How to Prevent Teenage Rebellion (Without Yelling or Control)

Rebellion stems from needs that are not being met. We don't have the tantrums and we don't have the rebellion. Are there differences between healthy and unhealthy rebellion? And if you're living a boring story, they're going to act out and in some ways rebel. There has to be rebellion in your life. This is crazy talk. Hey there, this is Greg Denny. We want to reach as many people as possible and help as many families as possible with these conversations and we want to keep this podcast ad free forever. You can help us do that by subscribing on Spotify or Apple Podcast or wherever you listen, your favorite platform and on YouTube and leave a quick review and and share your favorite episodes with friends and family. It makes a big difference. Thank you for being a part of this very important movement. Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of the Extraordinary Family Life Podcast. Today is going to be a doozy. I think you say that like every time. It's because I mean it every time. But we're going to talk about teenage rebellion and restaurant parenting and restaurant parenting. Ultimately talking about like what is what is it you really want? Like what's what's the purpose of your parenting? Why are you doing what you're doing? What are you hoping to get out of it? What sort of outcomes, right? And and we're going to we're going to kind of dive into why why some parenting with the best of intentions and even some decent tactics ultimately doesn't work. The approach we take in almost everything we do in life is to seek congruence and that means the inner life and the outer life match up as much as possible. Of course, we're not completely congruent all the time, but that's the goal. We're working towards congruence in all areas of our life. And that includes the parenting. And so, when we're looking for congruence, that means our behavior at home is going to match up with our behavior when you're we're out. And how does that tie into long-term teenage rebellion? Well, and then and then high functioning adults, like just phenomenal adults. And for me, like you touched on standard there. For me, it really comes back to a standard so to speak of of what you're going after and why. Like what what is your standard and what is what is your goal? What's the ultimate outcome? And you've you've heard Rachel and me talk about this, like our whole parenting philosophy has really been built on the kind of adults we want our children to be. And not just that, but the kind of relationships we want to have with our adult children. Yes. Yes. Right. I started to realize that I needed to have this congruence of my own behavior, my own parenting so that it matched up when I was out and when I was not out. We're not going to, you know, yell and scream at our kids and then when someone knocks on the door, put on the happy face. Like, we're going to be congruent. We're going to have our our public behavior be equal to our private behavior as much as possible. And meaning our our it's a genuine private behavior is built on a high standard. Are we living a double standard? So that's a question I want to kind of pass on. Do you have a double standard of behavior? And obviously there's certain situations where yelling and screaming and wrestling is okay and those that aren't that doesn't mean you have double standard. But do you tolerate unacceptable behavior sometimes and then not at other times because for whatever reason whether you you don't want people to see it or whatever. But it's really valuable to just ask yourself are you do you have a double standard and can you establish a standard across the board? Public, private, at home, out and about like what's acceptable and then how do you do it and at what cost and when when should you not do it? and and kind of just getting clear about what you're doing and why. Okay, so we got these really great questions and it says, "My thought process and research has led me to conclu conclude that rebellion of basically any kind stems from needs that are not being met, whether it's healthy or unhealthy. It could be a need for identity and purpose, a need for love and valuable relationships, among other things. Would you agree?" Absolutely. And we're going to go into that why that's the case, but I would absolutely agree with that. And then are there other needs that are commonly not met that are likely to read lead to rebellion? We're going to talk about that. And what are the differences between healthy and unhealthy rebellion along with do you consider some kind of rebellion necessary in a person's life? And do you think there are other contributing factors to teenage rebellion? So, this is going to this is going to tie in very well to what we're going to talk about, but we need to clarify this. The time to think about teenage rebellion is when your baby is born and when you are teaching them and training them and raising them and guiding them and mentoring them while they are very small. Okay. Now, now yes. Amen. Amen. But those of you who have teens, don't be like, "Oh no, all is lost. All is lost." All right. Too bad for you. There there there's still tons you can do and there is a lot you can total recovery that can come and and you can make major transformations. One of the main points we want to make here is and we've