21 min
Ep 69: Happier Parenting Talking To Teens: Expert Tips for Parenting Teenagers
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- Kids & Family
KJ Dell’Antonia, author of How to Be a Happier Parent, joins Andy for a look at how to get happier while parenting. It’s time for parents to stop thinking about their kids so much and get back to what makes them happy!
If you've enjoyed Talking to Teens, we'd love if you could leave us a five-star rating, and if you have time, a review!
Full show notes
Remember the days when you’d lose your mind over kids drawing on the walls or refusing to eat the dinner you prepared for them? You might still experience the same headache with your teenager. But you put up with it because parenting is about loving your children, no matter what wild rides they put you through! However, parents so often put themselves before their children, but they can unintentionally neglect their own happiness.
I don’t think parents should have to sacrifice their own happiness in order to be a successful parent and raise good kids. I think there’s a trick to simple happy parenting, and the best way to uncover it is to talk to the pros.
In order to figure out the tricks to happy parenting, I called up KJ Dell’Antonia. KJ has been a parenting expert for the better part of a decade, and she has a wealth of knowledge about happy parenting. KJ is an accomplished author, having written first for Slate and then the New York Times. She hosts a parenting podcast with Jessica Lahey, and she is also about to publish her first novel!
In addition to her personal career, KJ is an accomplished parent. She has raised four kids, and much of her parenting experience has fed her career as a writer. Her most recent book on parenting, How to Be a Happier Parent: Raising a Family, Having a Life, and Loving (Almost) Every Minute of It, is an awesome resource that I myself love. This week, KJ helps me investigate methods to happier parenting.
The Situation
It’s a hectic Sunday afternoon. You’ve been running around all weekend, going from activity to activity. Two of your teens have soccer tournaments, and both are inconveniently located on opposite sides of town. If either one goes to overtime, you’ll be late to your third teen’s spring musical at the high school theater. You’re exhausted, and you still need to figure out dinner.
In the attempt to keep up with all of your teen’s activities, you hardly had a moment to catch your breath. In these moments of exhaustion, it can be so easy to feel discouraged when facing the world. But what strategies can you use to achieve simple happy parenting?
While she was editor for the New York Times, she wanted to share a piece on simple happy parenting. She decided to come up with a list of solutions that would make her feel happier as a parent. However, she quickly realized that she did not have enough time in the day to invest in “happy parenting” methods and needed to pivot her approach.
Instead of adding new activities to boost happiness like yoga, 2-hour runs, or hot stone massages, she needed to be taking stuff off her plate. Parenting is crazy enough, so reducing her hectic schedule is what helped KJ unlock the trick to happy parenting.
The key to happy parenting is finding ways to make parenting less stressful.
This proves to be a beneficial strategy, and sparked inspiration for How to Be a Happier Parent.
The “Ground Rule” Solution
KJ decided that the easiest way to make parenting less stressful was to create ground rules for certain parts of family life. This made expectations clear for everyone, and in turn reduced the general chaos of family life. One solution KJ created was a set of five ground rules for dinner because she found it difficult to make a meal without one of her children complaining. Here’s one in action:
Rule #1:
At KJ’s table, everyone in her family has to accept everything on their plate. Before this rule, it was relatively common for one of her children to reject the food presented to them outright. In response, KJ said that everyone had to accept the food that is given to
KJ Dell’Antonia, author of How to Be a Happier Parent, joins Andy for a look at how to get happier while parenting. It’s time for parents to stop thinking about their kids so much and get back to what makes them happy!
If you've enjoyed Talking to Teens, we'd love if you could leave us a five-star rating, and if you have time, a review!
Full show notes
Remember the days when you’d lose your mind over kids drawing on the walls or refusing to eat the dinner you prepared for them? You might still experience the same headache with your teenager. But you put up with it because parenting is about loving your children, no matter what wild rides they put you through! However, parents so often put themselves before their children, but they can unintentionally neglect their own happiness.
I don’t think parents should have to sacrifice their own happiness in order to be a successful parent and raise good kids. I think there’s a trick to simple happy parenting, and the best way to uncover it is to talk to the pros.
In order to figure out the tricks to happy parenting, I called up KJ Dell’Antonia. KJ has been a parenting expert for the better part of a decade, and she has a wealth of knowledge about happy parenting. KJ is an accomplished author, having written first for Slate and then the New York Times. She hosts a parenting podcast with Jessica Lahey, and she is also about to publish her first novel!
In addition to her personal career, KJ is an accomplished parent. She has raised four kids, and much of her parenting experience has fed her career as a writer. Her most recent book on parenting, How to Be a Happier Parent: Raising a Family, Having a Life, and Loving (Almost) Every Minute of It, is an awesome resource that I myself love. This week, KJ helps me investigate methods to happier parenting.
The Situation
It’s a hectic Sunday afternoon. You’ve been running around all weekend, going from activity to activity. Two of your teens have soccer tournaments, and both are inconveniently located on opposite sides of town. If either one goes to overtime, you’ll be late to your third teen’s spring musical at the high school theater. You’re exhausted, and you still need to figure out dinner.
In the attempt to keep up with all of your teen’s activities, you hardly had a moment to catch your breath. In these moments of exhaustion, it can be so easy to feel discouraged when facing the world. But what strategies can you use to achieve simple happy parenting?
While she was editor for the New York Times, she wanted to share a piece on simple happy parenting. She decided to come up with a list of solutions that would make her feel happier as a parent. However, she quickly realized that she did not have enough time in the day to invest in “happy parenting” methods and needed to pivot her approach.
Instead of adding new activities to boost happiness like yoga, 2-hour runs, or hot stone massages, she needed to be taking stuff off her plate. Parenting is crazy enough, so reducing her hectic schedule is what helped KJ unlock the trick to happy parenting.
The key to happy parenting is finding ways to make parenting less stressful.
This proves to be a beneficial strategy, and sparked inspiration for How to Be a Happier Parent.
The “Ground Rule” Solution
KJ decided that the easiest way to make parenting less stressful was to create ground rules for certain parts of family life. This made expectations clear for everyone, and in turn reduced the general chaos of family life. One solution KJ created was a set of five ground rules for dinner because she found it difficult to make a meal without one of her children complaining. Here’s one in action:
Rule #1:
At KJ’s table, everyone in her family has to accept everything on their plate. Before this rule, it was relatively common for one of her children to reject the food presented to them outright. In response, KJ said that everyone had to accept the food that is given to
21 min