Are we parents too soft on our teens or too hard on ourselves? The Wonder Room

Welcome to the Teenagers Untangled Wonder Room where we're trying to fear less and wonder more. Now we talk about what experts have been saying on the podcast and basically anything that's been bothering you. So get in touch either by hitting the message button or emailing me at teenagersuntangled at gmail.com. Now welcome back to the brilliant Catherine Rodice, who has decades of teaching under her belt, advising schools, writing a book about teenagers, and raising her own boys. Hello, Catherine. Hello. Now Catherine's links are in the notes, so if you want to get in contact with her, just click on that. Catherine, since we last spoke, I've had a conversation with Dr. Tara Porter about being a good enough parent. And then Dr. Leonard Sachs about what's causing the decline in male achievement. Two experts, two quite different messages. You describe Dr. Sachs as fearsome.

Yeah.

I think he is. Because, I mean, in a good way, perhaps, but he's so clear and rehearsed about his version of parenting. Yes. And it's quite compelling when you listen to it because it sounds so clear and assured, but it is quite a firm and how can I put it, um, strident version. And I'm not sure it would work for everyone.

I I think that's absolutely right. And that's the whole point about this podcast is that there isn't one template that we can all use. What we have to do is look at our own parenting, our own background, and think, okay, how can I what can I take from this that would help me? Um, you know, Sachs is sort of saying, let's be firmer and take control. Porter seems to be saying, ease off and stop rescuing. For example, Sachs' idea about having a stand-in classroom. What are your thoughts about that and education generally?

Yeah, I mean, it so as a teacher, I listened to it thinking, I I can see where he's coming from. What I would say is definitely true is that the classroom environment as it is, i.e., requiring sitting still at desks for long periods of time, listening to stuff that someone else is interested in, and you might not be. That environment suits certain kids better than others. And, you know, you can maybe try and go down the gender route and say girls find it easier to sit still than boys do. But you could also do the same thing with the kind of neurodiverse route and say, actually, there are some sort of kind of neurological profiles that find it easier to sit still than others do. Um, and I think it's very helpful to be aware of where some kids are going to have an easier ride through that classroom experience. But the thought of making sitting optional, like I can't imagine a single teenager, imagine doing something. Oh my gosh. You know, I thought if I was in a school and management said to me, right, by the way, now, you know, sitting is optional, because actually it would just be chaos. And although he is right that a phenomenally skilled classroom practitioner could navigate that environment, you have got to be phenomenally skilled. Because if you have got moving parts, you have a classroom environment that is even more complex. And one of the reasons why everyone sits still behind a desk is because that creates at least some stability in the classroom environment, which allows the teacher then to operate within it and to go and work with students and to have quiet and calm and so on. And you know, if there's a whole load of boys or whoever roaming around in the background, the kids who need a really quiet and stable environment, that's not gonna that isn't gonna help them either. So, yeah, I think the uh being on the move. I hear where he's coming from, but I don't think he's gonna get teaching community.

It's interesting, isn't it? Because I remember talking to Susie about this, and she has one son who, when they were having dinner together, he just didn't want to sit in the chair. He wanted to stand up. And the the compromise they came to was okay, you can stand up, but no bouncing balls. There are some kids who, and that didn't need to be a boy, it was a boy, but it didn't need to be a boy. I talked to my daughters about being in a classroom. One of them was in a school where it was very strict, it was very calm, settled, lots of teacher feedback from above where they would film the teachers, tell them where they were going well, tell them where they were going wrong. So they actually had sort of growth embedded in the environment. And then, you know, other schools where people were all on their laptops and they were playing games, they were messaging each other and stuff because the teacher couldn't see what was going on. So the sort of roaming around the classroom makes sense to me. A lot of schools now I think have classroom breaks, don't they? Yeah, which again is really hard to manage.

