Hello and welcome back to the Simplicity Diaries with me, Kem Jon Paine. I wanted to talk in this episode a little bit more around how to help tweenagers, like 9, 10, 11, 12 year olds and teenagers, how to help them be present when you've got to talk to them about something that's come up. This is because teenagers outwardly and tweenagers can be kind of spectacularly disinterested in our opinions.
I think they're inwardly sometimes taking it on board, but what they don't want when something comes up and you have to talk to a 13 or 15 year old or whatever, and they do, you do need to sit down and get this out on the table, talk it through. Something's come up that requires you working it out with them. Some of the greatest fears of kids is that we are going to go on and on and on and we're going to over talk it.
We're going to ask them to talk all about their feelings, which they find difficult to be. A lot of kids find that difficult to be very articulate about it, especially when they feel they're under the microscope, right? So that the limbic system in their brain is starting to shut down and they're going down to the downstairs brain, they're going down to the survival brain, like down the stairs we go. My dad wants to talk to me.
And so they're starting to shut it down just when we're asking them to open it up, to talk through something and they just don't, and it's like, they're just not into it. Don't feel particularly safe, don't want to do it. So one of the ways to approach kids when you've got to talk to them about this stuff, of course, is that you lay in wait for the right moment.
So much of parenting is laying in wait, you know, for the right moment and not just blurting it out. Like there they are, they walk in the door, hey, hey, come over here. I've got something to talk to you about.
That very seldom ever, you know, has a happy ending. It can be quite unattractive, but you lay in wait for the right moment. Okay.
You know, usually one comes up that day sometime. That's the first thing. The second thing is to say to them, hey, something's come up I need to talk to you about, but you know what, if you can keep this straight with me, you can be straight.
We're going to keep this brief. The straighter you are, the briefer this is going to be. Okay.
We need to, and you let them know what it is. You know, there's something was said by a couple of parents at pickup that went on at that party and I want to check it out with you. You let them know.
I want to hear, you know, the way you see it, and we're going to keep this really brief if we can keep this really straight. That's the way that we can get into this conversation and we can get out of it and not have this go on and on. It's like you almost win the heart, particularly of some kids, if you do that, because they don't want to be corralled.
One of the ways you can also do this is just keep working. You know, it's sometimes with teenagers, the sit down, eye contact thing, that's warranted, but most often, hey, come and sit at the counter and you're getting the salad ready or whatever you're doing. I need to talk to you about something that came up when I was at pickup time today, and you're not asking them for eye contact.
You're not confronting them. You will look up, you know, and then look down, and you look up again, and you look a minute, and then you look down and you chop in the carrots or whatever you're doing, right? So it's not, again, forcing them to go fleeing down to the downstairs brain, right? You are asking them to be there, but you're not fixing them with your eyes and asking them for eye contact and all that stuff. That'll send them scurrying down the stairs.
So keep, and the other thing is, as I mentioned, is be straight. Be straight, and this will be brief, and the message is if you're not being straight, we're going to have to really work this through, okay? And then the other part of this is when you've talked about this a little bit, you've worked it through a little bit, understand that this might be episodic. You might, a lot of kids will, they'll disclose a little bit about a situation and test you out and see if you're going to freak out about it or you're going to get weird about it, and you're going to start, you know, disclosing all sorts of stuff about your own biography and it's just like, you know, you're like, this is weird, but the, and so be willing to take it in small bites, say, look, we're going to talk this a little bit, and I'll circle back later this evening if there's anything else that's occurred to you, all right? We're going to keep it brief now, I'll give you some time to think about it, but I will be circling back, all right? So all right, what do you think when, about the reports that there was alcohol at that party or what do you think, like, can you give me your, and then let them know you'll circle back, that this isn't a one and done, you're not going to go on for an hour, it's because kids need time to process.
I want to say particularly boys need time to process, but I think many girls, many kids, just regardless of gender, but I've found particularly teenage boys, and that, the evidence is fairly clear that there's a slower processing, boys need time, they just need time, I don't mean to upset anyone and be binary about this, it's just, really, it's just what I've found. But most kids just need time, that you're going to circle back, and even if you do circle back later that night, it's at bedtime or whatever, and you say, hey, what's come up for you about that thing I was mentioning earlier? Now if you've already shown that you're not going to get, go sort of, I don't know, go feral on them, and you've shown that, hey, there's a little bit of trust here, you can trust me that I'm not freaking out about this, then often it's the second or third little conversation where it comes out, not the first. The first is just establishing safety, I've found it over and over and over, the first one is just about establishing baseline safety, and then the brain base, the lower brain can release some traffic into the limbic system, into the emotional brain, into the am I loved brain and can I love, and all that stuff, then you get more of the story the second or third bite.
But I find it kind of crucial to be able to fly that flag, you know what I mean? Something like signal that you are going to be circling back, so that you don't catch a kid by surprise, and one other thing that kids sometimes can appreciate is that I'll ask you if this is a good moment, I am going to circle back, look, I need to know more from your perspective about what happened, but I will ask you, is this a good time? And if it's not, if you're really tired, then we can, that's fine. A child, a young person feels respected when you do that, and they don't feel that you're going to ambush them and going to demand that they talk to you right there and then. Look, we as adults don't like that, no one likes it, and you can signal this ahead of time, say, look, Joe, I'm going to, all right, so this is what I want to talk to you about, have a bit of a think about it, and they might give you a little bit of information, I'm going to circle back later this evening, but you know what, I'm going to ask you if it's a good moment, and if it's not, it's okay, it can be sometime tomorrow, don't worry, I won't ambush you, I'll always ask you if this is a good moment.
You see kids almost visibly relax then, because otherwise they're walking around wondering, you know, what's going to jump out from behind a bush and eat them, and we become like the predator parent, so that is also super important to signal to them that you'll be respectful in the conversation, but you will be unrelenting, you know, you will be tenacious, there's no, like, no, I don't want to talk about it, doesn't mean we're not going to talk about it, we need to get this sorted out over the next couple of days, and you can even give that kind of container, over the next couple of days we need to get this worked out, all right, particularly before the weekend comes up, because you want to be, you know, you're going to be wanting to do stuff, and we need to work this out before then. All right, so that's some tips about how to work with tweenages, teenagers, when you've got a conversation that absolutely needs to be had, stuff needs to be worked through. You can use this with younger kids too, by the way, but you just voice it differently, okay? As always, hope that's helpful, bye-bye for now.
