Parenting Post-Wilderness: Parenting a Struggling Teen Before, During and After Treatment

Christmas is around the corner and brings along a certain level of stress and anxiety in parents and teens alike. We want the holidays to be fun and merry and have a lot of expectations about what it will or should be like. But when not everything turns out the way we expected, it’s those expectations that bring frustration and disappointment.

Join Seth and me today in our conversation about expectations for the holidays. What do we think might happen? What desires do we have? What expectations do our teens have? And how can we all communicate our expectations so we can enjoy a merry Christmas together? Let’s have a look!

In this episode on communicating expectations during the holidays, we discuss:

• Recognizing our own expectations for the holidays;
• Our teens have their own set of expectations;
• How to communicate in your family to help the situation;
• Boundaries during the holidays;
• Teens have a given and a chosen family. They might want to spend time with both during the holidays;
• And more!

If you’d like to connect, you can find me on Instagram (@bethhillmancoaching) or go to my website www.bethhillmancoaching.com. And if you’re interested in working with me, you can learn more about my private coaching here or my group coaching here.

And remember parents, the change begins with us.

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Ps. Are you getting great value out of this podcast? It would mean the world to me if you could leave a review on Apple Podcasts. This way, you will help me reach and help more parents of struggling teens develop healthy responses and boundaries instead of acting out of fear and anxiety. You can leave a review by clicking here, scrolling to the bottom, tapping to leave a star rating and then write your review. Thanks so much!

And if you haven’t already done so, make sure to subscribe to our show so you don’t miss any of my future episodes!

Backburner issues: those little things we’re annoyed about but feel too small or irrelevant to discuss. So we put them on the backburner where they keep growing and growing until they become this big issue in our relationship. Sounds familiar? 

In this second part of my interview with Tanya Hale, who’s an incredible mid-life relationship coach, she shares her formula for talking about backburner issues. Because here’s how she sees it: We don’t want to be mean. We want to be peacekeepers. But we don’t realize that by adopting this peacekeeper’s mindset, we’re working against our relationship.

The solution? Instead of blaming and attacking, we have to learn how to bring up those backburner issues in a loving and kind way. Tanya’s formula is going to help us bring up backburner issues by owning it and still honoring what’s going on for you while communicating it to your loved ones.

In this episode on how to bring up backburner issues, we discuss:

• Are you lying to your spouse?;
• Learning to bring up backburner issues in a loving and kind way;
• Acknowledging there’s an issue;
• Recognizing and communicating that your feelings, thoughts, and points of view are not facts;
• And more!

If you’d like to connect, you can find me on Instagram (@bethhillmancoaching) or go to my website www.bethhillmancoaching.com. And if you’re interested in working with me, you can learn more about my private coaching here or my group coaching here.

And remember parents, the change begins with us.

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More about Tanya Hale

Tanya Hale is a life coach who focuses on helping women in mid-life work through their tough relationships. She works with clients in all stages of divorce, those who don’t want to get divorced but are struggling to be happy in their marriage, and parents who are struggling with their adult children.   

You can learn more about Tanya’s work on her website and her podcast ‘Intentional living with Tanya Hale’!

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Ps. Are you getting great value out of this podcast? It would mean the world to me if you could leave a review on Apple Podcasts. This way, you will help me reach and help more parents of struggling teens develop healthy responses and boundaries instead of acting out of fear and anxiety. You can leave a review by clicking here, scrolling to the bottom, tapping to leave a star rating and then write your review. Thanks so much!

And if you haven’t already done so, make sure to subscribe to our show so you don’t miss any of my future episodes!

Are you parenting your kid as a team or does it feel more like you’re in the boxing ring with the other parent, trying to prove that you’re right and they’re wrong?

When emotions run high, it’s sometimes hard to acknowledge that you’re on the same team as the other parent. Instead of sitting down and listening to each other, we automatically shift towards an ‘I’m right and you’re wrong’ mindset. 

What if I tell you that it can be different?

