No marriage begins with the end goal in mind of getting a divorce. It’s a painful and often devastating experience for all involved, and is particularly destabilizing for children. It’s an experience that can provoke anger and anxiety as they struggle to understand something beyond their control that turns their lives upside down. While divorce can be tumultuous for children of any age, teens are at an especially critical developmental phase where the potential for risky behavior in response is high. Here is a list of key “Do’s” and “Don’ts” with your teenager to help them weather the storm as gracefully as possible if you’re going through a divorce.

What Not To Do…

1. Be Mindful Of Who’s Listening. Avoid talking negatively about your ex in front of your kids. As hurt as you may be, it is best for your teen if s/he comes out of the divorce process with a strong, connected relationship with both parents, so take the high road and do not use them to vent your discontent with your ex. This doesn’t mean be withholding from them why the divorce is happening, but use your friends or a therapist to express your own feelings about it – not your kids.
2. Your Child Is Not a Messenger Service. Do not use your teen to spy on or send a message to your ex. Sending a message through your teenage kids puts them in a position to pick sides and trust one parent more than the other.
3. Don’t Force Them to Talk Before They’re Ready. Don’t force having significant or profound conversations with your teenage kids about the divorce before they’re ready. Let them know you’re available to talk whenever they want, (and you can periodically bring it up if you think there is an opening) but don’t force a meaningful conversation. Also, anticipate you will need to do a lot more listening than talking early on so they can express their anger as a first step on the path to acceptance.
4. Don’t Try to Keep Them From Your Ex. Do not use your children as a bargaining chip with your ex. Remember, a healthy, strong relationship with both of you is the best scenario for them. It’s fine if you’re angry and unresolved about the break-up, but deal with that in a way that doesn’t involve your children – especially if it keeps them apart from their mother or father.
5. Be Careful How You Expose Them to New Relationships. It’s normal for one or both parents to jump into a new relationship quickly (or a new relationship may have been a causal factor in the divorce). Regardless, be careful about exposing your kids to your new love interest too quickly. They’re already in the midst of one major disruptive change, and having to see their parent with a new romantic partner can be another one. It probably doesn’t make sense to deny that it is going on, but wait until everybody is ready before you make introductions.

What To Do

1. Stay Connected and Play The Long Game. Your child is going to go through a lot of ups and downs on their teenage journey. Much of it you won’t be able to control, however the more you can stay connected and keep your relationship strong, the more they’ll open up to you when it matters most. So you need to play the long game and not get caught up in the little, everyday drama. Don’t weaken your relationship by fighting petty battles. Focus on staying connected and keeping the channels of communication open.
2. To The Best of Your Ability, Stay Positive. Remember, you are their #1 role model. This is true in the good times and the bad. Perhaps now more than ever, the importance of this fact shines through. This doesn’t mean you need to wear a poker face 24/7 when you’re feeling down, but it does mean modeling behaviors for them like resilience, taking the high road, having a sense of humor and staying positive even when things are really tough.
3. Work On Your Own Emotional Well-Being. Building on #2, it’s very important to take care of yourself during this tough time. You can’t be emotionally available to them if you’re not first taking care of yourself. Remember the basics: eat well, get enough rest, keep your routines intact, get fresh air and exercise and find the right people to talk to.
4. Do Provide Supervision, Structure and Accountability. Don’t stop holding your teens accountable for their behavior because you feel sorry for them. Don’t let them confuse the grief they are experiencing with a pass to act irresponsibly or disrespectfully. Now more than ever they need to see you in a strong, consistent, confident parenting role.
5. Keep Their Routine on Track. Just as you need normalcy in your routine, so do they. As much as possible, keep them involved in the positive activities they’re accustomed to. Beyond staying focused in school, remaining a part of their sports teams, staying consistent with guitar lessons and staying connected to their peer group will provide them with a steady hand rail as they figure out the new dynamic at home.
6. Be Patient and Compassionate. As much as they need accountability and structure, also remember to be patient and compassionate. This is true of teens in general who often already ride a roller coaster of emotions. Now they especially need your patience and compassion as they work through the divorce and find their new equilibrium in the homes of their newly single parents.
7. Help Them Get the Support They Need. As their parent, you cannot be everything to your teen. Some guidance you’ll be able to give them. Other feedback may need to come from elsewhere. Do your best to connect them to other positive adult role models. This can be a professional you hire, or it can be an influential schoolteacher, coach, youth group leader or clergy member. Mentors in one form or another have always been a part of human growth and development, so don’t overlook the important role one might play in your teens life during this difficult period.

The post The Do’s and Don’ts With Your Teen During a Divorce appeared first on Joshua Wayne.

Anger.

A universal human emotion. Not fun. Often not pretty.

But like the common cold, for all our technology and science, we have not figured out how to eradicate this all too common of emotions, and so it’s worth asking: what is the best way to deal with anger?

This is incredibly relevant in my work helping parents understand and communicate more effectively with their teenagers, but also translates to countless other human interactions.

First though, a little definitional detour might be in order.

We can split hairs on the exact definition of the word, and if you ask twenty people what it means you’d likely get as many definitions. Often what you get in place of an actual definition is an example about what makes them angry or a description of the bodily sensation they feel when angry.

