Ep 45: Troublesome Teenage Boys
Andy: I'm really interested in just where this kind of all began, because it says in here that you started as a psychotherapist for a while. So did these books come out of your background as a psychotherapist and practicing that, or is it life experience, or what?
Bill: Here's what happened. I always wanted to write books. And I was a therapist, but I always thought that I wanted to be a writer, but I couldn't get publishers interested. I wanted to do life success kind of stuff, and motivational books, and stuff like that. But publish … this is back in the late '80s, early '90s, and nobody was interested in any of that stuff at the time. And so a real good friend of mine was a professional writer and he said, "Billy, what do you know the most about in the world? What do you know the very most about?" Andy, I said, "You know, I know a lot about being a boy. I mean, I feel like an overgrown boy. And I had a great childhood and a lot of ups and downs like everybody does."
Bill: He says, "Well, why don't you write a book about boys?" And it was kind of a strange thing at first because I thought, well, that's an interesting thought. So I went out and looked. At that time, Andy, nobody had ever written a book about raising boys. Just boys. So I pitched the book in the worst possible way. I just started sending out query letters to publishers. A publisher jumped up and said, "Hey, that's a great idea. Let's do it." And so I did that. I followed it up with a book on girls and the one on teenage boys. Then I did a couple of things that we got to the greatness topics. And before you know it, I'm a writer. That's where it all came from.
Bill: And in addition to that, Andy, I had kids, of course. I had a boy and a daughter. And so I could watch this stuff happen right before my eyes, them grow up. So that's really that was where it all came from, Andy. It was really from just a lot of real life stuff. And I realized at that point, the parents didn't really didn't want to know a lot about facts, and figures, and studies, and stuff. They wanted just some real world advice about how to do stuff. So that was the beginning of it all.
Andy: Ah, okay. But so an expert on boys, but not necessarily on girls. So how then did you make the jump?
Bill: Well, actually what I did is my doctoral work was in educational psychology. So I knew a lot about boy and girl developments, so to speak. So that was all kind of natural. And then the teenager thing. And then of course, they wanted me to do a book on teenage girls and I said, "I have no clue about-"
Andy: I am not going to touch that.
Bill: I touch that. But so that's kind of how that happened. Then of course, I ended up getting back to where I began in the beginning with writing more motivationally-oriented books. And so that was good. But still, I have now of course, all the kids are grown up, and we have grandkids now and a bunch of them, and they're all coming up through so funny to see this stuff happen, generation after generation. Is there a change? I mean, everything, society changes and the demands on them, but the chassis is still the same. And that's really kind of the good news because then you can come up with some rules that kind of work for everybody. So …
Andy: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, some things are timeless. And you see some things that just keep getting repeated over and over and over again by all the wise people in history. And you kind of tell yourself, "You know, there might be something here." So OK. You make it sound so easy. You're like, "Oh, hey, I just kind of knew about boys. So I just decided to write a book about that. No problem." But I've read this teenage boys book and this is not just like, oh, common sense. Like, "Oh, hey, I just know a lot about boy stuff." I mean, this is deep. You really thought this through. And there's methods and all kinds of cool tactics in here. And I'm curious where some of this stuff came from. So there's this idea in here that I really like where there's these five pain pleasure combinations that dominate young men. Pain in the present, pain in the future, pleasure in the present, pleasure in the future, and curiosity now. Is this based on research or you're just kind of philosophizing here, what?
Bill: That's a really good question, Andy. Let's put it this way. Most of the stuff that's in that book just came out of my observations in real life. Then I went back and I said, does this square up with what they're doing research-wise and where some of the real leading thinkers in this area of teenage development? And then it turns out it all squared up because it all kind of makes sense. And the thing that I enjoyed about writing that book is it gave me a chance, for whatever reason, Andy, I don't understand this, but I've always found teenagers to be very easy to deal with. And what I discovered was it's not that teenagers are easy. It's just that my approach to them was these are young, inexperienced adults that are just like me. They just don't have as much experience.
Bill: So their lack of experience, they rebel, they act out, they fight, they drag their feet, they procrastinate, just like me. And as soon as I got it through my head that these kids are really just like me, they just don't have as much experience to them what works and what doesn't, suddenly, working with them became really easy. And it's like, "Look, I know you want to keep banging on this, but you can bang on this all day. It's not going to work." Or, "If I was in your shoes, I understand. I was where you are at and even though it was a long time ago, what you're trying to solve here is not that complicated. It really isn't."
Bill: And so when I took that approach, Andy, that was not really from a research base. It was much more from a perspective of looking at kids and saying, "What's working here, what's not working. What works, what doesn't work." And what always works with these kids is just to shut up and listen most of the time. If they're doing dumb things, instead of saying, "You're such an idiot," saying, "You know, I did that too, and this is what I found out. And you may find that this works a little bit better over here." And so just approach them with much more of an adult attitude. And so honestly, Andy, it's kind of a combination of both observation and kind of a background that the psychology background didn't hurt at all. But the most important thing was kind of a fearlessness and an openness with them that look, we're not that different. You think we are, but the only reason you think we're different is because you're young and I'm not.
