This mom has been dealing with a severely angry teenager, whose moods have been affecting the entire family. We look at why her teenager is so angry (and at teenagers in general), how this mom is manifesting her own experience of that anger, and how she can help not only herself, but her daughter, as well.
Topics covered on this call
- Her middle daughter has a “mood disorder”, and her anger and animosity are affecting the entire family
- Did the mom manifest this anger?
- Making peace with the fact that her daughter is on medication (it’s not a cure, but it can help)
- Dissecting the psyche of a teenager (why they generally act the way they do, why they rebel as much as they do)
- How teenagers see the world vs. how society sees and treats them
- Teaching kids to follow orders vs. teaching them how to make decisions
- The toughest lesson for parents to learn, and the belief that causes the most pain for parents
- Why her daughter’s stubbornness is actually a good thing, even if it’s causing her current suffering
- How teenagers are brilliant at mirroring back their parents’ control issues
- What she (the mom) can and must do to elicit a different version of her daughter
- Lining up with Who her Daughter Really Is in 2 minutes
- Shifting specific incidents retroactively – example of when her daughter reacted badly to her, and seeing how mom actually elicited and perpetuated the unwanted reaction
- The internal (not external!) work that will line her (mom) up with the funny, happy version of her daughter
- The big battle over homework (it’s a means to an end, not a goal)
- Revaluating the rules we apply to our kids (the rules that were applied to us didn’t work for us, why pass them on to our kids?)
- Don’t make your kids responsible for how you feel
- Don’t allow your kids to stop you from complimenting them, even if they react badly (they hear a lot more than you think they do)
