Welcome to Pivot Parenting, where we help parents of teens overcome regret and disappointment to find peace and connection in every situation. I'm Heather Frazier, your parenting expert. Journey with me to discover effective parenting tips, improve family relationships, and build a brighter future for your kids.
Hey, happy new year. I had a lovely break. I hope you did too. I've gotten a lot of questions lately. From parents around their teenagers, like phone rules. Maybe their kid got a phone for Christmas or wanted a phone for Christmas curfew. Birthdays. And now they are a little bit older. And so their child is pushing for more rules. They want more freedom. They want to go do summer sales, but they are. 16 years old. Or 17 years older, fresh out of high school.
I like to enable you to understand principles so that you can apply them to your unique family situation. The things will be good. We look for a solution subconsciously that protects our kid. And gives them a happy. Secure future. That is the result that we all crave. So going into this episode, I want you to look for principals. That you can apply in information that can help you.
Right? Because that's inevitable. And I want to give you actionable tools to confidently navigate decisions. Around your child's desire for independence or maybe lack of desire for independence. It seems like very rarely kids are in the middle and they are like, yes, a little bit of freedom is good, but I know that I'm not ready for all of it. Usually they want all of it or they want none of it because they're so scared. And there's this push and pull between our kids need for independence or desire to stay dependent. And a parent's need for reassurance.
The third piece that I want to talk about. Our tools for finding balance.
If your child is developmentally healthy. They will push for independence. If they struggle with anxiety and fears and self-confidence and things like that, they're going to shy away from independence because they don't trust themselves. And so that's a really good indicator. If you've got kids who don't want independence. That's a great conversation to have with them and perhaps some professionals. Because that's something that will inhibit their growth and needs attention. Today, I'm mainly going to be focusing on. Teens who do crave freedom. Because there are two very different conversations and we don't have time for both. If you have a team that's really pushing you in one regard or the other, of course, please come and chat with me.
There they are a minor and they live at home. And so they can't, for example, gamble the deed of the house away because they don't have the deed of the house. They live rent free with you. And you feed them and provide all their basic necessities. So they are relatively safe to really mess up because they have a wonderful safety net of a family. And so it is the best space to learn how to harness independence. How much is too much how far they can push and in what direction, how to recover from failure and develop really healthy decision-making skills. It is developmentally healthy and normal for kids to push every single boundary in their life, because that is how they learn boundaries and what is okay.
And what is not okay with a safe and what is not. And so you have their brain. They have neurological blooms through adolescents where certain parts of their brain light up to grow and develop, and they take their turn doing this. And one of those is risk taking and decision-making. And so it's completely normal that all of a sudden, one day you have a kid that is just taking all these risks or wanting to do all kinds of crazy stuff.
Normal and healthy. It is the same. They go through this again in adolescents. Uh, where they, they might not tell you. Things that are going on because they don't want you to influence their decision. They want autonomy and freedom.
Parents also can read this as rebellious. But it really is. Your child just wants trust and competence, and they might hide things from you. Little freedoms that they're taking on their own. If they don't believe you trust them. If they don't think you would approve. And if they don't think that you would allow them the freedoms, oftentimes they will just take it.
This again. Is not necessarily rebellion, it's developmentally normal. And that doesn't mean that you can't have boundaries and rules and consequences. I always advocate for healthy rules and consequences. And having conversations with our kids. But this is a lot easier. When we aren't adding fuel to the fire of drama. A good example of this could be. Uh, teen asking for social media or more social media time. And one of my friends. Her daughter. They look a lot alike and her daughter's face will unlock her mother's phone. And she would give herself. Lots of screen time. And her mom had no idea because she could unlock her phone. And approve more screen time.
But it also means that your kid's pretty normal and they're developing as they should be. And again, follow up with rules and consequences. Have discussions. Talk about. Y.
And both parenting types that allow too much freedom, which is neglectful first and foremost, and then permissive parenting. These are the two parenting styles that usually provide teenagers with the worst life outcomes. Statistically speaking, according to the studies. So we want to have. Boundaries and rules and not give our children too much freedom through neglect or trying to win their friendship. But on the other hand, we've got two little freedom. Teens can feel very stifled and untrusted.
