222: The Summer of Building Independence

Tell me a parenting issue everyone struggles with, with tweens and teens, but no one talks about. Reena, I think a lot of people feel like they just don't know how to connect to their kid anymore. I'm Reena Nainan, and welcome to Ask Lisa, the Psychology of Parenting podcast. And I'm Dr. Lisa DeMoor. We bring you science-backed strategies for managing anxiety, discipline, intense emotions, and more. We decode tough parenting challenges with tips that you can use right now.

So subscribe to Ask Lisa, the Psychology of Parenting podcast, and join our YouTube community today. We're here to help you untangle family life. the summer of building independence. You know, I am just done. i'm ready for summer i'm ready for not being on schedule

I am ready. And you know, it's only like three weeks later, I'll be asking for routines. Exactly. Exactly. Like, where is, it's chaos. What's going on? No, it's so, I have to say, you know, one of my favorite parts about my life is that.

My whole family remains very much on a school schedule. My husband's a teacher. My girls are still at one who's now going to be a college senior in the fall, which is hard to believe. I cannot believe it. And one who's going to be a high school freshman in the fall. So we are like into it. And then my work shifts in the summer. I do a lot of work for schools, and so that quiets in the summer. So I'm like, for my whole life, I'm going to be on a summer schedule, routine.

I know you very, very well, my friend. And you are never a put-your-feet-up-and-just-hang-out-for-the-whole-summer kind of gal. So you are working on some really interesting projects. I am. But it's a changing of gears, at least. Yes, I can understand that and appreciate that. We decided, you know, at the end of every season, instead of taking a letter, we look for your guidance on

What and how you think parents should look towards a summer? And I mean, over the years, we've come out of COVID and back into COVID. And this year, we thought we'd look at how do you make kids at various ages independent?

And you could still be in college and still be leaning on your parents a little bit. So I want to kick off by asking you, why do you think summer is the right time to help kids gain some skill sets and independence and be a little bit more self-reliant? So summer's perfect in so many ways. Okay. So one reason that it becomes the perfect time to help our kids take on more ownership of their own needs in the world, managing responsibilities.

is that we actually have time to do more teaching. Do you remember in the pandemic when suddenly we were all home a lot more, I found myself finally slowing down and teaching my kids how to do things that... It had up until that point always been, it's just faster for me to do it, right? You made homemade paper. I mean, I would never make homemade paper. Exactly, exactly.

But then also around the house things. I think at that point, we really taught my older daughter how to do laundry because we had time to just stand by the machine and show her how it was done. I know there was more cooking going on and spending more time teaching them cooking. But usually in the rush of family life, it truly is. It's just faster to do it yourself, right? And so we don't do it. This summer, I think for many of us, not for everybody, but for many adults.

you get a little more time back. And so that opens up the possibility of having more time to do the teaching to hand things off. So I think that's one reason. The other, and I'll tell you, Reena, what inspired my wish to do this episode, is... That my younger daughter, who's about to be a high school freshman, gets her haircut where I get my haircut. And it's a 17-minute walk from our house. And it's a safe walk.

A few weeks ago, she had a haircut, and I was like, you know what? You can walk yourself there. It was on a Saturday. And I have a card on file, and I double-checked. And I said, double-check, just tell them to use the card on file. The fact that she could walk there is in part because it's nicer out.

And, you know, I mean, Cleveland, like there's days in February where you don't even go outside. But so I think a lot of promoting kids autonomy can include them getting themselves from place to place on their own. Whether it's walking, whether it's riding their bike, whether it's taking public transportation. And I think we're more at ease with that if it's not terrible weather. There's also a part of me that feels a little guilty. Like my mom, my...

Indian mom did my clothes all throughout high school. I never worried about any chores or anything. It was just focus on the books. I don't feel that way about my children because I feel like there's so many things going on in my life. I need to remove some of this responsibility. 100%. Why do you think it's important that we start teaching them how to be independent?

Okay, so there's two things in there. So one is another reason why the summer is a good idea. If you have a high school junior who is hitting it hard all school year and has no extra minute,

You're not going to say to that kid during the school year, you're going to take over dinner one night a week. What a great point because I've tried that and you're right. That's the reason it failed. I'm just realizing it. It's impractical, right? Yes. You can't ask that. Their schedules are so full sometimes. But in the summer-

You could say to your rising high school senior, you're taking over dinner one night a week because they can usually manage that. So I think summer is just prime, prime time. Okay. To your question of like... Okay. That's the when, right? Like why now? The why. All right. You already gestured at one of the key things. We need to do less. Yeah. We need to do less, right? That's right. We finally have time to teach. We need to do less.

