Talking To Teens: Expert Tips for Parenting Teenagers

Andy: We're here with Nedra Glover Tawwab talking about how to have healthier relationships with teenagers. Nedra is the author of the New York Times bestseller, Set Boundaries, Find Peace. She is a therapist and relationship expert who has practiced relationship therapy for more than 15 years. She has appeared as an expert on the Red Table Talk, The Breakfast Club, Good Morning America. Her work has been highlighted in the New York Times, the Guardian. She runs a very popular Instagram account where she shares practices, tools, and reflections for mental health and hosts weekly Q and As about boundaries and relationships. And she's the author of the new book, Drama Free: A Guide to Managing Unhealthy Family Relationships.

On today's show, we'll see how many parents get caught in patterns of codependency with our teenagers. We're also going to dive deep into some ways that parents often neglect their children's emotions without meaning to or realizing it. We'll discuss control battles that parents get into with teenagers. We're also going to look at the idea of getting over your feelings and how we often ask ourselves, why is this bothering me so much that there's a much better question we should be asking instead. We're going to get into why children can sometimes feel like parents are favoring one sibling over the other. All of that and more is coming up on the show today. Nedra, thank you so much for being here. You have a new book?

Nedra: I have a new book. Yay, I'm so excited. Yeah.

Andy: Woo.

Nedra: I have a new book.

Andy: It's really exciting. And your first book was, how long ago was that?

Nedra: Two years ago. Yeah, they're a month apart, so two years ago.

Andy: Okay. In those two years, what was crystallizing for you or making you feel like the next book needed to be this one that you've just written, which is Drama Free: A Guide to Managing Unhealthy Family Relationships?

Nedra: Oh, gosh. I knew it needed to be that book, the moment that I released it and I started getting so many questions about family relationships, I was like, well, that'll be the next book. So many questions in my first book, Set Boundaries, Find Peace. There is a chapter on families, but family relationships are so complicated, so a chapter is not enough. We need a whole book, a whole bookshelf of books to really talk about all of the family stuff, not a chapter but a bookshelf. So this is volume one.

Andy: And it feels like a lot of what you talk about in this book is kind of generational or how we're kind of replaying issues. A lot of the drama that we're experiencing in our families goes back to how we were raised in our families when we were growing up, and I really thought this was interesting. You talk about how childhood issues impact adult relationships. What does that look like or how can we start to gain some insight into how we might be replaying old patterns?

Nedra: I notice a lot with adult therapists, me, I'm a therapist, love to ask, when did you first experience this? And for lots of issues like lack of trust in your relationship with your partners, financial challenges or just anxiety about the relationship. People will say, well, my dad did X or my siblings did this. And it's like, oh, okay, so this is playing out with the friend or with your partner or with your coworker. And so this is a really old wound, feeling like maybe people don't hear you. It's like I didn't feel her and my family. And so you've taken that to mean that people don't listen to you in general, and that's how you respond to people in the world. So very often the things that are very sensitive to touch within us are those really deep wounds that really surfaced in our families.

Andy: You talk in the book about codependency, which is a term that I have heard before and I hear people talk about codependency and I thought I understood it, but you break it down in the book in a way that really may kind of crystallize for me what it really means or how it really works. Can you explain a little bit about that?

Nedra: Yes. I think originally we heard codependency probably in the 80s. Well, I didn't hear it when I was a baby. I didn't know anything about codependency in the 80s. But the book Codependent No More came out and it really crystallized that term for addiction. But really we can be codependent in any type of dysfunctional pattern within a person. You may have a person being codependent with someone who is emotionally neglecting their kids. You may have a sibling who says, well, I'll do everything for them, I'll make it my job to take care of them. So there are many ways that we can be codependent, and in families, it sort of looks like taking on other people's issues as if they are your own. We may say, oh, this person can't do it. They're not equipped. They don't have the tools. We don't bother to teach them. We don't ask many questions.