It can lead to them taking more independence than they would have normally through. Acts that can be rebellious sneaking around. And it can strain your relationship because they will cut you out and push you away. An example of this is a teen line about where they're going due to overly strict parents. Whereas, if you allow them the freedom to go, let's say you have a 13 year old and they want to go to a party. , with boys and girls. I know when I was in junior high boy, girl parties were a huge deal.
That's how you figure it out. Am I parenting from fear. Or my parenting logically. And we want to give our kids. Between one and 10% more freedom than we think that they can handle. We want them to go right up to the edge of failure. With the ability to fail most of the time, but just a little bit. So that they can learn where that edge is. So their readiness.
And you can evaluate this based on their history of responsibility and decision-making. And your parental intuition. Sometimes history is a good indicator and sometimes it is not.
30 minutes with me, my friend, you'll walk away with more confidence, clarity, and understanding of what the issue is and your next best step in resolving any Any situation you bring to me, it's completely free. I love families and want to help yours be wildly happy and successful. Book this call by visiting my website, heatherfraser.
And. Something that parents really have a hard time. Separating is trust. And love or respect. Trust is a choice we can choose to create trust or give trust or believe in trust. And still love and support our child. And it's completely separate. And so you want to allow freedoms.
As they handle that freedom. And trust can grow incrementally. Acknowledge when they follow through acknowledge when they fall through well and not very well or don't follow through. And that's the second. Tool is boundaries and expectations or rules and consequences. You want to make sure that they understand the rules and the consequences of where the line is and what will happen if they cross that line.
And it doesn't have to be dramatic. So I trust you or I'm giving you the freedom of a cell phone, for example, and here are the rules we don't send, send inappropriate pictures. Here are the things we can search in here. The things we do not search. You plug them in at night in, the shared space phones, don't go into bedrooms, whatever rules you feel comfortable having around that phone. And then if this is what happens, if you break that rule bummer, but you're going to lose your phone for X amount of time or privileges or whatever.
Third tool. Is communication. Communication in more stressful situations is always improved when communication during relaxing times. Is practiced. We want to engage with our children, not just when the stakes are high and emotions are wild. Play games have conversations with them, do things as a family, whatever that looks like for your schedule and availability. To have conversations, turn the music down when you're in the car and ask them questions . Connect with them.
We want to make sure that unconditional love is always the first response to everything that they say. Because our kids, they will test us. And maybe you even remember doing this as a child or teenager. You would say, oh, My friend, she wants to get a tattoo. As soon as she turns 18. And if you say, oh, tattoos are the worst and , blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Because maybe you're not a fan of tattoos. Well guess what?
And now we'll often close down or open up lines of communication and thus. Chances for freedom and independence with them. So communication is a huge one.
We can model for them and have conversations around risk and reward. Around fact checking and making sure that things that they are believing are accurate because in the world of the interweb, There are, there's a lot of misinformation. I remember. My daughter was in high school and there was a lot around legalizing marijuana at the time. And my daughter. Who was in her prime of being smarter than everyone in the room and knowing everything. Was citing off all these facts about marijuana legalization. And my husband just looked at her and said, that's great.
That a lot of it is misinformation. And so when we want to make decisions, when we are seeking freedom and independence, we need to make sure we have all the facts. And then we want to model decision-making for a child by sharing our thought processes. And when we make family decisions around rules. Like curfew or foams. Or exercise or whatever it is.
And those things are important, but what we really need to dwell on. Is connection. And making sure. That we have the relationship that we need with them. So that they can feel supported and trusted. Because then they are less likely to abuse, freedoms, and they are more likely to thrive in an independent environment.
the best way to immunize your child against misuse of their independence. Is to have a respectful relationship with them. Where communication is open. And it's a non-judgemental place. It's a loving place.
So asking more questions when you find something out, instead of saying, how could you, why would you what's going on here? Instead. Well, what were you planning? To happen around this or. Walk me through the decision-making process on how you justified getting, you know, a social media app. That you aren't allowed to have. Instead of reacting. We want to show them that their freedom isn't about you as a parent. Maintaining controller dominance over them. But it's about them developing and testing their limits in a safe space. And growing and developing into. A thriving. Adult at some point.
That is what independence is all about. It's the ability to mess up. Heather is the one, an expert in the field. She knows her parenting stuff, including how confusing it can be. You've tried it all, and it's a lost cause. Crying in the closet cause you failed at being a mom. But think again, there's peace around the corner. And there's hope in your hands Your kid just wants your love And you want it from them So take a pivot in the right step Through pivot parenting you can