Stop Helicopter Parenting: Balancing Empathy & Boundaries with Your Teens with guest Ann Coleman

About this Episode

At your wits end with trying to find effective consequences for your teen’s behavior? Maybe loosening the reins rather than tightening them might work better! (Hint: Stop helicopter parenting your teen!) On this episode of the Brainy Moms podcast, Dr. Amy and Sandy interview Ann Coleman, an attorney, parent educator, and host of the podcast, Speaking of Teens.  Ann shares a deeply personal journey that many parents might find all too relatable. Imagine discovering that your child, already grappling with anxiety and ADHD, has turned to marijuana. Anne’s initial reaction was to tighten the reins through control and punishment, only to watch her relationship with her son deteriorate. However, a transformative encounter with a family counselor led her to embrace empathy and understanding, an approach she now champions through her podcast and Parent Camp program.

Ann’s story prompts us to question the long-held belief in helicopter parenting and its impact on teen autonomy. As we talk about societal pressures that push teenagers to behave beyond their developmental capabilities, there’s a stark reminder of the importance of mutual respect. The conversation veers into the pitfalls of projecting perfect family lives on social media and the real harm it can cause by stigmatizing parenting struggles. We emphasize the need for balance—between stepping in to guide teens and allowing teens to face natural consequences—a critical factor that can significantly influence adolescent development.

Through personal anecdotes and expert advice, we explore the pressures surrounding academic success and the value of redefining what it means to “succeed.” From managing the distractions of college life to understanding the significance of setting and negotiating boundaries, this episode offers a comprehensive look at fostering resilience and independence in teenagers. Ann’s insights, enriched by her own family experiences, serve as a guide for parents eager to connect with their teens in more authentic and supportive ways. Listen in to discover strategies that respect and nurture your teenager’s emerging identity while maintaining a safe and supportive environment.

About Ann Coleman

Ann is an attorney turned podcaster and parent educator. After a couple of trying years with her teenage son, she finally figured out how to turn things around. For the past eight years, she’s helped thousands of other parents understand the science of parenting adolescents so they can avoid the mistakes that she made. She’s the host of the podcast Speaking of Teens and the creator of Parent Camp, your pathway to less conflict, greater connection and better behavior.

Connect with Ann Coleman

Website: https://speakingofteens.com/

IG: @ speakingofteenspodcast

FB: @speakingofteens

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Read the transcript for this episode:

Dr. Amy Moore: 0:30

Hi, smart moms and dads, welcome to another episode of the Brainy Moms podcast brought to you today by LearningRx Brain Training Centers. I’m Dr Amy Moore, your host, and I am joined by my co-host, sandy Zimalis, and Sandy and I are gonna bring you a conversation today with our guest, Ann Coleman. Ann is an attorney turned podcaster and parent educator. After a couple of trying years with her teenage son, she finally figured out how to turn things around. For the past eight years, she’s helped thousands of other parents understand the science of parenting adolescents so they can avoid the mistakes that she made. She’s the host of the podcast Speaking of Teens and the creator of Parent Camp, your pathway to less conflict, greater connection and better behavior. Let’s welcome, Ann. Hello, hello, hello. Why don’t you give our listeners a little bit of a background about you and how you ended up sitting in the chair in front of us?

Ann Coleman: 1:34

Well, my son has been a nervous, anxious child from day one. He was always anxious. He has ADHD. As he got a little older. You know I didn’t say this to him but I always called him, you know, a fit pitcher.

Ann Coleman: 1:53

He was one of those kids that just would melt down at the drop of a hat and we didn’t really realize it was anxiety or ADHD until he was somewhere in early elementary school maybe third or fourth grade, had testing and all this stuff done, and for several years on, up to probably ninth or 10th grade, everything revolved around that anxiety, ADHD, as it related to school. So everything was about getting the homework done and then, once we got it done, making sure that he got it handed in and meeting with the school. And you know, there was always an issue with, you know, not doing the work or not staying on task, or we had to switch medications, and it was always that. And then, when he hit about 14 or 15, he decided that he was going to try smoking marijuana and we had talked about this incessantly with him from day one, because we have addiction in my family, we have addiction in his birth family, and so we had talked about this all along. No, mom, I’m never going to do that. I’m never going to do that. I’m never going to do that. Well, then we found out that he did that and unfortunately, I had a brother who, when we were growing up, we were adolescents he started smoking marijuana and he actually became I know it’s not really kosher these days to say drug addict, but he became a drug addict and he abused every substance under the sun and ended up passing away several years ago in his 50s from methamphetamine and heroin and he got a terrible kind of cancer that was associated with that.

Ann Coleman: 3:40

So in the back of my mind all these years I thought I am never, I’m not going to have kids. And then we decided to have kids and then my thought was well, it’s not going to be like it was with my brother and my parents because he put them through sheer hell, and I thought I am never going to allow that. My kid is going to know he’s never going to smoke weed or do any of these things and if he does, I’m not going to enable him. Like I felt, like my parents had done. And then all of a sudden I have a child smoking weed, and I did not realize it at the time.