We just hop right in and fill in the gaps, which is not always helpful to people because people learn by doing sometimes. Sometimes they learn by failing, sometimes they learn by us sitting back and coaching them, not always by us doing the thing for them. Many of our relationships, we have to work ourselves out of a job. Even parenting, the older the child gets, the less you parent in some ways. Children will always need their parents, but a 30-year old doesn't need a diaper change. So the things that we do for our children is certainly shifts over time. And even with our siblings, you'll notice a lot of codependency in sibling relationships because particularly when there is emotional neglect, the parents emotionally neglecting the children, there may be a sibling that steps up and says, okay, I'll take care of all of us.

I'll pick you up from school. I'll do this. What do you need? And that dynamic sometimes doesn't shift. And you have this independent adult who's being bossed around by their 40-year-old sister and they're 36 and it's like, whoa, what is happening here? And it creates this codependent dynamic. So it's not necessarily like, oh my gosh, it's only when people have really severe issues. It is a way that you show up in relationships where you are tending to other people's situations, business, emotions as if they are your own.

Andy: And that kind of creates a cycle where the more we do things for people that they didn't really need us to do, but then that also enables them to keep just not doing it for themselves or not learning how to do it for themselves or never having to gain those skills or learn how to do whatever it is. And then we're just going to keep feeling like we need to do it for them because obviously they're not doing it for themselves and obviously they're not learning how to do it for themselves, and it just keeps going around and the cycle never breaks.

Nedra: Absolutely. I think of the dependency that we sometimes have on people, it can be healthy. That's a part of relationships to have like, oh my gosh, my car is out of whack. Can you pick me up? That happens from time to time, but what happens when it's occurring all the time. All the time, you have this need an and I am the person to fill it. And with codependent people, they're very self-neglectful. They aren't taking good care of themselves because so much of their energy is given to this other person. So, there's a lot of self-neglect there. It's like, well, I won't have, so they can have or they need more or there's this never-ending cycle of giving.

The last thing about codependence, one common thing that you see is they try to be codependent in other relationships and can find it offensive when people don't want that level of help because everybody's not willing to accept your help. There are some children, particularly when it's a parent and they're codependent with a child, it's like, I don't need that level of help. You're over helping my sibling, which I may not need, but I need something. So we really have to watch how that relationship dynamic not only impacts the one family relationship, but it trickles over into other family relationships.

Andy: I feel like there's so much to unpack there because as your child is moving into being a teenager, there's such a shift that happens in sort of where the line needs to be of what's codependent versus what's healthy. And obviously when they're really young, you're doing a lot of things for them, but as they get older and their sort of ability to do things for their self or their capacity to do things for themself increases, then you need to back off as well. And it strikes me what you're talking about with that kind of giving and almost over giving that can also create sort of feelings of resentment underneath that where, hey, I guess you need more help. I guess I need to help you with this again. And so it's like we're over helping and we don't necessarily need to, which enables the other person to just not do it for themselves. But then also we're developing this undercurrent of blaming them, or yeah.

Nedra: Yeah, you get this idea, you're now mad at this person for being unable to help themselves, but you haven't put them in a position to help themselves. So it's like this reoccurring cycle of, oh my gosh, I'm so tired of you needing me. What do you need? So it's really interesting. I once work with a mom who was not fully washing her son up, but certainly in the bathroom, did you get your ears? Did you get your... He was like 12 and her husband was like, this is too much. You should be able to leave the bathroom and just say, hey, go take your shower or something. It's not this standing over him to make sure he's getting his ears. It's like this is something else. This is a level of interaction that is probably too much and it happens in other ways. It's not just the shower.

