In the Middle of It with Amy Kelly, The Ish Girl

40th Episode Show Notes

Biggest Takeaways:

• Our teens pick up on our energy – they watch what we do and take in all our non-verbal cues.
• They see and feel and pick up on so much more than we can ever realize in the moment.
• It's valuable to spend time listening to what is not said in our own behavior as well as in our children's.
• Be aware of busyness and try to bring more peaceful energy and space to your interactions with your teens.
• Be aware of what's developmentally appropriate for your teen – and what's appropriate for you as a parent.
• Know your own triggers so you can manage your responses.
• Sometimes the best moments you ever have with your teens are the ones that have gone the most wrong – and maybe even the ones where you have not responded well. You can humbly flip roles and let your teen be the "wise" one or the "teacher.
• Kellye's vision for her children as adults: "Good, independent, interdependent, responsible people"
• You don't have to be a great parent or even a good one – you just have to be a good enough parent.
• Being a united team as you co-parent, whether with a spouse or an ex or otherwise, is HUGE for your teens. It gives them a stability and security that they will value later on.
• When life knocks you to your knees, you've got to keep showing up and trying to be that "good enough" parent.
• It's an adjustment when your kids leave home – for Kellye, it was helpful to create space for new things by letting go of some of her identity as a mom
• The college years can be hard. Your kids are getting the message that they are fully adult when they're really not – especially if they're still on your payroll.
• Once they are "good, independent, interdependent, responsible people" that transition can be hard too – as new adults, they may push back in order to fully separate from you.
• When your children are older, your role shifts to that of a consultant – you become a consultant. Which means you have to be invited to speak into their lives. Let's face it, they probably already know what you're going to say – you've become the voice in their heads.
• It's important to be REAL with your teens, especially if you're going through a hard time. You don't want to overburden them, but they already know something is going on. Let them into your life.
• Not letting teens in can cause anxiety or undue stress. They often make up stories in their heads to explain things that are much worse than the reality, or even blame themselves for whatever is going on.

Referenced in this Episode:

Episode 35

Episode 36

How to Be The Parent They Need by Amy Kelly and Tami Schow

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

Being a "Good Enough" Parent

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Biggest Takeaways

This episode kicks off Season 2 of the podcast!

We're adding teachers to the mix – because they are fiercely dedicated to teens too.

When it comes to parent-teacher relationships, it can seem like there is a wall between the two – but we all have the same goal: to help our teens become the best versions of themselves. Having great parent-teacher relationships will give our teens a much stronger support base.

Parents need to keep some things in mind about teachers:

1. They love their students.

2. They have a massive job and limited resources to get to know each student individually – having grace and providing helpful information about your teen is invaluable

3. Encouraging notes are welcome treasured

Teachers need to keep some things in mind about parents:

4. Parents love their kids, but they don't always know what they're doing. Have grace with their learning curves.

5. They would love to help you out – invite them into your circle and use the gifts and services they're offering

6. Encouraging notes are welcome treasured

These are universal principles for both groups – consider them "rules" or "mantras":

7. You are on the same side!

8. Seek to understand before you are understood.

9. Give everyone the benefit of the doubt – assume the best, not the worst.

10. Something to remember when teens relay events to you: their prefrontal cortexes are not entirely developed – which means you might want to validate their feelings, then carefully gather all the facts before you rush to judgment or (especially) action.

11. A real live conversation beats a text or email every time.

Referenced in this Episode

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FREE EBOOK: Be the Grownup They Need

Biggest Takeaways

It can be hard to go beyond gift cards and cold hard cash and find more meaningful gifts for teens. If you're like me, you want to get your teen what they want - but you also want them to know that you get them.

If your teen loves books and reading, this list is perfect for you! I would know - it's personally curated by me, and I happen to be the biggest book nerd ever. ;-)

There are necklaces and rings, water bottles and bookends, ornaments and signs, and some awesome t-shirts as well.

Make sure you check out the link - there are some bonus items I added that I didn't talk about on the show!

I hope you have as much fun looking through it as I did putting it together – happy shopping!

32 Gifts for Teens Who Love Books

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FREE EBOOK: Be the Grownup They Need

Biggest Takeaways

Dumplin', by Julie Murphy, is laugh-out-loud-funny and tears-slipping-down-your-face-unexpectedly-sad. The story of how Willowdean "Dumplin'" Dickerson enters the famous Clover City beauty pageant, along with 3 other unlikely candidates is poignant, thought-provoking, and stand-up-and-cheer good.