Ann Coleman: 4:13

But afterwards, when I started figuring things out that triggered me so bad that all I wanted to do was make it stop, Anything I could do to make him stop. So I pulled out the Google and I lectured him about his brain and I lectured him about how it leads to other things, and I begged and I pleaded and I controlled and I lectured and I yelled and it just got worse and worse and worse. Because the more now looking back I know, the more I tried to control his behavior and the more I tried to fix him myself or take him to therapists to have him fixed or whatever it was, the worse his behavior became. We were completely disconnected. All he was doing was rebelling, he was getting in trouble at school, Just all the things. So it finally kind of culminated in he would have what I call fits of rage, and we never knew is that the anxiety? Is it the ADHD? Is it a substance? Is you know what’s going on here? And so finally, because of some of those fits of rage, he ended up in a psychiatric ward for about a week and then thereafter he went to residential treatment for a couple of months.

Ann Coleman: 5:32

And all these years, like there were at least a couple of years there where it was really intense and we had psychiatrists, we had psychologists, we had counselors, we had family therapists, we had addiction counselors, we had everyone under the sun. He had been psychologically tested like half a dozen times. Not one time during any of that did anyone ask us how are you parenting him? How are you responding when he does these things? How are you communicating? How’s your connection? Do you want some tips on how to make this work better? Not a single time.

Ann Coleman: 6:08

So again, all this time we were thinking, well, they’re supposed to be fixing him, why is he not fixed? But at home I was still doing the same thing. I was still controlling and lecturing and pushing and punishing and, you know, nailing his window shut and just crazy stuff, because I was not going to let him become my brother. So when he went into residential treatment credit to the family counselor there he realized that we would get together on Zoom every week because he was in California, we were in South Carolina and the family counselor would kind of prep us before we got on the screen with our son and would say now remember, you need to validate his feelings, but you need to stand firm in your boundaries and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and my eyes would glaze over. I would look at him like okay, and so we tried that a couple of weeks and then, finally, the third try. He was like you don’t get this, do you? And I said no, I don’t get it. What are you trying to tell me? Please explain this to me? And he said okay, he sent me to a couple of books by Dan Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson which were for parents of toddlers.

Ann Coleman: 7:17

As I was reading it, I’m like, wow, he really doesn’t think much of my communication skills, but it was the first time that anyone had said this is not all about your son, this is you. You have a huge role in this. And I mean I literally it gives me goosebumps to think about it. I’m, I’m staying here reading I think the first book was no Drama, Discipline and tears were streaming down my face because and I still have that book, it is, I have written all over it I was marking post-it notes, writing myself notes and going, oh my God, oh my God, I did this, I did this. Why didn’t I know this? Why? And it was just this epiphany like, okay, now I know now, I know what the issue is, I’m gonna fix it, I, I I’m okay, I’m gonna figure this out. So I kept reading and I kept studying and I studied about the adolescent brain and I studied this and I studied that.

Ann Coleman: 8:09

He came home and it was hard in the beginning, to you know, because my thing, my emotions, I was totally unaware of what I was feeling, why I was feeling it. I was totally unable to regulate myself. But I had said to myself I am going to do this, I’m just going to stop, I’m just going to figure it out and I’m going to do it. And I did. And you know, I learned to kind of pause before I said something and in the beginning I still didn’t really know what to say. So that pause would be kind of long and I would just repeat the same things in the beginning. I understand you’re frustrated. I understand because he was always frustrated. So that was pretty easy for me. I see that you’re frustrated right now. But it got easier and easier.

Ann Coleman: 9:00

In the beginning he didn’t know what I was doing. He was like is this the same that you’ve been doing and maybe you’re just tricking me? So he did not respond the way I thought he would respond in the very beginning, respond the way I thought he would respond in the very beginning, but within weeks, within weeks, I kept doing it, I kept doing it, I kept doing it and within weeks he had that. His emotions had come down about 10 notches, His dysregulation. He was able to not get so upset in the beginning. He was able to not get so upset in the beginning and he was able to. Once he did, the time that he was upset was shortened, I mean exponentially, and I mean it was just amazing. Within a year he was a different kid. He was a different kid, I was a different person. Our connection was back and it was just like it was miraculous to me.

Ann Coleman: 9:58

I was like, oh my God, I mean I have got to tell other parents about this, because I’m a pretty smart cookie and if I didn’t know this, I know there are tons of parents out there who are struggling with the same thing and just don’t get it. So that’s you know. I just kept reading, kept studying, wrote myself a book just for me so I can pull from it, and just started putting myself out there and trying to educate parents about the fact that I guess my whole thing is look, it’s not all your kid. You’ve got to understand them. You’ve got to understand how their brain works, You’ve got to understand how to communicate, You’ve got to understand how to get your own emotions under control, and you’ve got to understand what discipline even means and how to do it with a teenager. So that’s it in a nutshell.

Dr. Amy Moore: 10:47

Yeah, I think you nailed it, you know, when you said, when you shared your frustration, that why aren’t they fixing him right, where you were finally coming to that realization at the end. Oh, I’m the one that needs a little bit of fixing.