It might be the pampering in certain ways. And I think we have to think about how our need for attention impacts our kids or how our need for closeness impacts our kids. Because you mentioned teenagers. Teenagers, they become very fond of their friendships, and so there is this sort of separation from the family and it's not a complete, I don't want anything to do with my parents, but it's like I really enjoy spending time with my friends. I get to be myself. I get to show who I am, and you have some parents who will absolutely fight it. They're upset. I can't believe they want to spend time with their friends. It's like that is so normal and healthy. I get that it hurts. What I think we're saying is that really hurts me because so much of my life has been focused on taking care of them, dotting on them, attending to their needs, and now they're stepping away and I feel hurt. But how do you develop other relationships and not put all of that on the child or make them feel guilty for wanting these connections with their peers?

Andy: So, I think it's interesting because we do all of that, but then also at the same time, you talk about emotional neglect and how there are a lot of ways in which we maybe dismiss our kids' emotions or don't really make them feel seen for their emotions. It's like, what are some ways that that plays out or how can we do a better job of tuning in to the emotions of our children?

Nedra: Most often parents do this by dismissing a child's emotions. So the child will say, oh my gosh, I had a hard day. And the parent will say, you haven't heard of hard days. You should hear my day. This happened to me at work. And it's like, sounds like we have two hard days in the house. Your hard day isn't bigger than this kid's hard day because you're an adult and you think your world is bigger. It's not intentional, right? Neglect is something that happens by accident. It's a oversight. It is a not tending to, so it's not intentional harm, but it's certainly very harmful. Because if we can just close our eyes and think back for one second to being a teenager, to being a child, there are very important things that happen to us. Our world is very big. We're not in control of a lot of things.

So me losing my blanket to be the equivalent of you losing your job, and we forget that how big things were because now we have all these memories of bigger things and all of this stuff to compare it to when in actuality what the child is saying is valid and it makes sense for their world, and what you are saying is valid and it makes sense for your world. With emotional neglect also, I see parents sometimes not having very important conversations with kids that they need to hear or even talking to them about some of the things that's happening. There are many kids who might experience divorce, and your parents don't talk to them about it. It's just like your lifestyle has changed and there's no real conversation to help you process those changes. So the absence of emotional support, the absence of emotional communication, naming, listening, all of those things are emotionally neglectful.

Andy: What are some ways that we can get better at seeing those emotions or catching ourself or realizing when we're being neglectful of our children's emotions and engaged more deeply?

Nedra: One thing that could be really helpful is if we could just stop and pay attention. Kids will try to make bids for our attention. They try to make bids for our affection when they say, hey, listen, because they don't always want to talk. They don't always want to be engaged. So when they do, when we have the time and capacity, how do we make that time to be available to them? How do we make the time to talk to them about the big and small moments in their life beyond how is school today? Who did you play with today? How did it feel when your friend didn't invite you to that party? What's going on with this situation? Just as we would with a friend, just have some interest in their lives.

Andy: You talked in the book about a need for control and signs that you're trying to control someone. I think that is really interesting for me reading this section because I think so much of what creates drama a lot of times between parents and teenagers is that wrestling for control or you're controlling me and our parents even saying, no, my kid's so manipulative and they're trying to control me and these control battles or these fights that we get into over kind of power. I think a lot of times cause a lot of conflict and I wonder how you think about those or how parents can sort of see those in a different way.

Nedra: There are conversations we can have with children's and teens where we're just discussing things. It's not about me trying to change your preference, but sometimes even offering a different perspective can shift theirs, but you have to be willing to listen to theirs. Yesterday, my six-year-old told me she wants, when I get older, I'm going to have a nose piercing. I'm going to wear black, I'm going to wear black lipstick. She had a whole profile of what she wanted to look like and I said, "Well, what age do you think?" I just asked her questions. I didn't say, you can't do that. I don't like it. It's not my style. I just wanted to know more about her thought process. She's six. I don't know, she may change her mind, or at least I know who I'll see when she's 16. Either way, to me, it was like this is worth a conversation.