So let me offer a very simple, yet practical definition. Anger is the emotional response that says “I don’t like this.” This can happen in reaction to another person (our husband/wife/boss/kid saying something disrespectful) or circumstance (sitting in traffic). It even happens sometimes with our own thoughts (ruminating on unwanted scenarios). Anger is wanting things to be different than they are. You could say it is “arguing” with the reality of what we experience in a given moment.

So what then, is the best way to deal with it?

In a word: compassion.

Because it’s the most straightforward, let’s first talk about the anger that comes up in relation to other people.

Somebody says or does something that we don’t like. We’re angry. Typically this kicks off a series of angry thoughts where we replay the event in our head, feel wronged, righteous and vindictive. Sometimes we lash out directly and raise our voice. At the extreme this can lead to violence.

Anger is very often a knot that gets wound tighter with every angry thought we think. The more we replay it, and feel wronged and entitled to retribution, the tighter the knot gets. We’re like a mouse in a maze, getting more and more lost. There is no cheese to be found.

Ironically, the closer we are to the person we’re angry with, the angrier we tend to get. It’s much easier to let go of our anger with a stranger than the people we love the most.

The way out of this painful maze is to recognize the other person is behaving the way they do because they are human and fallible just like us, are struggling themselves, and to want them to be free from their challenges. In other words, have compassion.

Consider this idea: each of us is doing the absolute best we know how, in this moment given the resources, knowledge and insight we have, to be happy.

Recognizing that, and genuinely wanting them to find a better way, is compassion.

Here are 6 steps I have found to be extremely helpful in dealing with anger in a healthy way:

1. Acceptance. This first begins with the acceptance that we are feeling angry. It is the reality of the situation right now. I may not be pleasant, but it is ok. Sometimes we beat ourselves up for being angry. If you follow my definition of anger, we get angry at ourselves for getting angry. This only makes it worse. So begin with acceptance.
2. Breathe. Deeply. It just helps.
3. Be Willing to Let Go. Next we must have the willingness to let go of our anger, to lay down our arms so to speak. In order to do so, it’s helpful to realize that we are the one our anger harms the most. It may be unpleasant for others, but it harms our body and mind. Often this letting go is difficult to do because iit means we must be willing to let go of feeling right and justified. But there just isn’t enough space in the same room for both compassion and anger to co-habitate. Somebody’s got to pack their bags and move out.
4. Practice Compassion. Turn your thoughts away from anger and assigning blame to patience and understanding. Look beneath the surface to see how this person’s own pain, frustration and limitations cause them to behave this way. Forgive them for not being perfect. Want the best for them.
5. Confront? It’s important to realize that having compassion does not conflict with confronting others. Part of moving on may involve putting others in check for their poor behavior. Regardless, approaching this from a place of compassion will almost certainly lead to a better outcome.
6. Rinse and Repeat. Keep doing this. It takes time and patience (sometimes a great deal of both) to build a new habit around it.

So this is an overview of how to best handle the ‘big’ anger we feel towards another person. But what about the ‘little’ anger – the annoyances and impatience – that might pop up like a Whac-A-Mole several times throughout our day? You’re sitting in traffic feeling agitated. Your internet connection isn’t working. Or your computer is beach balling. Or what if it’s your own annoying, self-defeating thoughts, something most of us deal with at one point or another?

I have found the best way to deal with this is similar. I’ll tweak my steps from above:

1. Accept. This is reality. Stop fighting it.
2. Breathe deeply. It’s a great tonic.
3. Accept that the universe is imperfect. It’s not conspiring to screw us over, it just doesn’t always work impeccably. Recognize that you, as part of said universe, are flawed and imperfect too. Be nice to yourself about this.
4. Be compassionate and accepting to others, yourself and general circumstances. Forgive others (and yourself) for their imperfections. This too shall pass.

Anger isn’t fun, but it isn’t going away either. I have found time and again however, the more I patiently catch myself and interrupt the anger knot from getting tied tighter, the more I’m understanding and forgiving of my and other’s imperfections, the less anger plays a significant role in my day.

The post What Is The Best Way to Deal with Anger? appeared first on Joshua Wayne.

In the first article in this series, I wrote about the 4 universal human needs that govern a teen’s behavior. In the second in the series, I focused on what these basic needs look like in real life scenarios. In this third and final article in the series, I’m going to diver deeper into why teens will often behave in ways that are counter-productive to their success so you understand the secondary gain behind bad teen behavior.

Another quick and easy way to understand your teen’s irresponsible behaviors and poor choices outlined here is in terms of the “secondary gain” he gets from those decisions. What is the secondary gain behind bad teen behavior?

Think of it this way: viewed in the context of the basic needs – love/belonging, power, freedom and fun – we could say that every behavior, even the most destructive, has a “positive purpose” behind it. This means that in spite of the additional negative consequences he may create for himself, your teen is getting something “positive” out of the decision. He doesn’t yet know a more effective way to get this need met, and so he relies on what is familiar, easy or comfortable.

Often this secondary gain is attention, even if it’s negative. There is an old saying that “any press is good press”, and teens will often thrive on this “negative press” in the absence of knowing how to get positive attention. He may derive a strong sense of power from it – albeit a negative one that won’t do much to help him be successful.

Sometimes the secondary gain is that by failing in some endeavor, he gets to stay in his comfort zone and remain emotionally safe. If he doesn’t have the tools or the confidence necessary to succeed, he may very well feel more secure failing. Some people feel more comfortable with failure than they do with success.

