Despite what inspirational coffee mugs say, you shouldn’t forgive before you are ready. If you push feelings of anger and resentment aside and too early forgiveness won’t stick. For the full show notes and links to everything mentioned in this episode, go to allieirwin.com/52.

Parenting Successful Teens

Forgiveness: Forgiving When It's Hard

Commonly accepted wisdom says that teenage brains are all kinds of crazy.  True, but teenager’s brains are specially equipped with abilities we lose later on.  In today’s episode, I’ll show you what that ability is and how to get it back. For the full show notes and links to everything mentioned in this episode, go to allieirwin.com/51.

Teenage Brains

Many Moms didn’t get the Mother’s Day they deserved.  I’ve got 8 tips you can use right now to feel more loved & appreciated, regardless of how your Mother’s Day went. For the full show notes and links to everything mentioned in this episode, go to allieirwin.com/50.

The Mother's Day You Deserve

Imagine turning your demanding teen into a productive coworker. You could be doing better during quarantine because they are around, even if they seem to be hiding out in their rooms 24/7. Tune into this week’s episode to learn the 5 principles that you can use to strengthen your family and make your quarantine time more productive. Here’s the NY Times article I mention in the episode.

Demanding Teen to Productive CoWorker

Many parents feel like "My teens don't respect me".  But behavior that shows up as disrespect could be coming from a different root cause.  So while you are trying to get some respect, your teen is fighting about something completely different.  In today’s episode, we’ll be talking about the other causes of disrespectful behavior so that we can solve the root of the problem. Respecting each other feels especially important now while we are all under the same roof 24/7.  That means we have extra opportunities to practice listening for the real issue and building a strong foundation of mutual respect.

"My teens don't respect me"

Learned helplessness is the idea of learning that we are helpless to change a bad situation. This week we look at how we may have learned as children that we were helpless to make our moms happy.  We grew up feeling "not good enough" about many areas of our lives, including parenting critical teenagers.  Understanding how this "not good enough" feeling developed is the first step in feeling better about yourself and raising kids who feel good about themselves.   

Learned Helplessness

Many people are waiting for some future moment when “we get our lives back” as if our lives have gone somewhere and we are waiting for their return. Savvy parents know we can create want right now with our focus. Tune into this week’s episode to find out how.

What do you want right now?

When my kids were growing up, I chronically felt like an outsider or weirdo around the other moms.  Not to the outward eye.  To the outward eye, I looked like every other mom in my town.  We drove the same cars and wore the same jeans.  But on the inside, I felt out of step with the other moms.  So when things got tough and I needed good friends, I hadn’t made them and felt really lonely. That loneliness I felt wasn’t because I wasn’t around people. But because I felt like I couldn’t be MYSELF around people.  I was the proverbial “lonely in a crowded room”. As parents, we need support from each other.  But in order to do that we need to be able to tell the truth of our experiences.  Otherwise any connection we make still feels hollow.  It can actually make us feel lonelier.

Lonely Around Other People

Being a people-pleaser doesn’t help your family. So understanding the difference between your desire to have a happy home where everyone gets along and being a people pleaser (even to your kids) is vital. But sometimes it’s hard to tell if you are people-pleasing or just being nice.  Because getting along or making your kids happy does feel good.  So are you pleasing them or yourself? In this week’s episode, we’ll dive into the science & social conditioning of people-pleasing vs. just being a nice person. WHAT YOU’LL LEARN FROM THIS EPISODE Genetic component of being a nice person. Nature vs. nurture of people-pleasing. What we can learn from disagreeable people. How to tell when you’re people-pleasing vs. being nice. How my willingness to disappoint my Mom changed her life (for the better). 

Are You Nice or a People Pleaser?

When we are going through hell with our teens, it feels like we are stuck in parenting purgatory.  But really it’s just 3 kinds of thought errors and we have the power to change them. Listen to today’s episode and if you want help putting it into practice, I’ve got your back.  Click here to schedule a free call where we will talk about what’s going on in your family, what you wish was going on, and how to get there. WHAT YOU LEARN IN THIS EPISODE 3 main thought errors that make the teen years feel like purgatory. Relationship between the strength of your beliefs and the amount of your suffering. How to change from feeling pessimistic to optimistic about your teens. 