Ann Coleman: 11:05

Yeah, actually, I needed a lot of fixing, I really did. I mean, I just didn’t get it. And you know, as parents in you know, growing up in a Western society, you know a lot of us were raised in that authoritarian, you know mindset. Our parents were authoritarian, their parents, their grandparents. I mean it has been passed down and I mean I would say it’s generational trauma. I mean because the whole authoritarian you know mindset is, you do as I say, and we’re all about outward behavior, outward performance.

Ann Coleman: 11:44

Children are supposed to act like adults, even though they don’t have an adult brain and they don’t know how to act like adults. They don’t have the capacity to act like adults, but we expect that of them and we have this ingrained in our brain that you know, like I said, has been passed down, that our kids are supposed to do what we say and they are supposed to respect us and jump when we say jump, and what we don’t get is guess what. By the time they hit puberty, they want to be respected, they feel like an adult. They need that same kind of respect and dignity that you know that we want.

Ann Coleman: 12:27

So and by the time you hit that age, it is no longer a management situation, even if you were managing them more as they were children and telling them what to do and setting the rules, and everything is unilateral. It is no longer that way. When they hit puberty you have to work as a team or you are going to get pushback from the very beginning. And what I find is as soon as parents start getting that pushback and that little snarky, those little snarky comments and you know kids try pushing back a little bit they the parent jumps in and says, oh no, you’re not pulling that stuff. And then they get tougher and the kid starts pushing harder and the parents start getting tougher and it just becomes this out of control spiral. So it’s just about understanding how this works.

Sandy Zamalis: 13:26

And thanks for sharing that. That was such a vulnerable story to share Because from a parent especially because I totally see myself in that as well and you know it’s hard to when you’re having trouble with your teenager at home it’s really hard to kind of wrestle with that openly, because we have the same problem so we’re not sharing with our friends.

Ann Coleman: 13:48

Oh yeah, so we’re not sharing with our friends that our kids are struggling or that things aren’t going well at home.

Sandy Zamalis: 13:53

We’re hiding all of that.

Ann Coleman: 13:56

So just being able to talk about it.

Sandy Zamalis: 13:58

Is that first step Right?

Ann Coleman: 13:59

I mean, you know it’s such a phenomenon that you know parents will share all about their colicky babies or their toddlers who are getting into everything or not sleeping or throwing fits, but once they hit puberty and it just it feels like there’s so much more competition among, especially among moms, that oh, you know, no, not my kid. You know you don’t want anyone knowing these things. And unfortunately, because of social media, we all put our best foot forward on social media and no one thinks anyone else is struggling with these things and some of us struggle more than others because some of us, our kids, have more struggles than others. We have kids who have ADHD or anxiety or trauma or any of those things that you know. I call them. You know, teenagers squared, they’re going to have all the issues that typical teens have, but they’re just magnified. And no, we don’t want to, we don’t want to tell anybody because I mean it’s embarrassing.

Ann Coleman: 15:09

I was embarrassed. I was embarrassed when my kid was smoking weed and I think even selling weed and, you know, getting in trouble at school. It was embarrassing. And then we have other moms who are still in that authoritarian mindset going oh well, I’m not letting my kid do that. If my kid did that, this is what I would do, and you’ve just got to put your foot down and you’ve got to do this and da, da, da, and I listened and so I did it and that’s what got me where I was. And so that’s another reason that I knew other parents didn’t get this.

Ann Coleman: 15:44

There were a lot of parents that didn’t get this and, yeah, it’s scary because you do, lot of parents that didn’t get this and yeah, it’s scary because you do. I felt so alone and so desperate, so desperate to know that someone else had been through it before me and had gotten through it and that there was hope. That’s what I, you know, on the computer every night I was Googling. My teenager was at troubled teen or out of control, and now they’re okay. I was literally Googling things like that to see do people get through this? Do they get through it? Is it okay? And luckily we did. We got through it and things were okay, so it’s possible.

Dr. Amy Moore: 16:29

So, speaking of parenting styles, you talk a lot about helicopter parenting and that’s one of our favorite topics to talk about. So let’s talk about helicopter parenting. I mean, I love that you have a whole like down. You might be yeah, you might be a helicopter parent yeah, so like talk about uh, because I think there are people out there who are helicopter parenting their kids and they don’t realize they’re helicopter parents.

Ann Coleman: 17:00

Oh yeah, there’s a lot of that going on well, and you know it’s funny, I I’ve, uh, one of my friends sent me a real the other day, or I think maybe it was a Facebook thing where these teachers were reading the text that they had received from parents of their students, and I want to say they were middle schoolers. But guys, I mean, I’m telling you we are way, way, way too involved with our kids’ lives, especially as they get to these older stages. You know, things like you know, don’t call on him because you know he’s embarrassed. Or you know, not accommodations, but just ridiculous things. And parents, we this was really hard for me because my son had ADHD, dyslexia, dysgraphia, all the things, and so it was really hard to find that balance of how far do I get involved in helping him not mess up. How far do I, you know, step in to prevent a mistake? And I think I probably did step in too far.

