Talking To Teens: Expert Tips for Parenting Teenagers

Author Katherine Lewis speaks with Andy about why kids lack resilience and capability more than ever. By rescuing kids from every micro stressor they may encounter, parents are doing more harm than good - and when it comes to behavior, we want the good stuff!



Full show notes

There are teens out there that have NO idea how to do the laundry, cook a meal, manage their time, pay bills–the list goes on. And that’s not even mentioning the poor behavior and attitude they throw at their parents and other adults. It’s frustrating to say the least! But don’t worry, there are steps you can take to improve resilience and capability in teens.

Despite the generational differences that you may have with your teen, it’s still possible to build character in your teenager and impart resilience and capability. But this problem requires updated methods. Today, a majority of teens have mood or behavioral disorders because they’ve grown up in a generation simultaneous loose structure and overparenting.

In this day and age, there aren’t many opportunities to develop resilience and capability in teens. This has left teens in a state of poor mental health and dependency. You might be asking yourself, “When will my teen grow up? When will they listen?” Luckily, Katherine Lewis, my guest on this week’s podcast and author of The Good News About Bad Behavior, wondered the same thing.

Katherine is an award-winning journalist, author, and speaker on topics including parenting, children, education, mental health in teens, relationships to technology, work culture, entrepreneurship, caregiving, equity, and inclusion. Her work addressing resilience and capability in teens, family conflicts, and building character- building has been featured in a number of publications, including The Atlantic, Bloomberg Businessweek, Fortune, and The New York Times.

She first got involved with the problem of bad behavior and poor mental health in children after a run in with some rowdy boys on a playground. They were throwing a ball around without any regard to the safety of the little kids nearby. When she asked them to stop, she says they looked at her … and then carried on exactly what they were doing. She was shocked. If speaking to a child as an adult can’t instill resilience and capability in teens, what can? After more than a year of researching current adolescent developmental trends for her book, Katherine has some answers.

One thing that stood out to Katherine in her research was that all the “saving” parents have been told to do is actually working against our kids. Rather than rescue them from stressful situations, the science shows that you should let them muster through conflict and minor trauma, to come out on the other side with more resilience and capability in teens.

With enough practice dealing with conflicts on their own, teenagers will gain more responsibility and behave accordingly. That’s the basis of Katherine’s Apprenticeship Model of parenting, self-regulation. In her coaching sessions, Katherine helps parents shift their mindset and parenting practice toward helping their kids acquire skills and knowledge necessary for them to become happy, healthy, contributing adults.

Using The Apprenticeship Model, Katherine argues that self-regulation prevents behavioral issues and mental disorders in teens and builds resilience and capability in teens. Self-regulation operates through three core disciplines:

In the podcast, Katherine walks me through how these elements can build character and strengthen resilience and capability in teens. Here’s how it works:

Connection doesn’t mean sitting with your teen on the couch watching Netflix twice a week and joining for meals regularly. More than that, connection is one-on-one time outside the purview of screens that you have with your teen, typically dedicated to an activity of your child’s choosing. When you connect with your child, you’re supplying intimacy and comradery that encourages them to follow through on the challenging things you ask of them.

Essentially, being connected with your teen functions in self-regulation by showing your teen that they’re part of something bigger; they’re not just an island. When you show your teen that they’re part of a family and part of a relationship, that sense of belonging motivates them to maintain their responsibilities, boosting resilience and capability in teens to even go the extra mile and take on new commitments!

If you spend quality time with your child going for walks, playing board games, or even just talking for moderate stretches of time, you’re exchanging personalities and investing one another. When it comes time to make dinner, it’ll make them happy to give you relief from doing this task after a long day of work. Choosing to do so is an act of self-regulation. Your shared happiness then becomes a reward and mitigates bad behavior.

Being connected also means that your teen won’t want to hurt or disappoint you in any way, steadily implementing resilience and capability in teens. Even if you disagree, the exchange is more likely to be cordial and productive. The same innocuous sentiment extends toward mental health. When you’re not close with your teen, they could feel like an outsider to the family. If your teen feels like they can’t reach out to their parents, people that they’re supposed to confide in, it can lead to anxiety, depression, self-harm, substance addiction, and suicidal thoughts.