But it means, you know, so so so when I said a moment ago, you know, you have to as a teacher be alert to who is gonna find this context difficult and what can we do to support them within this context. That's really, really important. So, you know, there will be children who have strategy sheets where, you know, if they need to leave the classroom for five minutes, then that is understood and kind of factored in and so on. And as a teacher, when I think who am I gonna ask to hand out the resources, there's certain kids I will absolutely ask because I can see that they really benefit from that opportunity to walk around. So it's not that I think we should ignore the fact that sitting still is really hard for some kids. So we need to be really mindful of it. But we have to find solutions that are actually achievable in practice, being aware of the realities of how challenging behaviour management is anyway in a secondary school.

Yes. I and I remember talking to a man who had taught at an all-boys' school, and he said every time he went into the classroom, he had to physically brace himself before he went in because he knew that whatever he was going to deal with was going to be quite challenging. So one of the things that Zach says is that boys' problems are obvious, girls are more hidden. Do you think it's that binary? Is it that that obvious?

I'm always a little bit wary of the clear-cut message. I think what's true is that when boys are really unhappy, it's sometimes, not always, but it sometimes presents in a way that makes the adults notice. So, you know, if a teenage boy comes home and he's really unhappy, and what happens is he loses his temper and he slams the door or he smashes his fist into the wall. As adults, we kind of react to that. If a girl comes home and is really unhappy and you know sits in her room and cries, then maybe that goes a little bit more unnoticed. So I think there are differences in the way that misery or kind of even a mental distress presents and plays out in behaviours. Um, but I also think that girls are much better at verbalizing their feelings because they talk more about their feelings. So it can be easier to work with an adolescent girl and kind of help her process. Whereas sometimes boys, I mean, you know, we we have come a long way, but there's still quite a resistance in lots of boys to putting their feelings into words. So I think it's two different types of clarity.

Yeah, I think Brendan Kriakovsky, when I interviewed him, he talked about how right from, you know, little, little boys, we start getting them to shut down and not talk about their feelings. And he said, you know, they have these thoughts, they have these feelings, but it's very, very discouraged by society. So I do think there are differences, but I think it's emphasized more because of the structure of our society and the way we talk about the way boys and girls work. So there is a bit more nuance in that. And I also, having spoken to a lot of experts about the way girls struggle, there's a lot of rumination, a lot of this overthinking, they internalize a lot, whereas boys do tend to externalise, like you said, like you can sometimes you can see it a bit more. You may not be able to get them to explain it. That's the difficulty, isn't it? Coming on to the school tour tips, I thought, oh, let's ask Catherine about that because he said, I think maybe the only girls at the top of the school getting the awards, that's a massive red flag. What sort of things would you look out for if you were looking around a school for boys to to know that they were going to thrive?

Interesting. I mean, again, I think it's this idea of are you looking for the general picture? Or are you thinking about your own individual child? Because I think he's absolutely right that if the general picture is, you know, the the top 30 achievers are routinely female, then there is a question mark about, well, how come boys are not pushing up to the top as well. But as a parent, if you only look at the top, what you were missing out is the fact that the odds are your child is not gonna be at the top. Yes. No matter how much you love your kids, right? No matter how much you think they're amazing, nobody, when they're looking around a secondary school with a kid who is, you know, 10, no one knows for sure how that child's gonna thrive. So I would say the much better question as a parent, thinking about your own individual child, is hey, what happens if my child is in the bottom half of the class? What does it look like then? How will they be seen? How will they be supported? How will they be encouraged to build a positive sense of self? And the schools that have got a really clear answer about how they would bring on the kids who are finding it difficult, those are the schools that are going to be a much safer bet, tactically. But the schools where they don't have a really clear answer, you know, even if the top end is super shiny, as a parent, I say you're playing a slightly risky wicket. Because if it's only good at the top, what happens if your child is not one of those high achievers? And I remember looking around schools for my kids when we moved to Cambridge, and there was one local school where I said to, you know, every single teacher, what happens if my kid is bottom of the class? And the question flawed every single one because it was a high achieving school and they were so used to selling the top. And I thought, do you know what? Whether or not my child is at the top or the bottom, I don't want them to go to a school where the school is not aware or not interested in how they support the kids who are not the sort of shiny templates for the prospectus. How are they actually going to bring their mod?