Other times, as I touched on in article one of the series, the secondary gain is that through his negative behavior he gets power over you. He may be incredibly skillful at operating your control panel and draw you into repeated debates or shouting matches. This could be especially true if your teen is struggling in other areas of his life (and therefore feels a lack of power) or if he’s very angry at you. In this case he might be ‘getting even’ for wrongs he feels were done to him, whether they’re real or imagined.

Regardless of the scenario, it will be helpful to figure out what your teen’s secondary gain is through his negative behavior so you are in a better position to help him get the tools he needs to genuinely succeed. Ask yourself, “What does my teen gain from acting so poorly?

Take a moment or two to digest this because it’s very important. If you are able to see the underlying need your teen is trying to meet with his negative behavior, you will have a great opportunity to react differently than you have in the past. We’ll go into this a lot more later in the program, but you want to get to a place where you’re able to respond to his antics and his behavior in a way that helps him meet his needs in a more positive, responsible way.

If you react by yelling at him, it just heightens his sense of power over you. And it makes both of you angry. This is not a good outcome for anybody.

So as an exercise for now, think about some of the most challenging behaviors you experience with him. What needs is he trying to fulfill? How is going about filling his needs for love & belonging, power, freedom and fun? How is he going about doing this in positive ways? How about in negative ways?

When he goes about it in negative ways, what is the positive purpose behind this behavior? What is he getting out of behaving that way?

Putting in the time and energy to understand this will take you a big step closer to figuring out the best way to help him get his needs met in healthy, responsible ways.

The post Understanding Your Teenager Part 3: What is the Secondary Gain Behind Bad Teen Behavior? appeared first on Joshua Wayne.

In the first article in this series, I wrote about the 4 universal human needs that govern a teen’s behavior. In this shorter article, I’m going to unpack how those 4 needs interact in real-life scenarios, particularly when it comes to understanding responsible vs. irresponsible behavior in teens.

Being able to get all 4 of our basic needs met and keep them in balance, is a hallmark of maturity. I say this because in truth it isn’t always easy. These needs are often competing with each other in our lives. Think about this for a second in your own experience. Dad, you might really like spending a good part of your weekends off with your friends hunting or playing golf or watching sports on TV. But mom, how do you feel about that? His need for freedom and fun might be competing with keeping love and belonging issues in a healthy place at home. And if there is tension around this, it’s going to have an impact on the fun you can actually have.

When your teen is able to choose behaviors that hold these 4 needs in balance without resulting in negative consequences, we could say he is behaving responsibly. Responsible behaviors now give teens better choices in the long run.

What happens very often with teens is that they make decisions that try to satisfy one or more of these needs at the expense of the others. This would be considered irresponsible behavior. Irresponsible behaviors work against us by limiting our choices in the future.

Here are a few examples:

• Matt, a 16 year-old boy stays out past curfew in the pursuit of all these needs. He is enjoying hanging out with his friends and being a part of the crowd (love and belonging). He’s doing what he wants to be doing (possibly satisfying both his freedom and power needs), and quite likely, he is having a good time (fun). However, when he gets home and finds mom and dad sitting angry on the couch, there are a whole range of negative consequences coming his way. He may lose his parents’ trust and confidence. This may or may not matter to him; hopefully it does but it’s possible he no longer cares how his parents feel towards him. In fact, he might even get a little bit of a power rush by upsetting them. If he gets grounded and loses some of his privileges, he will lose freedom. If he has to stay home while his friends are out, he may lose some power because he’ll be embarrassed, and he will certainly miss out on some fun.
• A 15 year-old girl, Julie, has a distorted body image. She’s thin but sees herself as overweight and develops an eating disorder. She believes that if she is rail thin she will be more attractive to others (belonging and power). She enjoys the sense of control she feels from being able to regulate her body weight (freedom and power). However, the more consumed she becomes in the eating disorder, the less fun she actually has. She is stressed, her hair is thinning, she has little energy and feels lethargic and depressed. Also, her parents are increasingly worried and begin to require that she see a variety of therapists. They may even threaten hospitalization if her behavior doesn’t change (loss of freedom).
• Andy, a 16 year-old boy wants to impress a girl in his science class and acts like a clown in front of the rest of the class. He may make everybody laugh (fun) which may elevate his social status (belonging and power). He may also attract the female attention he wants (again, belonging and power). However, when he winds up in detention and his parents are called, and then he can’t go out on weekends for two weeks, he loses quite a bit of freedom (and, therefore, access to degrees of fun, belonging, and power).
• A 17 year-old high school senior girl, Tricia, is an exceptional student. She wants to attend an Ivy League college. She receives accolades and recognition from her teachers and parents for her outstanding academic performance (belonging and power). However, in other areas of her life, her connection to others is seriously lacking. She has a few friends, but is always too busy studying and preoccupied with her future to relax and have fun with them (loss of belonging and fun).

As an exercise to apply this to your teenagers, think of the 3-5 most challenging behaviors you experience with them. Now think about each of the behaviors you list out in terms of the 4 basic needs. Which of their needs are they most intensely trying to satisfy through these behaviors? How are they going about meeting each of them in both positive and negative ways? If you can think this through with your spouse, it will likely be more helpful so you can exchange ideas and feedback.

