Episode 212

Kyle Wester (26:35.79)
If you're a parent of a teenager or a preteen or your kids getting close to that age, I know you've had this moment where you say something that typically is just heard and agreed upon and all of a sudden they don't agree with it anymore and they have their own thoughts. And so today's episode, we're talking about something that can catch a lot of parents off guard because when your child starts disagreeing with you more, they start pushing back, they start questioning your decisions.

even challenging your values? man, that one's scary. It can feel a lot like disrespect. It can feel like the kid is being rude, but it can also feel like you're losing them. But what if that disagreement isn't something to shut down? What if it's actually one of the most important signs that your child is actually growing up, finding out their own voice, and this is something they actually want to do?

with you. So today we're going to dive into three ways to approach this when these moments happen that are going to shift these moments from moments that push you further from your kid and actually bring you closer together because these moments are about you and the kid learning each other better understanding each other and actually creating a dynamic that can last the rest of their life into adulthood when they're going to hopefully have their own thoughts ideas and values that they're wrestling with.

but not on their own. Instead, they're doing them with you. So before you dive into the episode, please take a moment to pause and rate, review, comment on this podcast. Of course, this is the currency of the podcast world. As you do this, more people find this episode. Please share this if you know parents are complaining about this, about their preteen and how they're disagreeing and talking back and all that kind of stuff. This is the episode to really help them. If you have kids in elementary school, this will help you get prepared.

for that time because you really want to do that time well because it really will define the relationship going forward in those adult years. And if you are listening to this as well and you're saying, hey, me and my co-parent are struggling with this, we've got a kid who's pre-teen, we want to learn how to approach this differently. We've gotten into some dysfunctional ways of doing this. Reach out to me at kyle at artofraisinghumans.com and I'd love to see if our coaching program will be a good fit for you and your family. So without further ado, here comes the episode.

Kyle Wester (00:01.39)
Hello and welcome to the Art of Raising Humans. I'm Kyle. Hi everyone, I'm Sarah. And this is where we help you parent with more clarity, connection and confidence. We're trying out that new tagline, I like that. Yeah. I like that. Yeah, we feel like it's a good... We want to be confident. we definitely want connections, a big cornerstone for us. Yep. We're definitely determined to have connected kids and carry that into their And there's a lot of noise out there about how to parent and we're trying to just make it more clear.

Right? Exactly. Cause we weed through all the things. Seriously guys, we're always weeding through all the parenting stuff. So we're trying to do that and then we're using this in real life. This is real for us. We have kids, we're doing this all the time and yeah. we know this episode, working with parents all the time. Yeah. We know this episode is dropping around summertime. Summer's about to start. And so we're trying to think of what's all the little like things that parents might run into. And one of them that we thought of was your teenager disagreeing with you.

It might even be a tween. Okay. Yes, that's true. Yes. I mean, I know teen is kind of the focus on. you're right. parents will say like a 10 year old is like, they're starting to get in the adolescent years. That brain shift starts to happen. You're like, wait, what happened to my kid here? Yeah. So today we want to talk about why do teens start disagreeing with us and what's happening in their brain during the stage? Why can it feel so triggering for parents? It really does upset.

And how to respond in a way that keeps connection strong while still guiding your child towards wisdom and responsibility. Okay. Not to spoil anything, but it actually is a good sign. Oh, wow. Really? Okay. That's good to know. kind of want them little disagreeing with us. Okay. Well, now why does this matter, Sarah? You know, I mean, I think, I think it's kind of, you know, parents get kind of scared that this moment is going to start leading to something very scary.

Okay, so it starts to feel, this fear will come up, oh no, they're reaching those years where they start talking back more, they start disagreeing more. I this down right now or I'm gonna have a really horrible kid on Well, and you might think thoughts like, where's this coming from? Why are they arguing and disagreeing with everything I say? Are they losing respect for me? Do they not care what I have to say anymore? Yeah, you feel like you're losing your kid and I think there's a little confusion because they're not the little kid that you've had all these years.