I love that. And that two things on that. Number one, when I spoke to um Melanie Sanderson from the Good School Guide, she said the best schools that she's been to have um the special needs facilities right in the center of the school, and it's a drop-in point, you don't need to be special needs. You know, any problems you've got, everyone feels comfortable moving through that space, coming and talking about what they are struggling with because it's open for everybody. And the other thing was when I did research on the pygmalion effect, which was amazing, and when you've got kids in a classroom and the and the teacher believes their ability to do well, they will do well. Did you did you see this experiment where they they had um a test done on all these kids and then they said to the teachers, these are the kids that came the top, these are the kids that came at the bottom, and then the teachers treated them in the way that they expected them to be. But the truth was the test showed none of that. And the kids at the end of that experiment, the kids who had put they pretended had come out the top, came out the top because of the way that they've been treated. So this is a very, very important impact on kids. So it's belief that the children can do well, not necessarily whether you've got raw material that's great.

Exactly. And actually, you know, one of the reasons why that effect kicks off, because it's a bit like the kind of Malcolm Gladwell analysis that if you make it into the 80 when you're 10, you're kind of more likely to thrive. And part of it is is really tempting as a school to lean into the top hunt. So if you think about kind of teaching a class, right, it's very tempting if you're asking a question to ask the kids who you know are going to get the answer right, because the lesson moves much more smoothly if you always get the right answers. But actually, good teaching leans into the kids who are finding it difficult because they're the ones who need the help. So the other question you can ask us as a parent is who are the types of kids who wouldn't find it easy to thrive in this school? Because again, the answer that's gonna be really rehearsed in any school is, you know, it's gonna be great for this kid and that kid and so on. But if a teacher can say, well, actually, do you know what? We love what we do, but we are a big, big, big school. So, E.G., if your child needs a lot of individual attention, they might potentially feel a bit lost. You know, a school that can be honest about where the difficulties might be, that is gonna be a better school because a school that is honest is gonna be able to meet those challenges. But a school that doesn't really want to notice where the difficulties are and is just trying to push at the top, because that is seen as the benchmark of success, that is not gonna be a school that is as effectively run. Such interesting questions.

Yeah. So what about um gaming? Because you have sons. I don't have sons. So I've not this has not been a big problem. One of the things my daughters used to say to me, they'd go around to boys' houses quite a lot. When they were younger, they had lots of male friends, and they'd just say, Mummy, it was so boring, they just wanted to play, they were gaming, and then I just got bored and I left. It is gendered to an extent, but there are a lot of girls who game as well. So let's be fair about that. So, what are your thoughts? 40 minutes on school nights, an hour at weekends, no violent games, no console in the bedroom, um, no rollover to the next week if they didn't use as much on the first week. What are your thoughts? Realistic.