I didn't want to dismiss it and say, oh, you don't know what you'll do at 16. Maybe I just want to be there and talk to you about it. I don't want to tell you what to think about it, how to feel about it, because at some point when you turn 18, I won't have any control or influence over it. So you really can start to do what you want at that point. But I would love to talk to you about this and some of the things she mentioned. It's not my preference at a young age, but as you get older, okay, I understand that we want to decorate our bodies however we want to decorate our bodies, and it's just a conversation. So how open are we to having certain conversations, exploring things without saying and you shouldn't do that. Sometimes people just want to talk and sometimes those people who want to talk are teenagers.

Andy: That is so interesting to me because it seems like so often our reaction as a parent is, no, you can't do that. Oh, are you kidding me? No, no, no, no, no. Not until you're 18, maybe later. But we don't really just engage with it and we're missing so many opportunities to just have conversations about their thought process, and I think that's a missed opportunity. But it also makes me wonder, well, what about if they're talking about something that we do really feel like is dangerous or is something that they shouldn't be doing, then when is it okay to say, no, no, no, you can't do that? Or at some point, we need to set a boundary, don't we?

Nedra: Yes. When things are unsafe, when they're inappropriate for their age, when it doesn't make sense for your lifestyle, your religion, your culture, absolutely, you say no, but do we say no to everything or are there some things that we explore? Some things are worth exploration and some things are worth placing a boundary, and that is the delicate balance of parenting. You have to figure out, is this a situation or I need to have a heart now or I need to have a strong preference, or is this a situation where maybe you just want to listen and learn a little bit more? Sometimes I find that when you listen to your kids talk about their friends and what their friends should do, you're really learning about your kid. So I love... I'll invite my oldest daughter to tell me about her friends. Oh, she has a boyfriend.

What do they do? I just want to get her understanding of what these things are and what it means because you're telling me from your perspective, what's okay, what's not okay. And as we talk, I can get in there, but I do a lot of questioning and asking. So my daughter may say, this friend did something. I said, what would you say as a good friend versus a person who is not a good friend? And she'll go through, oh, that wasn't good friend behavior. Yeah, I didn't think that was good friend behavior either. She didn't want to talk to you the whole day. Oh, that's pretty mean. So just asking them questions. They have so many thoughts and their world is, it's so busy and so many things going on, and we can't assume that because we're older that we have all the answers for them, I don't. They live in a whole new world with social media and vaping and all these things that I did not have. So I'm learning along with them.

Andy: Something that really struck out to me in the book is you keep hitting on this idea throughout the book of, well, blood is thicker than water or, well, yeah, but it's family, and at the end of the day, you can't turn your back on family. And that sometimes that these sorts of narratives that we tell ourselves about that while family's the most important thing, while that sounds positive, it also encourages us to sort of put up with mistreatment from people in our family or to not set firm boundaries with our family, because well, it's family, and it strikes me that this plays out with parents and teenagers a lot too, where parents feel like they have to even put up with crummy treatment from teenagers or well, but at the end of the day, it's my child and so what can I really do or something, and you're stuck together until they're 18 or whatever it is. And so what do you think about that?

Nedra: There is something that we like to receive in our relationships, that's kindness, respect, support, healthy communication, love, caring, understanding. Those are things we'll seek in any relationships, and there is no exception to that with family. So if you have a relationship with your sibling and your sibling is a mean, terrible, crummy person, should I say to you, but it's your brother, you have to love your brother? I think about some of the things that we may see in the news or some of the criminal things that we see among people. Some of these people are brothers. They're parents, they're somebody's child. What if this person was not such a nice son? Is it okay for that parent? Where do we draw the lines? And you just have to accept anything and you should just accept people being kind and nice and caring towards you. I wouldn't want to give family a pass because that really sets you up to give other people a pass when you start dating and you're like, oh, he's having a bad day.