made it in other in other contexts but it's true here as well. Life is lived on a delay. So the things we do now will show up in the next few weeks or months or years. And what's showing up in our lives right now is what we did a few days ago, a few weeks ago, a few months ago or a few years ago. Seeds that you planted. Yeah. And it's just man it's so powerful and valuable to just constantly remember that like life is lived in a delay and it will show up. The behavior you are seeing now from your teenagers was planted even from the time they were very small and when they were five and 10 and 12. Absolutely. And on the other side of that if you have small children or still have small children what you are doing now is planting the seeds of future teenage rebellion or not. Yes. So, like, let that sink in right now. What you're doing with your littles is determining how your littles will be as teens. You are literally crafting the years and the experience when those littles become teens. And you guys, this carries into when your kids become adults and when they have kids and how they raise their kids. Like, this stuff is generational and huge. Fundamentally, our philosophy is allow your children to act their age. Now, some of you might disagree with that, but like hear us out here for a little bit. We, and again, I've been working with youth and families for over two decades, and we've been raising our kids. I just wholeheartedly believe that if you meet the needs, like we're going to address later, and you build the relationship, and you work with children, they will naturally change their behavior as they mature. There's this beautiful process that happens. I have no problem allowing a 5-year-old to act like a 5-year-old because I know when they turn six, they're not going to do that anymore. And because we've studied so intensely studied uh the physiological development and childhood development and all those things since since before we had kids psychology, even before we were married, I was studying this stuff. And and as you understand it, you're like, "Okay, that's going to take care of itself. I'm not going to fret about that." When we don't allow them to be who they are, I think ultimately all that does is plant the seeds of feelings of unworthiness or feelings of not being good enough or feelings that mom and dad are not satisfied with me or my behavior that then later turn into teenage rebellion and into adulthood. these grown men and women who have these trapped emotions of unworthiness, of not being enough. It starts there and we think it's not connected, but it is. It really is connected. And so our approach along with this idea of allowing children to act their act their age is that when you treat them with respect at the age that they are and the maturity level they are, because sometimes age and maturity level are not exactly the same. I mean, we've had we have a seven-year-old that sometimes is more mature than, you know, a 12-year-old or whatever. Like, but when you come from that place of acceptance and expecting healthy behavior, we're not talking about unhealthy behavior here, that allows them to be themselves. And that is a healthy place. And when you have that as a basis for your relationship with them, that grows into a healthy relationship with them as teenagers, which grows into healthy relationship with them as adults. So that's a foundation there. Let the importance of this settle in of what this means to youth and young adults and adults and how these kind of things play out sometimes for decades or even lifetimes or generations where if something happens and they create some resentment or some feelings of frustration and pain you guys that can carry on for years. I get to work on this every day with youth and adults and process these things that were happening when they were children. It it just you have to like wrap your head around what it means, the significance of it all and the impact of it all and how important it is to see it as it is and make sure you have a clear perspective and perception. Right? People will look at some of our parenting with our youngers and think we tolerate too much and that if we don't correct it and correct it hard, the behavior won't correct itself and we're going to have unruly teens and young adults. And in some instances, in some ways, I'm going to say my approach is the opposite is true, right? I would exact opposite is true. Yes, I would say that that's true. And we've seen this play out already that I think when there's a little more laxness for behavior when they're smaller actually develops into better behavior when they're older, especially when it comes to rebellion. Yep. That when you allow them to act their age, when you allow them to be themselves, when you correct them and discipline them in generally kind, direct ways, that that allows them to develop naturally and mature in in the way they're going to mature, like they have their own already predetermined path for maturation. It helps them to have a better relationship with you where they feel that they don't have to be afraid of you and they can trust you and they can, you know, listen to you and you're actually going to teach them things that they don't know and it's for their best interest and that just moves along with them as they get older so that they look to you for guidance and