My dear friend and incredible mid-life relationship coach Tanya Hale joined me today for this value-packed interview on how we can parent as a team. She’s here to help us communicate better with our spouses (or the other parent if we’re divorced) and our adult children. Oof, doesn’t that sound incredible?!

In this episode on parenting as a team, we discuss:

• Working through our differences as parents;
• How to start working together with the other parent;
• How to get to curiosity with our brains who just want to be right;
• What to do when your spouse is not doing the work;
• And much more!

If you’d like to connect, you can find me on Instagram (@bethhillmancoaching) or go to my website www.bethhillmancoaching.com. And if you’re interested in working with me, you can learn more about my private coaching here or my group coaching here.

And remember parents, the change begins with us.

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More about Tanya Hale

Tanya Hale is a life coach who focuses on helping women in mid-life work through their tough relationships. She works with clients in all stages of divorce, those who don’t want to get divorced but are struggling to be happy in their marriage, and parents who are struggling with their adult children.   

You can learn more about Tanya’s work on her website and her podcast ‘Intentional living with Tanya Hale’!

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Ps. Are you getting great value out of this podcast? It would mean the world to me if you could leave a review on Apple Podcasts. This way, you will help me reach and help more parents of struggling teens develop healthy responses and boundaries instead of acting out of fear and anxiety. You can leave a review by clicking here, scrolling to the bottom, tapping to leave a star rating and then write your review. Thanks so much!

And if you haven’t already done so, make sure to subscribe to our show so you don’t miss any of my future episodes!

How much support is too much? There’s a therapist, a tutor, an EF coach, maybe a mentor, and a basketball coach, and sometimes our kids are just like: ‘That’s enough!’. We must figure out how to listen to them and still give them the support they need. 

At a certain point, we need to give our kids the time and space to implement what they've learned, make mistakes and learn from them, and practice being independent young adults. So when is it the right time for this for your child?

Every situation is different and there’s no one-size-fits-all answer to the question of how much support is too much. So let’s dive into all the details in today’s episode!

In this episode on how much support is too much, we discuss:

• How much support is too much?;
• When does the support start having negative effects?;
• Why it’s important to give our kids some freedom to implement what they’ve learned and become independent young adults;
• What to do when the stakes are too high?;
• What can your kid learn while making mistakes?;
• And much more!

If you’d like to connect, you can find me on Instagram (@bethhillmancoaching) or go to my website www.bethhillmancoaching.com. And if you’re interested in working with me, you can learn more about my private coaching here or my group coaching here.

And remember parents, the change begins with us.

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Ps. Are you getting great value out of this podcast? It would mean the world to me if you could leave a review on Apple Podcasts. This way, you will help me reach and help more parents of struggling teens develop healthy responses and boundaries instead of acting out of fear and anxiety. You can leave a review by clicking here, scrolling to the bottom, tapping to leave a star rating and then write your review. Thanks so much!

And if you haven’t already done so, make sure to subscribe to our show so you don’t miss any of my future episodes!

Wilderness isn’t bad, nor good. Hard, nor easy. A blessing, nor a curse. These are the thoughts we might have, but they’re not the facts. 

In this episode, I’m (re)introducing the concept of facts versus thoughts (in other words, the stories we make up in our minds) in the concept of our wilderness experiences. 

The experience of wilderness is made up of a lot of facts: whether your kid was transported there or not, whether they went voluntarily or not, the weather when they were there, and so on. 

But as human beings, our experiences don’t just consist of facts. We have thoughts about these facts. We create a story in our minds which leads us to have an opinion about the facts. And these are different for each of us. 

The tricky part? When we don’t pay attention, we can confuse our own stories for facts. 

Have a listen to today’s episode, where we dive deeper into this concept and discuss how listening and being open to each other’s stories can bring us understanding and can helps us love other people for where they’re at. 

In this episode, we discuss:

• The difference between facts and stories;
• Listening and being open to other’s stories;
• How life shapes our view on the facts around us;
• The fear of being wrong;
• And much more!

If you’d like to connect, you can find me on Instagram (@bethhillmancoaching) or go to my website www.bethhillmancoaching.com. And if you’re interested in working with me, you can learn more about my private coaching here or my group coaching here.