The post Understanding Your Teenager Part 2: Responsible vs. Irresponsible Behavior in Teens appeared first on Joshua Wayne.

I know, it’s shocking. Hard to believe, really. You probably hadn’t noticed the signs of it all. But alas, it may very well be true. You can take this quick multiple choice question to determine if this is fact or fiction in your home:

When you ask your teen about (seemingly) everyday things (doing their homework, talking to their teacher about their Chemistry questions, what they did at their friend’s house after school), which reaction do you get?:

1. Rolling of the eyes, accompanied by loud exhalation (aka: a pained sigh).
2. A single-to-few word, monotone answer (i.e. No, Yes, Ok, I Don’t Know, Whatever…), accompanied by body language which suggests utter disbelief you actually had the gaul to ask such a question.
3. Yelling and blaming (accompanied by flailing hand gestures) at a volume that would suggest you just gave his dog away to a laboratory for purposes of scientific experimentation.
4. All of the above.

No matter, really, what answer you chose. If you can even relate to the question in the first place, you’ll find this post helpful.

So, while this may not come as startling news, it is true that your teenager may find you annoying and tune you out!

So let’s get right to it: why does your teenager get so annoyed with you?

Afterall, you love him more than the most gifted poet could put to words and you’d happily throw yourself in front of moving truck to keep him safe. How could he possibly keep reacting this way?

First, it is possible that your teen is really struggling emotionally, and something deeper is going on that causes her get so upset. It could be a social issue (conflict with a friend, issue with a boy, or getting teased) or she could be struggling academically and feels stuck. Regardless, she may need to talk to somebody safe to help her work through what’s going on – whether it’s a therapist or counselor at school. If you think that’s what is going on, take action and find her somebody to talk to.

But from my experience, nine times out of ten, it’s going to fall into one of the following two categories.

They Feel Nagged

Around the time they hit 13-14, they just don’t want to be parented all the time – at least around the little day-to-day stuff (school work, what’s going on with them and their friends, etc.). They feel that you’re nagging. They’re at an age where they’re trying to demonstrate their autonomy, and they don’t want to play 20 questions about the simple details of their life every time they get in the car with you. So instead, they blow you off, get annoyed and retreat to the interior depths of the boundless world their iPhone offers them.

Don’t worry, you haven’t lost them. This doesn’t mean they don’t love you and it doesn’t mean you’re a bad parent. It just means they want their own, age-appropriate space.

Ironically, your frustration to get them to open up and be more communicative has the opposite effect you intend it to. Instead of breaking down the wall, they get more annoyed and build it up higher. Give them some breathing room.

I’ll you offer you some suggestions on how to avoid driving them further away rather than closer after we talk about how…

They Are Tired of Receiving “Little Lessons”

Very often I see parents trying to teach their teens what I call ‘little lessons.’ These are the unsolicited bits of advice that kids generally already know but that parents still feel the urge to say in order to relieve their own anxiety about a given situation. You can usually recognize a ‘little lesson’ is being delivered because their eyes are rolling and/or glazed over, they are trying to physically move away from you and they’re muttering under their breath.

Sometimes these ‘little lessons’ come in the form of rhetorical questions, sometimes they come across as sarcasm, and sometimes they come across as dismissive remarks. Here are some examples of ‘little lessons’:

• “If you don’t improve your grades how do you think you’re going to get into the college you want?”
• “You know you’ve got a test coming up tomorrow. If you don’t study you’re going to fail like you did last time.”
• “Yeah…you know how to keep a job…you did it real well with the last one you had!”
• “You’re not going out with Jason this weekend, are you? You know what we think of him. You’re going to get in trouble if you keep hanging out with him.”
• “You can’t even get up by yourself in the morning …what are you going to do when you get to college and you’re on your own?”

• “It’s just a pimple. Don’t get so worked up about it.”
• “So your friends didn’t include you in their plans this weekend. It’s no big deal, you’ll get over it.”

Most of the ‘little lessons’ parents give to their teens don’t strengthen the relationship, they weaken it. They are not useful. Teens experience them as lectures and they feel discounted.

These are generally common sense type things anyhow, and when you treat him like he can’t put two and two together for himself, he will often go on the defensive or withdraw. And really defiant, strong-willed teens may even take it as encouragement to go do exactly the opposite of what you said.

What You Can Do About This

Here are things I recommend you do to reduce any compelling urge you may feel to nag or dish out little lessons:

Find the Balance Between Roots and Wings

“Good parents give their children Roots and Wings. Roots to know where home is, Wings to fly away and exercise what’s been taught them.”

Dr. Jonas Salk

As long as they’re living under your roof, you have rules and expectations they must abide by. To at least some extent, they still need your guidance. These are the roots you provide them with. It’s important that you take the time to think through and be confident in these rules. Minimally, they need to be respectful to the other people in the house, and keep you informed of where they are and who they’re with.

But you must also start to let them find their wings by giving them space. Don’t try solve all their problems. Take a deep breath and work through your own anxiety without putting it on them. As much as you may want to avoid and delay it, they are in the phase of life where you increasingly have to let them go to find their way. You understandably want to protect them from the missteps they’ll surely encounter, but you’re limited in how much you can do this. And if you keep trying to intervene, they’ll get more and more annoyed and keep pushing you away. Let them make mistakes they can learn from. It’s called growing up.