Ann Coleman: 18:05

And what we don’t realize is, you know, it’s the other extreme of, you know, control. We are controlling, we’re thinking that we’re doing good because we’re trying to control, you know, in a good way. We’re trying to help, we’re smoothing the way. You know, we don’t want them to be hurt, we don’t want them to make mistakes and mess up, but in doing that we are removing their ability to actually learn, because the only way any of us learn is by making mistakes. You know, I learned really quickly that I don’t leave my heels out with my new puppy because he chewed up every pair of heels. Okay, lesson learned. You know, I wouldn’t have learned that if my husband had walked in and said no, no, no, we don’t leave our shoes in the floor, miss Anne, we need to put those up in the closet. You know, you learn through mistakes. So I tell parents all the time you’ve got to back up when there are things that your kid can handle themselves, to back up when there are things that your kid can handle themselves. Maybe you don’t think they can handle it, but the important thing is to give them a shot at it because again, once they reach puberty, they feel like in their head, they feel like an adult. They feel like, you know, they know as much as we do. I mean, obviously everybody sees that they feel like they know as much as we do. They want to be given that autonomy. And so when we remove that autonomy by either doing things for them or making things easier for them or, you know, fixing their mistakes. We are threatening their autonomy in the same way we would if we said you can only do it this way and I’m not going to let you leave the house until you do. I mean, it’s the same thing. We are controlling them either way.

Ann Coleman: 19:58

And some kids with the helicopter parenting. Some kids will accept that kind of help and will let their parents kind go in and change all the things and help them. But even if they do, what they’re internalizing is my parents don’t think I can do this. I can’t do this by myself. I suck at all this stuff. That’s why they’re helping me do all these things. I will never be able to do this alone.

Ann Coleman: 20:26

I mean, I can remember my father was like this. He would come into my bedroom I remember when I was little and he would take my pillow away because it made me too hot and I got sweaty in the middle of the night. I still remember this and I vowed to myself I am not going to do things like that to my kid, because by the time I left my parents home I didn’t think I could do anything, because I wasn’t allowed to do anything by myself. I wasn’t allowed to make mistakes. Everything was smooth. I raised my hand in fourth grade and said I had a hamster. I didn’t have a hamster. Everybody else was raising their hand. I raised my hand. Guess what? I had a hamster to take in the next day to school because my parents went out and bought one at Woolworths before they closed. I mean, doing things like that. I had no self-esteem, I didn’t think I could do anything.

Ann Coleman: 21:18

When I went off to law school, I remember thinking they’re going to send me back home within a week when they say how stupid I am, when they figure out that I don’t belong here, I really I was looking over my shoulder that first semester. I thought I’m going to flunk out. I know I’m going to flunk out. I want to go home and that’s what we do to our kids, our kids in college.

Ann Coleman: 21:36

Right now, the freshmen 30%, 30% of those kids end up going home after the first semester, whether it’s because they are, you know, too anxious to do it or they can’t. I mean, I’ve heard stories. You know, kids can’t get along with their roommates. They’re calling their parents every day. They don’t know how to pick their own classes.

Ann Coleman: 22:00

Hell, parents, organizations, companies are making parent packets, welcome packets for graduating college students who get a job with them, because so many parents are calling jobs and saying what does my kid need to do? What did they, you know, to make sure I get my grown you know I’m not gonna cuss, but grown kid, you know, understanding how to do their job that they’ve just gotten hired for it. It is insane so that, in a nutshell, we are creating a generation of kids who don’t know how to do anything on their own because we are so afraid of their failure. We’re afraid for them and we’ve got to let things happen the way they’re supposed to happen so they will have enough self-esteem and have enough confidence to go out into the world and figure things out for themselves, because that’s the way it’s supposed to be. We didn’t, most of us did it. Maybe I wasn’t so great at it, but most of us did it.

Dr. Amy Moore: 23:02

So yeah, it’s sad, well, and I think that it’s not just that they aren’t capable of doing tangible things. I think it’s also that if you haven’t learned how to handle disappointment in the emotional safety of your own home and those relationships with loving parents and supportive parents, then you get out into the world and how are you going to respond to disappointment? Exactly Not well.

Ann Coleman: 23:32

Yeah, you have to let them do these things while they are with you. So you’re there to guide them, you know, not fix it, but you’re there to, you know, respond to their emotions appropriately and help them understand that all is not, you know, horrible here. You’re going to figure it out. But, yeah, when they get off and on their own and they faced, you know, some kind of horrible disappointment, a lot of these kids are falling completely apart because they don’t know how to manage it. We, you know and it’s really kind of crazy that we, you know, because I’m thinking about how I did it. I mean, my thought was I can’t let him fail. I can’t let him fail. What if he fails?

Ann Coleman: 24:15

And you know, in doing that, we are, you know, that fear. It’s our fear. Just like our fear creates us, you know, makes us want to control the bad things or the bad behavior they’re doing, it’s our fear that jumps in and prevents them from failing at any level and that’s on us. That is not our kid. Kids don’t even know to be nervous about these things a lot of times, until we start making it. So we start making it a thing to be nervous about. Oh, are you sure?

