Smart Conversations with Your Teenager about Difficult Things [Show]

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Gretchen Roe: 00:00:04.456
Hello, everyone. My name is Gretchen Roe, and it is my great pleasure to welcome you to this episode of The Demme Learning Show. We’re going to have a wonderful conversation today with my friend Patti Reid talking about having difficult conversations with your teenagers. And I only wish Patti had been around when my teenagers were teenagers. I don’t have those anymore. Actually, I have one, but he’s an old soul, and he’s a very grown up young man. And now I’d like Patti to introduce herself. Patti?
Patti Reed: 00:00:37.177
Hello, Gretchen. And thank you so much for having me this morning. It was great meeting you last year. We’ll talk about that later. But I’m Patti Reed, and I live in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. And I am a leadership coach. And I’ve done lots of different things over the years. And like I said, we’ll hear more about that later. But I am just so glad to be here with Gretchen today, to talk to moms. I was a homeschool mom myself. So I’m looking forward to the conversation.

Gretchen Roe: 00:01:06.250
Absolutely. And I have to say that when I met Patti last summer at the Great Homeschool Convention in Round Rock, Texas, I immediately fell in love with her because the message that she brings is a great deal of clarity and just resonates with so many of us who are in the homeschooling journey. And if you don’t have teenagers, but you have children, someday you will have teenagers. And so I think you’ll find an enormous amount of benefit in what Patti has to share with us today. Patti, do you mind telling us some of these conversations that we’re going to have today come from your book? So do you mind sharing the title of that book with us?

Patti Reed: 00:01:51.683
Yeah, it is ‘Face to Face, Smart Conversations with Yourself, Your Teenager, and Your Young Adult’.

Gretchen Roe: 00:01:58.034
Absolutely. And I will tell you that I loved the book. I learned so much from it. And then I passed it on to a friend. And I actually wanted to get the book back from her so that I could have it here as a reference today. And she loved it so much that she passed it on to the youth pastor at their church. So right now it’s in his hands, not in mine. So we’re going to have to go with my perhaps not as terrific memory as it used to be, but we’ll get through this no matter what. Patti, tell us a little bit about how you came to be a coach.

Patti Reed: 00:02:36.001
Yeah. Gosh, so just a little bit off the bat, I am married to Frank for 32 years. And I have two children that have given me lots of lessons. And there’s lots of things in the book about them. And they gave me permission. And so, gosh, I came to be a coach, really, I’m a coach at heart. And I homeschooled my children when they were younger through probably about the eighth grade or so. But I also had a business. So I had an advertising business for 18 years where I coached people in sales and things like that. And then after that, I built a business with Rodan & Fields. It’s a skincare company. Actually, I still have that, for 10 years, and built a team. So I’ve always been leading for quite some time. And then in 2017, my daughter had just left for her adventure in life. And the Lord pretty much tapped me on the shoulder and said, I’d like you to start writing. And I thought you have the wrong person because I don’t write. However, we had a little bit of a wrestling match and he won. So anyway, so that’s really how the book came about. And like I said, I’ve always been a coach at heart and I’ve just really put my experience, my lessons. And I am trained in something called conversational intelligence, which is basically based on neuroscience. And it is a body of work, Gretchen, that helps you understand what conversations open up the brain for trust and what conversations close them down. So when I wrote the book, obviously I’m thinking about all that as I’m applying questions and concepts and things like that throughout the 30 devotionals.

Gretchen Roe: 00:04:19.444
Sure. Absolutely. So I have my notes here from going through the book the first time, and I wondered if we could talk about some of those things. One of the things that impressed me the most was the difference between agreements and expectations. And my goodness, that is a– we could spend the next hour just unpacking that in and of itself. But I wonder if you could talk a little bit about why there’s a difference between those.

Patti Reed: 00:04:46.843
Yeah, well, I think that– actually if I could kind of rephrase that a little bit, and then– there are unspoken expectations a lot of times, right? So as parents, we have expectations of our kids, but we’ve never really told them maybe, or well, they should know. I mean, I raised them in my home and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. And so things aren’t really out there on the table and they don’t know. So I just think it’s important to– especially as they get older, I wrote the book really for older teens and young adults because when they start to get older, you are letting out the leash. I mean, you have to let them make some decisions. When they’re 13, I’m kind of still telling them what to do. But when they get into those older years, you have to start practicing, they have to start practicing decision making. And so what I like to say is, come to the table to have agreements. Matter of fact, I had a conversation the other day. I met this nice young man at the coffee shop. He’s 23 years old. And he is studying to be a doctor. And we had this conversation about expectations and agreements. And he was like, oh, his parents more kind of like, “This is what you’re doing.” And so he loved the agreement idea. And because they’re adults, they’re becoming adults and they need to learn these skills. So agreements, coming to the table and talking things out work usually better than I expect you to blah, blah, blah.

Gretchen Roe: 00:06:19.414
Right. Absolutely. And sometimes in the talking through of an agreement, you find your own erroneous thinking. And I think that that’s really important because clarity is so key, particularly as our children become adults and they make decisions that don’t necessarily line up with how we thought we parented them.

Patti Reed: 00:06:43.702
Yes, yes, yes. And if I could also say Gretchen that what you’re also doing is you’re giving them a voice, okay? And both my children have a voice, sometimes maybe too much, but they have a voice. They are going to share what they think respectfully and their opinions and things like that. And that is so important because we need to help them develop their voice in this world.