Instilling resilience and capability in teens starts with having an interconnected relationship with their parents. Connection works to prevent these disorders in teens by providing your them with a support system and personal motivational as part of a group. In this way, your teen will share in your happiness and internalize your support when they lack confidence.

Your teen won’t be able to function independently if they don’t feel self-assured and whole. Ironically, when your teen is connected to a larger group of people, this instills resilience and capability in teens, and they can better self-regulate their actions and responsibilities with more independence. To hear Katherine’s list of special connection time activities and best practices, you’ll have to tune in to the podcast!

On the other hand, Katherine’s approach to communication is decidedly not emotional. When addressing your teen’s bad behavior, she says that you should only communicate around what’s needed. This provides resilience and capability in teens by focusing them on what is essential. While your teen does need to go through trials of learning as they grow up to understand the importance of their actions, it’ doesn’t mean you have to get dragged into preparing a lecture every time you want to communicate something important to your teen.

If your teen forgets to do the dishes, you don’t want to shame your child or make them feel bad to become self-regulating. Parenting through shame actually diminishes resilience and capability in teens. Rather, you can save yourself some stress by simply pointing out the consequences of their actions, only communicating the cause and effect needed to get the job done. You might say something like, “You know we need dishes to be clean so we can eat on them later tonight. If you don’t do the dishes, we won’t be able to eat dinner.” This points out the consequences that are sure to follow when your teen doesn’t take their responsibilities seriously.

Over time, these easy communication tactics contribute to building resilience and capability in teens and will instill the necessary lessons that your child needs to learn. When your teen develops a self-sufficient routine and divides their time and energy according to their various responsibilities, they’re less likely to argue when you point out something they need to do. Because they understand the logic of the situation, self-sufficiency mitigates bad behavior because they’re able to think logically.

Similarly, communicating around what is needed can prevent poor mental health when you check in on the important issues. Rather than coddling your child with excessive parenting and overinvestment in their wellbeing, communicating with your teen about the essentials will alert them to what they need to keep an eye on. Resilience and capability in teens relies on this type of confrontation with truth. If they begin to experience a negative or harmful mindset, they’ll be able to self-regulate their emotions and address them with someone close or a medical professional.

In the podcast, Katherine provides a helpful technique called “Say Nothing Week.” By communicating with your actions instead of your words, she says that you’ll be able to observe essential components of your teens behavior like what they know how to do, what they can do but don’t want to, and what your teen doesn’t know how to do. You can hear about the full methodology in the podcast.

Once you’ve surmised your what your teen is capable of during the “Say Nothing Week,” you can start to bolster your teen’s competency. Competence functions in self-regulation by challenging your teen to do a bit more around the house, grow their social and emotional skills, and helping them manage their thoughts, behavior, and emotions.

Katherine suggests that engaging your teen’s interests can actually get them to start helping around the house and learning how to take on important tasks that they’ll need to know as adults. When you attach tasks like doing laundry, managing finances, and dealing with car maintenance to the idea of privileges and independence, your teen will be more likely to engage in these activities. This newfound autonomy implements resilience and capability in teens’ daily lives and acts as motivation for more independence!

At a time when teens are fighting tooth and nail to become more autonomous, it’s helpful to let them stumble and fall trying to complete difficult tasks while they’re still at home. Though they can always ask you for help for the serious problems, letting them figure out where they went wrong with the detergent or the vacuum settings will teach them how to find the solution on their own.

These progressively difficult tasks will not only strengthen resilience and capability in teens, but being able to manage their needs can contribute to your teen’s time management skills, appreciation for other people’s labor, and overall self-worth. But there’s more to Katherine’s Apprenticeship Model than just connection, communication, and competence. In addition to walking me through the central elements of self-regulation, Katherine’s Apprenticeship Model for parenting will help you discover:

I had a great time speaking with Katherine this week. Her passion for the subject matter allows her to speak from a perspective of experience and investment, making it even easier to adopt her approach to parenting.

Follow us on Social Media! We're @talkingtoteens on Instagram and TikTok