“How do I get my mom to shut up?”

Hello, welcome to Tips on Teens. My name is Kent Toussaint, licensed marriage and family therapist,
coming to you live every Wednesday at your lunch break to answer your parenting questions.
Although today is a little different. We got a question from a teen, we believe this time. Not
sure if the question was in jest or in all seriousness, but we think it's something that deserves
to be addressed. So here's the question of the week that we got from someone who's watching us.
How do I get my mom to shut up? Now there are a couple things that stand out for me for this question.
Number one, there's a teenager still on Facebook. That surprises me. I don't know why they're
still there because usually they're on Snapchat or Instagram or something else, but I respect
that they are there. I respect that this teenager was reaching out. And second thing is this
teenager is asking for help. There is a disconnect between mom and teenager and they're not
communicating very well. This teenager feels

like mom is overbearing, that she won't stop, and And again, this is just my speculation from
what little I know from this question, but this is a common thing that I deal with a lot in my practice
with teens and parents. Every one of us who's watching or every human right now has at one time
wanted their parents to shut up. This is not an uncommon thing. Now, is it said respectfully?
No. Is it said with mature way? No. But what is the message? What is the feeling behind it? There's
frustration and anger and a sense of just being fed up. And so we want to address that. So if you
are in this situation, if you're the teen and you're watching this, I encourage you to stay calm
and because the more you lash out at your mom, the more she's going to lash out at you and it's just
going to be this endless cycle of arguing and she's going to feel the need to yell at you more and
it's not going to work. So I encourage you to find a way to stay calm. And you can instead communicate
more in a more

mature way you can tell your mom something like mom I hear you have a lot to say but right now my
emotions are a little too high to hear it can you just give me 10 minutes to cool down can you give
me a half hour cool down can you give me the day to cool down I know you got a lot to say but I can't
hear right now I don't want to yell at you you know find a way to communicate a way to stay calm help
the situation to stay not you de -escalated, not super escalated where you guys are yelling.
Because as soon as you guys are yelling, no one's listening. Now, if you're the parent in this
situation, and your teen has the wherewithal and the maturity to say something like, Mom, I
need to back off right now. I need to have a break. This is getting too much. I need, you know, give
me an hour. Let me go take a shower. Let me go do my homework. Let me go take a walk. Whatever it is.
If they're willing to do that, they're showing the maturity that they understand that they
We don't want to fight with

you. My hunch with this teen is this teen is tired of fighting, tired of lecturing. Why do we lecture?
Why do we argue? Parents lecture because we feel like our kids aren't getting the message. We
need to hammer that message home. Of course, it never works. Lectures don't work. If lectures
worked, I wouldn't have a job. Lectures do not work. It's about finding a way to connect. We need
to find a way to help this family to connect more. So, if I'm this mom, I would probably go to my
teen and say, hey, I know you feel that I'm overbearing sometimes, that I talk too much, and I
want to acknowledge that, and I want to repair this. I want to find a different way for us to communicate.
You know, extend that olive branch. Be the adult in the room, because your teen can't do it. He
or she is not qualified. They don't have the mental capacity to do it, but you do. You are the parent,
and it's your job to lead the way. So, in a calm, loving way, say, there are things I want to share
with you. There

are things I need you to know whether it's the responsibilities you're not keeping up with or
you know I want you to be you know aware of these choices you're making and how they're dangerous
or how they're not well thought out. You know kids don't care how much you know until you know
how much you care and they you need to have that connection. They need to feel like you're listening
first and if you have that if you're listening more likely they will ask you for your advice but
if you give advice, you can't be tied to them following it. Now, unless they're putting themselves
in danger, a lot of times you got to let kids make their own choices. And if you give them advice,
or if you don't give them advice, you got to let them kind of figure this stuff out, and then come
to you for support when it doesn't go well. That's how they will learn. Now, if they're putting
themselves in serious danger, you have to step in. There are life lessons we need to learn. There
are some times when kids

make choices that will not allow them to get to their their goal college that they really want
to get to. That's not the worst thing in the world. Sometimes that's a really good lesson to learn
and I've met clients who've gone through that because because their own choices they missed
out on opportunities that they could have had if they just tried. And because they missed out
on that opportunity that gave them the drive to push themselves forward. And you might say,
why do you need to go through that lesson to learn it? Because that's how humans learn. Humans
learn the hard way. Generally speaking, we learn the hard way. We generally do not learn the
easy way. So we got to let our kids be in a situation, a safe place to learn the hard way and have
that safety net of loving, compassionate parents who will still set boundaries, you know,
for them to learn and pick themselves back up. If it is being, if this situation is getting beyond
anyone's control and you guys just can't find a way to

connect, reach out to a therapist. Reach out to a family therapist who understands kids and
teens and parents and they can help build that bridge you know some like I say I speak parents
and I speak teenager you know find someone who can cross that build that bridge for you guys to
cross in the middle and meet and find a common ground anyways that's our question for today please
keep the questions coming we love them we'd love to hear your question for next week just direct
messages here on Facebook or you can email us at tips on teens at teen therapy center calm see
you next Wednesday at 12 o 'clock bye bye