87 episodes
Parenting teenagers untangled. 🏆 Award-winning podcast for parents of teens and tweens. Rachel Richards and Susie Asli
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- Kids & Family
Parenting tips and discussions for parents of teens and tweens. You don't have to be an expert to be a great parent. We’re on a mission to give you the self-belief, knowledge, and skills to do your best. At the heart of that is the need to be more curious; less critical. One of the hardest things about parenting teenagers is that we're often not prepared for the problems we have to tackle, which is why we welcome any questions you have about problems you face. Rachel uses her journalism skills to dig for answers, looking at what a broad range of experts are saying about them. Susie then brings her wealth of expertise and experience in mindfulness to the discussion as we talk through the options for parenting in an imperfect world, offering tips on the things we've learned along the way.What the Award judges said: 'The advice within the podcast on how to deal with what life throws at you is universally helpful, not just for those with teenagers.' 'A good mix of personal stories alongside professional insight; it's addressing something different, and helps its audience with the references and extra information provided in episode notes.' 'The rapport between the hosts, Rachel and Susie, is great with a good mix of them chatting, but also providing context for the listener and remembering them within the conversation.' For more discussion and tips, you can find us on Facebook and Instagram. Find courses with Susie at https://www.amindful-life.co.uk/
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Sandwich Generation parents: Boomers to the left of me, teens to right, stuck in the middle with menopause.
86: My aunt and uncle provide a huge amount of free childcare so that their son and daughter-in-law can work, but many say that's not been their experience. The Boomers have become notorious as a generation who are known to have reaped the rewards of the post-war boom but who appear to be more interested in travelling and enjoying themselves than supporting the next generation in their child-rearing struggles.
Having a living parent who's 65 or older whilst raising a child under 18 is Pew Research's definition of someone in the Sandwich Generation. Being a Sandwich Generation parent in an ailing economy, means being pulled in many directions at the same time.
Pew says 'not only do many provide care and financial support to their parents and their children, but nearly four-in-ten (38%) say both their grown children and their parents rely on them for emotional support.'
In this episode we talk about the trials of the Sandwich Generation, and it's rather more nuanced than the headlines make it sound. We discuss how important it is for us all to build community, to have open discussions about our needs and expectations, and to live in the season of our life.
GENERATION: PEW RESEARCH DEFINITION
Gen Z – 1997 – 2012 Millennials were born between 1981 and 1996 Gen X were born between 1965 and 1980Boomers can be broken into two segments (Beresford research) – the first is 1946 and 1954 and the second is 1955-1964And the Silent Generation who were born between 1928 and 1945RESOURCES USED:
https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2013/01/30/the-sandwich-generation/#:~:text=A%20Profile%20of%20the%20Sandwich,are%20pulled%20in%20many%20directions.
https://www.newsweek.com/who-are-sandwich-generation-children-caring-parents-1778400
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sandwichgeneration.asp#:~:text=The%20sandwich%20generation%2C%20in%20the,%2C%20adult%20children%2C%20and%20grandchildren.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandwich_generation#Development_of_the_concept_and_definition
https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210128-why-the-sandwich-generation-is-so-stressed-out
https://www.washingtonpost.com/parenting/2023/03/22/caregivers-sandwich-generation/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2023/02/24/the-sandwich-generation-is-financially-taking-care-of-their-parents-kids-and-themselves/?sh=58da60602af4
Support the Show.
Thanks for listening.
Neither of us has medical training so please seek the advice of a specialist if you're not coping.
Please hit the follow button if you like our podcast, and share it with anyone who might benefit. You can review us on Apple podcasts by going to the show page, scrolling down to the bottom where you can click on a star then you can leave your message.
Our website has a blog, searchable episodes, and ways to contact us:
www.teenagersuntangled.com
Susie is available for a free 15 minute consultation, and has a great blog:
www.amindful-life.co.uk -
Perfectionism: Help your teen, and yourself, overcome the need to be perfect.
85: Nobody likes making mistakes, but some of us find it much harder than others. Whilst most of us look on with admiration at the kid who's prepared to keep working until they do things perfectly, underlying that drive can be a painful belief that they're never going to be good enough. The knock-on effect can be a lifetime of anguish and all sorts of issues with starting and finishing projects.
