To the person who recommended the book, "Yes Your Teen is Crazy!"

[Anonymous]

Oh my gosh, I recommended this book here too. But that was about 6 months ago, maybe even a year ago, so I can't take credit for these recent discoveries. It helped us a lot!

[Anonymous]

Just ordered it

[Anonymous]

Amazon is going to wonder about all the crazy teens in the DC area. Just hope we don't create surge pricing on each other. Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Shoot, I think this also might explain my 6 year old.

Yes, I think this approach is good advice for all parents.

Here's the thing: most of us labor under the delusion that we can control our children. The truth is, we can't, any more than we can control any other person. Sure, when they're little, it feels like control, because they are little enough to be physically moved from situations we don't want them in, and they rely on us so much that we have lots of tools for manipulation. (Larla can't go to the playground without you, so you can use that carrot to get her to pick up her toys, etc.) And young children often want very much to please the people they love best.

But when they are bigger than you, and when they need you for relatively little, and when they are going through the important separation base where they are less interested in pleasing you, a lot of the tricks parents relied on don't work anymore. And that's why so many parents feel angry and helpless in dealing with their teens.

And when you have a more difficult younger child (like perhaps this 6-year old, or my DC1) you figure out how little control you have earlier than the teen years. These techniques often work well for those kids, too.

[Anonymous]

Parent of a 9th grader here. I also found this book incredibly helpful. I think I was so angry about my child's abruptly changing personality that I couldn't even see straight. I just had the awful feeling that everything I had worked to create (a solid kid, a safe and loving household) was crumbling to pieces. Understanding what was behind it and having specific examples of ways that I could 1) react differently to provocations and 2) attempt to create a better family climate REALLY helped. I'm not much of a "parenting book person," but I can't recommend this particular one highly enough. FWIW, it's also available at the DC public library.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Now. Call your moms and dads and apologize. You too were a teen once!

I went to boarding school. Personal choice, and it made my relationship with my mother soooooooo much stronger

[Anonymous]

It's very difficult to attend to the positive things that my kids do because when they are reading, playing together, etc., I'm just so happy to get a break and so I don't acknowledge that behavior. Then, when all hell breaks loose, as it always does, I swoop in to say stop fighting, etc. So all they heard was me attending to the negative things that they were doing and they learned that negative things get attention. It is an extremely difficult habit to break and is not something that comes naturally to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Amazon is going to wonder about all the crazy teens in the DC area. Just hope we don't create surge pricing on each other. Thanks.

True- I already placed my order. (got it used for about $4.00

[Anonymous]

Going to buy mine now.

I confess to crying my eyes out a few months ago because suddenly everything was going wrong. Great kid to nightmare teen seemingly overnight.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's very difficult to attend to the positive things that my kids do because when they are reading, playing together, etc., I'm just so happy to get a break and so I don't acknowledge that behavior. Then, when all hell breaks loose, as it always does, I swoop in to say stop fighting, etc. So all they heard was me attending to the negative things that they were doing and they learned that negative things get attention. It is an extremely difficult habit to break and is not something that comes naturally to me.

I have a younger child, but this is a really good reminder for me too.

[Anonymous]

Such a good book! I'll be navigating through it multiple times over the next decade.

RE: the poster who said it might explain her six year old... The author talks about the "six or sixteen syndrome", in which a teen wants to be treated like an adult, but still has a lot of child like behaviors, confusing the parents. There are so many take aways and strategies!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's very difficult to attend to the positive things that my kids do because when they are reading, playing together, etc., I'm just so happy to get a break and so I don't acknowledge that behavior. Then, when all hell breaks loose, as it always does, I swoop in to say stop fighting, etc. So all they heard was me attending to the negative things that they were doing and they learned that negative things get attention. It is an extremely difficult habit to break and is not something that comes naturally to me.

I have a younger child, but this is a really good reminder for me too.

Interestingly, this is exactly the pattern of problematic parenting that is described by Kazdin in his work on dealing with difficult children. He talks about parents needing to "catch" their children being good, as opposed to always attending to them when they are misbehaving. It is a difficult habit to break, for sure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Shoot, I think this also might explain my 6 year old.

Guess what? Your 6-7 year old is getting his/her first wash of hormones!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. The idea that the teen brain craves stimulation, and it will take either positive or negative stimulation to get its need met.

So, praising works to fulfill that need, but you getting mad at them and having a big brew-ha-ha also fills that stimulation need--both parental responses help hardwire the teen's prior behavior into their system because both rewards their brain.

So the trick is, when they do something you don't like, to give them zero stimulation rather than getting upset with them. Zero brain stimulation is the only way to avoid the hard-wiring of the behavior, or to lessen the effect of previously hard-wired behavior. (Meaning, you give no drama).

So if you say, "Stop doing X" and teen says, "No, I'm doing X" instead of forcing that issue "Stop doing X Now!" blah blah….you say, super-calmly (I actually am saying it pleasantly) "Ok, fine, you can choose to do X, but, you know, if you do, you get no Y tomorrow."

The other thing I took from it is that when my teen said or did something, I don't take it as a larger issue, "he doesn't respect his father" or "he's growing up so rude,"--now I take it as, "it's a phase, he knows how to be respectful because I taught him how, before the phase…"

I read it a week ago. Last night I received, "Good night, mom. I love you." (To which I gave a lot of brain stimulation back!!)

Your post is so helpful and really I'm not saying this to be snarky but it is brouhaha, not brew-ha-ha. Although the latter does seem apt. Just doing my English major thing!

[Anonymous]

I work with preschoolers and this sounds familiar to how we deal with them. You all are scaring me though even though I have many years before puberty sets in. I'm going to Amazon now to bookmark it!