Cultivate Common Interests

Start doing things with him that don’t involve talking about anything significant – certainly not any of the tension you’ve been having or your frustration with his choices. Go see a movie together. Throw the football around. Go fishing. Play ‘Go Fish’. Play laser tag. Play tic-tac-toe. Sort nuts and bolts. It really doesn’t matter. Just choose an activity you can both enjoy, even if it seems silly to you. Find this common ground and start to build on it. Give him the feeling you can spend time together without prying into his life with a crowbar. If you can, you might even try to involve some of his friends in some of these activities. It will give you a good window into their world.

Listen

Try this exercise: in the conversations you have with her over the next few days, just practice listening to what she is really saying. Focus on putting your own agenda aside long enough to get a feel for what is really going on in her life. Just listen and don’t react.

Then ask yourself: what does she really want? What is she trying to get to in her life? What questions is she really asking herself about her life? Instead of trying to problem solve or point out the six ways you think she’s being irrational, try these three magic words instead: “I hear you.”

At the end of the day, your sights should be set on building and maintaining a strong relationship with your teen. Don’t weaken it by nagging or giving ‘little lessons’. Life is full of unknowns and twists and turns. But if your teen feels like he has a strong relationship with you, then when it really matters, you’ll be the one he’s talking to.

The post Breaking News: Your Teenager May Find You Annoying and Tune You Out! appeared first on Joshua Wayne.

This is part 1, in a 3 part series where I’m going on to lay out the core reasons why teenagers behave the way they do – even if those behaviors seem negative and self-defeating. While ultimately what matters most is how you respond and communicate with your teens, I have found that understanding teen behavior is really helpful for parents as they navigate these often choppy waters.

Part 2 will be: Understanding Teen Behavior, Part 2: Responsible & Irresponsible Behavior

Part 3 will be: Understanding Teen Behavior, Part 3: What Is The Secondary Gain?

This first post in the series is going to be long. I contemplated breaking it into two different posts but ultimately decided against it because I think it’s important to take in all four of the ideas I’ll discuss at once rather than installments. Parts 2 & 3 will be shorter.

First things first: I need to give credit for the model I’m going to share to Dr. William Glasser (1925-2013). I learned of him from early mentor of mine many years ago and it’s something I’ve referenced in my work consistently since. Among other things, he offered a model for understanding human behavior that is both magnificent in it’s simplicity and remarkable in the way it has stood the test of time.

The model was originally called Reality Therapy and he later changed it to Choice Theory. The model is based on 4 core needs that ALL human beings have (assuming our food/clothing/shelter needs are already accounted for). It doesn’t matter where you live, what color you are or whose God you believe in – these 4 basic needs apply to you. According to Glasser, we’re always trying to fulfill all 4 of these needs through everything we do. Applied to teenagers, think of this as “Teen Psychology 101”.

Before I outline the 4 needs though, there is one other important point Glasser makes which underlies his whole model: each of us, whether child, teenager or adult, ultimately CHOOSES and is 100% responsible for our own behaviors.

This is a simple point but don’t overlook how profound it is. Think about it both in terms of your teen’s behavior and yours as well. We all choose our own behaviors. Nobody makes us do anything. Nobody makes us angry; nobody makes us sad. People do things and WE choose how we are going to react to them. It’s not your teen who’s driving you crazy (or vice versa). It’s not your boss, your mother-in-law, the Democrats, the Republicans or the kid who put too much spicy salsa on your burrito last night at Chipotle. We may not like the things others do, but we’re the ones who choose to be angry and yell, or choose to be sad and cry.

For a lot of us this is a tough pill to swallow because we’re so used to blaming others for our frustrations. And then we begin the process of trying to change other people which, remarkably, usually doesn’t work. So consider this premise as a starting point. As it soaks in, you’ll find it provides a way to resolve conflict much quicker in your life.

That said here are the 4 basic needs:

1. Love & belonging
2. Power
3. Freedom
4. Fun

Simply put, using positive ways to meet these 4 needs gives us a sense of happiness and success. Using negative ways to meet them creates more problems for us. Either way, we are still trying to fulfill that same need, and all of us use both at one time or another. It’s part of growing and maturing. When we figure out how to balance all of the needs in a positive way, we have the basic building blocks for success and happiness.

Basic Need #1: Love and Belonging. We are social creatures by nature. As babies and as children, we get it directly from our parents. As we become older, we branch out and also find it through our sibling and friends. When we are adolescents, we shift strongly toward searching for love and belonging outside the family. Fitting into a peer group has huge importance at this point and in many ways we define ourselves by our social circle. This shift lasts for several years and, if all goes well, we’re able to meet this need through an intimate connection with with another person, we may start a family and the whole cycle repeats itself.

• Here are some positive ways teens meet this need for connection:
• Healthy friendships with other healthy kids
• Sports teams
• Clubs and other extracurricular activities
• Summer camps and summer jobs with a strong peer group

Here are some negative ways teens meet this need for connection:

• Unhealthy friendships with other struggling kids
• Doing risky or illegal things to impress others and ‘raise their status’
• Failing in school and hanging out with a rebellious crowd

Basic Need #2: Power. We gain a sense of power through accomplishment. By knowing what we want and taking action to make it happen – whether it’s in the form of academic, career, financial or romantic & social goals – we get power.