So when our listener asked us to talk about how to help her daughter who's showing signs of being a perfectionist, we bumped it up our schedule.
In essence, we parents need to strive to avoid black and white thinking and find the middle path; a growth mindset that welcomes mistakes as an opportunity to learn, and the resilience to use those mistakes to try again.
BOOKS:
Perfectionism: What's Bad about Being Too Good? by Miriam Adderholdt-Elliott, Miriam Elliott, & Jan Goldberg (Monarch Books) When Perfect Isn't Good Enough: Strategies for Coping with Perfectionism by Martin M. Antony & Richard P. Swinson (New Harbinger Publications) When Good Enough Isn't Good Enough: The Real Deal on Perfectionism by Thomas S., Ph.D. Greenspon (Free Spirit Publishing)
A lot of the research for this episode was drawn from an article by Amy Morin, the speaker who made 'The secret to becoming mentally strong. '
SOURCES:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/amymorin/2017/06/25/9-signs-youre-a-perfectionist-and-thats-not-a-good-thing/
https://www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/young-adult/Pages/What-Fuels-Perfectionism.asp
https://www.verywellfamily.com/what-to-do-when-your-child-is-a-perfectionist-4147432
ANXIETY PDF:
//www.anxietycanada.com/sites/default/files/OvercomingPerfectionism.pdf
Support the Show.
Thanks for listening.
Neither of us has medical training so please seek the advice of a specialist if you're not coping.
Please hit the follow button if you like our podcast, and share it with anyone who might benefit. You can review us on Apple podcasts by going to the show page, scrolling down to the bottom where you can click on a star then you can leave your message.
Our website has a blog, searchable episodes, and ways to contact us:
www.teenagersuntangled.com
Susie is available for a free 15 minute consultation, and has a great blog:
www.amindful-life.co.uk -
Money: Giving teens and tweens an allowance. Two years on my daughter talks about how it’s impacted her.
84: What we give our kids to spend, and when, is a perennial problem for all parents. Money is a really tricky topic in any relationship; behind it lurks power, responsibility, and freedom.
When our kids hit their tween and teen years their needs and desires begin to rise rapidly, so how we enable them to get those things will have a lot to do with how we feel about handing them money, and what we say to them about it.
Early on, Rachel decided that she would use money during the teens years to begin the handover of respsonsibility in an attempt to teach her teens the value of budgetting and managing their own finances.
This episode is an opportunity to hear how her system works and - two years on from when she first talked about it - to hear one of her teenagers discuss what the system has done for her and her sister.
It's not perfect, nothing ever is, but hopefully listening to someone else's experience can help us all think through the best way to set up our own system that works for us.
Let us know what you think teenagersuntangled@gmail.com
Support the show
Thanks for listening.
Neither of us has medical training so please seek the advice of a specialist if you're not coping.
Please hit the follow button if you like our podcast, and share it with anyone who might benefit. You can review us on Apple podcasts by going to the show page, scrolling down to the bottom where you can click on a star then you can leave your message.
Our website has a blog, searchable episodes, and ways to contact us:
www.teenagersuntangled.com
Susie is available for a free 15 minute consultation, and has a great blog:
www.amindful-life.co.uk -
Fun: Having fun with our teens, and the bonding power of laughter.
83: Many teenagers say their relationship with their parents is very stressful and they yearn to be able to get along better. They often feel that their parents are on their case all of the time and that they never talk about anything interesting or light-hearted.
Conflict is an inescapable part of parenting, but it doesn't need to be the only part. As parents, we can make such a difference by setting a more light-hearted tone. It's one of the best ways to build the bond in our relationship, which then makes it easier to deal with the more difficult parts of life.
Rachel asked listeners to share the ways in which they enjoy spending time with their teens and in today's episode we also share our own experiences of keeping it light and happy.
Hopefully, it will give us all faith that parenting teens can be enjoyable, and some ideas of ways in which we can keep our bond strong.
Support the Show.
Thanks for listening.
Neither of us has medical training so please seek the advice of a specialist if you're not coping.
