Saving Our Teens.

A few months ago, I shared my concerns and roadblocks with helping my clients who have older children and teens (link below for that post).

I was concerned that I was having a disconnect with parents of teens because their kids are older and they really struggle to have a lens shift (believing that the behavior is a symptom of struggle and pain and not willful defiance)- which in turn makes it really hard for me to help them. And that was breaking my heart 😪

Since then I’ve worked harder to do more trainings and learn more about the struggles of parents of teens to help them have that lens shift.

I’m so proud and excited to share the story of one of my clients who called me just a month ago in tears, saying she’s convinced she’s “lost” her 16yo son. All he does is play video games and is extremely rude and disrespectful to everyone else in the family and has no interest in anything else at all. And now- just a month later, she said she’s shocked that he’s regulating his video games, he’s saying his prayers without being prompted and he’s being super nice to his parents and siblings.

And yes I did work hard with this mom but honestly, SHE worked super hard herself. She wrote me long messages of everything that was happening... she detailed almost every interaction with her son so I could guide her on how to speak to him. She was so open and welcoming to all my suggestions and truly placed all her trust in me for which I feel SO honored.

Despite having an unsupportive husband, she made changes in her approach. When she made mistakes, she wanted to be coached on how to apologize unconditionally. I was even happy to give her an extra phone call because I could see she’s really committed and together we can “save” her sweet boy!

Of course, relationships are a long term commitment and she will continue to have ups and downs with her son but she said something to me in the end that told me, everything is going to be ok! She said, “Maryam, at least now I don’t feel so lost even when he acts out.. I know what to do.. I know how to be his confident captain. I’ll be ok now.” 😭😭😭 (<- happy tears)

Why am I sharing all this? A, because I wanted to share an update on that original post (linked below) and B, because I’ve gathered everything I did with this mom in my upcoming workshop and hope you’ll join me if you have a teen or preteen (ages 9+).

As I mentioned above, changing our relationship with our older kids takes lots of patience and work so I have no magical solutions.

My original post about working with parents of teens: https://m.facebook.com/story/graphql_permalink/?graphql_id=UzpfSTczMDEyMDMwMzpWSzoyNTg0NTY5MTk4MzA5Mjg1