Andy: Okay. But you do have one thing in here about kind of purposely saying something different or surprising. A jaw dropper. So I love that. Can you tell me where that came from and how you do that?
Bill: Yeah. I think it came from actually probably for my own personal experience. At the time that I wrote the teenage boys book, I had teenage boys. And my boys and my boys' friends were always fascinated with me because I would just tell them the truth about stuff. I wasn't going out of my way to shock them, but it's like, "Look guys, I can tell you that I'm all that." And then I tell them some story about trying to be meet a girl and how I tripped over myself and said stupid stuff. And it's like suddenly, I was real to these guys. I wasn't like Jake or Zach's dad. I was Bill that you could talk to and you could share stuff. And I found that when I made myself vulnerable to these guys, instead of beating on my chest and saying, "Hey, look, you meatheads," when I approached them like, "Look, this is what happened to me," usually they found some of those stories to be jaw dropping.
Bill: But one of the things that's most amazing to me, Andy, is I think that these kids, kids today are not used to having adults just be really honest with them and reveal their own weaknesses and their mistakes. And when you do that, boy, it really catches their attention because most parents come off as I know everything and you don't, and I'm here to tell you what to do. Instead of saying, "You know what, as an adult, what were the turning point stories? What happened in your life that was so bad, or so sudden, or so jarring that have changed the way you looked at the world?" And when you share those turning point stories with kids, they listen, man. They listen carefully because that's kind of the world they're living. Every day is a turning point for a lot of them.
Andy: I think there's a moment with a teenager where they look at you like you actually exist all of a sudden. Like, yeah, after you say something, right? I think they just are so used to dealing with adults that just kind of treat them in this superficial way and they couldn't possibly have anything to contribute that's valuable or something that when you just for a second, just say something real to them or just say something like, "Oh man, I don't know about what's happening," rather than just what you're supposed to say, I find that they just immediately, their whole demeanor towards you changes. And they realize, like, "Oh, this is a person I can talk to. Oh, I get it."
Bill: Absolutely. Oh, Andy, in fact, you're making a flood of memories come back to me. Because I'd ask these kids, I'd say, "Well, what do you wish someone would ask you that they never asked you?" Or, "Does anything out there make you afraid? Do you ever wake up in the middle of the night just terrified that something's going to happen? What is it?" And I'd say, "I woke up at four o'clock in the morning the other day and I couldn't go back to sleep because I was afraid that I was going to lose my business and go broke." And that's exactly what you said, Andy. It's just, it's real, it's now, it's unexpected.
Andy: It's like, "Wait, what? Dad worries about things and has vulnerabilities?" "Wait, huh? Well then, I guess I could talk to him about my problems too then. Oh, right."
Bill: Sure, sure. Absolutely. And it could be literally anything. And to be very candid with you, Andy, when you start having kids, as a parent, you get into this mindset that you can't show your weaknesses, and you can't bear your soul to these young people because you'll wreck them or they'll get whatever. Shoot, man. It's the truth that they're dying to find out because they're trying to figure it out, and they can't figure it out with an adult that's just telling them what to do all the time. They can figure it out with adult that'll share what they're going through and how they're dealing with it. And maybe that's the reason I still just have a great relationship with my kids. And I think I honestly, this is not research, Andy, it's just my observation. I think it's because we've always just been able to talk just really straight, and honest, and unvarnished sometimes. Sometimes, it's pretty crude too. But hey, that's okay too.
Andy: Okay. So I got to ask you about this discipline technique that you kind of have in here that's, I don't know, I think it's called the "you'll be sorry" system. When your teenager is doing something that you are not agreeing with, you recommend saying something along the lines of, "You'll wish you hadn't done that," or, "Well, you'll wish you had," if it's something that they're supposed to do. Okay. So then how do you follow up on that?
Bill: Well, that came from a guy, and I can't think of his name now, but he was a pretty famous … Oh, shoot. I'll think of his name here in a minute. But I got that technique from him, and I used it, and it works like a charm. Rosement is his name. Anyway, at the time, he was considered to be kind of a radical guy because that was back when the self-esteem movement was really getting going. And the idea was to be nice to your kids at all costs because you damage their self-esteem if you weren't nice to them all the time, and tell them how great they were and all that kind of stuff.
Andy: Give them a trophy. Right, right.
Bill: Exactly. And his approach, I thought was brilliant. It was simply based on the idea that you really control a lot more as a parent, you control a lot more than you think you do. You pay for everything. You make everything happen. Actually, you own everything. And the technique is very simple. That you don't pull your hair out and scream if your kids don't comply with what you're asking them to do. You simply say, "You can do that if you want to, but you're probably going to be sorry at some point." And I'll tell you, by the way, when I first wrote about this stuff, I took a lot of heat from people. They were saying, "Well, it's so mean." Well, it's not mean, it's real life. So I'd say, I asked my son, Jake, to clean up the garage. And he'd say, "No, I haven't got time, Dad."
Bill: And I'll say, "Well, you can skip it if you want to, but you're probably going to wish you had." And not getting mad. I mean, it's no threat or anything. So it's like, "Look, you're probably going to be sad." So later on that night, he wants to borrow the car. And I said, you'd reply with, "You know, when I told you you'd be sad you didn't clean the garage. Well, the sadness is probably going to settle on you right now. No, you can't have the car."