It is a beautifully written exploration of how hard it is to figure out who you are, especially when you don't feel like you fit in with what's "normal." And isn't that all of us?

And while the book is always, always better, Netflix did a great job with adapting it to the small screen.

Differences

There are some missing characters in the movie (Mitch, Amanda) and some of the characters are not as well developed in the movie as in the book (Ellen, Bo, Hannah, Tim).

Because Mitch is missing, the whole plotline involving Willowdean's relationship with him is absent from the movie.

In the book, Willowdean loves Ellen's boyfriend, Tim. In the movie, his character is kind of jerky, and seems to be combined with Patrick Thomas' from the book.

The movie has a feel-good, reconciliation moment between Willowdean and her mom that the book never really embraced. I actually liked it, but the book was more realistic.

The rift between Willowdean and Ellen was based mostly on their disagreement about the pageant in the movie. In the book, it was much more complex, and a big component was Ellen's decision to have sex with her boyfriend Tim.

Issues

• Body Image
• Friendship
• Parent-Teen Relationships
• Dating
• Grief
• Identity

Questions to Talk About with Your Teen

• What is beautiful?
• What does it look like when your friends are a few steps ahead of you in growing up?
• Why are mothers and daughters so often polar opposites – and how can they bridge the gap?
• What does it look like to fully embrace every part of who you are – not just physically, but each step along the way as you are becoming the person you want to be?
• How many things do we miss because we think we don't "deserve" them?
• Is there a "right" way to grieve?
• What's the best way to "find out who you are and do it on purpose"? What makes it hard to do that?

Referenced in this Episode

Dumplin' by Julie Murphy

Dumplin' Netflix Trailer

Dumplin' Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

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FREE EBOOK: Be the Grownup They Need

• There's no prescribed timeframe for how teens move from being a kid into being an adult. There are a couple of tasks they need to do to become a whole individual person who chooses how they're going to live their lives. And the process is messy.
• An example of a developmentally appropriate tasks teens need to go through is questioning the morals and beliefs they were raised with.
  • This questioning can be demonstrated in their choices, not just in intellectual discussions
  • It's also developmentally appropriate for them to not think of long-term implications as they make this kind of choice
• What they're questioning is: "Do you really know what you're talking about or are you trying to "fear" me into your decisions?
• Knowing your own beliefs is important as you walk with your teens to help them discover their own beliefs
  • This means you must do your own internal work to figure out what you believe – do you believe what you believe because of fear or do you have a solid reason?
  • You can't give your teens what you don't have yourself
• It's okay to say, "I don't know, let's explore this."
• There's no guarantee that your teens will eventually come back to what you believe and have taught them. But regardless, it's healthy for your teens to become adults who adopt their own belief systems and don't automatically accept someone else's. And that's scary for parents.
• It's messy before they land somewhere, but it's good to go through the process of deciding – it's the only way to become a full human as an adult
• Validation is a tool you can use to navigate the conversation
  • It's not agreement
  • It's accepting your teen in their messiest, most ridiculous, most harmful state
• You want to avoid invalidation
  • It can be our knee-jerk reaction and comes out of us so easily
  • It's not helpful in helping your teens work through the emotional impact of whatever is going on
• Correcting might happen in the same conversation as your teen's developmentally appropriate behavior, but will probably happen later – when emotions are settled down
  • Using open-ended questions for correcting is the most likely way your teen will be able to hear and receive correction
• Teens still need boundaries – they need you to say "It's not okay to . . . "Validate their desire, but reinforce the boundaries
  • Teens need to know why their boundaries make sense, so it's helpful to know how your boundaries are based on what's good, loving, and healthy
  • Fear-based boundaries either produce anxious adults who make fear-based decision or adults who disregard any boundaries you tried to instill
• Be kind to yourself - this is a long process!
• This isn't about where I want my teens to go or who I want them to be – it's about helping them emerge into themselves.

Referenced in this Episode

Download the FREE Ebook!