Serena, when you look at the things that you could ask your kids to take over this summer, whether it's for themselves or contributing to the family, what... given what grade levels they'll be in the fall. They'll be going into ninth grade, just like your daughter, and eighth grade. Eighth grade. Okay. So they can do a lot of things. What kinds of things could you, with time to teach them how to do it,

Ask them to start doing or do at least during the summer that would make your life better. You know, it drives me nuts at the end of the day where I've cooked a dinner or done whatever and I see all these dishes piled up that nobody just rinsed and loaded into the dishwasher. 100%. There's no reason your kids can't do that. Would you give it that to them this summer? Yeah. No. I mean, I hadn't even thought of it as the summer and...

The reason why I have tried to do it and it's failed is because they're exhausted and it's just too much for them. Okay, but also, can I be honest? Yeah. I would have to teach my kids how I want things put in the dishwasher. Because you have an order.

I do. I do. I do. We need a separate episode on that because I'm the person who throws everything in and doesn't know what the order is. What's your order? Well, I have a system, but I will tell you, Reena, I saw somewhere and this really resonated with me. In every family, there's one person who loads a dishwasher. dishwasher like a Swedish architect and somebody else who loads it like a raccoon on cocaine. I am a raccoon on cocaine. So anyway, but it also gets at something.

that I just, we have to be honest about handing stuff off to kids in my house can be hard because I am a pretty controlling person and I like it done a certain way. So sometimes the barrier to handing it off is me. And either I don't feel like I have the time to teach them the way I want it done or they're not going to get it done the way I want it done.

And the problem is me and me needing to think about what is the minimum viable solution to this that I will accept so that it gets done and I let it go. This message is sponsored by Greenlight. We've talked a lot about how this is the summer of independence and how to help make our kids more independent. Well... Helping them understand money is an important part of the process. That's why my family loves the Greenlight app. It's also a debit card and money app that's made for families.

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assuage my guilt for my mom who did everything and I didn't have to do anything until I got out to college. Like what's age appropriate? Can we walk through the list? We can, but before I do actually, I want to get to something else that's in that question, which is assuaging your guilt about having, okay.

Having my kids do the things. Like I feel a little guilty. This is the other reason. So there's, okay, one is it's good for us. Like we need fewer things to do. Like no question. The other is it's good for them. it is good for them to take responsibility for things that they can reasonably be expected to manage. And it's good for them on two fronts. One is

They should learn how to do these things. Like it actually is important for kids to know how to do their own laundry or to be able to make dinner one night a week or to help with, you know, stripping the beds and remaking beds. I mean, like those are just like, I'll come back to like age by age, but like those are just to get us started.

It's good for them to do it. And the other thing, and we've talked about this before, but this is like so big, kids need to feel counted on. Why is that so important? Why it's important is because we know that having a sense of purpose is important, right? We know that that's a really valuable thing, like to feel like...

I do things that are meaningful to me and meaningful to others. And that's like, we know that's like very, very tightly associated with mental health and wellbeing and all of these great things. The challenge with kids and especially younger kids. Purpose is like big. Purpose is like, how are you going to save the world, right? Which is not really doable or fair for a lot of kids.

What I love, love, love from my colleague, Andrew Fellini, who's at UCLA, who studies this, he's like, it's not about purpose, like change the world. It's about feeling counted on. That's where we really see. the value of kids doing things that are meaningful to others. And even if they complain and they hate it and they feel like they shouldn't be doing it, you still believe that them feeling counted on is...

something they're feeling and important to feel. It's valuable. It is valuable. And I think we should be ready for kids to be like, oh, come on, really? Like, we have to unload the dishwasher. Is she unloading the dishwasher? You know, like. And I think that the language we want to have on hand is to say, yes, you are an important member of this family. We are counting on you to keep this train on tracks.