I mean, again, so it's tricky, isn't it? I mean, again, I can see the sense in it. I can absolutely see the sense that someone who is not playing violent video games for a long period of time and is doing other things instead, that is, I think, fairly indisputably a better diet for that child. Not just because you know, if you spend your days kind of dealing with violence, that is going to affect the kind of mental fabric of your perception of what counts as success or enjoyment and so on, you know. But also, if you're just spending hours and hours and hours on anything, then other bits of your life don't get nurtured. So I totally see the sense in what he's saying, but it's quite a tough gig as a parent to be that firm in any set of rules or boundaries, because the difficulty of saying, right, do you know what it's 40 minutes, full stop, and you're never playing these games, is that there is no room for discussion at all. And although, as you know, I'm very pro, we have to remember as parents we are the parents, and a discussion with our children about what we're doing is not handing over parenting to the child and saying, right, you now choose your own boundaries. But if there is no room for discussion at all about something which might feel really important to the child, there's a very high risk of resentment. Very high risk. And if a teenager grows up thinking my parents never listen, there is no room for discussion, they don't care about my perspective, the benefit you get from them not playing video games, I do worry that that's going to be cancelled out by the damage that being so strident and immovable can do to the relationship. And although I would repeat again, just because a child wants to play lots of video games does not mean that they should play lots of video games, but it's so important for a teenager to feel understood and actually to think that their opinion has some bearing. And actually, you know, is it 40 minutes every day, or is it 40 minutes most days and you know, an hour and a half on different days in recognition of the fact that this is something that your kid really wants to do? Like I just think teenage parenting works better if that teenager thinks their view is at least something the parent is interested in.

I think that's so true. And also, you know, you say 40 minutes. Well, what if the game runs to 50 minutes or what if you're not gonna do that? You can't say and stop the game right now because you have try that with a a boy who's mid-flow on a game, particularly when his friends are involved and he has to pull out. That's a really tough call. So I yeah, I think that's that's one of those ones where you have to have more of a conversation. Um, and also I'd be interested. So let's say I'm a parent who's had a child, a son who has been using these games, has been had free reign, has had their console in the room. Uh, you know, how do you shift from that that kind of like no bars to okay, I realize that I've actually made a mistake here? That's a tough, tough conversation.

It's really hard. Um, and I listened to the episode thinking, you know, if I was a parent and I had kids who were already gaming for much more than that, and I suddenly thought, right, I need to go from zero to hero and say, right, boys, you know, this is done, gamers console's away. When parents make really dramatic and instant shifts, it's really destabilizing. It's really, haven't we? Yeah, well, we have, we've all done it, we've all said, right, that's it, you know, for now. But actually, you know, you have to keep putting yourself in the teenager's shoes. And if your child is gaming for a long time, then like it will loathe it, that gaming means something to your teenager, it's important to them. And actually, the story Dr Sachs told about the kid, in fact, the adult who didn't want a job because he felt he was really successful in the world of online games. I mean, yes, as an adult, I kind of shudder at the idea that you know that someone might choose that sort of success over actual kind of being out there in the real world. But the truth is, if the game is the place where your teenage son feels like they're doing well, and that matters to them because they don't always feel like they're doing well at school, if you suddenly take it away wholeheartedly, what you're doing is you're taking away the bit of your son's life where he feels successful and thriving. And I would say to any parent, be very wary before you put your kid into a terrain where they feel like it's not going well, and that that is all there is. So, you know, I think when you've got a kind of a teenage son, if you think that the gaming has gone too far, yes, as a parent, absolutely you've got to do something about it, you've got to help bring it down. And I think, you know, Dr. Sachs's point that, you know, addiction kicks in earlier and more deeply if that child is younger, I think we've all got to listen to that and we've got to remember that a teenager and an adult are different. But how you move through the steps, I think needs a bit of thought and it needs a bit of empathy about what it feels like to the child. And I would also say it is a really good thing to loop the school in. Because actually, if you try and make these changes as a parent solo, then it becomes a kind of war or battle between you and your son. But if you actually reach out to the pastoral team and say, Do you know what, my my son is gaming for this long, do you think that's okay? Are you seeing any problems at school? If you get some backup in terms of the school's opinion, that can be really, really helpful because it's really difficult running a relationship if you are the only person who is, you know, responsible for the decisions that you make.