Gretchen Roe: 00:07:06.355
Right. Well, my husband and I laughingly say that we gave birth to six firstborn children.

Patti Reed: 00:07:11.818
Oh gosh.

Gretchen Roe: 00:07:13.206
All of our children definitely have a voice and an opinion. And most of the time, those opinions are well counseled. But you know what? Being able to create relationship is the most important thing. And when kids become young adults, that becomes tough. So you talked about another thing in your book that I just loved, and that was vulnerabilities. And you said to be– let me see if I can quote this. You said it’s all about being better, not bitter. And I love that. And I think it’s really important, that invulnerable model that we somehow erroneously believe we have to present in front of our children. Can you talk about why that is a hindrance to good communication and relationship?

Patti Reed: 00:08:10.985
It’s a hindrance to the relationship and the bonding. And just a little sidebar, so I grew up with English parents and very stoic and, yeah, not a lot of emotions. And so emotions are real and they’re healthy and God made us with emotions. And so vulnerability, what I have found with my two children – and I think I mentioned before, my daughter’s 24 and my son is 29 – is the more I can– when those opportunities present themselves to have a humble moment or to be vulnerable with your feelings and your thoughts, I tend to go for it because I’ve been building this trust with my children for obviously quite some time now, but it was through blood, sweat, and tears. It wasn’t like it just arrived because I have this training and I’m going along in life and like to read and learn a lot of things. I actually have an example where I have a email that I send out every week. And just a week, the email was about a situation that occurred with my daughter. And when I launched my book– my husband’s in radio. And so when we launched the book, I had a book launch party. And so I had like, I don’t know, 30, 40 people there, and so he interviewed me live and we were on Facebook Live. Well, he asked me about something and I shared something that I should not have because I did not clear it with my daughter, and she was watching. And morning it was, “We need to talk.” And I was like, “Oh gosh, I put my foot in my mouth again. What did I do?” Anyway, she’s an amazing gracious person, and she said, “This is what happened and we didn’t discuss this. You did not ask me for my permission.” I mean, it’s her story too, so it’s important that I asked– in the book, I asked them for their permission. So anyway, so I talk about what I didn’t do. I did not defend myself. I did not argue with them. I did not, “But, but, but,” with them. I gave her my full attention on FaceTime. I made sure she got all of her words out. And at the end, I just said, “I am so sorry. Will you please forgive me? Because, of course, I never want to hurt you, and thank you so much for being brave to come to me and share that.” And my daughter is the kind of person where she’s like, “You’re forgiven,” she’s just like that, and so we’re able to go on. But it was a good lesson and a good check for me as I go out and speak to people, right? So anyway, so the ability of like, “Okay, I’m not wrecking this. I’m not–” I love my daughter. She lives in New York City, so she’s far away as it is. But it’s the humility, when we choose that and put our ego aside, it’s the bond, it’s the glue.

Gretchen Roe: 00:11:12.513
Absolutely. I said something a couple of weeks ago, I’m a high school swim coach and I was having a conversation with somebody at some awful early hour at the pool, and I said something about keeping accounts short because no one is promised tomorrow. And I think how vitally important that is particularly even more so as our children become adults.

Patti Reed: 00:11:38.779
Yes. Yes. And we’re laying that foundation now as their home, right, while they’re still in the nest, there’s still lessons to be learned, and to start practicing things. Because I always say, Gretchen, when they leave, they don’t have to come back. They don’t have to call us. It doesn’t matter if you homeschooled them or whatever you poured into them, we as parents have to continue to adjust. We are like I say to my husband, you’re the adult in the room. Right? I mean, we’re like further down the road. And we get to model to them what emotionally healthy relationships look like. So I always say put on your big girl prayers and move forward to adjust.

Gretchen Roe: 00:12:25.279
Right. Right. And okay, so you have an English background. Your parents were English. My father was German. That stoicism that– I don’t want to use the word inflexibility, but it’s definitely there as far as there is one right way to do something. Generationally, it’s up to us to look at how we were parented and then improve that with our children. You mentioned something in the book that I thought was really terrific, and it was about coerced commitment. And that phrase has followed me around since I read the book last September because I think I find myself, did I coerce a commitment out of someone, or did they assent willingly? And have I been coerced into a commitment that I didn’t want and those kinds of things? So I would really like you to talk a little bit about that and how we can recognize that in ourselves, because perhaps we don’t recognize it when we’re doing it to our children.

Patti Reed: 00:13:40.428
Yeah. And it’s like, I’m trying to remember, where did I write that?

Gretchen Roe: 00:13:44.256
In context, you were talking about Exodus 14:14. We were talking and what I said to you laughingly back in September was, I tell my kids, you don’t have to attend every fight you’re invited to. But there is something about thinking through what battles we choose, what principles we choose to stand on regardless, and those kinds of things.