answers even as teenagers. Yeah. And they're totally open to it. Exactly. and accepting and embracing and like with our kids really it's come down to like talking and explaining and and that's really the extent of it. Well, and and another key piece to this too is and my my oldest daughter now she's mentioned this multiple times. She's 19 and she said, you know, mom, I've always appreciated that you allowed us to one like say no and two to ask questions to like ask why. So, and this is a rule my or not a rule, it's just how it is that my kids know that if I ever ask them to do something, whatever it is, take out the garbage or put away their socks or not do something, they are allowed to say, "Well, no or not right now or more specifically why." And then we explain and we talk about it. And I have told them, "If I can't come up with a good enough reason that convinces you why you should do it, then you don't have to do it." I guess now a lot of parents would say, "Well, that's just so much work. Like, I don't want to have to explain myself every time I ask them to take out the garbage because I don't have time for that." You're right. But guess what? If you explain it well enough once, that's really all about you have to do. All that you have to do because then they know why. And it's be it's a bigger reason than just because, well, I said so. Well, we take out the garbage because we want to be neat and clean and order and if we leave the garbage in here, it's going to rot. And you know there's there's an explanation for everything in life even because if the kids's going to be well why me? There's an explanation. There's an explanation for that. And it does take more thought and it does take more intention and it does take more articulation. But in the end I have found hands down that plays out better in the long run than because I said so and because you need to be obedient to me and because you're going to get a spanking if you don't. That doesn't work as well in my experience because you're using your position of power to enforce your children to behave and obey and and I say simultaneously losing your influence. Exactly. Because influence is earned through respect. And your children respect you when you respect them and treat them as human beings who are trying to learn about this journey of life and are willing to take the time to explain things to them even why they should clean up their room or why they should do their math or why whatever whatever it is. The big picture of that is once they get it, once they conceptualize it, and you may have to repeat it hundreds or thousands of times until like they're cognitively ready and they grasp it, but then after that, once they get it, you guys, you don't have to address it anymore. Exactly. It's a non-issue. And they choose on their of their own accord to do it themselves. That right there is the magic. Then they set up their own standard. We don't have the tantrums and we don't have the rebellion. So, this this has played out. We've been working on it with our kids and and we like you guys, I like I can't remember the last time like I I really had to discipline a child, including our teenagers. Yeah. Sometimes with the best of intention of correcting behavior, all you do is harm your relationship. You go in there thinking, "I'm gonna teach this kid a lesson." And all you do is drive this massive wedge that goes deep and gets buried in there sometimes for the rest of your life. I mean, I can't even tell you how often that comes up with parents who have grown kids. They're like, "Oh, we, you know, we still have this distance or my daughter won't talk to us or my son, he he wants nothing to do with us." I'm like, "Yeah, you took that wedge and you kept slamming on it and slamming on it and slamming on it." And man, that sometimes that never ever gets healed. But I guess that's that's part of the the principle here and the purpose because there what we're trying to emphasize here with restaurant behavior and teenage rebellion is that there is a very direct connection if your focus is on the quote restaurant behavior meaning you force your children to comply to certain expectations whether that is at home or it's out while you're out ultimately that leads to rebellion because there are needs needs not being met. One of which is not acceptance of me as the age and maturity level that I am as I was and as I am. And then you stack resentment on that. Right? Because because it's inevitable. I mean, we all know this already that when we come down harsh on our kids, when we yell at them, when we, you know, get after them in a negative way that makes us not feel good and makes them not feel good, that there are those hard feelings there. And unless they're dealt with, cuz we're we're not saying that's never happened with us. But when it does happen, it's resolved. It's addressed. It's processed. It's the love it, you know, we go and restore that love and that good feeling between us because otherwise that resentment does just build upon itself so that when you're in the teenage years, it's a catalyst for them to want to rebel. Yep. I can't I can't think of a person I've ever met that doesn't abhore being forced to do something. Yeah. Nobody likes to be controlled or coerced. This is one of the things I love the most about parenting is allowing my kids to practice making