Some positive ways teens meet the need for power are:

• Getting a job and earning money
• Having academic, sports, or social success
• Getting into college
• Having a boyfriend or girlfriend

Unfortunately, not all of our attempts to get power are always positive. Teens often challenge their parents for power – hence the term “power struggle.” Don’t underestimate some of the extremes teens will go to to get power.

Failing in school, developing emotional problems and fighting with you at every turn are common ways teens get power. Think about it: when a teenager engages in behavior that make their parents crazy, who really has the power? If your child fails in school, has intense emotional problems or draws you into an ongoing battle of wills, your teen has your attention focused on him.

You may be running all over town to see doctors and psychiatrists to figure out what his “problem” is. You may be coming to school on a regular basis to talk to teachers about why he isn’t doing his homework. You may be slamming doors and losing your cool every night.

I’m not saying teenagers never have legitimate problems – of course they do. But consider that at least one of the “pay-offs” for his problem is that he’s getting power by running the show.

So some of the negative ways teens meet their need for power include:

Failing in school and/or developing emotional problems

• Challenging, manipulating and irritating their parents
• Hanging with a tough or rebellious crowd
• Doing risky or illegal things to impress others
• Fighting or bullying others

Basic Need #3: Freedom. Everyone wants to control their own destiny and make their own choices in life. It is central to human functioning. People fight wars and put their lives on the line every day for freedom.

The need for freedom and self-determination is very prevalent during the teenage years. Teens want to do whatever they want to do, when and with whom, and of course they want you to drive them there.

The positive ways teens meet this need for freedom include:

• Getting a job, earning money, and spending it how they want
• Getting a drivers license and maybe a car so they can be more mobile
• Going on trips, vacations, or outings with their friends
• Engaging in a variety of social relationships (romantic or otherwise) and going out and beginning to feel what adult life is like

The negative ways teens meet this need for freedom include:

• Using drugs or alcohol to feel high or powerful
• Having sex before they are ready
• Rebellious behavior (ignoring curfew, getting in trouble at school or with the police, etc)
• Lying to their parents and engaging in activities they know they should not be doing

Basic Need # 4: Fun. At first glance, it may seem out of place to put fun on the same list as these other core needs. But do not underestimate what a powerful driver of teen behavior fun is – especially the ones adults find most challenging. Using drugs and alcohol, for example, in most cases is pursued as a way to have fun with friends. A lot of professionals and parents might try to make the point that substance use issues are covering up for other social or emotional problems, but in my experience that’s the simplistic and easy way out. I’m not condoning it, and it can certainly be problematic, but it’s important to start in reality rather than the way we’d like reality to be. Typically, kids are experimenting with drugs and alcohol for the same reason that adults like to sip martinis at cocktail parties or drink beer in front of a football game on Sunday afternoon with friends. They’re having a good time.

Some positive ways teens meet the need for fun include:

• Playing sports, martial arts or joining clubs
• Outdoors activities like hiking or rafting
• Hanging out with friends of the same and opposite sex
• Video games and technology, within limits
• Artistic things like playing an instrument, drawing or painting

Negative ways teens meet the need for fun include:

• Using drugs and alcohol
• Risky behaviors like driving reckless and fast
• Breaking the law (stealing,
  vandalism, etc.)
• Fighting and bullying others for the thrill or ‘rush’ they ge

In the next installment in this series, I will talk about how to help your teens get their needs met in more positive ways.

The post Understanding Teen Behavior, Part 1: The Basic Needs appeared first on Joshua Wayne.

So I’m sure this all sounds well and good, but you also might be asking yourself by now, “Ok smart guy…it sounds good, but how do I actually do it? When my kids are fighting with each other, disregarding my rules and making my house look like it got hit by a hurricane, how do you suggest I stay calm? Huh?”

First, let’s acknowledge that you won’t likely do it 100% of the time. None of us do. We’re all human. That said, let’s talk about the tools necessary to make this happen which don’t involve spending a week on a tropical beach – something most of us can’t engineer with the simple snap of our fingers.

The first thing you need to do is to learn to become the director of your own movie. Let me explain:

Imagine for a moment that you’re an actor on a movie set.  You’re deep into your role, and have the experience of truly being the character you are portraying.  Now imagine you’re in an emotionally charged scene.  You’re having a fight with your teenager, and you feel the rush of the full range of emotions – anger about what’s going on, frustration that this keeps happening, afraid for what the future may hold.  Then the person playing your teenager walks out of the room, and suddenly you hear the director yell “CUT!”.  You start to come back to your senses and realize it’s make-believe, and you begin to disengage from the emotional experience you were just having.

Well, of course your real day-to-day life scenarios are not make-believe, but nevertheless it’s really important that you learn how to be the director that yells “CUT!” after you’ve had an intense emotional experience – or any emotional experience for that matter.

There are a number of ways you can go about creating this distance.  The best one, in my opinion, is free, widely available and right under your nose (literally), and it’s using your breath as a tool. Maybe you have some experience using your breath as a tool in the past. Perhaps you’ve taken some yoga or meditation classes where they focus on using the breath. Or maybe you were involved in athletics earlier in your life, and were taught how to use your breath before a competition or race to still your nerves, focus your attention or pace yourself during a race. Regardless, it’s no wonder that so many disciplines – from sports, to holistic health approaches to spiritual practices – focus on the breath as a key component in getting successful results.