To when one sibling says to the other, well, she's not doing it, why should I have to? Or dad's not doing it, so why should I have to? So I think you can say, first of all, everybody pitches in. And fair doesn't necessarily mean equal. Right. We're going to ask different things of you at different ages. You have different skills. You have different available time. Right. I mean, I think, you know, we don't we don't have to be some, you know.

perfect balance of everybody's doing the exact same work for the exact same amount of time. There's a lot of variables on the table. And I think we can also say, we are counting on you. You're a valuable member of this organization. That is why. I'm going to ask you to do it. And the key here, Rina, is utter, neutral, matter-of-fact tone, right? When a kid brings the heat of like, why are you asking me? You'd be like, dude, it's a Wednesday. This needs to get done.

thank you so much in advance. I really appreciate your help, right? That you can sort of push back in a gentle way by not taking the bait that this is somehow a controversial request.

Can you walk us through how we do this with the different age groups? Sure. Okay. So let me start with the older kids because you can ask them a lot, right? You can ask kids who drive to help with transporting younger siblings. You can ask them to run errands. You can ask them to be in charge of... meals, grocery shopping for a meal, making a meal at least one night a week. You can 100 billion percent have them be in charge of their laundry, no question. You can...

Here's a really good one, Reena. This is amazing. I am so impressed this person does this. I have a friend who has her college-age students manage their college bills, deal with the portal where they need to pay. The parents are helping with paying, but she leaves it to her college-age kids to actually log into the portal and deal with payment. Wow, I love that. I cannot ever imagine my kids being at a point to be able to do that. They don't do it alone.

There's a lot of phone calls. There's a lot of talking. There's a lot of back and forth. But I was like so impressed because first of all, it puts right in front of them how much this costs and what is at stake here financially to go to college. And it also just gets them used to the idea of like, this is your education. You know, it's getting paid for or you're helping pay for.

it. And you need to learn how to work with these big complicated portals on bills that need to be paid. You know, one thing I think I'm hearing from you is that you have to make time if you want your kids to be independent. you actually have to stop and make time and teach them and be prepared. It's going to go a little bit slower and not as efficiently as you like. That is the hard part, right? And that is where I will say I shoot myself in my own foot.

on a regular basis like it's just faster if i do it right i so we have to get past that so Making time – so for older kids, those are some of the things. I would say high school, middle school. What else do you think? You've got kids, high school, middle school. What do you think you could ask of them that you have not asked or put in front of them? There are basic things that –

I think that, you know, it's probably even younger years could do, but like taking out the trash and the recycling on the day it's supposed to go out, right? These are some basic things that we forget that... adds a big stress on my life of trying to remember that I don't want to take up the bandwidth in my head anymore to have to remember this. 100%, right? You could do caring for pets. You could do cleaning the bathrooms. You could do...

you know, being responsible for, you know, gardening duties, right? I mean, gardening's a big job and kids can perfectly well do gardening. Those are things you could absolutely ask of the sort of middle grades, you know, late elementary. And the middle grades, middle grades, late elementary, and even high school.

Should they all have daily tasks? Should there be, whether it's small or great, or do you think feeling the sense of accomplishment being counted on could be just doing it twice a week? I think it depends, yeah. I don't think it has to be like every single day you have to do a thing.

But there are things like caring for pets that have to be done every single day. So I think it's like looking at the – sort of surveying the landscape of what jobs need to be done to keep this household running and which of these can our kids do. And also I will say kind of back to the sort of high school, college age things, I have now said to my rising ninth grade daughter, I'm like, actually going forward, you are in charge of your haircuts.

You are in charge of making the appointment. You are in charge of giving them your text number so that they can remind you. I don't want to get your reminders anymore. And I said, if you go, I pay for it. If you miss the appointment, you're paying for it. Oh.

Wow. Which is not going to be fun. If that happens, it's not going to be fun for her. It's not going to be fun for me. I don't love it. This is where I get my hair cut too, so I don't feel great about my kid ghosting them on appointments. If she does miss an appointment, which I don't think she will, but it could happen. Think of the learning that she's going to get on...

why we don't miss appointments. And it's interesting because you've actually explained the rules to her. So if she disappoints you, you have taken the time to explain these are the parameters. This is what you need to do to get this done. And you will face the natural consequences of dropping this ball if you do. So I would say a lot of it also can be like handing stuff off to kids to do their own thing. Now, one thing I was thinking about, Rena, like, okay.