Tami Schow, LPC

Planting Seeds Counseling and Coaching

Episode 35

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Biggest Takeaways:

• Many times, our teen's behavior does not have the intentionality we give it.
• Seeing our teen's behavior as developmentally appropriate can help us reframe it and respond, rather than react, to it.
• Defining a behavior as developmentally appropriate doesn't excuse inappropriate or unhealthy behavior.
• When I know it's developmentally appropriate for teens to go through certain stages as they're changing from kids into adults, I can now respond to their misbehavior rather than react to it.
• Understanding what is developmentally appropriate frees parents and teens from condemnation and shame.
• This is not who your teen is – it's how they are becoming an adult.
• As parents, we're still going to focus on setting boundaries and behaviors and keep them moving toward what is healthy – they don't get a free license to do anything they want just because they're going through this stage.
• Recognizing what is developmentally appropriate in your teen is meant to be an internal dialog to help you reframe your teen's behavior in a non-shaming, process-focused way. It is NOT something you tell your teen, because that can be condescending or belittling.
• Teens hate being told why they do what they do, or that they don't "get it" because they're teenaged. That will shut down any kind of connection with them.
• There's no prescribed timeframe for how teens move from being a kid into being an adult. There are a couple of tasks they need to do to become a whole individual person who chooses how they're going to live their lives. And the process is messy.
• "Good enough parenting" - there is no perfect parent. If we can consistently fall into the big, wide, gray area of "good enough," we're parenting well.
• Examples of developmentally appropriate tasks teens need to go through (it doesn't mean they are manifested in "good" ways, but they need to experience these to emerge into adulthood):
  • be emotionally reactive and impulsive
  • be self-centered and overly self-conscious
  • value their peers' opinions over their parents' advice
• Your measure of success as a parent is not your teen's immediate response – it's being able to say yes to the question "did you create the space for them to grow toward something healthier?"
• You cannot give space when you are condemning, shutting down, or invalidating.

Referenced in this Episode

Want to hear what Tami's dad told her that changed her life? Click here to listen!

Tami Schow, LPC

Planting Seeds Counseling and Coaching

Episode 9

Episode 10

Episode 16

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Biggest Takeaways

• The Hate You Give is a powerful story about a young black girl who witnesses the murder of her childhood friend at the hands of a police officer.
• The book is always, always better than the movie – but The Hate You Give comes pretty close.
• The issues that THUG touches on are ones that many people are struggling with today – racism, profiling, poverty, lack of privilege, and violence are everyday challenges for many.
• Awareness, authenticity, and trust are key in diffusing racial tension.
• It's important to have the conversations, lean in, speak your truth, and seek understanding. Ignorance is not acceptable.
• Trust = Behavior + Time
• The power to change the world happens when we get to know each other well enough to share our stories. ~ Kellye Abernathy
• The answer is love. Once you're open to it, everything changes. ~ Raven Robinson

Questions to Share with Your Teen

• Which character did you identify with the most in THUG? Why?
• Starr felt she had to be two different people to survive in the two worlds she lived in. When have you ever felt like you had to change who you are or how you act in order to be accepted?
• What do you think inspired Angie Thomas to write this story? What do you think she's trying to change in the world with THUG?
• Starr realizes that Khalil is working for King and selling drugs. She knows that it's because he's trying to provide for his sick grandmother and his sisters. When, if ever, is it okay to do something wrong in order to survive? Was there a different choice could Khalil have made?
• In both the book and the movie, Starr was taught how to respond if she was stopped by the police. Why do you think Khalil didn't follow those same "rules"? Would he still be alive if he had?
• In the movie, Uncle Carlos admits that even he would hesitate in the same situation if Khalil had been a white man in a suit with a nice car. Why do you think there is a difference?
• Before reading (or seeing) THUG, what did you know about police shootings? How has THUG changed your perspective?
• Reading or seeing THUG brings up the idea of privilege. Where do you see privilege in your own life?
• What did you learn or discover by reading or watching THUG? How has it made you look at the world differently? What would it look like to take action on that new knowledge?

Referenced in this Episode

Raven Robinson, also known as Raven Love, is a 26-year-old with two beautiful sons, who grew up on the north side of St. Louis City where many have little or no access to the relationships and/or resources that would improve and enrich their lives. She is a full-time employee at Quest Diagnostics and she is currently pursuing a bachelor's degree in Leadership and Management. She loves to encourage, motivate, and inspire others by sharing her story through speaking. She'll be launching a blog in 2019 to form a sisterhood and to help many women be aware of self-love.

Kellye Abernathy is a writer, a yoga instructor, an advocate, and a mentor. She is a lover of all things book-related and is passionate about being in relationship with and learning from extraordinary women.

The Hate U Give Book

The Hate U Give Movie Trailer

Tupac – Keep Ya Head Up

Dear Martin by Nic Stone

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Biggest Takeaways:

Teens struggle in unique ways in different seasons of their development. Sometimes it's about the relationship between the teen and the parents, others it's about the teens relationship with peers.

Frequently, it's difficult for teens to receive wisdom, insight, or encouragement from their parents. This is developmentally appropriate, but it's also super frustrating!