Patti Reed: 00:14:13.166
Yeah, yeah. And that is important. And I do remember that specific verse in my parenting journey because I know that the Lord gave that to me with both of my children. And when I think about that coerced commitment, the first thing that honestly comes to mind is manipulation. And it might not seem like that at the time, but ultimately we want our kids to do what we want them to do. And we want them to go on the path that we think is best and make decisions that we made that maybe led to good things. But I think that they know and they sense and they feel when that is in play. And that’s going to push them away. And I think by asking them questions like what is it that you want? This gentleman that I think I mentioned earlier that I met at the coffee shop. And his parents really didn’t ask him, what is it that you want? What are your passions? If you had all the money in the world and all the resources, what would you do? It was, “You’re going to be a doctor because your sisters are doctors and you’re going to be a doctor.” Now, obviously, the kid’s probably brilliant. You know what I’m saying? Because it takes a certain amount of intelligence to be a doctor. But there was no asking him. I think it was a cultural thing. They were from Nigeria, and I don’t know their backstory and all of that. So the coerced commitment is I think you kind of know if you’re trying to push them to do something or be something that you want to be so that you can look good. I mean, let’s face it, we kind of put our stock in our kids at times. And we really have to get over, look, you’ve done your best. You have poured into them for 18 years. And honestly, if I could be honest, because God reminds me of this often, we don’t know what’s best for them. So relinquishing control and that manipulation is probably a good idea.

Gretchen Roe: 00:16:40.295
I wondered if the last thing that we should talk about before we turn our attention to the wonderful questions we were asked today, is maybe we should talk about the circle of responsibility versus the circle of concern. I loved the way that you put this in the book. And I would love for you to explicate that for the parents who are listening to us today, because I think that’s something that maybe we don’t think about as often as perhaps we should.

Patti Reed: 00:17:09.126
Yeah. And I love that concept. And I learned that concept from Paul David Tripp. He’s written many books and has just amazing things to say. And could I read a little section out of the book? Would you mind? Because I found that because I know that you were interested in hearing about that. So what kinds of questions can we ask ourselves when it comes to our teenagers, our young adults, our kids? How will we know whether it is our responsibility or theirs regarding a particular matter? Is it within my circle of responsibility or my circle of concern? And so here’s a few questions that you can take with you to consider as you determine whether you are to step in or step back. So the first one is, what are your main concerns around the topic? What feelings does it evoke in you? What does the Bible say about the topic? The problem may be easily solved by sitting with these questions for an extended period of time. I would also consider these questions. What role do I play or should I play in solving the problem? You might not need to. How am I to respond? And I would add or not respond. Is God asking me to act upon the situation or trust him to intervene? So those are just some of the things that you can think through because I am a true believer that they– we can’t be there to catch them all the time, especially as they get into their teen and young adult years.

Patti Reed: 00:18:56.254
Because I can tell you this, that the brain learns best through failure. We don’t like it. We don’t want them to fail. And we don’t want them to go through pain. There’s no pain like kid pain. But I can tell you this, that my kids, especially my son– yeah, my son will, “Oh, you’re really right about that mom. That was really right.” He’s come back several times and said things like that. So we’ve got to let them go through hard. And we’ve got to let them figure it out. Now we can be there as the coach, ask them lots of questions so that they can– you develop that executive functioning skill in the front part of their brain. And by asking good questions that will help them later, “Oh, I’m going to process it like this.”

Gretchen Roe: 00:19:45.543
Right. I think I mentioned this when we talked in our planning session that one of the things that I have learned to do with my own children is when they say, “Hey, I’d like your opinion on so-and-so,” sometimes I’ll ask for clarification on that. Do you really want my opinion or are you looking for me to be a cheerleader here in this moment? Because sometimes they’re not really seeking my opinion, although they think they are, and they think that that’s what they want. This is a journey. I think one of the things that you impressed on me when we had our planning conversation was this isn’t something that springs forth overnight. This is by journeying along together with them over time.

Patti Reed: 00:20:34.431
And again, it’s making that adjustment, Gretchen. That’s what I talked about. There’s so many books out there for newborns and toddlers and tweens and teens, and what I noticed when I started to look at research– there’s not a lot of information out there as they get into those older years. Like, now what? How do I deal with them? How do I parent them? It’s another adjustment for us, and if you can make the adjustment, you will be better off for it and better off in your relationship. And they want respect. They want to be like, “We’re adults. We’re not 13 anymore.”

Gretchen Roe: 00:21:08.075
Right. And I think–

Patti Reed: 00:21:09.074
Yeah, it’s so important.

Gretchen Roe: 00:21:10.003
–that makes a difference.

Patti Reed: 00:21:10.783
It does.

Gretchen Roe: 00:21:12.034
We never stop parenting, but there is a point at which our parenting style and hue and fiber needs to change so that that relationship can mature.

Patti Reed: 00:21:30.325
Yes, yes, and flourish. Yes.

Gretchen Roe: 00:21:34.153
We had so many wonderful questions, and I’m glad that you and I had the time to go through them a little bit, so. We might as well start with something tough. My son is 16. How do you get teens to open up about their true feelings? That’s a tough one.

Patti Reed: 00:21:53.536
[crosstalk] just jump right in, Gretchen.

Gretchen Roe: 00:21:58.324
Might as well just take off the gloves. Let’s just get to it, so.

Patti Reed: 00:22:00.396
Yeah. I have those. I printed them out and I made some notes. Well, first off, I want to say this. As a coach, what I tend to do with people when I coach them– if someone were to come to me and ask me that question, I would take a moment and I would probably ask them a question in return because I really believe that we do have answers within us, but we just want the quick answer. But thinking through that yourself helps you come up with that answer, or, obviously, praying and asking the Lord. So what I put was– so let me just say this, that in my experience – I have a boy and a girl- it definitely was harder with the boy. My daughter tells me everything, and my son told me nothing. Now, we’re fine, and we’ve worked that out over the years, but that’s been my experience. It’s not always that way. I don’t know how it was for you, Gretchen. I mean, it probably varied.