If my kid couldn't walk, right? If she couldn't walk. And maybe if she were older. I think there's another thing here around like kids taking more public transportation to get to things, right? And being more independent. And I will tell you. Every time I have asked my daughters to step up and do something more, they haven't been like, yay, thank you so much for asking me. But you can see their pride.

In the autonomy. Like you can see that there's pleasure in being like, oh yeah, I do that for myself now. So while they complain, you say deep down inside when it's achieved and accomplished, there is a sense of pride. I think it's like feeling good. So we all know sadly we're in the middle of a mental health crisis and parents have to navigate the risks associated with bringing their kids up in the digital age.

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off all summer long. Okay, thinking about littler kids. Okay, I probably, no, not probably. I definitely did not ask as much of my littler. my kids when they were little as I could. But one thing we did that has always been one of my favorite things is that when my younger daughter was like four years old, she was in charge of restocking the toilet paper in the bathrooms.

And we called it Toilet Paper Santa because she would put the Costco bag of toilet paper and go around the house and she would distribute the toilet paper to the bathrooms. And so when it was time, we'd be like, hey, Toilet Paper Santa. you need to make a visit right so that was something but you know younger kids can help with food preparation you know peeling string off beans they can definitely help with pet stuff

They can do rudimentary. Oh, they're good at folding laundry. Actually, younger kids are very good at folding laundry. It's a great thing. We dump all of our laundry under our bed and my husband yells, we've got foldies. And it's long. had been my younger daughter's job to fold our laundry. So what else could you think of? Wow, I think that list is pretty comprehensive, but I'm kind of curious, is there ever a point?

or an age where you're giving, like you said, the younger kids, they really shouldn't be doing a lot, right? How do you know when you- It could be. I probably didn't think of enough things for them to do. But how do you know if you've given them too much? to try and do, that it becomes overwhelming? Yeah, I think, I mean, one thing I would wonder is if it becomes a real point of friction, right?

I think there's some friction to be expected and we can use our cheery, matter of fact, of course you're going to do this. Thanks so much for asking more questions. But if it becomes a real point of friction, it may be too much for them. But I also think... There's something I learned when I was in my training about toddlers and handing things over to them that actually applies at all ages. And it's like a stage-wide process by which you hand things over.

So it's not like you say to a kid, okay, you're now in charge of this and you walk away. Because that may fail, right? They may not really know the steps. But Serena, when I was... 29, we moved to Cleveland and I was doing some training with this very, very esteemed psychoanalyst named Erna Furman, who was here. And she, her area was...

little children, toddlers. And what I learned from her is when you're handing a task over to a kid, there's actually steps. There's doing for, doing with, standing by to admire. and then letting them do it on their own, like independent from you.

So like, of course, here we're talking about things like tying shoes, right? First you do it for them. Then do you remember teaching your kids to tie their shoes? Total pain in the butt. These are moments in parenting when it flashes back. You're like, ah!

Exactly. It's getting the shoes on and getting out the door. People have forgotten that period of life. It is hard. It is hard. It is hard. And that was such a good example of like, oh my gosh, so much faster to do it ourselves. Or zipping their coats. Yes. Right? So much. faster, do it ourselves. But so doing for and then doing with. So making time, carving out the time, whether it's doing with teaching a kid how to make dinner, doing with.

Getting on the public bus with your kid before they have to do it alone and you take the ride together. Of course, this really requires time. It could be doing with like, let's do a round of laundry, doing with let's load the dishwasher together and I'll show you how I like it done, right? Okay, so there's first doing for, then there's doing with. Then there's standing by to admire where you just like.

Stand back and let them do it. They load the dishwasher, you cheer them on. They make dinner, you cheer them on. And then there's the point where you say like, oh, you know what? We need you to make dinner Wednesday night. We aren't getting home till seven. So whatever you put on the table, we're going to eat, right?

It moves towards independence. So to your question of like, how do you know if it's too much? You'll get feedback every step of the way. If when you're doing with it, like if the kid can't tie their shoes still. It's too early. It's too much, right? If the kid is, you know, like really struggling to figure out the bus while you're just, you know, maybe the second bus ride, you're just like, all right, you lead, I'll follow. And they really don't know what they're doing.

