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The Dr. Laura Podcast
Ways You Are Letting Your Teens Hurt Themselves
00:11:13
Listen to my Morning Monologue: I’m sharing my take on pressing issues, enlightening research on human behavior, answering questions I get by email, and my favorite, most instructive interactions with callers. Everything you’ll hear is designed to help you become a better spouse, parent, family member, co-worker, friend, and human being. It’s the free therapy you need! Call 1-800-DR-LAURA / 1-800-375-2872 or make an appointment at DrLaura.com
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- [00:00]
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- [00:45]
Dr. Laura Schlesinger
Thank you for listening to my morning monologue brought to you by Vibriant Super C Serum, the skincare product I use twice a day. Visit vibriance.comdrlora to save 37% and get free shipping. Remember, you hear my radio program Daily on Sirius XM Triumph and connect with me 24 7@drlaura.com Great article. Five ways we let Our Teens Hurt Themselves Ouch by Timothy Deal and this was published in allprodad.com www.allprodad. i love this. I'm just going to excerpt because I agree with everything here, so I'm going to excerpt and make it more emphatic. Parenting a teen is difficult at best, but I want to remind you it's not because all your teenager kids are bad. It's simply that they're morphing every day. They're growing from little kids trying to squeeze into being an adult before their times. They're being pressured physically, emotionally, intellectually, socially. They're shaped by forces that you and I never had to deal with when we were kids. So it's really difficult for parents to know where to start, where to end in what they do. So here's five ways. Pay attention to these, please. Number one, we allow them to isolate. Sometimes, just like adults, kids need their space. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about isolation that results in a lot of anxiety, depression, substance abuse. You can't mandate your kid have friends, but you can have a family life that opens it up for your children to interact. At church, at sports games, family outings, to parks where you meet other people, go fishing, whatever it is. Make sure the family is not isolating so the kids have opportunity to be away from screens, away from their rooms, doing fun things, some with family and develop friendships and activities. Really important. Don't let your kids isolate. They could End up on drugs. Okay. Number two, you allow them to sit on their phones. Kids do not know what it's like to not have a phone in your hand, in your pocket, next to you. We never had that. The first time I saw somebody with a remote phone, it was in a box, like a huge suitcase. And you opened it up and there was this big mechanism that was a phone. Yeah. Now they're this big, so they can have them on them all the time. It's not just for entertainment. It's so ingrained that they use it for everything in terms in addition to just interacting with the world. I mean, hey, what happened last week? No, we look it up. What happened last week or somebody's interpretation of it as opposed to dealing with people. Now, according to the American Academy of Children and Adolescent Psychiatry, Brace yourself. Teens spend about nine hours a day on screens. That can't be right. But it is. It's probably more, maybe even more in your home. So I'd like to urge you, you can tell. I mean, the phone will tell you how much time it's been on, used. It knows that. Which I find very scary. You can be 84, and it's like a parent who say, I have done this for four hours already. All right, so you need to put a max. I would keep it way before nine. I would keep it under four. In a whole day. Under four, please. It's not good for kids. They don't interact with the world. And everything they get off the phone is not necessarily real, truthful, accurate.
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- [06:23]
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- [06:51]
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- [07:08]
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- [07:41]
Dr. Laura Schlesinger
Number three we allow them to be disrespectful. I see a lot of that. The disrespectful teen, moody, whatever, trying to define himself in ways that sometimes require him to distance himself from you. The result, the article goes on, can be clashes and the occasionally disrespectful behavior. It's also common for this to extend beyond you to all authority figures. We need to help our teens learn to honor their elders even as they differentiate. To learn to empathize, be understanding about people who have a different opinion. Because in many ways, disrespect is just about being immature. I've told the story many times about the father who walked in on the teenage boy giving lip to the mom, twirled him around, grabbed his shirt and said, you will never talk to my woman like that again. That boy learned respect right then and there. Didn't require yelling, screaming, punishing, just informing. And as I've said many times when I've described this scene that he didn't say your mother, he didn't say my wife. He said my woman made this very personal. I protect my woman. That teaches the boy about his future and what he's supposed to be. His wife, that's his woman to protect. Being disrespectful should not be acceptable and sending somebody to their room, taking away their phone, isn't it? It's a lot of shaming and requiring before there are going to be the normal perks. Kids get disrespectful because they're immature and they want to differentiate as the family's little Kid no more. But that's not the way to do it. And you have to explain to them the way to do this is this, not this. This doesn't get you cooperation from us. This gets you cooperation from us. And since you're a teenager, you're a kid, you're a minor, you need your parents cooperation to have fun in life. Okay. 4. We allow them to avoid struggling. Oh my gosh. How many of you have seen the projects that kids hand in at school that they're supposed to have done by themselves? And it's so obvious the parents did it allow them to struggle. Don't swoop in, protect your teen. It's understandable that you want to. But if you're protecting your kid by pointing fingers at someone else or my kid's not responsible, your kid that you know, forget that. When your kid does not learn to take responsibility, when your kid does not learn to struggle, when your kid does not learn to persevere, how in the hell are they going to have a good life? Think about that. Five Sort of surprised me, but it's the weak parenting, the abdication of parenting. But I was surprised when I read this because I hadn't thought about this. In this situation. We encourage them to conform. Most teens are terrified of being seen as different from everyone else. This is a great way for them to make bad decisions, though unfortunately, many parents are just as terrified. So they allow their teen to go to that party that they really want to say no to or choose not to comment on the clothing they see is inappropriate. This is why parenting a teen is challenging. We need to encourage good decisions, not popular ones. It may result in some short term pain, but there's long term gain. Our goal is to raise good people, not popular ones. I was in a store many years ago, the store's not there anymore and that has nothing to do with my story. But they had jeans and this man and it was on the weekend. And you can sort of tell when you got a divorced dad with a teenage kid like the daughter, you can sort of tell it's his time with the kid. And this is when the divorced fathers tend to want to give the little girls anything they want because they want to have a good relationship because they don't get to see their kid every day anymore. So they don't get to be a real father. Parent trying. The girl comes out and she can't be more than 12. And you know, at 12 the girls are like real skinny and she has these jeans on that barely cover if she had pubic hair, which she didn't. At 12, it barely would cover, it was so low. And he looked down and he goes, okay, you want those? And I walked over to him and I said, you're really going to get those for her?
- [12:51]
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Really?
- [12:53]
Dr. Laura Schlesinger
What did pants that low to her crotch teach her? Is okay to project herself and teach the boys who are older when they look at her what she's advertising. He just stared at me, didn't say anything I expected using bad words at me, but he didn't. He just stared at me like he was thinking, I don't know what happened because I left the store. Do I often stick my nose in? Yes. When it has to do with kids, yes. I'm Dr. Laura Schlesinger. My number one, 800-375-2872. If you like this podcast, be sure to rate it on Apple Podcasts or your favorite place to listen to my podcast. Of course, I'd love if you gave me five stars. And be sure to share this podcast with a friend on Facebook or your preferred social media platform.
- [13:54]
Fandango Announcer
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