decisions. Exactly. I love it. Yes. I love it because they get better and better at it and they love the sense of autonomy and independence. The more you can give your kids autonomy and independence or interdependence, they rise. You want to help your kids be mature, give them chances to be mature. So, when you come back to the whole restaurant metaphor that I'm using here, yeah, we want our kids to be able to go to restaurants. We want them to be able to sit quietly, to be patient. We want all of those things, but we're not going to expect them to do it before they're emotionally, mentally, physically mature enough to do it. And we're not going to force them to do it with a carrot or stick. Now, sometimes there's a time and place for that occasionally. Yep. But on the whole, you're trying to raise children that do those things because they choose to do those things because they've been guided, mentored, and trained to do those things and understand the reasons why. If you understand it and they understand it, and you hold to it, you're true to it, that's where the real power lies. And I think it's worth saying, you know, there was there were some instances where socially other people who are watching might expect you to do what they think you should do. And again, if you've been thoughtful and intentional and deliberate about it, you can hold your ground. And you ought to hold your ground. Now, I'm sensing some of you are going to be asking. You're sensing. No, because I'm just I'm sitting here think I know some of you are going to be asking, "Well, my kids don't listen. They don't listen to me." And so I'm left to yell or spank or threaten because otherwise they won't listen. And I totally get it and I understand. And actually yelling, you know why parents yell? Because it works well because you get movement. It works in the moment. It doesn't necessarily work long term to produce the results you want, but in the moment it gets a response. It does. And so that's why we do it and we do it again and again. But so does a threat. So does a bribe. All those things, they work momentarily, but what we're try, I guess the main message here is what we're saying is like keep that up and the long-term effects will be well negative. Exactly. And part of the reason that they don't listen is because like we always teach in our coaching, it comes down to training. You have trained them to not listen. Now, that just means you got to change your tactics a little bit. Sometimes for me that means I I literally walk up to the child and I put my hand on their shoulder and I say, "Hey, can you look at me? Can you hear me for a second?" And I say what I'm going to say and then I say, "Did you understand that? When are you going to do it?" You just have to change the tactics a bit. And yes, it requires more work from you. That's your job as a parent to work harder than your kids to help them develop into the best version of themselves. And fundamentally, this is one thing that's super important for me. Never stop earning your children's respect. Never stop trying to qualify for the position. And and to me, what that means, and and I hope you'll kind of grasp the idea there, I'm always trying to qualify as a world-class dad. And I'm always in a healthy way trying to earn my kids respect by being a a phenomenal human being. By being a respectable person. Yeah. Be a respectable person. And your kids will respect you. And guess what? You'll have influence with them. And the way to maintain influence with your teenagers when they start looking sideways at you instead of looking up because they're no longer so little is you keep leveling up. You keep doing great things and they can't not respect and admire that. And then you have influence if you're doing it well. Are there needs that are not commonly met and therefore are likely to read lead to rebellion? Yes. Ultimately, resentment comes from a need that's not being met. Like you feel resentful for people or towards people because you feel that you're not being accepted or you feel that you're not being understood or heard that or validated. Exactly. So that's a need that's not being meant met which leads to resentment. And when you resent your parents, it makes it easy to rebel against them because you're like me. They don't care. They don't listen. They don't hear me. I'm just going through my mind now like what what what needs to be happening? Well well your kids need a sense of certainty, right? They need to know that they have some safety. They have they could because let's say a kid comes in and they know what to expect. But what if they don't? What if you're all over the place? What if you're you say yes one day and no the next day and you don't and they don't understand why they don't get it. What in the world? What is up? And sometimes you're happy and sometimes you're miserable and they're like you see how that leads to a lack of certainty there. If I got a parent and I have no idea what to expect one day from the next, that'll undo you. If you have no idea how your parents going to respond or how they're going to wake up, that will undo you. That will undo most adults. I mean, imagine if your spouse is like that every single day. You're going to go crazy. Or your boss. It drives people crazy. They want to have certainty in their relationships. And so, if you're not behaving in a certain