Is that your dad's stuff? When dad was having a bad day and he was moody and you just stayed out the way, it's not okay for anyone to mistreat you when they're having a bad day. That's the message I want to send. As a parent, it's important to apologize when you have a bad day to say, ugh, you know what? I am short fused. I need to go to bed because the more I talk today, the worse I get. So I'm just going to go to sleep because this day is done for me. I don't want to be mean to anyone. We have to recognize that people won't always be kind. Even the people we love and we have healthy relationships with, they will be cranky. They will do things, but it's a matter of them being able to recognize that, apologize for that behavior and not make excuses for it or gaslight you or make you feel like this is acceptable because I'm your mom. It's like it's just not acceptable behavior from anyone.

Andy: You have a chapter in the book where you talk about a lot of that stuff about apologizing to children when you're wrong, allowing your kids to see you being emotional and explaining your feelings to them. And I just love that. I thought it's so powerful and it's so easy not to do because we don't really want to admit that we got messed up or got emotional or even we try to pretend we're not emotional when they can tell, they know what's up. And so I thought that was just so helpful. Throughout the book, you have the samples of how you could phrase things or what you could say, which I thought is just is really cool. And some of these things like you were just mentioning about how to apologize for things or to just call it to their attention when you are getting emotional or you did get emotional and you recognize that are, I think, really profound.

Nedra: Yeah, an apologizing parent to me is top tier good parenting, apologies and attempting to change the behavior. I don't want to say that because you may have some parents who abused the apology, they're constantly apologizing for the same thing and not doing better, but it is, I am in awe of a parent who can really own their stuff. Even if it's when you become an adult, when there are parents who say, hey, I didn't do a great job with my kids 20 years ago. I recognize that now. It's like, wow. Because so often people, well, I did my best. I didn't have any resources. I didn't know what, and it's like, well, those are all reasons, but certainly not excuses to hurt another person or to not be emotionally present with them. Those are all reasons, and I get that, and I understand that, and people still want some level of parenting.

So it takes a lot of courage to be able to say, I apologize for that. I did not say that wrong. And we should culturally shift towards allowing adults to be wrong. I think we do kids a disservice when we teach them to indiscriminately listen to adults. I know a lot of adults who have no clue what they're talking about, and I don't want my kids to listen to them. There are some adults you can listen to. I've heard adults be wrong in front of my kids. And what I will say is, this person thought that, but this is how it is, sometimes adults are wrong, let the adults hear it, because I don't always know what I'm talking about. My kids correct me a ton. They're like, it's not this, it's that. It's like, okay, okay, okay.

Because they do know some things better than me. Multiplication tricks, I don't remember those, certain things about the earth, I don't remember this. So it's tons of stuff that you... How to get through things on your phone and get to the, I'm like, oh, you're an expert. I don't know. So I can be wrong. You can be wrong. As humans, we're all wrong from time to time. And what we can do a better job of is modeling, accepting responsibility for your actions because that don't help kids not lie as much, which I know parents have a big issue with, oh my gosh, my kids lie. And I'm like, where's your honesty? Are you a very honest person? Do they witness any modeling of lying behaviors?

Andy: You were talking earlier about telling one child, oh, just it's your brother or it's your sister. Stop making such a big deal about it. And it makes me think about this chapter you have in the book about troubleshooting relationships with siblings. Can you talk about choosing sides or how a lot of times to a child, how easy it is to feel like your parent is choosing sides or favoring one child more than another child? And I thought that was really profound, and I'd love if you could talk just a little about how we can avoid that or get better at having those conversations where we're mediating disputes or disagreements between our children, but without feeling like we're choosing a side or favoring one more than the other.

Nedra: Well, the advocacy in sibling relationship should be towards kind behaviors. So sometimes you'll have a kid like, oh my God, she keeps coming in my room. And you may say, did you ask to go into the room? Because that's true. A person is entering your room without permission. So is this invalid because it's your sibling? No, it's not invalid. I appreciate a knock on the door. And it sounds like you appreciate one too. How do I support you in this? How do we consistently do that together? And then you have times where someone just wants to complain about their sibling. Oh my gosh, they're so annoying. Yes, I can understand that, but I get that people are annoying, but how do we deal with annoying people? Do we hit them? Do we yell at them? Do we pick a fight with them?