I love that suggestion. What a great idea. And like you say, I think it's really important to rather than just take things away. Like they're talking about taking away social media, ban, ban, ban, ban. But you've got to replace it with something. You've got to give them something that's that feels good, where they can succeed, where they can grow. And I think, you know, with my daughter, it's been a long, slow shift away from things that perhaps, you know, she became a bit too interested in, for example, TikTok and spending time on it. And it, I, you know, rather than saying, right, that's it, none of this, I've slowly squeezed the time when she can actually have any access to any of this stuff and increase the time that she's got to do other things. And, you know, when I take away her devices at night, I go, you can sit in your room and do art, you can play your guitar, you know, you've got all these other things that you can do. You just don't have the devices. And it's it's like being able to say you have other things, you have books, you have right, but you've got you can't do that overnight because they're going to look at them and go, What? Um, and coming back to this kind of sleep and phones out of the bedroom, you know, that because that's one of the ones that all of the experts talk about. It's an easy win. That's an like it's not, it doesn't feel like an easy win if you haven't been doing it, but it absolutely is one of those ones where we feel like we're beating ourselves up about am I being a good enough parent. Taking the devices away is so clear. And it's so funny because my daughter just just last night, I went to her, you know, it was 10 o'clock. She's 18, but she's we still do this. 18, I said to her, darling, uh, can I have your devices? Phone, you know, she does take it into her room now because she's older. And I heard her, I was like knocking on the door, and I heard her talking to this friend of hers, and she went, sorry, I've got to go now. My mum's taking away my phone. And and it just reminded me of this whole point that actually it's really hard for a kid to say, Oh, I need to stop gaming because I'm tired, or I need to stop our conversation, or I need to stop being online because I'm tired, it's much easier for them to say, Oh, my awful mum is just taking my oh my dad's, you know, he's put these browns in place, horrible, horrible death. Just take the the complaints and take away the phone.

Yeah, and actually, quite often, you know, if my kids are asking about, you know, can they go to this party or whatever? And it's, you know, suddenly it's the it's something in the teenage world which is the next step up, the kind of new asked. Quite often, before I give my first reaction, I say to them, is this something that it would be helpful to you if I said no to? Because teenagers often do need their parents to hold the line. Because exactly as you say, it's really hard for a teenager themselves to say no to their friends. And actually, sometimes having parents who set really firm boundaries so they can go to bed and so on, it's really helpful. But I think the other thing about the phone, because I know you and I are on exactly the same page about this, that actually if phones or devices are in bedrooms and people are on them until one, two in the morning, you know, everything crumbles. But it makes a huge difference if, like I know you do, it's a one-size-fits-all rule for everyone. And if you want your kid to put their phone down at, you know, 9.30 and you, the adults, are merrily, you know, scrolling away until whenever, unfortunately, for the teenager, that message comes across as you're not capable, and I am. And because teenagers are so um fraught at times in their sense of self, anything that gets close to I don't believe in you, I don't trust you, I don't think you're able to handle this, you are nowhere near. Life like I am yet, those are the sorts of messages that teenagers get very angry about. But if it is, we as a family, these are our values, we believe in sleep, the phones are going away, we are all doing it together, that is a much easier message for a teenager to take on board because it's not personal. And you can also say, we're gonna do this and let's review it in three weeks and see if it works better for everyone. Because sometimes I think when it's a difficult change, as a parent, we come on really hard. And we say it's a big red line, full stop, you know, non-negotiable, but it's loads better if you say we're gonna do this because we believe it's gonna work, but let's all check in in three weeks' time and work out what did it help with, what didn't it? And for the teenager, if they know there is at least room for another conversation about it in three weeks' time, they're gonna be happier about trialing it than if it is like a permanent change forever, capital letters.