Gretchen Roe: 00:23:05.887
Well, it’s interesting as you say that. My daughters are soon to be 38, 34, and 29, and my sons are 35, 25, and soon to be 19, and I still, to this day, have to weigh everything I say carefully with my daughters in a way that I don’t have to weigh–

Patti Reed: 00:23:32.977
Same.

Gretchen Roe: 00:23:33.844

–when I say with my sons. Now, my eldest son cautioned me. He said, “No, no, no, don’t think about that because–” he said, “You say stuff and I really perseverate on it for quite some time.” But he said, “I’m much more likely to cut to the chase as far as how I feel about something instead of tap dance around it,” which I thought was really an interesting observation, and he didn’t make that observation until two years ago.

Patti Reed: 00:24:00.485
Yeah, yeah, that’s that’s good. That’s good. So I wrote a couple of things down. So my first thing would be, what kinds of questions are you asking him? Are you asking him questions? And sometimes you get the grunt, or you get a one-word answer. I mean, boys can come be like that. And so a couple of other things I would ask, is there a– I’m not sure how old you know your teenage boy is. I don’t know if he’s 13 or 18, which, that all kind of plays into it and makes a difference. But do you have any kind of set time or intentional time where you guys can get together and you can take him to coffee or you can go shoot hoops with him or walk in the park or go to his restaurant. I don’t know what that looks like. But doing that once a week or every other week just to sit and have time with him. And the other thing that I would say is think about questions. Don’t ask him the typical, “How are you? What’s going on?” Find a book on questions, right? Find a book that offers a thousand questions to ask your kids, or whatever. “If you had all the money in the world, where would you travel to?” Right? Or what nonprofit organization would you support if you had half a million dollars? Different kinds of questions, because otherwise, you’re just going to get same old, same old. So really thinking through what kinds of questions maybe that I need to steer away from, and what kinds of questions might be new and different to get him to think differently and respond. So it’ll be some work, but I do think it’s possible.

Gretchen Roe: 00:25:48.509
Well, I think the other thing that goes hand in hand with that is if you have been a parent who has maybe not helped your children successfully define their own feelings, and that could be our parental backgrounds, because my father said to me, “Feelings are irrelevant.” And as someone who lives by the seat of the pants of her feelings, almost all the time you can see where there would have been conflict.

Patti Reed: 00:26:20.220
Yes, yes.

Gretchen Roe: 00:26:22.166
I think it’s also important– often when we ask boys to define their feelings, they don’t have the nomenclature to do that. We have to start defining for them. It looks to me like you might be frustrated in this situation. “Is that what you’re feeling?” And ask them to clarify for us.

Patti Reed: 00:26:42.224
Yeah. Very good.

Gretchen Roe: 00:26:43.672
Is that how you feel? We have a great– it’s not a question, but I love this statement from Luanna. She says, “The information you are sharing has answered questions that have bothered her since her mother started questioning her hands-off parenting style with young adults.” And so I think that that’s really an interesting observation there. And she said, “What could it mean when simple questions are answered defensively?” And I know every parent who’s listening to us knows exactly what that experience is because we’ve all had this experience. So what does that mean–

Patti Reed: 00:27:22.358
To me, it’s Charlie Brown’s teacher, right? I mean, it’s just “wahwahwah”. They’re asking me again how am I doing, and how are my grades, and what’s going on? It’s just same old, same old. And change it up. Just change it up because they’re just– yeah, you’re not going to get anything. You’re doing the same thing, expecting different results, which is insanity and doesn’t work. [laughter]

Gretchen Roe: 00:27:48.485
It’s so funny. I remember this. Years and years ago, I made an observation about I had asked one of my boys how they felt about something. And he said, “Well, I don’t know. I’ll have to think about that and all of my daughters could wax eloquent ad nauseam. About how they felt about something. And so I thought well, that’s so weird, what do you mean? And my husband made this observation. He said, “Have you ever watched two boys hang out together? They both stand this way and they talk this way, and it’s rare that they actually aren’t in facing, looking at each other.”

Patti Reed: 00:28:27.102
Yes. Yeah.

Gretchen Roe: 00:28:27.912
And girls tend to engage more on a heart level, a social level, a personable level.

Patti Reed: 00:28:35.931
Absolutely.

Gretchen Roe: 00:28:36.959
Maybe as parents, it’s up to us to help our kids figure out so, how do we identify our feelings? What are you feeling in this situation? Would it help? And maybe you get an answer of nope, I don’t want to talk about that.

Patti Reed: 00:28:51.243
Right, right. And what that just brought up to me also was the whole love language thing, right? Which again, there’s tons of information out there on that. And maybe their love language is not spending quality time, maybe it’s last on their list, right? And so they’re like– but maybe it’s a Starbucks gift card because gift-giving is how they’re loved. My daughter we say she needs her Hopey Hugs, right? So she loves touch. So that’s really important too, to knowing how– because I remember asking my kids when they were younger, and not so much now, I mean, I kind of know. But how do you best feel loved by Mom? How do you best feel loved by me? And I gave them the examples, and then they go, “Oh, I think it’s this and this.” And then you know this is how I meet that need.