And remember parents, the change begins with us.

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Ps. Are you getting great value out of this podcast? It would mean the world to me if you could leave a review on Apple Podcasts. This way, you will help me reach and help more parents of struggling teens develop healthy responses and boundaries instead of acting out of fear and anxiety. You can leave a review by clicking here, scrolling to the bottom, tapping to leave a star rating and then write your review. Thanks so much!

And if you haven’t already done so, make sure to subscribe to our show so you don’t miss any of my future episodes!

Sending your kid away to treatment often comes with a lot of shame. The shame of not being a good enough parent, not being the person that can help them, and so on. This inner critic shows up in your head and can be incredibly loud, right?

I’m continuing my conversation with David Bedrick and we invite you to have a different look at this inner critic and the blame and shame we put on the decisions we’ve made. Because what is it really giving you? Is it helpful for you to blame yourself? Is it in any way helpful for your kid or your family? The answer is no, it isn’t. 

Come and join this second part of my conversation with David in which we dive deeper into this and other concepts like seeing your kid both as a student and a teacher and unshaming the identified patient in your family. Embrace yourself to dive deep!

In this episode on unshaming the identified patient in your family, we discuss:

• Unshaming the identified patient in your family;
• The shame around sending your kid away;
• The unhelpful inner critic in our head;
• Seeing your kid as both a student and a teacher.

If you’d like to connect, you can find me on Instagram (@bethhillmancoaching) or go to my website www.bethhillmancoaching.com. And if you’re interested in working with me, you can learn more about my private coaching here or my group coaching here.

And remember parents, the change begins with us.

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Ps. Are you getting great value out of this podcast? It would mean the world to me if you could leave a review on Apple Podcasts. This way, you will help me reach and help more parents of struggling teens develop healthy responses and boundaries instead of acting out of fear and anxiety. You can leave a review by clicking here, scrolling to the bottom, tapping to leave a star rating and then write your review. Thanks so much!

And if you haven’t already done so, make sure to subscribe to our show so you don’t miss any of my future episodes!

As a parent, one of the hard things is living with regrets. We’re trying our best to make the right decisions for our children and always do the right thing but none of us is perfect. When I took David Bedrick’s Unshaming course, it completely changed the way I see myself and some of my past actions as a parent. It truly changed my life. So without him knowing, he became a mentor to me. 

So it goes without words that I’m beyond excited to be talking to him today on Parenting Post-Wilderness! David is the founder of the Santa Fe Institute for Shame-based Studies and teaches people how to live a life free from shame. As David says, there’s intelligence in our actions and he’s on the podcast today to help us find it. Are you ready?

In this episode on unshaming your parent regrets, we discuss:

• How to handle role reversal in your family;
• Honoring our feelings and reactions while still showing up self-regulated;
• Using relational powers to create a genuine relationship with your child;
• Unshaming the regrets you hold as a parent;
• And more!

If you’d like to connect, you can find me on Instagram (@bethhillmancoaching) or go to my website www.bethhillmancoaching.com. And if you’re interested in working with me, you can learn more about my private coaching here or my group coaching here.

And remember parents, the change begins with us.

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Ps. Are you getting great value out of this podcast? It would mean the world to me if you could leave a review on Apple Podcasts. This way, you will help me reach and help more parents of struggling teens develop healthy responses and boundaries instead of acting out of fear and anxiety. You can leave a review by clicking here, scrolling to the bottom, tapping to leave a star rating and then write your review. Thanks so much!

And if you haven’t already done so, make sure to subscribe to our show so you don’t miss any of my future episodes!

But Beth, how can I de-escalate my teen when they’re blaming me for something I’ve actually done?

It was one of my clients asking me this the other day. And I know she’s not alone, hearing things like:

“My basketball career is ruined because you sent me to treatment”
“I’m losing my friends because you don’t allow me to use my phone”

And yes, you DID send them to treatment. And you DID take their phone. But does that really mean it’s your fault? (Spoiler alert: often it’s not)

In today’s episode, Seth and I discuss how to handle tough situations like this. As you hear in our conversation, we make an important distinction between facts and emotions. Because the fact is, you did send them to treatment. But does that make it your fault that their basketball career is ruined? I don’t think so. 