Parenting Purgatory

Being a mom can feel like you are constantly twisting yourself into a pretzel to make everyone happy.  That would be hard enough, but when you get done...someone is usually still unhappy. So in this episode, we are going to talk about how to make decisions that YOU can be happy with even when others aren’t. And if you need help making parenting decisions that you can feel good about, I’ve got your back.  Click here to schedule a free call where we will talk about what’s going on in your family, what you wish was going on, and how to get there.

Stop Twisting Yourself Into A Pretzel

No matter where you are in the world, right now you probably feel like you’ve got a lot to handle. From personal challenges like waiting for college decisions, to larger political clashes, potential pandemics, and the ever-present cold grey weather of a Michigan winter (voted 2nd toughest in the nation by travel site Thrillist). We are all having a lot of feelings we’d rather not have. We try and put a smile on.  Grab a sleeve of Oreos. Pour a glass of wine. Maybe schedule a quick weekend getaway.  But once the glass is empty or there is nothing left but crumbs, our feelings are still there and nothing has really changed. In this week’s episode, we are going to talk about how to process our emotions so that we can let them go.  This will allow us to make good decisions rather than react in ways we later regret. IN THIS EPISODE YOU'LL LEARN: Difference between feeling your feelings and thinking about your feelings. Why we avoid our feelings in the first place. 3 different pathways for letting tough feelings go. The BIG benefits of feeling your feelings before you make decisions or take action. 

Tough Feelings: How to Let Them Go

No matter how many great things I tried to do, it used to feel like I was failing my family in some vague yet important way.  I'd be feeling pretty good on the rare days I got everyone out of the house without yelling, and then read an article telling me all the vital things I should be doing but wasn’t.  Bam.  I’d be right back to thinking, "I'm definitely screwing them up". That's when I figured out an important piece of information... apple news doesn’t know the best way to raise my kids. More important than praising them in some "scientifically determined right way" or "signing them up for music classes" is the decision you make about how you think about yourself as a mom.  WHAT YOU’LL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE Why what you think about yourself matters. Difference between thinking highly of yourself and bragging. What you accidentally teach your kids when you worry about screwing them up. Why your mistakes can actually HELP your kids. Benefits that come with believing you are a good mom. 

Most important "to do"

I often hear parents bemoaning their child’s teenager-y behavior and other parents comforting them by saying things like “Just wait.  He’ll come back.’  And I get it because what they are saying is they miss the sweet, attentive boy their son used to be.  But in so many ways it doesn’t make sense because you don’t want your boy to stay acting like he’s 10 when he’s 22 right?  That would mean he’s going to live in your basement forever.  No, you want him to be a fully formed, connected, loving adult man.  That’s who you are trying to raise. So this week I’m going to share a vital skill in the process of raising that fully formed adult - unlearning.  Unlearning is the process of loosening up our attachment to “the way things were” so that we can get on board with how things are now. WHAT YOU’LL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE: The difference between unlearning and forgetting. Ways unlearning can benefit your growth as well. How unlearning sets the stage for healthy adult relationships. 4 steps to go from unlearning the old way to learning the new way. Cues to watch for that help you identify when you’ll benefit from unlearning. 

Unlearning

Many parents feel regret over a relatively small thing they did when their kids were younger that they believe caused their child’s current problem. The funny thing is that the incident can be so minor that when you tell someone else about it, they laugh it off.  But it haunts you.  If only you’d said no to the sleepover, yes to quitting the team, or made the time to listen that one day at pickup…. This week we are going to talk about how to forgive ourselves for those relatively minor “mistakes” so that we can set ourselves free and focus our minds in ways that help our families. WHAT YOU’LL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE Determine if you’re partially right about your past mistake being the cause of their current struggle. Use your regret as fuel to improve your family. What to do when there is no “bright side” to look on. Three ways to look at your regret that will help you feel better and move forward. 

Regret: How to Get Over That Thing You Did

Give your teenagers the skills they’ll need to be successful in life – how to get along with people, take responsibility, work hard, ask for help, and more. Join Allie Irwin as she cuts through the overwhelm and stress of this phase to offer parenting strategies for keeping teens on track. If you’re losing patience with eye rolls or fear draining your wallet with pricey private schools, you’ll want to grab your earbuds as Allie offers the skills your teens need to be successful no matter where their next chapter takes them.

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Parenting Successful Teens

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