Gretchen Roe: 00:29:45.599
You know what surprised me more than anything else is I read that book, the Five Love Languages and the Five Love Languages for Kids. I read those, back in the day. And I thought I had it nailed until I went and started asking questions. And I think I had– at that point, I only had five children and I think I had three of them wrong.

Patti Reed: 00:30:05.559
Right, so you asked them!

Gretchen Roe: 00:30:08.667
Yeah.

Patti Reed: 00:30:10.124
And if I could say this, Gretchen, that we tend to love with how we feel loved, right? So like my husband for instance, his love language is Words of Affirmation. That’s last on my list, okay? [laughter] Spend time with me and I know that you love me. It’s last on his list.

Gretchen Roe: 00:30:32.432
Oh my goodness.

Patti Reed: 00:30:33.431
It’s okay. We’ve been married 32 years, we still like each other, okay? But anyway, you have to work it out. And so he’d be loving me with, “Oh, you’re the best.” And saying all these things. I was like, “Mm-hmm, yeah.” It just, I’m sorry. It didn’t do anything, right? So it’s so important to figure that out in the process. It’s just you’re on your way to a better connection.

Gretchen Roe: 00:30:59.525
But you know what? You said something really important here, and this is something we don’t think about is, what’s last on your list? Because I’m like your husband. Words Of Affirmation are the thing that fills my tank. And my husband is like, that’s last on his list. So it would be the last thing that would occur to him. And it used to really cause conflict for us, because I’d think, I’d done all these things for you, can’t you at least say one kind thing?

Patti Reed: 00:31:27.071
That sounds familiar [laughter].

Gretchen Roe: 00:31:32.931
And I think our audience members are probably seeing that, as well. But going back to LouAnna’s question about when it’s answered defensively, and you had said something in our conversation in preparation for this about knowing when the ground– when the time is right to have those conversations.

Patti Reed: 00:31:57.707
Yeah. I mean, that’s so important obviously, there’s different kinds of conversations that you’re going to have with your kids. And I’ll just say for the important ones, because there’s all different ones, I would say it’s super important to be thinking about, “Okay, so when should I have this conversation? And where should I have this conversation? And what kinds of questions should I ask?” And one of the things I– actually I just mentioned this in, I think, one of my posts, about nonverbal cues are huge, Gretchen, and oh man, I got in trouble for facial expressions. My son would be like, “You’re doing it again. You’re doing it again.” And I’d be like, “Change this.” I don’t even know how to change my facial expressions. So all those things, those nonverbal cues, they speak louder than words sometimes, and so when you’re in conversation with them, you just need to be thinking about that, right? I mean, where, when, how, how much? Again, I go back to consistently, Gretchen, leaning on God to know really all of those things, because he knows your child better than you do. And so, “Do I say, do I not say?” And it’s not– I mean, I’m not walking on– I don’t feel like I’m– what’s the word? Walking on pins and needles or ice or– what’s the right expression?

Gretchen Roe: 00:33:35.153
Eggshells, yes.

Patti Reed: 00:33:36.404
Eggshells. Thank you. Eggshells. [laughter] But it’s just wise, because you’re wanting to maintain, and you’re wanting to encourage. And again, it’s a new place. You’re going into a new place in your relationship. They’re not 13 anymore.

Gretchen Roe: 00:33:54.791
Right. I had the most interesting conversation with my 18-year-old a couple of weeks ago. He bought for Christmas, for himself, a deck of cards that is a game that you sit down and each of you plays a card and the card asks the other player a question, and the only rules to the game are that you have to be willing to answer the question, honestly. It’s a fascinating conversation between the two of us when we [crosstalk].

Patti Reed: 00:34:24.885
Love that.

Gretchen Roe: 00:34:26.153
And one of the things that I learned is, I used to irritate the absolute stuffing out of him, because when I could see that he was troubled, I wanted to help, and so I kept coming after him. And he said if I had learned– if I had learned to say, “Hey, it looks to me like you’re troubled, and when you’re ready, I’m here to talk,” and then just walked away–

Patti Reed: 00:34:58.619
Yes.

Gretchen Roe: 00:34:59.395
And I said, “Oh my gosh, I am so sorry.” He goes, “No, you finally figured it out.” He said, “It really took you some time, and it used to really irritate me.” And I’m sitting there thinking, “Oh my gosh, I never even realized he was irritated.” And so that was really an– it was a super interesting conversation. I’ll put the game in the show notes, because I think a lot of moms of teenagers would find it to be tremendously beneficial. So maybe the front way to load that, how do you get them to talk about their true feelings, is you don’t come at it directly. Maybe you come at it–

Patti Reed: 00:35:46.339
Yeah. And I mean, it depends on the person, right? Like my daughter would go– right? She would just tell me how she felt from A to Z, and when [crosstalk]–

Gretchen Roe: 00:35:56.598
And my husband– if Gabriel and his trump showed up and said, “Tell me how you really feel about this, and you’ll be in, my husband wouldn’t be in because most of the time, he doesn’t know how to quantify how he really feels about something which I think is really interesting. So there was a tangential question to what we’ve talked about. When is the best time to have these kinds of conversations? And I think I know what you’re going to answer here, but.