predictable way for your children, they're going to feel uncertain. And so, as teenagers, they're going to start rebelling against that because they're like, "Man, I this is crazy. This is crazy. I'm going to start making my own choices." So, well, I was going to say, so then another thing is what we were talking about before with autonomy is from the time they're young, you should be allowing them to practice making their own choices so that when they're adults, well, not when they're adults, when they're teenagers, before they become adults, they have already had lots of practice making their own choices. I wanted to hit another need. So, we need this sense of certainty, right? But we also need a sense of uncertainty and adventure. Your kids need to be living a great story. Well, for the most part, your kid's story is going to be lived through your story. And if you're living a boring story, they're going to act out and in some ways rebel. Like, kids need to live an adventure and they need to have a challenge and they need to do things that are meaningful and purposeful and and sometimes a little bit risky and a little bit crazy. Teens love risk. So, why don't you lead out and help them take risk? So if if I'm leading out in living an adventurous amazing story, they don't have to go seeking for that in some pseudo adventure or some false bogus story or or trying something really stupid because they're so bored out of their minds, which teenagers are at this phase where they want to take on life. They want to be challenged and if they're not being challenged, rebellion is a form of it's just a natural consequence. So I think this actually ties in pretty well with then the question about are there differences between healthy and unhealthy rebellion and I would say yes because one form of unhealthy of healthy rebellion is risk-taking I think absolutely um appropriate risk or breaking or breaking certain rules rules that are dumb rules there are dumb rules out there and we have taught and trained our children to break some rules like you know standing on picnic tables or climbing jumping off things they shouldn't You jumped off. Yeah. Jumping off things because there is a time when you have to break rules. And so part of our training for our children includes us helping them be comfortable with breaking rules and not being so afraid to break rules that when the time comes that you know I don't know it's happened in history. It's happened throughout history where you have to be on the wrong side of the law in order to fight against evil. Say like Hitler Germany. So this isn't this isn't being immoral so to speak like doing something that is morally wrong because we have emphasized from the get-go and still do massively you have to have a moral compass having traveled to 38 plus countries around the world I mean there's different laws in every country and you have the opportunity as an outsider to look and see actually that law is really stupid like where did they come up with that and so you see that not all laws are created equal and they're just products of human imagination and sometimes they're not the best product. There are times you have to be disrespectful in order to respect yourself. Well, it's the idea of, you know, not being so um agreeable. Agreeable, right? Because the five personality traits, one of them is agreeableness. And people who are too agreeable generally get pushed over and walked over in life. So you have to have a certain amount of disagreeableness in order to have enough self-respect to not be walked over. And so that's kind of this idea behind the the healthy rule breaking or the healthy rebellion is that you're being disagreeable just enough to stand up for yourself. And so the way we decide is if our kids come to us and they're like, "Hey, I want to do this thing and break this rule." They always do, you guys. They come to us and tell us like, "Hey, we're going to break this rule." And and in that moment, if I say, "No, you can't. No, that's terrible. Oh, you should be keeping the rules." If I have that attitude, that's what gets passed on because they're the ones with this calling to like I've got to break this rule. Like I just because it that's essentially what it is. Like you feel this need of like I've got to break this rule. And if you deny that need, talking about needs, then you're developing the habit of being so agreeable, so orderly that you don't have the the power within you when the time comes to stand up for yourself and to break the rules when you need to. To help your kids be have some backbone and to have some strength and to be able to make good choices, clear choices, think through things, and be willing to go against the herd when the mindless herd's just conforming. The opposite of courage is conformity. You want your kids to be courageous. And man, I hope you do. You can't make them conform all the time. Can't make Yes. And you're killing a woo. You can't. Well, exactly. So, when they come to you, this is how you teach them how to think. When they want to break some sort of rule or whatever, you help them think through that and allow them to decide on their own. That's how you teach them to think. Because otherwise, if they come to you and they're like, "Oh, I want to break this rule." And you're afraid of what other people will think or of them getting in trouble