Kyle Wester (02:26.926)
and there's a shift in there and a little part of you kind of panics, you know, it's, and, then you're kind of sad. You're like, where's my little kid? We didn't do this. You just say yes, mom and dad. That's a great idea. Your best little buddy. And then, and the shift they used to think you were so smart. I used to think everything you said was exactly correct. Yeah. It's a hardship. Yeah. So it can start, it can feel like a disagreement. Um, that disagreement you're having with the kid is the beginning of years of disconnection.

So parents often respond by, if you're looking on the video, which if you're not looking at us on YouTube, you should check us out on YouTube, but on YouTube, they start to grip, start tightening their control, shutting it down quickly, correcting harder, getting more upset, pulling rank, like I'm boss, you need to listen to me and you do what I'm saying. But what if that reaction is actually what creates the very distance we're afraid of?

What if the very thing that we're afraid is gonna happen, we're complicit in making it happen? Unbeknownst to us. It's not our intention. We think we're gonna come in here and this is what you need to do. Well intentioned, other people might even say, well, you've gotta do this now. Yeah. Yeah, you gotta come down to heavy. You gotta really come down on that quick. And a lot of parents do that because that's what fear tells you to do, Sarah. Fear says when you get scared, you're losing control, get more control. Yeah. So start with a deep breath. It's okay. Yeah.

Well, let's talk about what's actually happening. Because I think a lot of it for me, what helps me a lot, and when I'm coaching parents, Sarah, I think it really helps them to know, oh, this is actually really normal and actually really healthy, really good. Yes, this is a good sign to understand why we want, what we're looking for, what's healthy about this. Yeah, so just so know, your teenager's brain is built for this stage. During adolescence, the brain is going through a massive restructuring. I think Dr. Siegel.

in his book, Brainstorm, he calls it like a really big pruning time. So it's especially in areas related to identity, you know, basically, who am I, decision making, you know, what am I, what am I doing day to day, and independence, you know, what do I want to do with my life? You know, what kind of life do I want to create separate from you? And so this is where Dan Siegel talks about individual, individual, individuation. It's a big word. Individuation.

Kyle Wester (04:51.81)
which basically means like they're they're individuating from you they're separating from you and so that they're needing to do that so they can start becoming a separate thinking individual yeah so that's where the this is a really good thing comes in because your your child and it's not like they turn 12 and they go okay time for me to individuate you know this is something that their brain automatically it's just part of a developmental stage your brain goes into this

autopilot, it's not something they're controlling. And their brain has to go, huh, who am I? Because they've been so wrapped up in you, you know, when when a baby is first born, they're not even sure they are a separate person. Yeah. And so the whole growing up process, this hits a new level at this stage where they're going, I'm an individual, who am I? Because I've always been wrapped up with you. So they're trying on different things. They're trying out different things. And their brain is cycling through what about this? And what about that? And

And it's doing it automatically. So it's not something we can try to punish out of that. It's not, we're working against a biological. It's like trying to keep them from growing taller. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And that word's a big one. Individuation. You said it really quick. Um, so for parents like individuation, say that three times fast, cause then I'm going to throw another one. I'm going to throw another one at you as we're, as we're kind of like sharing some of Dr. Segal's research on this. Another big word is great brain is differentiation.

So disagreement is not the kid defying you, but it's just differentiation. It's the kid saying, I'm not you. Like I don't see it the same way as you do. And that's really good because I know as much as we want it to be easy sometimes with our kids, none of us wants to grow little mini-me's. You don't want to have little robots running around because you know what that leads to is adults who don't know who they are, adults who don't know how to think for themselves. So you actually want them to do this, individuate with you and also be aware of the differentiation.