Please hit the follow button if you like our podcast, and share it with anyone who might benefit. You can review us on Apple podcasts by going to the show page, scrolling down to the bottom where you can click on a star then you can leave your message.
Our website has a blog, searchable episodes, and ways to contact us:
www.teenagersuntangled.com
Susie is available for a free 15 minute consultation, and has a great blog:
www.amindful-life.co.uk -
Resilience: Growing Resilience In Teens, or GRIT. An interview with Dr Louise Randall
82: Grit is the ability to keep going toward a goal, even in spite of significant obstacles and distractions. It's a very apt name for the charity created by Dr Louise Randall, who was seeing many kids coming into her doctor's surgery needing help with difficult problems - such as self harm, eating disorders, and other mental health issues - and very little help available.
In this interview we talk about how she uses boxing to teach resilience to help teens connect with their place in life and their own bodies, in a meaningful and healing way .
One thing I love about this interview is that Louise gave us parents some of her top tips. Although she was reluctant, I pointed out that this podcast is all about helping parents to realise that we don't need to be experts to be good parents. We can all offer tips and support to each other because we all gets things wrong but we also learn things that might help others. Removing the judgement is critical to allowing us all to grow and do better.
A great acronym to remind us not to talk with our teens about something that's been bothering us if we are:
HALT
HungryAngryLateTiredThe beautiful letter recommended by Louise:
https://gretchenschmelzer.com/parents-corner/2015/6/23/the-letter-your-teenager-cant-write-you?format=amp
Support the Show.
Thanks for listening.
Neither of us has medical training so please seek the advice of a specialist if you're not coping.
Please hit the follow button if you like our podcast, and share it with anyone who might benefit. You can review us on Apple podcasts by going to the show page, scrolling down to the bottom where you can click on a star then you can leave your message.
Our website has a blog, searchable episodes, and ways to contact us:
www.teenagersuntangled.com
Susie is available for a free 15 minute consultation, and has a great blog:
www.amindful-life.co.uk -
Concentration, and the troubling effect of too many choices
81: Does a goldfish have a longer attention span than us humans - as a Microsoft study found - or do we believe the latest study on concentration which says adults have actually increased in their ability to pay attention since the 1990's?
The latest study made us wonder about what's really going on, because we all know that gamers have phenomenal powers of concentration, but the rest of us feel we're struggling with attention.
Perhaps our real problem is a lack of focus caused by too many choices for what we could be doing.
In this episode, we talk about the two studies, other studies relating to the problems associated with too much choice, the impact of sleep-deprivation, and positive ways in which we can help ourselves to get things done in our daily lives.
TED talk:
The gratification monkey - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arj7oStGLkU
BOOKS:
The Collapse of Parenting by Leonard Sachs
THE MAIN STUDY:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/377035152_Is_there_a_Flynn_effect_for_attention_Cross-temporal_meta-analytical_evidence_for_better_test_performance_1990-2021https://pure.hw.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/106082041/1-s2.0-S0191886923003409-main.pdfhttps://www.csoonline.com/article/551475/microsoft-goldfish-have-higher-attention-spans-than-we-do-thanks-to-digital-lifestyles.htmlhttps://www.theguardian.com/money/2010/jul/24/secret-to-improving-concentration#:~:text=Fuel%20your%20mind.,water%20as%20dehydration%20impoverishes%20concentration. https://time.com/3858309/attention-spans-goldfish/
(https://standard.asl.org/27705/uncategorized/social-media-causes-attention-spans-to-drop/#:~:text=According%20to%20a%20survey%20conducted,use%2C%20was%20distracting%20to%20them.)Support the show
Thanks for listening.
Neither of us has medical training so please seek the advice of a specialist if you're not coping.
Please hit the follow button if you like our podcast, and share it with anyone who might benefit. You can review us on Apple podcasts by going to the show page, scrolling down to the bottom where you can click on a star then you can leave your message.
Our website has a blog, searchable episodes, and ways to contact us:
www.teenagersuntangled.com
Susie is available for a free 15 minute consultation, and has a great blog:
www.amindful-life.co.uk
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