Then you walk it back. But it's that doing for, doing with, standing by to admire, letting them do it entirely on their own gives both the teaching that we have to do. and also gives a little bit of room for maybe realizing that we've overshot in terms of what we're asking of them. I like that. Doing for, doing with, and then standing by to admire. And I guess the first step would actually be, you got to make time in your schedule.

to do this, to have the patience, which is hard. The comment that I get often in my home when I ask something to be done is,

Okay, you're a slave reporting for duty, mom. Oh, interesting. Like that's how they view it, that I am like the taskmaster here, you know. So if you get pushback from your kids, how do you approach that?

Oh, man. Okay, for that comment, there's a few different things. You could be like, oh, would you like to learn more about slavery? We can do some reading about what that really involves, right? You could be like, that is not something you throw around lightly. Thank you. You bet. So that you could do that. And I think you'd be like, yep, you know.

This is how we're going to do it here. And, you know, other kids don't have to do this. Yep. Well, their families may not have the kind of high expectations I have of you, right? Like this is one of those things where. We are so within our rights. It is so important and valuable to ask kids to do more for themselves, to ask them to do more for the family. We're not asking, you know, ridiculous things.

We are asking in a kind way, right? I'm thinking about our recent episode with Gabor Mate and Gordon Newfield, right? Like that, you know, we don't tell our friends like, hey, set the table. Like, you know, we say to our kid, hey. It's time for you to set the table. Like you can be really gentle about it. And so then any pushback, like the way I would think about it, Reena, is doesn't really even warrant much engagement. The pushback is so like...

you know, reflexive in a kid, natural in a kid, it's their job, right? But by the time you're having a negotiation with your kid about whether or not it's fair for you to ask them to set the table, you're already on the wrong track. This is my problem.

I, everything's a negotiation. I've got to learn to shut it down, Lisa. Yeah. And you could just be like, yep, that's the expectation. I know you can do it. Thanks kid. Right. I mean, just like, that is a great response. Where were you five years ago? Just stay down the line. And you can do it with a twinkle in your eye and also reassure yourself your kid's going to feel good about it.

I like that. I like the teachable moments when they throw things in that they think are funny or offhanded, that it can be an education, a learning experience. Absolutely. Absolutely. Not to waste that opportunity.

Wow. Well, there is just a lot here. I'm so excited summer's here. I also want to ask you, what advice do you have for parents when everything goes off the rails in three weeks and we're like, when does school begin? Well, you know, there's no one who likes routines more than I do. And I also was thinking back to a previous episode we did about like how much structure should kids have in the summer. And, you know, our guidance there was a few unstructured weeks are fine. Yes.

But then it's actually pretty reasonable to start to reestablish routines, right? So it may be that, you know, two or three weeks where like, you know, cereal at midnight and, you know, lounging around and then, then, you know. You find a rhythm that is a little bit more productive than that. All right. Well, Lisa, I am so excited to get this insight and I'm going to try it. I am going to try this at my home and see.

where it goes. But I'm going to take you up on this about the summer of independence and how we can find ways. But I'm realizing I've got to find time in my schedule if I want to do this. That is the challenge. Get them off. So what do you have for us for a summer parenting to go? So one piece of advice I have is if you think you're going to run into resistance, which you might, bring choice into the matter. So you might survey all of the things that your kid could reasonably take over and...

Then say to them, here are the things I would like for you to start doing this summer. You know, and you might have dinner one night a week. You take charge of your dentist appointments, whatever. And say, I'd like for you to pick two or three of these that you're going to take over. You don't have to do them all. or for you to propose things that I'm not thinking of that would make sense for you to take over. Sometimes that...

Works especially well with teenagers who don't really like to be told, but to say, you know, we've come to the place where you can do much more for yourself, but I want you to decide what it is you're going to take over this summer.

that can actually move the ball forward more comfortably than just saying, I've decided from now on laundry is yours, right? Like that may or may not work with your kid. And if you know it's not going to go over as well as you wish it would, this is another option. I love this. And Lisa, next week, we're going to have Dr. Suvarma on to talk to us about practical optimism. She's got a great message. And I'll see you next week. I'll see you next week.

Thanks for joining us. Be sure to subscribe to the Ask Lisa podcast so you get the episodes just as soon as they drop. And send us your questions to asklisa at drlisademore.com. And now a word from our lawyers. The advice provided on this podcast does not constitute or serve as a substitute for professional psychological treatment, therapy, or other types of professional advice or intervention. If you have concerns about your child's wellbeing,

consult a physician or mental health professional. If you're looking for additional resources, check out Lisa's website at drlisademore.com.