In this episode, Neil follows last week’s podcast where he responds to parents struggling with their young teenager’s lack of impulse control. In this episode, Neil offers a second way to help their teenager improve and he demonstrates how to go about it.

Last week we responded to a parent looking for ways to help her young teenager improve their impulse control. He was getting into trouble with unacceptable thoughtless behaviors. Managing or controlling impulses is a big topic so today we’ll stay on that topic and offer another important element that can help kids improve their impulse control.

Here’s a brief summary of last week’s podcast.

 We started with shifting from the frame of managing impulses to one of using thoughtful, intentional behavior and the importance of growing the neural pathway from the amygdala where we experience emotions and impulses to the neocortex, the rational center of the brain, and practicing taking time to use the rational center to make decisions.

I suggested that thoughtful intentional behavior be adopted and clarified as a family value and a skill that everyone needs to work on. I roleplayed a conversation between the young teenager and his parents where parents sloooowed the conversation down to emphasize the importance of understanding and utilizing these concepts and in doing so, help their son stretch his ability to manage his emotions and stay present. Also clear in the roleplay, was the concept of accountability to making progress on this skill. There is accountability for doing stupid stuff. 

This week I want to talk about how planning, and preparing supports impulse control. Here's a point that I can't emphasize enough,

If we just pull our hair out and get annoyed or angry with our kids who demonstrate a lack of age-appropriate impulse control, never plan, and never prepare, we’ll probably only make it worse and we’ll likely grow a control battle, and you know where that goes.

There are a lot of things we want to see our kids get better at and if we can focus on a few keystone skills, a lot of them will fall into place. Focusing on thoughtful, intentional decision making can invite growth in lots of areas ----and a major way to support thoughtful intentional decision making ----is with planning and preparing. I’m betting these are two things your teenager could definitely improve at. There is far less planning going on in kids lives these days. With friends they tend to wait to see what’s going on and then show up where they see the action. Very often, that ends up being no place and kids don’t get together and just use social media for their engagement. In fact using devices in general causes a lack of impulse control.

But planning and preparing are baseline skills for success in life. So if in your home, there is a mad scramble to get things together for school, the soccer game, for getting homework done, then teaching planning and preparing will make a big difference. These skills are real ways to operationalize thoughtful, intentional behavior.

Let me show you with a little role play with our Mom and her 13 year-old ADHD son, whom I’ll call Bo, how you might begin to introduce these skills. 

Mom: Hey Bo, I have a great idea. Tomorrow morning why don’t you get up after I go in your room and wake you up 5 times and finally yell at you, and then you scramble around trying to get everything together for school and soccer practice and not have time to eat breakfast while we yell at each other.

Bo:  That’s stupid Mom.

Mom: You’re right Bo. So do you have a suggestion about what we could do differently?

Bo: I donno. Maybe get up quicker?

Mom: That would help. I’ve been thinking about this for a while and I’ve come to a realization and a decision. Starting right now, and every night before you go to bed, you pick up your things that are all over the house, put them where they belong, get your all your things together, and pack your backpack for the morning. And, for now, I’m still willing to wake you up, but I’m not willing to get you up. That’s your job. I’ll go in your room once and wake you up. Then it’s your job to get yourself up or miss school.

Bo: Okaay! Why are you making such a big deal about everything?

Mom: Because you are a big deal and you growing up is a big deal. You’ll be in 8th grade next year and it’s time to take your next step in growing up. And if we don’t show you the right way to do things, we aren’t being good parents. We’ll never be perfect parents, but we will always try to do our best. 

Do you see the elements here that can help Bo grow his impulse control? Planning and preparing are the best ways to get good outcomes. When kids have planned and prepared, they’re invested in doing something and having it turn out well. They will take ownership of the thing they are doing. Then, if there’s a distraction, they’re much less likely to embrace it. Planning and preparing is how we accomplish goals, such as getting good grades, or being on the baseball or flag football team. With planning and preparing for good outcomes, for achieving the things our kids want, they will be much less likely to do something stupid that could get them in trouble. And if they did, realistically maybe I should say when they do, well, it would be a much bigger deal and a much stronger learning experience for them.    

Thanks for tuning in today listener and please…Take care of yourself, you need it, you deserve it, you’re worth it. Bye for now.

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