Because they're developing their own thinking. It's not about rejecting yours. It's about developing their own and your child is starting to ask really important questions. And I know if you remember about being a teenager, you were asking the same ones. What do I believe? Do I agree with this? Who am I separate from my parents? And the only way they can figure that out is to test it. You know, is to speak it out loud to try it. Okay, so that testing.

Kyle Wester (07:16.136)
often comes into or exhibits or starts to manifest itself as arguing, as questioning and pushing back. Yeah, and that scares us. It does. Yeah. Yeah. And if we just reframe and we go, this is what's going on. They're trying out different things. They're questioning things because you know, when you get to be an adult and you go out in the world, you want to know yourself. You've met those 20 years. You might've been.

20 year olds, 30 year olds who are still figuring out who am I? Why do I believe this or think this or want this or how am I gonna show up? Am I a person of integrity? And we've gotta work through that, we've gotta own it for ourselves at some point in life and it starts in their teenage years and we wanna support that natural growth. And we wanna be there on that journey. We do, we do. But I think the scary parts are it can feel like rejection of you. Very much. And sometimes it even sounds like.

Like they might even say I'm rejecting you. like that's the power of when I think of it as differentiation. I've got to understand that my teenager's words, thoughts, actions, feelings, all those things tell me about my teenager. They're not about me. And if we can stop taking it personal, then I can sit back and like witness what they're going through, what they're thinking, and they're sharing it with you because they actually want to work through it with you.

Not because they just want to vomit it on you and just disagree with you, but they actually are, say, I want you to be a part of this, you know, otherwise I just won't talk to you. You know, like I want to share this with you so you can help me with this. And we've got to realize at this age, their emotional brain is louder than their logical brain. The emotional centers of their brain are highly active while the reasoning part of the brain is still developing. So disagreement can come out as strong as reactive or poorly worded, you know?

Or in some cases, parents might think disrespectful or rude. Yep. So that's just really important. I love that point where we have to remember their emotions are riding high and the logic part that would go, oh, calm down. This is how you could word that. Maybe think about it this way. That stuff is still growing. It's still coming along. So you see that other part in that's so triggering, right? As a parent, it's so triggering when your teenager comes at you like that.

Kyle Wester (09:32.086)
Yeah, and but just to go their emotional part of their brain is it's really working right now and they're working on to discovering who they are and and defining that that's why they're appearing like this to me Yeah, that's what they're showing up. Well, dr. Tina Payne Bryson says it this way This is why connection has to come before correction because they can't access logic when they feel shut down or misunderstood So that's a fantastic quote

But why is this so hard for us as parents? When the kids start doing this, how come it's so hard for us to just do what Tina's talking about there? Well, because it triggers our fear of losing influence. And that is really scary. We're afraid, we remember being kids and how our parents were so afraid that our friends and our peers had more influence on us than they did. So when your child disagrees with you, it can start to feel like they're saying, I'm not gonna listen to you anymore. It can feel like.

They're going to start making bad choices and it can I think maybe sometimes they make a bad But it can feel like I'm losing control of the situation and it can definitely the in the deepest part of us that disagreement feels like a threat to our Like our authority and I'm saying authority but it's kind of like our role as their parent It feels like a threat to that like no longer like what's my role?

I mean, if you're not gonna listen to my direction, if someone's like, what am I here for? Yeah, and then like now you're gonna listen to me. We all been there. We know, once again, we did this with kids too. You're gonna listen to that coach more than me, or you're gonna listen to that other friend or that girlfriend or boyfriend. They don't know anything. Like what are you talking about? But it's like that can really be an attack on our authority and our influence. Very very much. It's very threatening. So what we tend to do, like I said, we tend to grip, we move towards controlling.