or you getting in trouble. And so, you say no and you force them to conform to your beliefs. You're not teaching them how to think and you're not teaching them how to make their own choices and how to deal with the consequences. And in all likelihood, if that's been your stance, they're not coming to you and letting you know what they're thinking. They're rebelling behind your back. Forced conformity. And so, they're doing stuff all the time behind your back that you don't know. Oh, and the only time it comes out is when they get caught. Exactly. And then you get that call from the cops or from somebody else. Crap, my kid. And then you're reaching out for help. But prevent this stuff, man. By allowing them to have healthy forms of rebellion. Because yes, I do believe in order to be fully functional, fully capable, and competent, there has to be rebellion in your life. This is crazy talk. When was the last time you guys heard a presentation on parenting that says rebellion and rule breaking is a necessary piece? But I wholeheartedly believe it because I'm thinking about it from an adult perspective. Many of us do things because we're afraid of going against social expectations. We we go to college, we get a career, we, you know, go to job every day. We we go to the in-laws. We do all of these things because we're trying to do the right thing. We're trying to not rebel against expectations, but down to, you know, saying things that you don't actually believe or keeping quiet when you want to speak out or joining little functions and going along with it when you're like, "This is so dumb. Why do I do this?" And and you you you you start to step away a little bit. I do this with a lot of my coaching clients because like we really have to lean into nonconformity, right? And and unconventional living. And when you do, whenever you bring up any idea, man, your family's all over you. The neighbors, all your friends are like, "What are you thinking? You're crazy." And and you get this reaction and what's the first thing you back right back down. We're all living in this the crab bucket. Mhm. Where that you you get pulled back down and and so Okay. Okay. And then you pass it on to your kids because man, you don't want your kids to embarrass you and Wow. Right. So, and all that does is lead to your life being unfulfilled because you're not standing up for what you believe in, what you want to do, what you think is right for you. And you pass that to your kids and it it displays itself plays itself out more with teenagers because they at least at that time in their life have the gumption to be a little bit rebellious or a lot rebellious. But unfortunately in those circumstances and situations because it's that's the unhealthy side of rebellion that often leads to regrettable consequences. And so our goal has always been to prevent that type of rebellion by first of all having the relationship with them, having the autonomy where they're allowed to make their own choices from the time they're even young. So they practice making choices the whole way. Having the the freedom to ask questions and to receive real answers and discussions that help them think through processes and then you know understanding that it's their life and they get to choose and they get to deal with consequences and they get to break some rules sometimes if they feel like they need to. and we get out and we have crazy adventures and extraordinary memories and we let them take big adventures and try things and so they they feel fulfilled and like they're doing things that light them up. Oh, that's good. So, and and here's a fundamental principle we haven't shared yet in this episode at least that I think is an underlying powerhouse is that from the very get-go, we haven't made it this battle so to speak between us and them. It's not like you do what I say or you know doing this cuz I say so or if you if in any attempt you try to make it a power struggle even if you win you lose. Exactly. So man thanks thanks for listening. I want to seriously invite you to spend time thinking and writing about why what do you want most and why you do what you do? Is a lot of your parenting really to conform to some kind of social expectation or some rule you have? Is is it arbitrary? Is it real? Do you want your kids to conform and behave and obey right now just so they survive and you when they're 18 you can move them on or do you want to have this amazing relationship? You want them to be incredible adults. That's a helpful process of everything you do when you feel like you have to tell your kids don't do that or you need to do this like ask yourself why. Why are you? Because if you can't explain it to yourself and you couldn't explain it to them, maybe you don't need to be asking them to do it or not do it. This massive list of shoulds and should not like you have this huge rule book in your head. Like question that stuff. Okay. So, love it. Think through it all. re-evaluate it and think long-term big picture like end result thinking because things we do in the moment can be so detrimental down the road. And so be willing to make adjustments and allowances in the meantime so that the long-term effect is not jeopardized. Do not give up what you want most for what you want in the moment. Love you guys. Reach upward.

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