Ann Coleman: 24:50

I mean, I was working with a lady the other day who her daughter had been cut out of a friend group and so her focus was constantly on what are your friends doing today? Have they invited you? Are you going to be able to do this? Are you going to be able to do that? You know who are you going to hang out with. And she was perpetuating that anxiety in her daughter because she was anxious about it. You know, it goes back to a lot of times what we experienced in adolescence, you know, and we’re kind of projecting some of that stuff on our kids, and if we instead just took a deep breath and let them handle things a lot of times, it would work out so much better.

Dr. Amy Moore: 25:34

Well, speaking of letting them handle it, you did this amazing episode of your podcast on missing assignments in the dang parent portal.

Ann Coleman: 25:47

Oh my Lord, I tell you, the bane of every parent’s existence Is it not?

Dr. Amy Moore: 25:53

That was the exact phrase I used when we were talking about your episode.

Sandy Zamalis: 25:58

Yeah, it’s horrible. I mean, yeah, I mean I have a weekly meeting about the parent portal what? Because I work with kids and parents, with kids who are struggling in school, and so you know they’re trying to understand the parent portal. They don’t understand it. So you have a couple different. You have the people who are all in it, right, and they’re micromanaging every task. But there’s also the ones that are like I don’t get it, Like I don’t get it, I don’t understand I don’t get it.

Ann Coleman: 26:24

How are they doing?

Ann Coleman: 26:25

I can’t even see your tongue, I know Well, and the thing too is that they don’t realize that, okay, teachers have to take a couple of days sometimes to get caught up in the parent portal, you know. So they’re constantly wigging out because it says you didn’t turn this assignment in, or it says you didn’t do this, and instead we have got to get back to the point where we can trust our kids to do things for themselves and that. But I also see that, as you know, a lot of times the teachers are reaching out to the parents too and saying you know your kid’s not doing this, or they’re not doing that. And for for parents who struggle with this already and, you know, trying to be on top of their kids constantly, you know, this creates a dynamic at home that is not good between the parents and the kids, and so I’ve even told parents before look, tell the teacher, that’s between you and little Johnny. I am out of it. I am not going to fuss at him every day, all day, about turning in his assignments. I am not going to fuss at him all day, every day, about doing his homework. It is creating a, you know, a disconnection between us and our, our home, and this is school and if he’s not turning in assignments, give him the grade he deserves. Let him make a zero, I don’t care, it’s not my grade.

Ann Coleman: 27:49

I’ve been through school. I did my years in school. That’s what I kept telling my son. I’ve already done this. I have done this before. I don’t want to be doing this again. And you know what we don’t have to. We don’t have to. My parents were clueless about what I was doing in school. I mean completely clueless. They never told me to do homework. They never knew if I did homework. They saw my report card because you had to get the dang thing signed back then, but they were clueless If I made a bad grade it was on me.

Dr. Amy Moore: 28:20

I had to figure out.

Ann Coleman: 28:21

Hmm, do I really want to make a bad grade again or do I want to do something else? So yeah, the parent portals. Something else. So yeah, the parent portals. We have got to learn to back up a little bit, not stress out so much. Which leads me to the other conversation about you know school in general and grades and performance and putting all of your eggs in your kids. You know grades and performance at school and thinking that, okay, if they can just make straight A’s or in some cases, this is the kid themselves too, putting this pressure on themselves. I mean, societally, we put pressure. You know it’s the grades, it’s getting into the right college or getting into college and doing this and this so that they will be quote unquote successful. Well, it took me a little bit to realize that success looks different to every one of us. You know I quit practicing law and making money to do this, this educating parents and helping parents with their teenagers. This is success to me. I’m changing lives. I didn’t change many lives writing contracts, so you know that was not made money. But we all have to decide for ourselves what success looks like.

Ann Coleman: 29:40

My son did not want to go to college. I did not blame him. He has ADHD and dyslexia and dysgraphia and anxiety and school was not fun. It sucked for him. It sucks for a lot of kids. I just published, I think, a sub stack about that. School sucks for a lot of kids and so I had to realize that. You know what, going to college is not his thing. He loves snowboarding, he loves outdoor sports, he loves being in the mountains. That’s his thing. That’s what makes him happy. And you know what? I want him to be happy. I want him to be satisfied in life. And if he is happy working retail or you know whatever, if he’s able to pay his bills and do what he wants to do and he’s happy, in my opinion that is success.

Ann Coleman: 30:32

So you know, the parent portal thing to me is tied directly to that. I think it’s tied to our ideals of what we want our kids to be. We all have this little movie reel in our heads of what our kids were going to turn out like and what they were going to be and what their character was going to be. And that little picture in our head really messes with us, because when things go off course a little bit, then we’re like, oh my God, oh my God, I got to get back. I got to get them back. They got to be doing this thing and when we do that and that control sets in, we build the disconnection and nothing works out.

Ann Coleman: 31:11

So, understanding that, yes, grades matter Of course they do. You don’t want your kid to flunk out. You have to do what you have to do there. But even if they do fail a class or fail a grade or something like that, they are going to be okay in the end, with you as the parent guiding them and helping them get back to where they want to be. Most kids do not want to fail in any capacity. There are very few who are going to allow themselves to flunk out of high school or flunk a grade or anything like that. So, stepping back and realizing, if they make C’s, well, guess what? We’ve forgotten this. But C’s are average, Average, the middle. It is okay to be average. I was extremely average, if not below average, in high school my grades, and it was not until I motivated myself because I wanted to run for cheerleader to make better grades.