That's a wonderful time to acknowledge what they're saying and help them shift those behaviors because people are annoying. They're not lying. Everyone's annoying. I'm annoying. You're annoying. Your siblings are annoying. We all get on somebody's nerves from time to time. So to dismiss that and say, oh, no, they're not. You just need to. It's like, no, they are. I promise you they are. They're human. They're annoying. So how do we listen without feeling like we have to change the way they think about it or shift their behavior or do something about it? It's really just about listening, about allowing them to have a space to share what they're feeling. That's really important for them.

Andy: And it really ties back to what you were talking about earlier with not neglecting emotions, that understanding that what they're feeling, if they're annoyed by something or something is pissing them off, that it might not seem like that big of a deal to you, but that it's valid for them, whatever they're going through, that really is really annoying to you. And you can still empathize with that and say, well, that I wouldn't care about that, or that's not a big deal. But from their perspective, it is.

Nedra: Yeah. I don't like to tell people, what's a big deal? Whatever you're talking about is a big deal to you. If you're upset that there's chunky peanut butter and not smooth peanut butter, it's a big deal to you. You're talking about it. We don't even bring up stuff that doesn't matter to us. It matters.

Andy: It's also easy to, in those kinds of situations, fall into shaming kids for their behavior or using phrases that just make them feel bad about themselves for who they are. And you had a section of the book about this, and I wonder what's the difference between shame and guilt and how do we tell people that what they did wasn't okay without shaming them as a person?

Nedra: Well, Brené Brown says that the difference between shame and guilt is guilt is I did something bad, shame is I am bad. In our language to other people, you have to make sure that you're not labeling them as a bad person overall, and you're sticking really to the behavior that you're trying to correct or that you're trying to speak to. You're always mean. You're not always mean. Talk in particular about the thing that just happened. Your brother said that wasn't nice because X, when you did this, it made me feel. It's not an overall character thing. It is in this situation or this day. You have to be very careful to not make it seem like their character is in question when it's one thing that they did, and it could be a repeat of something else they did, but how do we treat those things as a new occurrence and not like, oh, you're all bad because every day at four o'clock, I will forever repeat some things, and it's not like, oh my gosh, you're a disorganized person.

It's now truly every day you forget to take your lunchbox out of your lunch bag. But every day, I would just say to you, hey, go get your lunch bag. So it's really about being delicate about the things that may annoy you because for parents, it annoys you to have to continuously stop a fight with your kids or tell them to clean their room. But when we don't want to do things, guess what? We don't do them. And we have to have someone say it to us over and over and over, and that is what we're doing a lot of times with children.

Andy: Yeah, a lot of times it's really our own frustration at having to be doing something that we don't want to be doing that we're then reflecting back onto our child and on some level we're trying to manipulate them into stop doing this thing that's bothering us, and so we're shaming them to make them change or to try and get them to be different. Something that you talk about a few times in the book is this idea of just getting through, or how do I deal with something? Or how do I get over with something? Or how do I just kind of get through? And I wonder why that's such an important idea or concept in your book.

Nedra: Yes, there is this idea that we are going to forget, have some memory erasing, move past all of these things when in actuality, a lot of unfortunate things, we just live with them, and we continue in those relationships. It's not like I have to end the relationship because I recognize this thing as much as it is wow, this happened. How do I want to continue? What do I want to happen next? It's not always I need to get out of here, please come save me.

Andy: And you say that a lot of times, people are asking for help. They want you to help them get over things or pain or embarrassment, sadness, and we just want to get over it. Is there if we find ourselves telling ourselves that, I think that's something I hear from a lot from parents of teenagers are like, oh, I just need to get through this phase, or why is this bothering me so much? How come I can't get over it? It should be replace that with something else, or what question should we be asking ourselves instead?