Soliciting those things from family and friends – in the form of letters to your teenager – can have a huge impact.

One of the scariest parts of doing this is asking people to contribute a letter – but in Amy and Angela's experiences, the response was overwhelmingly positive. In fact, people expressed that it was an "honor" to be asked, and in many cases were EAGER to share.

Taking the time to use this strategy can benefit you and your teen in several ways – it can bolster their confidence and feelings of belonging and it can help you see your teen through the eyes of others.

Make sure you have realistic expectations when you present the letters to your teen – it might not be a "movie moment", and that's okay! When you compile letters like these for your teen, you're creating a resource that will serve them for years to come.

Angela and Amy highly recommend doing this project for your teen!

Referenced in this Episode:

Texas A&M University (WHOOP!)

The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman

Letters to My Teenager – A Step by Step Guide

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Kingdom of Ash by Sarah J. Maas

Biggest Takeaways:

• Just in case you missed it, an Ish Girl is: One who has humorous grace with herself when discovering she's messed up or flaked out. Again.
• The Rule of One is a dystopian novel about identical twins, written by identical twins. And yes, I realize the premise sounds a lot like the last book I reviewed – Impostors – but I promise, it's different! 😊
• It's a quick read that will appeal to teens who are drawn to the dystopian genre - think Hunger Games and Divergent.
• Set in a futuristic Dallas, the twins exist in a world with a law of one child only – and their father is head of the agency that enforces it.
• They've survived for 18 years by living as one person on alternating days. Living this way feels like they are "one soul in two bodies."
• Of course, they are eventually discovered and sent on the run, in search of a rebel group called "The Common."
• There are several important issues in the book you can talk to your teen about: Sibling Relationships, Parent/Teen Relationships (or Parent Sacrifice), Sexual Assault, & Secrets

Questions to Share with Your Teen

Sibling Relationships and Identity

What would be the biggest issue for you if you had to share an identity with your sibling? How are you different from and the same as your sibling?

Parent/Teen Relationships or Parent Sacrifice

Do you think the twins' father would rather them escape and continue the rebellion or go back and rescue him from death? Why? What do you think I would want in the same circumstance? What ways have we sacrificed for each other in our family?

Sexual Assault

What part of that scene was scariest for you? When have you felt threatened in that way? Ava recognized that the teen who was with the men was helpless and wouldn't help them – the same way she had been helpless when she saw a woman beaten for stealing water. When have you felt that kind of helplessness?

Secrets

What kinds of secrets are helpful (if any) and what kind are harmful (if any)? When have you ever discovered a secret that harmed you? Helped you? When have you kept a secret that's harmed some else? Helped them?

Referenced in this Episode:

The Rule of One

Ashley Saunders and Leslie Saunders

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The Hate U Give movie trailer

Biggest Takeaways

• Some parenting schools of thought advocate "connection before correction" – but this concept rubs me the wrong way. It feels a lot like like manipulation.
• I connect with my teens so that they feel understood, validated, significant, valuable, loved, worthy of attention, and a sense of belonging. Also, so I have a better chance of influencing them.
• As parents of teens, we have to be savvy - otherwise, we're throwing up walls instead of building bridges.

The majority of the time, when it comes to our teens, the correction needs to happen in us. The parent.

• You influence how your teen responds to things. You have to correct YOUR OWN RESPONSE first, before you can work on connecting with your teen and helping them navigate the crisis. Keeping your head on straight can prevent a whole mess of things – like yelling and unrealistic ultimatums or consequences – that might kill your connection with your teen.
• Correct yourself during a crisis situation by remembering that many times, it's appropriate to let my teens handle their own stuff. Don't be a helicopter parent – step back and shift responsibility onto your teen's shoulders when it makes sense. Don't rush in to rescue them.
• Correct yourself by examining why you make the parenting choices you do. Are you setting expectations and requirements based on what's best in the long run, or based what's most convenient for you in the moment? Saying "yes" whenever you can possibly swing it means more connection with your teens - and it means when you DO say "no," it carries more weight.

I'd rather adopt a correction before connection attitude – recognizing where my thinking needs adjustment so that I can more easily connect with my teens.

• This doesn't mean that I don't discipline my kids or correct their behavior.
• It means is that I'm shooting for authentic connection whenever and wherever I can find it – gathering up all the strategies and tips and tricks I can find and watching for opportunities to use them to connect with my teens.

If you're constantly seeking connection with your teen, it will characterize ALL your interactions.

Referenced in this Episode:

I Only Said "Yes" to My Kids for a Week

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