Before I explain how to go about doing this the right way, I want to offer you some of the “scientific” reasons why breathing is so beneficial. Most people don’t breathe very well.  I don’t mean that they cannot breathe well – it’s just that they have poor breathing habits. They breathe very shallowly, and consequently have “stale” air that just lingers in their lungs.

Obvious as this will sound, most people don’t pay attention to the fact that there are two equally important aspects to healthy breathing:

1. Fully exhaling
2. Fully inhaling

The key word here is fully. When you take deliberate, deep breaths (as I’m going to show you how to do shortly), a couple of things initially happen.  First, you ‘flush’ all that stale oxygen out of your lungs (exhalation).  Second, you increase the amount of fresh oxygen taken into your lungs and therefore into your blood stream (inhalation).  Assuming you have normal, healthy circulation, this then delivers fresh oxygen to your entire body.

There are a number of great health benefits to proper breathing including eliminating toxins from the system, improving digestion and internal organ functioning, increasing nervous system functioning, and improving skin tone and increasing metabolic rate (thus potentially aiding in weight loss).

When you take a slow, deep, healthy breath you stimulate what is referred to as the parasympathetic nervous system (the part of the nervous system responsible for rest and relaxation). This slows down your heart rate, and helps to relax your muscles to reduce anxiety and tension. Sounds pretty good, huh? I told you.

What makes it even better is that it’s always free and always available to you. It’s a bottomless vending machine that requires no money. Here’s how you take full advantage of it. I want you to think about your lungs as having three parts: the bottom (just above your diaphragm and abdomen, the middle (around your heart) and the upper (around your upper chest).

Begin by taking a few moments to notice how you currently breathe.  You might want to close your eyes and relax for a few moments and experience the air coming in and out of your lungs – however it naturally does so.  Just notice what’s happening for 4-5 cycles of the breath (inhalation/exhalation) and then come back.

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What did you notice?  Due to stress and bad habits, most people only breathe into their upper lungs- perhaps venturing a bit into the middle section.  As a result, they only get a fraction of the benefits possible from their breathing.

Now here are the steps I’d like you to begin practicing:

1. First, fully exhale all of the air from your lungs. Using your abdominal muscles (as opposed to simply blowing out) imagine just ‘squeezing’ them like a sponge and wringing out all the stale air.
2. Begin inhaling through your nostrils, and envision filling your lower lungs first. You do this by “breathing from your navel”. What this means is that you begin the inhalation by expanding your abdomen first and as fully as you can – again, imagine as if you’re breathing from your navel.
3. Next fill your middle lungs by focusing on expanding your rib cage.
4. Then finally fill your upper lungs. You will know you’re doing this because your chest – and even your shoulders to an extent – will expand and rise. Fill your lungs fully, but don’t strain yourself – there is no reason to push it.
5. Finally, to the best of your ability exhale in reverse order. This means you should first exhale from your upper lungs, then your middle and finally your lower lungs.  Without straining, empty your lower longs with the same abdominal ‘sponge-squeezing’ method I described in Step 1.

Like you did before, repeat this cycle 3-4 times, pause for a few moments to notice how you feel and then come back.

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What do you notice now?  What is different?  Do you feel calmer?  More focused?  Slightly ‘tingly’ in your hands or feet?

I want to emphasize once again not to strain yourself.  There is no perfect or exact right way to do this.  The value here, above all else, is in using your breath to slow your emotional process down and stay in a cool, calm, collected state of mind.

If the steps outlined here feel a bit foreign to you, that’s okay. Don’t worry about doing this perfect. Just do it! Focus on how you can use this tool to ‘catch’ yourself before you overreact to a situation with your teenager (or spouse, or boss, or pet fish, or whoever).  Remember, you are the director on the set yelling “CUT!” after an emotional scene.   You have an entire lifetime to practice this, so be patient and enjoy the learning process!

The post How to Stay Calm When Your Teen Is Driving You Nuts appeared first on Joshua Wayne.

There is a control panel wired directly into your brain.

What’s more?

Your teenager has direct access to it.

In the simplest terms possible, HE KNOWS EXACTLY HOW TO PUSH YOUR BUTTONS. He knows exactly what to say, and what not to say to get the response from you that he wants, and his timing is usually impeccable. Teens know how to make their parents smile and adore them so they can get money, a special favor, a ride, use of the car, or the new cell phone they want. They also know how to make you howl with anger, and if you’ve allowed them to have access to your control panel in the past, they are probably pretty darn masterful at knowing which buttons to push now to get the response they’re looking for. From a very early age kids learn what behaviors they can get away with and which ones they can’t.

In order to have a great relationship with your teen and a peaceful, happy home environment, you MUST remove your teen’s access to it. You’ve got to take back control of it.

You want to be operating your own control panel – not your teenager (or anybody else for that matter).

Now I don’t want you to gloss this over and think “yeah, yeah…I know I need to keep my cool a bit better.” This is deeper and more important than that. The key to a happy home begins with taking control of your own emotional reactions to the things that happen within it.

It begins with taking a DEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP breath, and staying calm – even when they’re pushing your buttons.

When you are calm, you’re in control. When you don’t let things rattle you, you’re in control. When you’re calm and confident, you’re the pack leader and you’re in control of your house.

