that are more likely to be helpful.
If we can pause long enough to see the explanatory story for what it is, an automatic interpretation of events rather than a full explanation, we can choose to respond with compassion. There can still be consequences to this, but now we can tailor those consequences to help build our child’s skills.
