4 Toxic Parenting Mistakes You Might be Making
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Join the "Teens are NOT the Worst" facebook group here: https://facebook.com/groups/positiveparentingteens
Have you ever felt the nudge to do something, and you kind of brushed it off and ignored it because you didn't really want to do it, and then that nudge came back? over and over and over again until you couldn't ignore it anymore and you knew this was something that you needed to do. Well, this has been my experience over the last few months.
Actually, probably since last spring. And I have been brushing off this little idea that keeps coming to me over and over again Because I haven't wanted to invest the time and energy and effort that I knew it would require of me But i'm to the point where it keeps coming back and I know without a doubt that this is important That it's needed in the world.
And so i'm doing it and today i'm sharing it with you It all started as I was scrolling through my Facebook feed and I'm a member of lots of Facebook groups for parents. Groups that support parents of teens, groups that support parents of multiples, like all sorts of different parenting groups on Facebook.
And as I would scroll through my feed, every time I would come across one of the posts from these parenting groups, it would make me feel kind of icky to read it. It was all full of negativity and the comment section was full of criticism and judgment and lots of ideas about things that people should be doing with their lives and yet so many of the ideas were not good.
And because I spend so much of my time coaching and teaching parents about how to navigate the teen years, this really, really bothered me. I was seeing that these Facebook groups that were meant to provide support for parents going through The struggles of the teen years were actually making the problems worse. They were actually super, super toxic.
And I felt like we needed a group for parents of teens that was actually helpful, that left parents feeling hopeful and excited and positive about the teen years. And so I looked for it and I searched for groups for parents of teens and all different search terms, and it doesn't exist.
I couldn't find it. And so I had this little nudge, Jen, this is something you need to create. And, of course I brushed it off. I manage a local Facebook page for my community that has grown to now over 11, 000 members. And I know how much time it takes to be an admin of a group. And I kept thinking, I don't have time for this in my life, in my business. Is this really where I want to spend my energy?
But as this little nudge has come back to me over and over and over again, and as I have continued to see all of these posts from these Facebook groups in my feed that just leave me feeling so icky, I have come to realize that this is important. And so I have created a Facebook group that is full of hope for moms of teens, and it is called Teens Are Not the Worst.
And I hope that you will go and find it and follow it. I will put the link in the show notes so that you can find it easily. But I truly hope that you will come and join me in this group because what I hope for is that this will become not just a group, not just a safe haven where we can discuss the challenges of raising teens in a safe place that feels supportive and hopeful and inspiring and gives you lots of great ideas and tools and strategies.
Of course, I want it to be all of that, but even more than any of that, I want it to become a movement. I want it to become a force for change about the way we talk about our teenagers and the way we talk about parenting them, because the way we talk about it. It matters more than you realize.
It is the reason that when you go to those parenting support groups you leave feeling judged. You leave feeling icky. You leave feeling shame and guilt about the way that you're parenting and confused about what you can do differently. You leave feeling hopeless.
We deserve better than that. Parenting teens is hard enough. We don't need to make it harder. And our teens deserve better than that.
Being a teenager is hard enough. We don't need to make it harder. We don't need to make it feel more negative. So I want to invite you to join me in this movement so that we can change the way we talk about teens and the way we talk about parenting teens so that we can lift and build and support each other in this journey.
Now, I don't intend this podcast to be an infomercial to convince you to come and join me in my Facebook group. That is not my purpose, but I do want to share the four toxic traits that I commonly see in other Facebook parenting groups so that you can be aware of them both online and in your conversations with other moms and give you some ideas for what might be more helpful and more healthy.
Now, before I jump in and share these four toxic traits with you, I want to give a little disclaimer. I have been guilty of all four of these things. In fact, for a long time, I thought that this was the way you connected with other parents. And I think most of you can probably relate to that. And that's why I think it's so important that we call it out, that we name it for what it is.
These are not helping us. They're actually making parenting harder, but I don't want you to feel guilty. I don't want you to feel bad. I just want you to notice them, be aware of them, so that you can try and do a little better.
Okay, with that disclaimer in mind, the first toxic trait is complaining.
Complaining about your teenager is not useful. The more you talk about all the details of the negative story about your teen, the better you get at believing that story and thinking that story and looking for the negative stuff your teenager does.
I love the term Jodi Moore uses for this. She calls it story fondling. And it's relevant not just with your teenager, but in your life as well. Have you ever told a really interesting story to someone and then you told it to someone else and someone else and someone else and every time you told the story, it got more dramatic and more exciting and there were more details that you added into the story.
That's what happens when we complain about our teenagers. We get better at making those details sound more pervasive and more offensive and more upsetting and more frustrating. And as we listen to ourselves tell this story better and better and more dramatically, we believe it more. We start to see our lives through a lens of drama and frustration and conflict. And that is not impacting your relationship with your teen in a positive way.
The second toxic trait I commonly see is commiserating about how horrible teenagers are and how hard they are to parent.
Now, I know that you're just trying to connect with other parents and find things in common over a shared experience, but the truth is this does the same thing as we were talking about with complaining. It validates this story about how parenting teens is the worst. Right?
And everybody who's sharing their opinions and commiserating and agreeing with you is validating that story. And so you start to have this belief that parenting teenagers is the worst, that it cannot be fun, that it cannot be easy, that it cannot be enjoyable, because it's actually the worst and everybody agrees.
This is toxic, and it is not helping us to enjoy parenting teens, and it's actually closing us off from finding solutions to the problems that we are having with our teenagers.
The third toxic trait that I see is spiraling in guilt and shame about what a terrible mother you are.
