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.
So I have a, , preteen almost teen boy that, I mean, of course he's wonderful and, but he, I don't know, I guess what is normal for Teen Boy and what is bad behavior, or could be better. There's a lot of lack of responsibility. That, and, and a lot of it is forgetfulness, I think.
I think that's also where I don't know what is boy, what is teen and just doesn't think through the consequences, doesn't think through. If I say this, it might be hurtful, or if I do this, somebody might get offended. That happens a lot. And he is very quick to apologize and there's a lot of apology that happens.
And I think he doesn't know how to handle that well. He's very, very likable. He is very liked. I think that some of these older boys don't like that 'cause he can kind of do whatever he wants and people still like them. The girls still like him, but he's kind of gotten to where he kind of just pushes back a little too much where it can kind of seem like just meanness and he thinks it's, it's funnier.
I mean, he's, he's really tough and he is really strong and he is brave, so I think he doesn't realize. Sometimes not everybody wants to, to joke around the same way or wrestle and, things like that.
Go do your science work. And a lot of times he'll tell me he does. And so he goes and he'll kind of sit and look at it, but not actually do it. And then it'll be Monday night is the night before we have co-op and he is like, oh, I didn't get all this done. I need help writing my paper. I need help doing this when he's had a week to do it.
Okay. So tell me, did he do it? Has he done it this week? See, it's toward the end of the week. Is this happening this week?
He struggles with math. He does have dyslexia. And so he, there's things that he struggles with, but he doesn't wanna ask for help because he thinks it takes longer and he doesn't wanna watch the lecture because he thinks it takes longer. And, , and so he's, he's doing those things. , and then his science work, if he doesn't fully understand it, then he doesn't ask for help until Monday. what happened Monday night? Yes. Okay. means what?
I don't need help. , And then come Monday, then he realized that he either forgot something or that he needs help. And he doesn't ask me until Monday. So he has this opportunity to ask the whole week before, but he waits till Monday night because he realizes he didn't actually get it done.
I think 'cause it's bedtime and he is asking at a time that. Trying to get all the other kids their stuff together and it's time for his bedtime, but then he doesn't go to bed because he realized he still has homework. I think it would've just been like care for him, wanting him to be able to have it to turn in.
Okay, so you're trying to problem solve in your head? Yes. Okay. If he had had everything ready and he put his snacks in his bag and all his schoolwork stuff and he is like, Hey, I am ready for bed, and it was all done. What would you have done in that situation that you couldn't do or wouldn't do?
I still do that with all the kids, but then it pushes me to going to bed later, which then I feel like is the ripple effect of. Going to bed's too late. And it's a lot of times the other kids, will, will go into their room. My husband does the same thing. Goes and each of their rooms. Yeah. And talks to them for a little bit.
No. Well, no, because I, I am spending it with the kids. So then I usually go to bed after I've gone to each of their rooms, and so the time kind of spent with, instead of us having to go over stuff that could have already been done, we could be kind of having this calm bedtime instead of this, he's stressed because he didn't get it done, so then I'm frustrated because he had the opportunity to get it done.
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 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, heather frazier.com. Mm-hmm. Has there been anything else that you've wanted to implement but that you just haven't or, , any other thoughts or feelings around that? , I think
Okay. Alright. here's What I've got for you and you tell me what you think and then we'll kind of do a deep dive when we have it dialed in perfectly for you. Mm-hmm. Is that fair? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Which is really frustrating. Yeah. When we look at people, I'm like, no, you're not listening. You're doing it wrong. You're doing it poorly. You're not doing it at all, and you should be like, it's frustrating.
You're doing all the things. Mm-hmm. , which isn't easy when you've got five kids. You're cleaning up, you're putting the kid, the other kids to bed, but in your head you're spinning out about how you have a bad bedtime routine, and yet you say you've never tried to tweak it or like alter it or like fiddle with it.
Oh my goodness. You're playing into the title so perfectly. We have to. This is the pivot. Okay, so, but you haven't really tried anything to alter, so your judgments about him needing to do things differently is manifesting in real time for you, like you are not doing anything differently either.
right? If he would listen, if he would actually do it on time. And so you're putting. Essentially the family schedule and your peace of mind on your son who like, can't even do his homework on time. Yeah. Mm-hmm. What do you think about that?