Patti Reed: 00:36:24.858
Not during arguments or emotional upheavals. I think I wrote in the book too about, you have permission to step away. You have permission to step away from a situation because I can tell you that with the brain, right? So when we are in it and it’s not really going anywhere, you are in the back part of your brain. And what happens is you don’t have any access to the front part of your brain where you make executive decisions and decision making and judgment and things like that. That is shut down because you’re just fighting right now, fighting, or you’re running, or you’re freezing up. And that’s a real thing in your life. And so it’s really best to step away and reconvene. So the best time to have those important conversations I would say, to plan them. Like, hey, let’s get together. We did this with our kids. Let’s go have coffee next week, or let me take you out to eat, or let’s go take a walk in the park or ride our bikes or whatever. So environment, I like to talk about environment. Gretchen, super important like priming the environment. It helps.

Gretchen Roe: 00:37:39.987
So are you saying that there would be an advantage to maybe a coffee shop would be more neutral territory?

Patti Reed: 00:37:46.890
Well, I would say that too. But if it’s their favorite place, they’re going to be more. You’re trying to open up the brain, right? You’re trying to open up the brain for trust. It’s their favorite coffee shop. You bought them their favorite drink. You’ve planned it. They need planning. My husband is a planner where I’m like, “Let’s go. I want to go, da, da, da.” And he’s like, “Oh, no, no, that’s too much. I need a week to plan that.” So I don’t know how your child is, right? They might be spontaneous. They might need a couple days. So there’s just some things that you can do to prep that. And you also might want to say, “Hey, I really want to talk to you about X, Y, and Z, just to kind of give you a heads up.” So that maybe they will take some time. And if you have some solutions or– I want to hear what you feel. I want to hear what you think. You might not use the word feel if they’re not there. But I want to know what you think about this. Because I love John Maxwell. I don’t know if you know John Maxwell. He’s a leadership expert. And he says that, “Being heard is like being loved.”

Gretchen Roe: 00:38:49.711
I think that’s really true. And there’s another mom asked us this question, which is, “How do you navigate these later stages when they need more autonomy, but you’re still responsible for their well-being?” And I know that you have opinions about that. I have some opinions as well. So I’d love to hear what your observations are there.

Patti Reed: 00:39:12.545
Yeah. I think it goes back to the agreements. I think it goes back to making an agreement, which we had to do when my daughter came home. She’s been in New York City since she was 18. She’s 24 now. And when COVID hit, obviously, we didn’t know what was going on in the world. And so we brought her home for four months. And then after four months, she was done. And she was like, “Oh, I’ve got to go back.” And so obviously, we were terrified for a lot of reasons. But we came to the table and made the agreement of what that would look like. And we still did contribute to her financially a little bit, not a lot. She was pretty much taking care of herself, but it was just a respectful thing to do. We could be like, “You’re not going back there. No way. It’s crazy.” Right? But we felt like, okay, but we needed to make an agreement. And we all did and contributed to it. And that’s how we move.

Gretchen Roe: 00:40:09.154
Now, you said something earlier in our conversation that I think is really interesting. And I maybe want to visit it a little bit again. And that was talking about failure and that our children need to know that it’s safe to fail within our presence so that they can understand. I think someone, I don’t know who it was. I think I read this in Gretchen Rubin’s book, but I might be making a misattribution. So don’t go chase down Gretchen Rubin’s book. But failure is a first attempt in learning. And if we hold these things, our successes and our failures loosely, maybe it’s easier for us. But how do you reach a child when they’ve done something that has been a failure and you want to have that conversation with them, but you’re not sure how that’s going to be received? And you’ve given us some good advice. Set it up in advance. Say you want to talk about this. But how do you– I guess what I’m really looking for in the answer to this question is how do you reach them when their heart’s sore?

Patti Reed: 00:41:23.466
Obviously, gently and graciously. And I like to say we either win or we learn, right? You mentioned learning, right? So we either win and learn in our journey in life. And even as parents, we have our moments. And I talk a lot about modeling. I think that we get to model. I had a situation. Probably in the last couple of months, I was asked to speak somewhere. And I just felt like I bombed. I felt like I didn’t do well. I left there. I was like, that was terrible. And I called my daughter to talk to her about it. And she was like, just encouraging me and– because this is what we’ve done, encourage each other. But I think that, again, it’s gently, and the question would be, okay, so, have your day, go eat chocolate, do whatever. But tomorrow, let’s begin again. And his mercies are new every morning. And so what did we learn from that? What did we learn that we don’t want to do next time, or that we do want to do next time? So we need to extrapolate, right? Everything in that situation that’s possible. And they might not want to do that right away because it’s painful, depending upon what it is. But there’s always something to be learned in– I don’t say failure because it’s really an opportunity to learn. If we are not failing forward, we are not getting out of our comfort zone and we are not learning.

Gretchen Roe: 00:43:07.588
How do you deal with a teenager who makes poor decisions and disregards advice or who disrespects the advice you provide? These were two questions that parents ask us. And I think, man, these are so deep. And–

Patti Reed: 00:43:23.581
They are deep. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Gretchen.

Gretchen Roe: 00:43:27.330
Nope, go on. These aren’t softball questions that I’m lobbying at you either.

