Fearless Parenting
Tips: Teens sleeping in, getting teens to do things, organising the house, callingphone use an addiction, when/then statements and more.
I love the idea of the podcast and Substack being a Big Hug. Can we ever get enough hugs? The tagline evolved from being honest about our failings as parents, and how important it is to give us all a break from beating ourselves up. No parent is perfect, and trying to be one will only cause more stress. Besides, if we’re stressed it means we can’t do our most important job; regulate ourselves enough to support our kids properly. So being kind to ourselves isn’t a luxury; it’s vital.
The more people I talk to, and the more my kids grow and give me feedback, the more I’ve realised that the gift I have to offer isn’t big hugs, but fearlessness. I’ve spent my life thinking, ‘How hard could that be?’ It’s that attitude, and the refusal to stay with things that made my life painful, that has given me so much. The truth is, fear is a reaction whilst courage is a decision and we parents need to teach our kids that we can feel the fear and do things anyway.
One phrase that sums up the consistent message I have given my kids is ‘That sounds really hard, I think you can do it.’
It’s also why I’ve been working on making parenting teens look less complex. What I’ve found in my research is that there are some reasonably simple things we can get right that will do most of the heavy-lifting for us. I’m here to help you trust the process and stop panicking at every mis-step that seems to take our kids away from a mythical, perfect grade/person/job. I also want to hold your hand as you notice the things you need to change about yourself in order to show up as a strong, steady, loving force in your child’s life. That’s the hardest job of all.
So I’m changing my Substack to Fearless Parenting and I’ll be trying to focus my messages on the core things we need to provide at home. Loving warmth and a scaffold around our kids whithin which they can build skills. We also need help with understanding our teen’s perspective.
Here are my core headings for all of this:
Love, Communication, Routine, Boundaries, Conflict Management, Mentoring, Emotion Coaching, Fun, and Family Culture.
What do you think? Am I missing anything? More to come.
Top Tips:
BIFF statements: I love an acronym and the one Masha Rusanov taught me, BIFF, has been really helping me with my teen. If you haven’t yet heard the episode it’s about keeping communication Brief, Informative, Friendly and Firm.
My daughter is now at the stage where she’ll almost always put her empty dishes in the dishwasher, but we constantly have to remind her scrape what she hasn’t eaten into the food bin. Yesterday the dishwasher flashed up an error code. When I investigated the filter was completely congealed with food and fat. I sighed, pulled it out to scrub it with an old toothbrush, then stopped.
The next morning when my teen emerged I greeted her joyfully the way I always do. I then used BIFF to explain that the dishwasher filter needed to be scrubbed because she doesn’t scrape her plate, handed her a toothbrush and showed her how to remove the filter etc. The BIFF tone meant there was no sullen pushback.
She did, however, ask for her phone. My response was another top tip: use a When/Then statement. I replied, ‘Yes, of course. As soon as you’ve cleaned the filter.’ It worked so well that I wish I’d known it when I started parenting and here I am, passing it on. How do you get your teens to do things?
Organising the house for ease:
In my talks with Susie we’re pretty relaxed about mess. Not because it’s not a problem (in my mind) but because we need to pick our battles when our kids are teens. My daughter has kept her room in chaos for much of her teen life, fighting any attempts I make to help her. More recently she’s accepted that she’s not being judged, and I’ve made some small changes that have helped her, so she’s become much tidier and less determined to push back.
It’s really important that we undertand this about neurodivergent teens; drop the judgement, ramp up the love and support in other areas, and they will begin to calm down and be able to function better. It takes longer, so stop looking at other kids and panicking about their timeline. Hold the faith.
There are lots of influencers teaching us how to organise ourselves. Most of them seem to spend too much time folding socks and pressing them into little sock pockets for my liking. I recently came across organizedchaos4_audrey via a recommendation and she’s been a revelation. It reminded me that we all have to find the person who works the way our mind works.
As a result of watching her I have completely organised all of my cupboards and moved onto my laundry room. It’s a rolling stone that is now gathering momentum. It’s also made me feel so much calmer and less stressed.
I moved into a run down Tudor home just before I gave birth to my first, and it’s been a non-stop failed attempt to get on top of things ever since. I had no organising or cleaning skills handed down to me, so I spend my life being a magpie on the hunt for tips that work for me and I’m particularly keen to get this sorted because I want my girls to benefit from everything I learn before they leave home properly.
If you’re interested I’m happy to create a post/video for paid subscribers that is a full tour of all the changes and what a difference they make. What do you think?
Study time:
The Sweet Spot of Weekend Catch-up Sleep:
One of the first questions a listener asked, years ago, was whether they should let their teen sleep in at the weekend. If you’ve been following me for some time you’ll know that I’m obsessed with the lack of sleep our teens are getting, and the inevitable impact it has on everything else. Based on everything I’ve read, I let my kids sleep in, but there’s more.