Ann Coleman: 32:17

When kids are motivated because of something externally, you know it’s really hard for them to sustain, but if they are internally motivated to do something, it’s much, much better, it’s much easier.

Ann Coleman: 32:30

And, as parents, if we’re constantly on them externally, they’re going to push back against that thing that is pushing them externally and they’re not going to be able to be successful or live up to their potential or whatever it is. But if we back up a little and we let them realize that hey, failing or not doing so well is not much fun, it doesn’t make me feel good Then that internal feeling takes over and hopefully they do better. But we’ve got to realize that if our kid wants to go to college, they can go to college. You can go to college with a 1.5 GPA from high school. You can go to community college. You can get good grades for the first semester or second semester. You can transfer somewhere else. It is not the end of the world if your kid does not go to Princeton or Duke or Brown or Harvard. It’s just not. Life goes on. I don’t know about you guys, but I didn’t go to any of those places.

Dr. Amy Moore: 33:30

I’m fine. No, I walk around saying that I mean, I’ve got a PhD, I’m actually getting a second doctorate and I went to either state schools or for-profit schools. Exactly, and I’m just fine for sure. Exactly.

Sandy Zamalis: 33:45

I wanted to share real quick, amy. So you know I loved your story and you know, just listening to you explain all of that and for parents that are listening in my family, in our case, you know I had two very capable kids. I did not hover a whole lot once they got into public school. Where the trouble happened was college.

Sandy Zamalis: 34:06

So you know, thinking about that 30% statistic that you threw out, I really do feel like college is the new high school ground anymore. Just with all the changes in the world and technology and the consequences are different in high school than they were when we were in high school. So I think our kids are kind of getting into those murky, uncomfortable growing places later and later.

Ann Coleman: 34:31

And so now college?

Sandy Zamalis: 34:32

is that ground?

Sandy Zamalis: 34:33

where they really have to learn that, and that was definitely true for my son. You know he went into engineering school and it did not go well. Oh no, really hard to go through at the time. It was not easy. There was a lot of tears on the phone. It was just heart-wrenching as a parent, because my son is a very capable young man and everything was easy for him up until then. And so I’m like where most people, I think, would have bailed a lot sooner. The minute they got a poor grade, he was determined to suffer and get himself through it, and we actually had to go and do a little bit of a meeting with him in college and go like I don’t, I just don’t, you don’t enjoy this, this is not where you need to be. Let’s rethink this. Let’s transfer college, you know, or?

Sandy Zamalis: 35:27

you know, just within the college, let’s transfer to another major. Let’s figure out what excites you. You know and that worked out really well and he stuck it out. He had to do an extra year of college, but I think that pendulum has swung or that timeline has moved a little bit, for our kids. We need to kind of have that. And now they’re even after college.

Ann Coleman: 36:18

You’ve still got to have that buffer. It is getting later and later. Adolescence has extended, you know. 25, 30 is, you know. You’re still kind of in that zone of I can’t quite do it on my own yet.

Ann Coleman: 36:33

And yeah, college, to me it’s kind of a scary place and I think my son would definitely, even if we had pushed him to try to go, would not have done well because of the you know the substances and the parties and the you know all the distractions. And I think that is one reason that a lot of kids do end up coming home, you know, is that they’re not mature enough to handle those things yet. 18 years old is not an adult. It is such a ridiculous thing to even have laws that say they can make any decisions on their own at 18. Their brain’s not going to be finished for, you know, another, possibly 10 years from then. So, yeah, those making those decisions being on their own.

Ann Coleman: 37:22

There are a lot of kids that need that year at home, a gap year, a community college, a you know some kind of program that they can go into to get some life skills, maybe move off a little bit further away from home and be on their own before they try to go do these things. It’s usually like when I was in law school, there were a lot of older people in my class and they were the ones that studied harder and did better. And because you need that maturity sometimes to understand what this is that you’ve got in front of you, you know this opportunity and you know I don’t want to mess it up, or it’s not that big a deal and I need to switch majors, or you know it’s just and it’s a level of maturity that 18 year olds do not not have Most of them don’t. There are some that you know they’re like 40 years old when they’re 18, but not many, not many.

Sandy Zamalis: 38:23

Yeah, it is estimated that there are over 6 million children in the US diagnosed with ADHD. Most children diagnosed with ADHD have a cluster of weak cognitive skills that we all rely on for focusing and staying on task, skills like working memory, long-term memory and processing speed. At LearningRx, we create a one-on-one brain training program that’s tailored to help address the root cause of your child’s biggest challenges. Visit LearningRxcom to learn how we’re helping kids and teens with ADHD significantly improve their cognitive skills. Get started at learningrxcom or head over to our show notes for links for more helpful resources, including some free brain training exercises you can try at home.