Patti Reed: 00:43:34.590
I know that. And so yeah, again, I would answer that if someone were to ask me that in a coaching session, I would ask them certain questions back because that is really a low– there’s so much– like how old is he? How long has he been disrespectful? How involved is your husband? What have you done in the past? I mean, there’s I don’t think it’s right to give advice on something like that because there’s this whole part of the story that we don’t know. We know nothing about. And I can just tell you this, that my son came out of the womb wanting to rule the world. And so God said, “Turn around while I put this rod in your back.” So it was me against him for many years, but I can tell you that we had that. I mean, he would, he would disrespect me. He would again, again, again. And my husband would get up in his business all the time. You will respect your mother. You will respect your mother. And there were consequences that happened, which are an absolute.

Patti Reed: 00:44:55.177
But I can tell you, when I read that question, what I thought was, when they get to a certain point, our job becomes, I think, calling them to the standard, calling them to the standard, calling them to the standard. Whether they do it or not, that is not your deal. It is our job. We have been commissioned to call them to this higher place of living. They might hit it 1% or 10%. I don’t know. But keep calling them because that is your job. And I can tell you now, my 29-year-old son is amazing, respectful. I have watched him. He respects me. He respects other people. I watch him engage. People are like, oh my gosh, he’s amazing, blah, blah, blah. All I have to say, just keep calling them to that place, even though it’s hard, so important.

Gretchen Roe: 00:45:40.866
Right. And I was making some notes from a YouTube video that I was watching earlier this week. And I am reminded of this. The presenter said this thing. He said, “Have something to learn, not something to prove,” which I think is huge. And I’m like there might have been times when I parented from the position of I’m going to prove it to you. But the other thing that he said is, “What triggers you teaches you.” So if you feel like you’re being disrespected, and believe me, I sing to the choir here, to myself, if I feel like there has been a disrespectful statement there, perhaps what I need to do is pause and observe and see, well, what really happened here? Was he really disrespectful or was I just tromping over every boundary he had set as the parent and saying, thou shalt do this because you are my child.

Patti Reed: 00:46:49.915
Well, and again, that’s not going to fly at 17, 18, 19. I mean, it’s just not. And especially for men, their big need is respect.

Gretchen Roe: 00:47:00.177
Yes. And one of the things, Patty, that came through in a lot of these questions was this thing. How do we help our kids learn to navigate this safely?

Patti Reed: 00:47:16.426
Yeah, that’s gently. But when you find the answer, let me know.

Gretchen Roe: 00:47:19.281
I should say for those who are listening to the audio of this recording, I just held up my phone and pointed at it because these things are ubiquitous in our lives. So we’ve got to negotiate a truce with them so that they don’t rule our lives.

Patti Reed: 00:47:39.168
That’s right. And they’re not going away. They’re not going away. And there’s so many studies that have come out about, well, about social media, right? ‘Cause they all get on their phones. And the first thing I would say, hold out as long as you can. There’s these phones now that don’t have the social media. It’s just like calling or texting. I think it’s called Gab. There’s probably different ones. Totally would be all on board with that I’m glad I didn’t have to deal with that with my children. So I always come back to who owns the phone. I mean, who owns the phone? It’s not theirs. It’s a privilege. It’s not an entitlement. And there’s definitely agreements that can be set around that phone. I mean [crosstalk].

Gretchen Roe: 00:48:25.755
It’s so interesting that you would say that because this time last year, I was having a little bit of back and forth with my then-senior in high school about his phone. And interestingly enough, his 25-year-old brother is a cybersecurity analyst and he does no social media at all. He said, “Because I know how much data they collect.” And he said, “I don’t want it.” So he will watch YouTube videos on his computer. But on his phone, you won’t find an app on his phone, which I think is really interesting. Because fast forward a year, here I was griping at my senior in high school, “You’re really on your phone an awful lot.” And he’s now almost 19 and he’s in his room. He’s an electrician’s apprentice. And I hear this alarm go off at like 8:45 last night. And like, “What is that? Why do you have an alarm going off at 8:45?” And he laughed and he said, I set an alarm for myself that I can spend an hour on my phone in the evening. And when the alarm goes off, I’m done.

Patti Reed: 00:49:33.524
That’s right.

Gretchen Roe: 00:49:34.325
I did not teach him that. I did not set that boundary for him. In fact, I don’t have that boundary for myself.

Patti Reed: 00:49:40.538
Yeah.
Gretchen Roe: 00:49:41.458
But I’m really proud of him because back to that card game that we played, he said– one of the questions was asked, what is something that your parent– what is something a parent told you that it turned out to be true? And he said, “The amount of time I wasted on my phone.”

Patti Reed: 00:49:59.918
Yeah. It’s good.

Gretchen Roe: 00:50:02.265
Now, if you had told me a year ago when we were hammering tongs about this, that we would have this conversation two weeks ago, I wouldn’t have believed you.

Patti Reed: 00:50:14.629
Right. Yeah.

Gretchen Roe: 00:50:14.516
So I think it makes a difference.

Patti Reed: 00:50:16.531
It’s a challenge, for sure.

Gretchen Roe: 00:50:18.583
Another question, Patty, that we had– and oh, I can’t believe we’re coming up to the top of the hour here. But how much should a parent guide a student through their post-high school plans and decisions? And boy, I tell you what, I get this question from parents all the time when I speak at conferences. So I would love for you to talk a little bit about that because each of your children chose the paths that were their heart’s desire. But I know you said that in their path choosing, there was a little anxiety there. So can we talk about that?