Now, I've seen this happen in different kinds of forms. One is that a mom puts herself down and says, I just don't know. I think I've ruined things forever. I've made so many mistakes. How can I ever come back from this? Right? They post something like that.
And the other is that they're sharing an experience and all the other moms in the comments Start passing their judgments. They start calling names, calling people toxic or ridiculous or overprotective or out of touch. They start telling them that they're wasting their energy thinking about this. Why does this even matter? You sound like you're the FBI. And yes, all of those are actual comments on Facebook posts that I read this morning when I was scrolling through for about 15 minutes.
Listen, I believe that everyone is doing the best that they can, but other people, strangers on the internet, do not know your heart. They do not know your child. They do not know your situation. Even if you wrote a novel to try and explain all the details of the situation, they just don't know. So take what they say with a grain of salt and do not let it make you feel hopeless or like a terrible parent.
Feeling hopeless will never improve your parenting. It will just stop you from wanting to keep trying.
And the last toxic trait that I'm going to share with you today is asking other people what they think you should do.
Listen, thinking other people have the answers for you and your family is not useful. You're just going to get dozens of conflicting ideas about what you could do or what you should do from strangers on the internet who don't know your situation.
It's going to leave you feeling more overwhelmed and more confused and more. detrimental than any of that. It teaches you to doubt your own intuition.
Mama, listen. You have all the answers you need already inside of you. You know your child best. You know yourself best. You know your family situation best. You know what is best for you.
And yes, you might need some guidance. You might need some expert resources. You might need some ideas from other people, but don't take those ideas at the expense of listening to your own intuition.
Now, if you're anything like me right about now, you might be thinking, yikes, I do a lot of these toxic behaviors. I do a lot of these things, or maybe all of them. What do I do instead? How do I connect with other people? How do I validate my experience that I'm going through that it is hard? How do I not just keep that all inside and how do I get the support that I need so I don't feel all alone in this?
This is the question that I have been pondering for the last few months, as I've considered starting this Facebook page. And I've come up with five things that I think actually are useful and helpful, and help us connect with other parents who are going through the same thing in a way that is not toxic, that is not destructive, and that does not make parenting harder.
The first thing is knowing that you are not alone in your challenges.
It's so helpful to know that you are not the only one going through something. I think that is why we are so drawn to telling other people our experiences with our teens so that we can know that we're not the only one, that we aren't the only person that experiences this and that goes through this.
So in my Facebook group, what we will do instead of complaining about our teenagers is there will be regular polls about the things that you're experiencing with your teens so that you can share what's going on for you without all the gory details that make it worse. And you can see that other people are going through the same thing, that you are, in fact, not alone.
I also love this because it gives everyone an opportunity to share anonymously. And so there's not that fear of, am I sharing details that my kid doesn't want me to share or is someone else going to see this and recognize me? So it gives us an opportunity to talk about those really hard things that people are not usually willing to share. And I think that will help us all feel like we are not alone.
The second thing that is really useful is taking action to make things better.
Instead of just talking about all the things that are wrong and complaining about it and spending hours on Facebook, we want to go out and do things differently and think differently about our situations so that we can start seeing some improvements.
The way we will do this in the Facebook group is there will be challenges to help you start to see the good in your teen and to help you start to do some things that are going to improve your situation with your family
next up, finding solutions and ideas is useful.
Now I know I told you that you have all the answers inside of you, and I truly believe that, but sometimes those answers are sparked by something we learn outside of us. And then it resonates with us and we're like, Oh my gosh, that would totally work in my family. I don't know if you've ever had that experience, but that's usually how it works for me. I hear something or I see something or I read something and I'm like, Oh my gosh, that is the answer I have been searching for. And I know without a doubt inside of me, that is it.
And so having a place where we are getting that kind of information, those good ideas and solutions is super, super helpful.
In the Facebook group, I will be sharing helpful tips and ideas like that, just like I share here on the podcast and over on Instagram. So, you will get some expert tips and ideas from me.
But there will also be some crowdsource posts because I don't have all the answers. And so many of you have so many great ideas. So these posts will give you an opportunity to share what works for your family and how your family does things. And I hope that these posts will really discourage that judgment and finger pointing that happens a lot of the time and encourage more community, more support, more idea sharing.
Now, this next one should not be surprising to you at all if you've been here for any number of episodes, but seeing the good in your teen is useful.
In fact, the more we can look for the good in our teens, the better our relationship with them will be. The more their confidence will grow and the better our homes will feel. Not surprisingly, this is the whole vibe I'm hoping to create with Teens Are Not the Worst. That we can have a place to really celebrate our teenagers, to look for the good in them, and to remind us to be doing that all the time.
And finally, celebrating what you are doing right is useful.
There is so much research that shows that when you focus on the ways that you are winning or learning every single day, you are actually more likely to achieve your goals, but even more than that, you are so much happier and more productive. So, if you want to improve your parenting, the best way to do it is to stay focused on the ways you are winning.
And so, I'm super excited to have a post every single week where you can share your wins in parenting. Not just the big wins, not just my kid graduated from high school, but the little stuff, the everyday stuff, the my kid said, love you mom on the way out the door or whatever it is that makes you feel like you're winning or that you've learned something.
I hope this episode has given you lots of great ideas for how you can make your own life a little bit easier just by the way you think about your teenager and the way you connect with other parents over your shared experience.
I also hope that you will come and join me inside Teens Are Not The Worst so we can together create that safe and hope- filled space where we can talk about parenting teens in a way that will make our lives easier and make parenting feel so much more rewarding.
