What do you do when you are exhausted from trying to stay on top of managing your ADHD 12 year old daughter, and getting cooperation from your 16 year old very independent son? We’ll talk about this and a whole lot more on this week’s podcast, Exhausted From Setting Limits?  Make This Shift! 

Today we’re hearing from Bonnie of Maplewood, NJ who writes: 

Dear Neil,

I know that control battles are a problem, but how do I get out of one when my kids are constantly breaking the rules?  My daughter 12 has ADHD and would rather be on her phone than doing homework, practicing piano, cleaning her room or any other responsibility.  She knows she has to have certain things done before she can have her phone, but then it’s up to me to make sure she’s done everything.  She’ll say she’s done her responsibilities and wants her phone and then it’s up to me to go over the list and argue with her about the details of her undone responsibilities. 

The situation with my son is similar.  He’s 16 and wants to be independent which is fine. But if he wants to be independent, does that mean he has no responsibilities in the home?  I swear, if he ever washed a dish or cleaned up after himself without being hounded, I’d faint.

They’re both basically good kids but why is everything on me to keep them in line? 

To make matters worse, their Dad has them most weekends and says he has no problem with them. The truth is he doesn’t make them do anything. They eat take-out whenever the kids want.  He works a lot and is always on his computer, so the kids are free to be on their devices. 

Should I just quit being so demanding?  I feel like I’m losing the battle and that I’m the odd one out in the family. 

The protests of our kids can make us doubt ourselves. 

• You’re the only parent who makes me have to do everything before I can have my phone.
• My phone helps me stay focused on my work.
• I need my phone to get my assignment from my friends.
• I need my phone for my music.
• What’s the big deal about my room, I know where everything is?
• I hate piano.  The teacher said I’m doing great, and I didn’t even practice so it doesn’t make any difference.

All this resistance and the lack of adult support can really make us doubt ourselves. 

It’s no fun always being the bad guy.  So let’s find a way to get you out of that persona.

Please Bonnie don’t doubt yourself.  You want your kids to be responsible and cooperative. What’s wrong with that?  Nothing of course. Raising our kids to be responsible and cooperative is our gift to them. You could be distracted and let them avoid responsibilities like their Dad, and it would probably be easier on you but instead you’re actively raising your kids. Great, you're halfway there. 

So let’s examine your self doubt. Self doubt comes from two sources:

1. What we just spoke about, not having any support for your reality, your values and your standards, can create or add to self-doubt. We are social animals and we need validation of our reality or we begin to doubt it, hence, self-doubt.
2. This other source of self-doubt comes from our childhoods and adolescences. If we grow up with criticism, or a lack of support and validation of our thoughts and feelings, we will grow up believing that our thoughts and feelings aren’t valid or important and we will rely on a coping strategy for getting by. But this strategy will be very limiting and one common strategy is to be accommodating so that we will be loved and accepted, yet we will still feel some degree of unworthiness or self-doubt.  I call this negative idea about ourselves, our OS1.  An inadequate operating system that got loaded on our computer, if you get my metaphor.

So what do we do about this?  We upgrade our operating system and build an OS2. This upgraded OS allows us to believe in ourselves and know that it’s okay and reasonable to be imperfect, that it isn’t our job to please everyone with our decisions. Yet, we are smart, rational caring people doing the right thing from our value system, and making our best decisions based on our values and goals. 

Bonnie, this shift in thinking is your starting point.  Because when you are clear about your expectations, and you aren’t plagued by self-doubt, the kids will stop their protests and be far more cooperative. 

Here is a critical point, and one that is commonly missed, you can validate your kids’ thoughts and feelings, and still hold them accountable to your standards and expectations.  It goes like this:

I understand that you bla bla bla.  I appreciate that and see how you might feel that way; it makes sense.  And yet, this is what I need you to do. 

Call a family meeting. Who? The three of you and if their Dad and you are on good terms, meaning cooperative terms, he could be included.

Here is how a meeting might start out:

You are great kids and both are doing well in life.  I’m proud of you both.

It is not my job to get you two to do your responsibilities. It is my job to raise you right; meaning to hold you to certain standards of behavior, to certain values.  Gillian, you are an almost teenager and there is a lot that will challenge you in your adolescent years. If you get some things right now, if you develop some really good habits and standards for yourself, you will go into and through your teen years happily and successfully.  I don’t expect you to agree with all my rules, I do expect you to follow them and I expect you to follow them without a huge argument. 

Robert, I know you want to be independent, and I want to support that.  And yet being independent means being able to manage responsibilities on your own. And you do have responsibilities to the family.  It doesn’t mean not needing to participate in anything that isn’t homework, sports or friends. 

I am not a maid, and we don’t have one.  So taking care of our home together is required of us. We need to be grateful that we have a home and taking care of it is one way of showing our gratitude.

We are a family and we need to relate to each other in a way that acknowledges our love and caring about each other.  Life can’t be all about friends and devices. 

Gillian, if your phone is so compelling and so demanding of your attention, that it is more important than following the rules and cooperating with me, then we’ll put the phone away until you’re older and more in control of yourself.

Robert, while you do have a lot going on, and it is good stuff and important stuff, you have a home with a younger sister who needs to know she’s important to you, and a mother who as I said earlier, is not a maid.  Cooking and cleaning are two skills you are going to need in your life.  Otherwise, day to day life will become overwhelming, expensive, and unhealthy. 

So what I want now is an understanding and some agreements on: 

• How we will clean and care for our home.
• How and when we will spend time together.
• How the two of you will spend time together.
• And some agreements on how we will talk with each other. 

If you have an ADHD 12-year-old, or young teen, you will need to provide structure and support for them to manage responsibilities like homework, instrument practice, cleaning and organizing. Your young teen does need to know that you are providing support and structure, not to control them, but to support them until they learn to structure their time and responsibilities more on their own. If you are fighting and arguing, then it’s your agenda and they aren’t owning it.  If you are prompting and they are cooperating, then you are supporting them and they have ownership.  And if they don’t have ownership, bye, bye privileges because ownership is a prerequisite to privileges. Kids won’t be perfect, no one is.  But if their intention and effort are in the right place, problems are solvable. 

So Bonnie, are you getting what we’re saying here?  

• Check your self-doubt and replace it with your OS2, an empowered confident you. You’re doing the right thing and you don’t need to apologize for it. 
• With your confident positive voice, be clear about your expectations including your standards and make sure your values that underpin your expectations and standards are expressed.
• Finally, be clear that ownership of responsibilities belongs to each person and that privileges are only forthcoming when that ownership is evident.  Moms can’t hold responsibility for everyone’s functioning. 

Thanks for tuning in today and special thanks to Bonnie for inviting this discussion.  Just a reminder, Mental Health needs to be role modeled. Your children won’t be mentally healthier than you.  Self-care is essential. You need it, you deserve it, you are worth it. Bye for now.

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I’d like folks to know that if you have a question, you’d like me to address on this podcast, don’t be shy, we’ll all benefit from your question so come on over to my website, neildbrown.com, click on Podcasts then click on “submit a question” easy as pie, and there are no bad questions and I’d love to hear from you.  And while you’re there, click on the button that says FREE STUFF.  There are several helpful downloadable items I’ve created for you.  So come help yourself.  Also, my on-line self-paced Ending The Parent-Teen Control Battle Course is available to you as well. It’s based on my book by the same name but goes that much deeper and brings the understanding and skills that a parent needs to turn things around.  There is a downloadable workbook along with the videos.  It might just be what you’ve needed all along to get things on the right track.  If you’re a therapist and would like to use the course with your clients, shoot me an email so I can send you the therapist’s guide for the course.