Nedra: I like the question, why am I bothered by this? I do wonder, are we getting to the answering of that or are we repeating the question? I find that most people just keep repeating the question, why am I bothered? Why am I bothered? Why am I bothered? Why aren't you bothered? What about this is problematic? Can you answer it? Because sometimes we think that repeating the question is the answer, and it's like, no, there's a very clear answer about why this thing bothers you. What is that reason? Once you get to the bottom of what the reason is, then we can do something about it. But sometimes people will just stand as, ugh, I'm upset, ugh, ugh, ugh, it's like just a grunt, a grunt just ugh, and it's like, why?
For me, sometimes when I find myself in that space of ugh, I have to check in and say, I am neglecting myself, and when I am taking care of other people and I haven't taken care of myself, I start to get mad at them. So that's why I'm a little irritated today that you still have all your needs and I haven't done things for myself yet. That's why I'm bothered. Whoa, look at that, look at that answer. I don't even like it. I don't even like the answer I just gave. Why can't it be your fault? That's a great question to ask yourself. Why am I bothered? Because I have overscheduled myself and you're asking me for something.
That's why I'm bothered because I've done this to myself, and I expect you to be perfect for the day, and here you are being yourself, and now I'm mad.

Andy: You're a human with normal needs like a person, God, why?

Nedra: Yeah. So how dare you, child? What are you doing? Yeah, so that's a wonderful question to ask, but I would say if you're asking, please answer it.

Andy: I love that. I think so often, yeah, we catch ourselves, be like, gosh, why does this bother me so much? Why can't I just get over this? Why can't I just put this behind me? We ask the question, but we just then skip right past it and...

Nedra: We sand the question.

Andy: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You keep repeating it over and over again. So how do we find the answer? Is it as simple as just maybe we need a little space of reflection when we find ourself asking that to just slow down for a second and really...

Nedra: Dig into it.

Andy: Yeah.

Nedra: Yeah. We got to dig into that question for real and not just have the question, the question is a good one. We don't need more questions. Sometimes we think, oh, I need a deeper question. It's like you have the question you're supposed to answer. You are avoiding this question, and I guess if you had it phrased to you eight different ways, you would answer it, but the answer would be the same. Why is this a problem?

Andy: And I love that a lot of the examples that you gave, it comes back to yourself. The reason that it's bothering you is because something I did or some way that I'm not living out the way that I wish that I would be, or that I've failed myself in some way, and this situation is just making that more obvious to me. It's like slapping me in the face with my own shortcoming and now that's...

Nedra: What are you doing to yourself?

Andy: ... what pissing me off, and I want to put it on you. But wow, maybe I need to ask myself that question again and see where I have let myself down. I don't know. I don't know if I want to answer that one. That sounds so hard.

Nedra: Yeah. Where have you let yourself down? What in this can you control about you? How do you set yourself up for success in the future?

Andy: I have some great tips in here for maintaining a healthy relationship with an adult child, and I found a lot of these profound for the teenage years as well, and a lot of making room for them to set their own boundaries. Practice asking, do you want my opinion? Rather than just giving your opinion, stop telling them what's best, giving them freedom to make their own choices, and this one I thought was really interesting, be the change you wish to see.

Nedra: Yeah. I think with children sometimes, we expect them to change their behavior. Many years ago, I would see so many children and teens and the parent would bring them in, here are all the problems that this person has, can you fix them? I'm like, you're not staying for some of the therapy? Because somehow I'm going to tell you, this kid is going to bring up some stuff and it's going to be you. It's guaranteed to have something to do with what's happening in the child's life, not that what you're doing is problematic, but there's certainly some ways that you can support the child, deeper ways that you might want to listen, maybe things you need to advocate for, but somehow you will be a part of this process because you're their caretaker.

And so there are many ways in which parents don't want to be the change. They're like, you know what? Here are all the problems with you and you need to fix them. When in actuality it's like, yeah, you have some challenges and also you're not the complete problem. There are many things going on, and this is just one part of them.