We try to shut it down and we say things like don't talk to me like that or because I said so End of discussion. We're not talking about this anymore And we can escalate and I know this may be my thing but more than more than your Sarah more lectures People start trying to give more consequences make more rules And more correction and it seems like you know when I'm talking these teenagers Sarah, it's like every conversation is a new criticism

Kyle Wester (11:50.708)
or a new, know, like they're not even having fun with their parents anymore. It's no longer laughing because every time they're alone with them or in the car with them, it's a time for correcting. Yeah. Yeah. And I think parents, the minutes are short, right? With your teen, you don't have a lot of time. So it almost amplifies an already hard situation because you feel like you've got to fit it in. You know, I don't have many years left. I got to guide them. I need to control the situation or it's going to go off the rails and they're heading to college. And so all those things together, it's a perfect storm.

and you risk connection with your teen, especially as they go into their adult years. Well, and we've got to realize that control doesn't build influence. It often replaces it. As you start to control, the kid just starts to pull away and feels like that's the influence that you're there to give is just try to control them, is just try to stop them. And really, think for the kids, when I talk to them, Sarah, they just start to realize, one, that the parent doesn't trust them, doesn't trust them to be able to succeed on their own as an adult.

and all that control and fear gets into the kid and the kid stops trusting themselves. And they start to feel really anxious about going into adulthood because like, mom and dad seem really scared about this whole process, right? And they want to hide from you. like you don't believe in, you know, then if I do mess up, I don't want to tell you. Well, and so we want to reframe how we're seeing these moments. And one reframe is just keeping in your mind that your child doesn't need to agree with you to stay connected to you.

I mean, there's lots of things, even in our many years of marriage, Sarah, there's some things we don't agree upon, but we still connect on it. We still have to stay connected. Our disagreements don't have to make us disconnect. And it's the same with the kids. As the kids go into adulthood, there's gonna things they're gonna think differently about, possibly about faith, about politics, about their careers, about even who they're dating, those kind of things. There's gonna be disagreements on those, but you disconnecting over those actually is the very thing that causes you to have no influence.

Okay, so the goal isn't agreement, the goal is relationship. Because long-term influence doesn't come from getting your child to comply or agree with you, it comes from staying someone that they trust, that they respect, and that they can always come back to. And that goes- I was just gonna say, that's just really important to me. I think that long-term relationship and connection, I don't know any other adult, which my child's going to be.

Kyle Wester (14:14.86)
that I'm a hundred percent always in agreement with. And so there's no way my child's gonna become an adult that is exactly the way I shaped and molded them. They're gonna have some differences. So I just try to get my brain there now as we move into that next stage. Yeah. Yeah. And so here's three steps that could really help you just see that whole process of your kid individuating and seeing that differentiation.

in a different way. So number one, stay calm when they disagree. Your reaction teaches them how safe it is to think differently than you. And I know this is one I've had to work on a lot because so often I am, I am a really kind of shoot from the hip kind of guy. So if, if one of my kids comes out of nowhere with like, what do you think about this? And I just have a quick reaction to it. I don't spend a moment to stop. And I've learned my teenagers, we've got two at this point have taught me that I need to like be a little bit more

circumspect, a little bit more intentional about how I respond to what they're saying, because they're reading so much into it. Way more than I wanted them to. I just feel like I'm just expressing an opinion, but they take it, and I hear this from kids, I mean hear this all the time, and when I'm helping teenagers, parents don't know this, but they'll be like, my kid isn't talking to me that much anymore, and when I talk to the kid, they'll be like, well two years ago, when I brought up this subject, my mom freaked out, or my dad got really mad.

And I learned they don't want to talk about that. Yeah. Kids are so fine. So tuned into our reactions, our emotions and stuff. And then they just think, okay, that's not something you want me. Okay. I'll just talk that over here and keep it away from you. Yeah. And then we think it got all resolved. But it's really, they just- gone. No, it's just tucked away. So if disagreement does lead to anger or to somebody shutting down, your child learns, I don't think I can be honest about

You know, I can't really talk about that with you. So either they just stop talking or they just push harder. So practically, here's some ways to do this better. It's just pause before responding. Just get into the habit of not reacting instead, but taking a moment, take a deep breath to really think about, oh, what's this moment about? Is this a moment of me just expressing my opinion or is this a moment where I just need to really understand what they're asking? Is this, know, how do I stay open-handed instead of close-fisted on this?