Dr. Amy Moore: 39:11

So I love how you write. Ask yourself could it be dangerous, unhealthy, illegal, unethical or likely to close some door left open? If it doesn’t fit into the above categories, it falls within their personal domain to decide themselves, because I think, if you have a tendency to helicopter, if you have a tendency to want to be in control which is an illusion, by the way but if you have this tendency to want to control?

Ann Coleman: 39:55

but you have listened to any of this. You need some parameters, right, you need to be able to go okay, well, when should I step in and when should I not? Right, right, well, and that I can’t take credit for that, that is Dr Lawrence Steinberg, who is a world-renowned adolescence researcher, brain researcher, and I thought that was brilliant. So I told him I was going to steal that from him and so I’ve kind of made it my own. But it’s so true.

Ann Coleman: 40:13

You know people, parents want you know to know well, what should I have rules about and when should I step in and not allow consequences? And you know what should I say about their clothes or their hair, or you know these kind of things. And if you use those parameters dangerous, unhealthy, unethical, illegal or likely to close some door, better left open you can say, okay, I can allow consequent natural consequences unless they’re dangerous. So I’m not going to let my kid drink and go, get in the car and take off down the road. That’s dangerous. So I’m going to step in. And illegal, yeah, and illegal, yeah, it comes under all kinds of the headings. Yes, exactly, so you know the rules that you make same things. I don’t need to have a rule and you know I hate to break it to y’all, but a dirty bedroom or a messy bedroom doesn’t fall into any of those categories. I agree, you know it’s hard, it’s hard as a parent, but you know what. And unless there are bugs and roaches and mice and then you can say, okay, that’s unhealthy. But truly we have to know that if it’s not a big deal, it’s not a big deal and we need to let them decide. If they want to color their hair pink, purple or shave it off, then we have to let them do it. That’s not our concern. Okay, it’s embarrassing.

Ann Coleman: 41:42

Yes, because my son was dressing. He was wanting to wear the gold chains and the big diamond crosses and things like that by the time he started high school. I’m like, oh my God. And we had some of the biggest arguments over that stupid necklace because grandmother bought it for him. I didn’t, she bought it for him, but we had the biggest arguments over there. It was not worth it. It was not worth it.

Ann Coleman: 42:09

They are trying to decide who they are and where they fit in and their self-image, and they need to try these different personas on and do these things and we don’t need to step in and say, no, that looks stupid or no, you’re not wearing that anywhere, it’s wrinkled or whatever. Get over that stuff. And and when you’re making rules about things, that’s what you need to look at are those parameters. And if it’s not a dangerous thing, then you don’t need to have a rule about it. If they come to you and say I want to do X, y and Z, those are the parameters you need to be looking at. So they’ve come to me and they’ve asked me to go to a concert. They’re 16. They want to go with a 20-year-old to a concert that’s in the next, you know, county over, or something like that. Okay, that could be dangerous. We need to talk about that.

Ann Coleman: 43:02

My thing is negotiation and brainstorming and you know, if you can learn how to have a decent conversation with your kid where you listen fully to what they’re saying and you listen to their argument, let’s say, for wanting to go to this concert. And that’s the first step. You have to listen, because if you just jump in like most of us do, no, that’s not happening. You are not a 20 year old. What are you talking about? In the next county and you’re not getting home till 3am? No, no, no, no. Instead, if we would just stop and let them tell us all about the concert, let them tell us about this friend, let them tell us why they want to go, acknowledge that you know what that does sound like fun, and I get why you like that band. I know you’ve been listening to that band and, yeah, you know I know Sally’s a very responsible 20-year-old.

Ann Coleman: 44:01

Let me tell you my concerns. Here are my concerns, and then you let them know. Here’s where I’m coming from. But you know, is there any way that we can like make it so that you can hang out with Sally on Friday night, but maybe not go to the concert, but maybe you can do something else, maybe you can do something down the road or maybe I could go to the concert with you. Would you consider that?

Ann Coleman: 44:29

So it’s all about negotiating, because once we start doing that no, that’s not happening. That’s when we get in trouble. We’ve got to learn yes, we can say no, we can absolutely say no, but we need to finesse that a little bit. It’s, you know, you just I’m sorry, but with with adolescents, you have to finesse that no, and you have to allow them to be and you have to allow them to be heard and you have to show them that you get it and that you understand. And then here are my concerns, and let’s see if we can work out a compromise.

Ann Coleman: 45:04

If we can’t, darling, I’m sorry, but I just can’t say yes, I just can’t, and you know so. It’s like breaking it to them a little easier. It’s validating, it’s acknowledging that they are. You know so. It’s like breaking it to them a little easier. It’s validating, it’s acknowledging that they are, you know, to the point where they feel like an adult. And so now they’ve been heard, they’ve been listened to and everything’s been acknowledged, not saying they’re going to be happy, but you’re not going to have a knockdown drag out and it’s not going to be, oh, I’m going, I’m going anyway. You know it will be a much better scenario for you.