Bill: And even parents who are going to hear this are probably going to say, "Geez, that's terrible. How could you do that to your kid?" Well, it's actually really easy because it's important that your kids learn to understand, first of all, to value what they have, what you've provided for them. I mean, to really value that and understand it's just not free. Having a car to drive around just doesn't fall out of the sky, somebody had to earn it. And that they are a participant. This is a team sport, this whole teenage parenting thing. It's game we play together. You help me, I help you. And it's just a real simple thing. And what I discovered, Andy, real fast is that you don't have to do that very many times. And they believe you. You become believable.
Andy: Yeah. Oh, man. Three times is probably, within a course of a month, they'll get it instantly.
Bill: They'll get it instantly.
Andy: … happens so quickly.
Bill: It can happen. And then when you ask them to do stuff, you say, "Look, I need you to clean your room." And they say, "No, I can't do it. I haven't got time." And say, "Well, you might be …" When the sorry, the s comes out of your word, they just jump and take 30 seconds to clean their room. "Yeah. Right. I got you. I'll do it." And it's not mean, and you don't scream it at them. You just say, "Well, okay." And you know what? It leads to a lot lower blood pressure in terms of disciplining your kids. And it actually just sets the boundary solidly. And by the way, you don't have to do it within hours of them refusing. You can wait if you want it to.
Andy: Well, that's the beauty of kind of reminding them by putting the "you'll be sorry" trigger in there-
Bill: Yeah, it is.
Andy: … then you say, "Remember when I said that?" And then it creates a link in their brain between the behavior and the consequence. Yeah. So it's really nice from a psychological standpoint.
Bill: Oh my gosh. I remember my daughter. My daughter, Jessie, we had to do this with her early in the week. She refused to do something or just tacitly, passive-aggressively didn't do something we asked her to do. I said, "Look, you can blow this off if you want it to, but you're probably going to be sorry." Well, it wasn't until that following week, she needed a lift to meet her girlfriends at the movie or something. And I just harken back and said, "You know Monday when you said you wouldn't clean your room and I said you'd probably be sorry?" And I said, "No, I'm not going to take you. I don't know what you're going to do. I hope you get to the movies. I would like for you to go to the movies." But I'd say, "Well, maybe they can come and get you because I'm not going to take you to the movies. I'm sorry."
Bill: I remember she was all dressed up. She was ready to roll. And it's like, "Oh, I know that's so mean, Bill. You're so mean. How could you be so mean?" It's like, "Look, honey, don't blame me for your problem. This is your problem. How are you going to solve it?" And it went back to this whole thing, Andy, we were always, always with the kids. We always said the first thing we would do when they had a problem, we would say, "So what are you going to do about it?"
Bill: Instead of running to the rescue, we'd always put it back on them. So what are you going to do about it? They got to the point where they hated hearing that because they wanted us, mom and dad, just to fix it. But we treated them like an adult. You want to be an adult? Okay. Well, fix it. There's no ride to the movies. Wow. That sucks. What are you going to do? And it sounds … Here's the thing, Andy, it sounds so mean, but it's just real life. I mean, it's just treating them like the world's going to treat them when they get out there.
Andy: Oh yeah. Well, so I like that and I think that it's really important that the moment when you're enforcing the consequence and saying, "Hey, remember when you didn't do the thing," that you're not doing it in a vindictive way and that it's not about getting back at them for not doing it. It's a natural consequence like you're saying that just anybody, if you just were mean to them, they wouldn't do what you asked them to do.
Bill: Yeah. It always seemed to me, and I think it's a reason my books were popular, that this child-rearing thing is really pretty simple. Your job is to emulate life as much as you can. Emulate life for them so that when they go out there, they're prepared for what it's going to give them. Versus going out, and I hate to say this, we've got people who live in my neighborhood right here, they've got 28 year old kids living in the basement. And I've talked to them, of course, at length about it. And they don't see any reason to go … And I don't think it's a millennial thing and all that. I just don't think so. I just think it's the parents are shielding them from real life. That's all. And they get out there, and they just get scared, and they don't know what to do.
Bill: I know a lot of young people that when 18 comes, man, it's like you're opening the gates of the Kentucky Derby and they're gone. And there are other people that just hang around and don't want to go. Well, I've got this free report you can offer to your people, Andy, it's called Solving Teenagers. It's a free thing. They can go to my website and download it. But the whole idea here is that people adapt. Teenagers adapt. All people, everybody's always adapting to whatever life gives them. So if you really want to raise them up good, well, give them something to adapt to. Make life so that they need to adapt, and step it up, and do whatever they're going to do because it's their life, not yours.
Andy: We rise to meet the challenges that are before us. And if there's no challenges before us, then we never have to rise and we're going to stay.
Bill: No, no, no. Then you just play Fortnite all day long.
Andy: Yeah.
Bill: I mean, that's true. That's what happens. If there's nothing to adapt to, well, you don't adapt to anything. You just ... I don't know what you do. Goof around, I guess.