Kyle Wester (16:41.518)
Also lower your tone like if you tend to be a person gets loud like I can be lower your tone because they're reading into every little piece to see how safe is it to disagree with you on this and then the other one is just don't match intensity if they start to increase in intensity you keep yours low because you're wanting to bring them back down because they're they're probably getting intense thinking that This is where it's gonna go that you're probably gonna escalate with them, you know, so your calm tells your child

you're allowed to think and we're still okay. So you're allowed to think differently than me. We don't need to agree and we can still be okay. Yeah. And I think I want to add one in there. There are those topics where you think, okay, Ooh, that was kind of triggering to me or that kind of, and, so you, maybe you step away, but we have those topics that for us have a lot of history or a lot of something to them.

and you find yourself always escalating. That's probably some work, like step aside, go talk to a friend, a counselor, somebody to work through that. Cause I know sometimes we just have really sensitive areas. And so when our kid pushes in those areas, it's really, really hard. And we might need to do some external work before we re-engage that conversation with our kid. Yeah, that's great. Okay. So number one, stay calm when they disagree, make sure you're conscious of your reaction. Number two, get curious.

Instead of getting defensive most parents respond to disagreement quickly by correcting by trying to tell no That's not on that's not what we do. You know, that's not how we think about that But instead we want to be curious because that's gonna keep connection open this one parent I was been helping coach. She's a great mom She says what she does in these moments. It says be calm be curious become me curious since he just like keeps telling herself this and and so practically this will help

help me understand what my child is thinking. So whenever I'm able to be calm, be curious, I can help them understand and then I'm just gonna, if you really wanna influence those thoughts, it's better to understand where they're coming from, you know, because otherwise you might be trying to convince them of something that they don't need to be convinced of, right? Also, maybe say something like, tell me more about that. Or you could say, what led you to that conclusion? You know, that's a good one. Or maybe you're not agreeing, just think about this, you're not agreeing, you're creating space for them

Kyle Wester (19:05.25)
to kind of think out loud, to kind of process it with you. I mean, this is Sarah, what discipleship is to me. As our kids have been in teenage years and I think about discipling my kids, it went from like, hey, do it this way, or hey, follow me, to like, how come you're going that way? Or what is it you're checking out over there? And it kind of changes, your role changes from managing their life to now coming along and being a consultant, you being there to kind of help them work through Well, I'm just helping with that critical thinking and reasoning and.

helping them pull things apart. You wanna build that skill. You don't wanna just serve everything up on a platter. Yeah, and so curiosity at its core, it will keep the conversation going. It helps that keep that door open, whereas your defensiveness is gonna shut it down. So our reactions is gonna make that door close pretty quick, and it'll be hard to get that door open again. Okay, so number three is we wanna shift from controlling the outcome to start coaching the thinking.

So your job is no longer to make every decision for them. Like I was saying, we're no longer managing their lives. It is to help them learn how to think through decisions like you were just discussing. So you might ask questions like this. What do you think might happen if? How do you wanna handle that? What matters most to you in this situation? And so just thinking of maybe your own curious questions like that to inspire some reflection. Because you're wanting them also not to react in these moments.

but to really also pause and reflect and think. You're not trying to raise someone who just agrees with you. You're trying to raise someone who can think and also knows how to think, you know, knows how to make healthy choices in their life. Yeah. And if they learn how to have these conversations with you, they'll have them with other significant people in their life. Like, hey, I need to kind of work through this thought I'm having. And that's great, right? Yeah. Well, also, yeah, they won't even expect their friends to just

tell them what to do. They'll want friends who help them to think through it. Too often that's what happens when you have kind of controlling dynamics in your home, then the kid will end up connecting with other people who are controlling. And they'll just... they know, what they're used to. Because they don't trust their own ability to make decisions or make choices. They trust other people to do it for them.