In this episode on de-escalating your teen when it’s “your fault”, we discuss:

• Owning the facts, not the story;
• The impact of justifying and defending yourself;
• Regulating yourself no matter what you’re teen is doing;
• Revisiting the conversation after taking a pause;
• How do you know when you’re regulated enough to discuss something?;
• And more!

If you’d like to connect, you can find me on Instagram (@bethhillmancoaching) or go to my website www.bethhillmancoaching.com. And if you’re interested in working with me, you can learn more about my private coaching here or my group coaching here.

And remember parents, the change begins with us.

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Ps. Are you getting great value out of this podcast? It would mean the world to me if you could leave a review on Apple Podcasts. This way, you will help me reach and help more parents of struggling teens develop healthy responses and boundaries instead of acting out of fear and anxiety. You can leave a review by clicking here, scrolling to the bottom, tapping to leave a star rating and then write your review. Thanks so much!

And if you haven’t already done so, make sure to subscribe to our show so you don’t miss any of my future episodes!

Let’s continue our conversation on how to de-escalate ourselves and take the conversation a bit deeper. Inspired by a Brene Brown interview, Seth and I explore the importance of communicating our levels of regulation to our partners. What do each of us, at this exact moment, have the bandwidth for? We only have so much energy in the day, and knowing our own energy levels and communicating it with our partner, can help us acknowledge what we can and cannot deal with in the moment.

That is just step one. Tune in to today’s episode to learn more about recognizing the feeling of guilt in ourselves as a red flag for reacting from a place of emotion, and much more!

In this episode on how to de-escalate yourself, we discuss:

• Communicating energy levels with your partner;
• Recognizing guilt as a red flag;
• Moving past guilt and shame for effective communication;
• Processing dysregulated thoughts and emotions;
• Emotional communication within your family;
• The importance of processing emotions and taking time;
• And more!

If you’d like to connect, you can find me on Instagram (@bethhillmancoaching) or go to my website www.bethhillmancoaching.com. And if you’re interested in working with me, you can learn more about my private coaching here or my group coaching here.

And remember parents, the change begins with us.

- - - - - - - - - -

Ps. Are you getting great value out of this podcast? It would mean the world to me if you could leave a review on Apple Podcasts. This way, you will help me reach and help more parents of struggling teens develop healthy responses and boundaries instead of acting out of fear and anxiety. You can leave a review by clicking here, scrolling to the bottom, tapping to leave a star rating and then write your review. Thanks so much!

And if you haven’t already done so, make sure to subscribe to our show so you don’t miss any of my future episodes!

When emotions run high, it’s not just our teens that need de-escalation. We do too. Learning how to de-escalate yourself and regulate your emotions can be revolutionary in your life and relationship with your teen. It sure was for me. 

It might seem unattainable right now (I’ve been there), but you can do it too. Believe me, you can! Let me guide you through it in today’s episode.

In this episode on de-escalating yourself, we discuss:

• My journey in learning to de-escalate myself;
• The exact tools I use to de-escalate myself;
• Intentionally focus on your feelings while processing things;
• And more!

If you’d like to connect, you can find me on Instagram (@bethhillmancoaching) or go to my website www.bethhillmancoaching.com. And if you’re interested in working with me, you can learn more about my private coaching here or my group coaching here.

And remember parents, the change begins with us.

- - - - - - - - - -

Ps. Are you getting great value out of this podcast? It would mean the world to me if you could leave a review on Apple Podcasts. This way, you will help me reach and help more parents of struggling teens develop healthy responses and boundaries instead of acting out of fear and anxiety. You can leave a review by clicking here, scrolling to the bottom, tapping to leave a star rating and then write your review. Thanks so much!

And if you haven’t already done so, make sure to subscribe to our show so you don’t miss any of my future episodes!