Here are the 2 primary reasons for being in a calm state of mind with your teen:

1. CHOICES: When you are calm and centered, you simply make better choices. In fact, it will be easier for you to realize that you even have a choice in the first place about how you will respond. You can lose your cool and explode or you can take a deep breath, step away for a moment, and think calmly about what your options are. When you’re operating calmly and positively, you create the mental state necessary to recognize that you have options. Instead of going on auto-pilot and reacting strongly with emotions which is rarely useful, you will be able to determine what tone will be most effective for you to take with your teen, and it will be easier for you to get the desired results.
2. ROLE MODELING: The other reason it’s so important to be calm and in control is because it’s what you want for your children. As the parent, you are your child’s primary teacher. You are the primary role model for how he will handle stress and conflict and how he will get what he wants in the world. Regardless of what your habits have been in the past, it is possible to start modeling new behaviors today. In fact, it’s essential. You want them to be confident, calm and resourceful. You want them to make good decisions that come from within instead of just reacting to the circumstances around them. If you’re not doing this in your own interactions with him, how can you expect him to do the same?

I’m not exaggerating here when I say that the key to all successful interactions with your teenager is making sure you’re in the right state of mind. If you’re tense, frustrated, or anxious, then everything that happens in your interaction will get run through this negative filter. It will only make things worse. By contrast, if you start from a calm, balanced state, you—not your teenager—are running your control panel.

So take that DEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP breath, and start doing this….NOW!

The post Who Is Operating Your Control Panel? appeared first on Joshua Wayne.

When I help them peel back the layers of the onion, one of the things I often see is the parents lack self-confidence in two common, but related ways:

1. What it means to be the appropriate authority figure at home
2. What rules they want for their home

Building up this self-confidence is critical to restoring balance at home. It’s the first step in reducing the terrible stress of being at odds with your children and everything that comes with it (stress in your marriage, negative impact on your other children, and loss of joy at home to name a few).

Here are 4 basic principles I work on with parents to help them build up their self-confidence so they are empowered to take back control of the emotional climate in their home.

1. You are the pack leader. Funny as it may sound, it can be useful to think of your family for a moment as a dog pack. (Don’t worry, mom, I’m not suggesting your cooking tastes like dog food). In this pack, you are the indisputable pack leader – the “alpha”. It’s your pack and you ultimately say what goes and what doesn’t. Other members of the pack are loved and valued and can respectfully provide input, but at the end of the day, you’re the pack leader – the parent and adult – so you have the final say. Action step: Take a deep, deep breath and step confidently into your role as the pack leader. Own it.
2. Go with your gut. Many parents second guess themselves when it comes to the rules of their home. They’re afraid others (i.e. their teens) won’t like them, and this then leads to a cascade of fear and self-doubt. As a result, they often have ambiguous rules that seem constantly up for negotiation. The solution is to go with your gut. Trust that you have a reliable sense of what is right and wrong for your home and your kids. If your intentions are good and you’re being reasonable, you’ll be hitting the mark far more often that not. Action step: Take 5 minutes to sit alone quietly. Close your eyes, put your feet flat on the floor, take some deep breaths, and let your mind and body settle down a bit. Think of a situation where you need to set a rule or limit with your teen. Regardless of the reaction you might encounter, what does your gut tell you is the right way to go with it? Learn to listen, and then run with it.
3. Stop explaining yourself. An extension of going with your gut is realizing you don’t have to constantly explain your choices when it comes to your teens. Let go of feeling like you have to explain yourself and justify your rules. Your teen doesn’t have to always like them but as long as they’re living in your home, they have to accept them. This doesn’t mean you can’t be open to their feedback (as long as it’s respectfully communicated) and take it into consideration. But once you’ve made up your mind, don’t feel that you owe your teen an elaborate explanation – and don’t let them goad you into thinking you do. Your rules are your rules. Plain and simple. Action step: Next time you’re drawn into a debate or negotiation with your teen, catch yourself, and get out of it. Calmly restate your position on the matter, explain to your teen that she doesn’t have to like it but she does have to accept it, and walk away.
4. You always have the trump card. Finally, it’s important to realize that as the pack leader, you always have the trump card. Often parents hesitate to set limits because they’re afraid how their teen will respond when they hear the word “no”. They fear their teen will escalate with anger and start tantruming or making threats. If this is a situation you’re facing, realize that as the parent and adult, you always have the trump card. Whether it’s giving consequences for bad behavior, withdrawing privileges or, at the very extreme, exploring ways to move your teen out of the house for a period of time, being self-confident means knowing you always have the last say. This doesn’t mean it will always be easy, but where there’s a will there’s a way. The alternative is allowing your teen run your home through threat and intimidation. Action step: List out the leverage points you can use as consequences when your teen behaves poorly. Think of everything that’s in play (i.e. cell phone, use of the car, a summer trip with friends, come and go privileges on the weekends, paying for college, etc.). It doesn’t mean you have to use any or all of them, but part of having the trump card is knowing they’re on the table.

Building this self-confidence takes time. It doesn’t mean you have to walk around with a puffed out chest letting everybody who walks through your door know you’re the boss. But it does mean developing the quiet inner resolve and certainty that it’s your home, and you can shape the emotional climate of it in the way you want. Take a deep breath. You can do this.

The post Why Self-Confidence Is Your Greatest Asset In Having A Peaceful Home appeared first on Joshua Wayne.