Kyle Wester (21:16.366)
because a lot of times in those fearful controlling moments, the parent has basically insinuated that the kid can't make choices. All the choices they make are bad ones or they're always being- You can't be trusted. Exactly. So then they're like, I need to trust other people. And that's not what you want. You want your kid being able to seek out help and look for resources from other people. But the goal is for them to reflect and be able to really think about their choices. So if your team is disagreeing more, I want you to know and just be reassured, it doesn't mean you are losing them.

It is actually very healthy and you want your team doing it. I'm not saying I always like it when our teenagers do it, but I definitely, once I'm calm and I've thought about it, I'm actually very glad that they feel the freedom to disagree with me. You I'm actually thinking, Sarah, I remember when we were doing some parenting training one time at a church small group and Abby was maybe four or five, maybe somewhere in there. And we were talking about not yelling at your kids or whatever. And Abby just said,

Dad, can I say something? And then she was, because our kids were there as we were doing this training, and she walked out in front and started telling them, my dad just yesterday yelled at me and started telling these people about how, kind of calling me out. And I remember thinking it was interesting that she said all that and never looked back at me. She didn't wonder if I would be upset. She thought it was okay for me to share this. Dad doesn't need me to say everything's great. Our home is perfect. She was willing.

to almost like disagree with me in a sense of like, here's dad saying we should, and he's not even doing this all the time. And I was so happy that she felt that because I didn't want her to feel like we needed to ever be fake or act like we agree or think the same on everything just for other people's attention. I love the questions that you were listing. Those are just some jumping off thoughts for you guys to build on. But what's really fun is when we're in that space and you really start asking and,

and you're calm because your kids can feel it when it's got a hidden agenda to it. But when you just move into that curious space, their answers are amazing. it's such a great, you just have this insight into your child and who they are and how they think and the conversations that come from that can be so fun. that's just a little add on. If you can move into that space, it's really when you don't take that as a threat to you that they disagree, but just as a space to deepen your relationship.

Kyle Wester (23:39.352)
Yes, so hopefully like an inspiring thought for you is think of this, when your kid is disagreeing with you, when they are sometimes coming back with different ideas and different thoughts, instead of being scared that they're rejecting you, that you have no longer of influence, reframe it this way, that it may actually mean they are beginning to trust their own voice, their own thoughts. And your role now is to help shape that voice, not,

silence it. And that's too often the mistakes that we can make as parents when we get scared. But many, many other teenagers, they are telling me they want to talk to you. They want to discuss these things, but they just feel like it's not welcome. It's not wanted. So the goal here isn't to raise a child who always agrees with you. I hope every listener here agrees with that. It's to raise a child who can do these three things. They can think clearly. They know how to speak respectfully.

and they can stay connected even when they see things differently. And the way we respond when they disagree will shape whether they keep coming to us or they start just figuring it out without us. And then they go on this like really lonely journey where they're just grabbing TikTok and Instagram and like finding their answers there. And I'm telling you, that's not what you want for your kids, then please follow the steps we just talked about, because we do not want kids.

who are getting all their decisions from TikTok and Instagram, or just whoever that they're talking to. We really do, Sarah and I really do believe you are an important part of that, and your kid does too, and your kid actually wants that input. Because they're not idiots, they know you know stuff, and they know you know stuff about them, and they wanna be able to talk to you about that, but if they can't, if they don't feel like it's safe, they just won't. So if you have a teen at home, a pre-teen, whatever age they are, if you have a kid at home who's disagreeing with you,

I hope this podcast today really helped you feel empowered, feel less afraid. You don't need to control them. Just be curious. Just, just come in with open hands because they want to do this, this with you. And so we want to thank you so much for listening today and we hope you have a great week.