Andy: Wow, that's not easy to do. It ties back to what you were talking about earlier too, with apologizing or being big enough to recognize that parts of the problem that you can take responsibility for and...

Nedra: Absolutely.

Andy: That is hard. We can't just put it all on our kid. I'm perfect. I do everything right. It's my kid has problems. One more point that I really loved was from the chapter on troubleshooting relationships with children, and it is about spending time with your kids doing what they want. It seems like also something really important as kids become teenagers, but it strikes me that it's easy to also think like, oh, I spend so much time doing what they want. I'm always taking them to their practice and their lessons and to school and letting them use the car to go to the mall and whatever it is. So how do you see this playing out in parents with teenagers?

Nedra: Yeah. Get into their world. What do they like to do? If they like to play video games, pick up a joystick. If they like to play basketball, put on some shorts and go outside and play. Dropping a kid off at a activity is not spending time with them. It is taking them to an activity. Unless you're in gymnastics with them, unless you are playing soccer with them, your presence is not engaging with them in that activity. There's a difference between engaging with them and just taking them to something, and so sometimes we do think, oh, well, that was time spent. Was it? No, that was time traveling. Now, if in the car, your kid says, hey, let's talk about whatever, then that's time spent together, but certainly not the carrying to and from. That's not time together and letting them use a car and taking them to a friend's house, those are all things that they're doing with other people. What do they do with you?

Andy: But wow, it gets hard sometimes when it's things that you don't really value or that they're like, hey, they're really into playing video games like you mentioned, but maybe that's just something that you think is a waste of time, and it's totally just keeping them from more important things, so how do you dwell?

Nedra: Are there things that we can learn to value together? Maybe your kid likes video games. Have they tried drawing? Can you take a drawing class together? Can you take a pottery class together? Can you start fresh on a new video game with them to even see if you like it? There are things that I do not like to do with my kids. Oh my gosh, Marvel movies not my thing, but if they want to watch a little romcom, a little Beauty and the Beast, Frozen, throw me in there. I'm all about the love story. So it's like there are some things that I have one daughter, she likes to garden. The other one, she's like, this is your stuff.

I'm like, okay, girl. You don't have to do it with us. So I think thinking about what they want to do, if they want to do, if you have kids who are into activities, if you have a kid that's in dance, can you take a mommy-daughter dance class? If you have a kid that's really into sports, can you go take them to a yoga class with you? There are different things that we can do that can also be a part of what we like and not completely like, ugh, I have to spend time with my kid doing this thing I hate. We should have some joy in the things we do, but it also could be we need to discover some new things.

Andy: Yeah, maybe you'll find out if you like it more than you think if you approach it with an open mind. But I think that's so true that if we, ugh, I guess I'll do this. I got to spend some time with my kid and they really like whatever it is, so I guess I'll play this. Then that's going to come across in your energy in the way that you engage in the activity with them. It's not necessarily that we need to just completely roll over and do whatever is fun to them, but can we find some things in the overlap between stuff that would appeal to us and stuff that would appeal to them and things that they're into, and there's always going to be something that we can find. Then maybe it means you have to stretch your comfort zone a little bit or maybe lean a little bit more into their world and nothing wrong with that.

Thank you so much for coming on the show today and sharing all of this advice and wisdom from your new book. I'm really, really excited to recommend that people pick up a copy of Drama Free: A Guide to Managing Unhealthy Family Relationships.

Nedra: Thank you so much.

Andy: I know you're really active on Instagram. Is that the best place for people to find you and follow what you're up to and join your community?

Nedra: I would say my website also has some wonderful resources, tools, lots of interviews and worksheets to download, so my website is a great place for people to go as well.

Andy: And that's your name, Nedra Tawwab?.

Nedra: Yes, nedratawwab.com.

Andy: Awesome. Thanks again for coming on the show, and really congratulations on your new book.