And I think that he's realizing that yes, he makes mistakes and that's where the apologies come in. But then there's never the let's do something different. And so we do a lot of talking about that, like that's make the mistakes, like get your homework done. It doesn't have to be perfect. Make the mistakes, but let's do it.
Everything will work out. And you're right, it would. But that feeling from stuckness. Mm-hmm. That is because you need somebody else to play along to get what you want and they're not playing along. Yeah. Sun doesn't wanna do it your way. Yes. He's doing it his way. And then you're frustrated by that, which makes you less helpful. So, I love that you bring this up because you are. This is a really common thought error for parents, and so this is a beautiful thing to highlight.
And they watch and they know, they know exactly all 10 steps and it's when they're, when it's their turn to clean the bathroom, they know the 10 steps. Even if they don't do them, they know them. You've shown them every week, and you make them go back and fix step number five and six that they skipped.
Mm-hmm. Okay, so allowing him space to be his normal and loving him and allowing him to do his song and dance and not thinking that he should be doing it differently. If you could genuinely believe that, what would Monday night have looked? What would've been different for you? Yeah, this is what he does every Monday night and it's not a problem, and so I can adjust in these ways.
There's a big piece of you that's like, I gotta get him to stop. Right. I was trying to think, he needs to figure it out. How can I get it to click for him so that he'll knock it off?
Right? Like rocket science. Unless he's like a kid genius, right? Mm-hmm. And then somewhere between like stupid easy, like one plus one and rocket science. Mm-hmm. You've got a line of kind of where his threshold is. Mm-hmm. Do you get a sense for where that is for him? Yes. Okay. And this can go, this can go for everything, like as far as getting himself organized, managing his time, doing his math.
Okay. What we wanna do is, most of the time, not every time, because. If that would be insufferable for everyone, a good deal of the time. We want to push them like one to 5% into what is impossible. What is like, okay. Okay. Because we want to build resilience. We want them to fail so that they can see that it's not a problem and how to recover. And then you really believing that failure is not a problem.
I guess because other people are affected or I don't know the consequences. , that's, , that's what I'm even trying to figure out and maybe just even making it okay for myself so I can make it okay for them.
Yeah. But as long as we are believing it's not okay. That, you know, we've done something bad or that our kid lied to us, or that they're going to not pass their school grade or whatever, right? Mm-hmm. That they suck at time management. Mm-hmm. When we believe that that's not okay, does believing that help us to be more helpful?
Like we really want to look at belief systems. Make sure that they actually aren't keeping us stuck, aren't keeping us in like a pattern of self-loathing, which it sounds like your son's already kind of adopting if he mm-hmm. Shuts down because it's too hard. 'cause then he'll fail and then that means he's really bad and maybe stupid or lazy and he doesn't wanna think that about himself, but it's too late.
We definitely want to have rules and consequences, and these become fewer and fewer the older our kids get. Mm-hmm. Right. So like my kids in their twenties, I don't have a lot of rules and consequences for them. Yeah. As opposed to, you know, my 14-year-old, like there are more rules and different things like that because, so, and then it depends on each kid's personality, , and.
You know your children the best, and you can come up with ways to encourage. But I want to warn you that rules and consequences aren't to manage their behavior. I. Mm-hmm. Rules and consequences are so that you know that you're teaching and mentoring and loving and keeping people safe as best you can, because every rule you throw down is probably gonna be broken.
What are our takeaways? What would you like to do differently if you didn't like this consequence? You have conversations around it and he'll probably repeat it like a thousand times, but when you're okay with that and you understand that's just the learning process. Then you don't have that frustration because you're like, yeah, I have rules and consequences and systems in place for me to be comfortable with him not changing.
Now that you have two different age groups or like, there's a million ways you can slice it, but you're, but you're unable to think of that when you're like, why isn't this working? Yeah. Yeah. It's like hitting our head against a wall, expecting the wall to disappear. No. Mm-hmm. Yeah, no problem. Alright. I guess we'll talk to you in a few weeks.