Patti Reed: 00:50:55.662
Yeah. So with my son, he went back to school for high school and went to private school and graduated, went to University of Arkansas. And that was just kind of the natural progression. And for him, he has never really been a student, honestly. He just obviously did what he did. I mean, he’s fine, but had some entrepreneurial blood in him. And so he eventually– he actually worked at a restaurant for a while. He was a bartender. That was really wonderful. I was so proud of that. But let’s be honest here, they’re going to do things that I was like, “A bartender.” He’s out of that.

Patti Reed: 00:51:45.812
And he’s a real estate agent now and doing extremely well. But I always knew it. I knew this, like he’s going to own Dallas Fort Worth one day just because it’s kind of in his blood. So obviously the college thing, he was open to that. He wanted to take that path and we certainly welcomed that. But then we got to the point where he was like, “You know what? I don’t know. I really don’t think this is for me. I’m going to take some time off. And I want to go to Colorado for six months and work the ski lifts.” Okay. So that was fun. And he did that. And then he came back and again worked at the restaurant and then eventually went back and took his real estate license. But all along the way, we were talking with him and we said, “Well, we don’t really think that’s a good idea, but if that’s your choice–” he wasn’t living at home. So it wasn’t like, you kind of lose control after a while. But he was still asking us and talking to us, which again was built before that, right, in building that bond and building the trust and listening well and not like, “What?” No, that doesn’t work.

Patti Reed: 00:52:58.995
So anyway, and then with my daughter, she had no desire to go to college. She’s an actress and she wanted to go to an acting conservatory in New York. She had learned under a certain type of technique. And we just kind of prayed through all of that and felt like that was it. Yeah, that’s what you should do. And so that’s what she did. And so she’s a waitress and figuring out being an actress. And so obviously you think to yourself– and we did have a conversation. She came home for Christmas. I was like, “What are you thinking? You’re going to be 25 this year,” so. And she’s like, “Believe me, mom. I’m very aware of time kind of marching on.” And so you just have to kind of know what to say and what to say.

Gretchen Roe: 00:53:54.647
Those conversations, Patty, didn’t start for you when they were seniors in high school either. They started far sooner than that. And if I could say something that would encourage the parents who are joining us today and listening to this later, start those conversations with your kids when they’re 10, 11, 12, 13, because believe me, hold all of those things very loosely because their plans are going to change multiple times. But if you have created that atmosphere where they can say, “I was thinking, I want to go spend six months working the ski lifts in Colorado,” then it’s not a scary proposition to be able to float that to you as a parent.

Patti Reed: 00:54:37.538
So good. Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Gretchen Roe: 00:54:41.331

Yeah. I think it makes so much difference. I cannot believe we are at the top of the hour, and we didn’t get to even a portion of these wonderful questions that we were asked. So perhaps, Patty, we’ll have to revisit this maybe sometime later this year. But what would be your closing words of wisdom for our families today who have joined us?

Patti Reed: 00:55:02.439
I think it would be– I think my son was maybe 15 or so, I remember resolving in my heart that I wasn’t going to camp on this is the way that he needs to go, right? Like this is what he needs. I mean, you mentioned about your father, right? Because who am I? I mean, I have dreams for my children. Absolutely. But are they their dreams? So really holding loosely and praying through it and asking God to lead them and guide them and to lead and guide me so that we can ultimately have a close family and relationship. Because I mean, I think as moms, ultimately that’s what we want. I mean, we’ve poured our heart and our soul into our children. And there’s a lot out there today where there’s this no contact parent thing going on or they don’t have the close relationship that they want. But it’s really in your court, and it comes down to what adjustments do you need to make so that you can continue to have that lifelong relationship with them?

Gretchen Roe: 00:56:10.000
Right. You said something early on in the conversation that I think is also a key takeaway for parents to have, and that is that vulnerability to keep your accounts short and be able to say, “I blew this one.” So can we revisit this conversation? Can we try again? Because as parents, our children are given to us for such a brief period of time. And it makes such a difference. And I have so thoroughly enjoyed– now, Patty, before we conclude, tell us the name of your book again and the website where parents can find more.

Patti Reed: 00:56:46.767
This is backwards, but it’s face-to-face, smart conversations with yourself, your teenager, and your young adult.

Gretchen Roe: 00:56:53.419
Wonderful.

Patti Reed: 00:56:54.818
And my website is Patti Reed, pattireed.net. And I also have a resource. It’s called 10 tried and tested wise insights for moms really to help you through different situations. So I do that on my website. You can just scroll down some and you’ll see you can click on it. And you can get on my email list. I do send out weekly emails to encourage and equip. And so we’d love to have you.

Gretchen Roe: 00:57:27.918

Absolutely. And of course, all that information will be included in the show notes because I think you’ll find Patti a tremendously valuable resource. I know that I have enjoyed knowing her these last six months, and I’ve been so excited to have the opportunity to share this hour with her today, so.

Patti Reed: 00:57:43.783
Thank you so much, Gretchen. It was great.

Gretchen Roe: 00:57:45.220
Oh, it has been a great pleasure to have you here. This is Gretchen Row for The Demme Learning Show. Thank you all so much for joining us. You can access the show notes and watch a recording at demmelearning.com/show or on our YouTube channel. And be sure to rate, review, follow or subscribe wherever you may be hearing this, especially if you really enjoyed it. Take care, everyone. We’ll look forward to your joining us again soon. Bye-bye.

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