Dr. Amy Moore: 45:42

Well, and you’ve given them the opportunity to help think of alternative solutions and problem solve there. And yes, there’s this phenomenon called psychological reactance, and it happens when you are told, no, you cannot do this, and so the phenomenon is that then you feel extra motivated to do the thing that you were told you could not do. Oh yeah, and then you know that’s when negotiations shut down, right, Because you are now pushing a stress response oh yeah, you can’t negotiate in a stress response. Stress response oh yeah, you can’t negotiate in a stress response.

Ann Coleman: 46:15

Yeah, when I came home and asked my parents if I could date a guy, go out on a date with a guy, I was about to turn 15, but I was 14. He was 19. And I didn’t really even want to go, but I was flattered that I had been asked. So I was like, yeah, I don’t know, I could take it or leave it. Well, my parents had a fit. You are not. You know the whole thing not going to happen, not going to happen, not going to happen. Well, I begged and I begged and I pleaded and I made up my mind I was going to go anyway. And I did and didn’t even want to go out with him. Right, ended up marrying him 10 years later and divorcing. So yeah, some of us can really dig our heels in when we are told no, I mean it’s just and I love it. Tell me again what that’s called Psychological reactance.

Ann Coleman: 47:11

Okay, that makes total sense and that is if we can learn that. You know, all right, how can I put this or how can I slow down? And and I know I’m probably not going to say yes in the end but let’s hear them out, let’s validate why they want to do this thing out, let’s validate why they want to do this thing and then, you know, I will gradually try to work in a solution. And if we can’t problem solve, then I’ll just have to hold my, you know, hold the boundary and say no, which is, you know, that’s something that nobody teaches us how to do this.

Ann Coleman: 47:53

I think some people do have that in them already. Some parents are good at this, I think, just from day one. They’re calm enough to be able to think things through and just innately understand that. Kids need that, you know, they need that acknowledgement and they need that discussion. But some of us, like me, who are ADHD and anxious and have all kinds of emotional reactivity anyway, we have to really work on some skills. We have to understand these things first and then we have to really practice and work on ourselves so that we can be the best parent for our kid.

Sandy Zamalis: 48:37

Yeah, and I just love that you really highlight that, the work that really has to go into it on the parent side, and I know you know just from our conversation that you really want to give hope. So I wanted to ask a question and feel free to say no if you don’t want to answer the question. But with all the you know you had gotten to a place where things were really bad between your son and yourself. When did you know you’d finally turn the tide?

Ann Coleman: 49:03

Well, it took it. I mean, it probably took a few weeks before I felt like I could see changes in him and things were changing. But within a year, within a year of sticking to it I mean, he was a different kid Our relationship, where he had just, I mean, I felt like he hated us. You know, we had gotten to that point where, you know, there were no kind words between us at all and within that year, he was hugging us. I love you, it was. You know. I felt like I had my kid back. He, you know, he had really turned the corner and he was able at that point to then move away, be by himself, meet a whole new group of friends and start a new life halfway across the country. And we still do have that same, you know, bond and we are still able to communicate in that way, and it’s just a beautiful thing.

Dr. Amy Moore: 50:07

So, Anne, how can our listeners learn more from you? Find you, work with you, Tell us where you are.

Ann Coleman: 50:15

Sure, can you give me one second? Can we edit this out? Because I told my husband I said do not bring my mother back. He had to take her to the doctor. Do not come in the store until 3.00. It’s one minute. Let me close the store so that that won’t, okay. Hold on one second, guys. I’m still on the thing. Did you hear me? Did you hear me? I had to yell in. I’m still on the thing. Still on the thing. Keep her in there, Don’t be yelling. Okay so, all right, give it a pause here. Okay so, people, right, give it a pause here. Okay, so people can listen to my podcast. I have a podcast called Speaking of Teens. It’s on all the podcasting apps. I’m also on Substack, speaking of Teens. I write a weekly article and those are probably the best places to jump in From there. I have links for free parenting guides and something I do called Parent Camp a couple of times a year. So I would start with the podcast or the sub stack.

Dr. Amy Moore: 51:25

Yeah, and your free resources are excellent. So, listeners, I absolutely encourage you to quick and easy.

Sandy Zamalis: 51:32

They’re just easy things to grasp, but nothing too deep or heavy, something you can take away.

Ann Coleman: 51:38

You probably haven’t looked at the challenging adolescent brain one then, because it’s 40 pages. I got a little carried away with that one. It’s a little much, but you know I’m thorough.

Dr. Amy Moore: 51:49

Right, well, that’s wonderful, all right. Ann Coleman, thank you so much for being with us today.

Ann Coleman: 51:55

You are so welcome. Thank you for having me. I enjoyed it. Yeah, ann Coleman, thank you so much for being with us today.

Dr. Amy Moore: 51:58

You are so welcome. Thank you for having me. I enjoyed it. Yeah, so, listeners, thank you for joining in today. You can find us on social media at the Brainy Moms, if you would rather see our faces. You can find us on our YouTube channel at the Brainy Moms. You can find Sandy on TikTok at the Brain Trainer Lady if you want to watch her do some cool brain training demos and learn some more stuff about the brain. And if you love us, we would love it if you would leave us a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts. That is all the smart stuff we have for you today. We hope you feel a little smarter. We’re going to catch you next time.