Yes. And when I did my research on um putting in place rules and consequences, one of the most critical things is we have to think what behaviour do we want to change, how directly do we influence that, and what's the the time period? So we need to we need to give them a like here's what we're looking for, here's the date, because it gives them something to work towards. And I love the parents doing these things too, because for me it's been extremely helpful to be able to say to my child, if I've got my phone in my room, I'm gonna be on social media fretting about something that's going on in the world, or I'm gonna be fretting about whether my friend has had a better holiday than me or not. You know, I can talk about the things that impact me, and the kid goes, Oh, it's not me, I'm not alone. My parent gets me. They get how it feels. And also, what I think's really changed that we're not aware of because we're living in the day and age that we're in, is when my bonus daughters were um going through this period, and uh one of them, she she she was the Gen Z, she's right at the front of that Gen Z era where the social media was a big thing, they were all texting. And you used to get a phone bill that was itemized, and it was pages and pages and pages, two, three in the morning. And that's what alerted me. I was like, what the, what the what is going on here? We don't get that now. If we had an itemized idea of what our kids were doing on social media, what time they finished, what time they stopped gaming, it would feel much, much more scary. But we don't get that, and that's the problem, it's hidden, isn't it? So and and also I just want to say, I do get it. Like I have mentored a child in inner city London who was in a refugee family, and they were living, you know, five people in a one-bedroom home. I get it. I get that it's not easy for for people who have very constrained living circumstances. So obviously, you have to deal with what you've got and try and do the best you can with what you've got. So it's not easy, I get it. Um, what about porn and AI companions? You were a bit I know. How do we start that conversation with a sound?

Yeah, I have ideas, but Yeah, but it's it's you know, it's very real, right? So, you know, we read in the in the news about you know increase in erectile dysfunction because young boys are watching porn from so early an age in so kind of customized and hyper, you know, realistic a mode that actually real life then doesn't really cut it. And I would say those those stories are not horror stories. You know, my you know, my my boys are at an age where their friends are already encountering things that are absolutely bearing that out in reality. But as a parent, you know, I kind of brace a bit and go, oh, it's difficult, and it is difficult, but then we have to recognise this is something that we are very frightened about as parents. It doesn't mean therefore it's necessarily going to happen to our child. And if we go at any conversation with a kind of hysteria, then what's gonna happen is our kids are gonna pull away because they're not gonna want to be in that conversation because they've got to manage our emotions as well as their own. So, you know, if someone bowls down to the kitchen and says, you know, right, child of mine, you know, are you using AI porne? No boy, no boy or girl that's gonna be like, you know, thanks, mum, I'll just now, you know, show you. No one's going to want a conversation. Yeah, here we go, you know, one knee tips. Um no teenager is going to welcome a conversation that is so direct and so personal. So it's much better to kind of de-personalize it and actually say, right, you know, as a parent, do you think I as a parent should be worried about this? That's a really helpful question. Um, are you noticing your friends getting caught up in this? What do you think? The friend question is so useful because it gives a safe space for a kid to kind of trial something out and see how you react. Um, say things like, what do you think parents can do that would really help their children navigate this? Because the bit that's worth remembering in all of this is that no teenager, literally no teenager, wakes up in the morning and thinks today I'm going to screw my life up. No teenager wants to get it wrong. In fact, teenagers are desperate to get it right. You know, and one of the things that pulls people into porn anyway is a kind of you know need to think, can I get this right? Can I understand what sex is all about and so on. So if you open the conversation with a framing of respect where you are really respectful of your child's view of what would help them and what wouldn't help them, and where the kind of implicit assumption from the get-go, or explicit actually, you know, statement is I know this is something you're gonna want to get right, it's much, much easier for a kid to be honest than if they feel their parent is full of doubt and fear and who is assuming they're gonna end up, you know, with no friends at all in 10 years' time because all they're doing is talking to chatbots, you know. So I think we have to recognise our reaction, we have to take a deep breath, and then we have to think, how can we open a conversation in a way that is karma and shows more belief in our kids than if we just think, I've got to check your phone every single minute, every single day in case you're in love with a chatbot.

Yes, notice the fear and then turn it to wonder. It's when I was talking with Dr. David Jaeger, he made a really, really good point, which was how pro-social kids are. And what I mean by that is they really want to make the world a better place, they want to help other people. So turning it to, I saw this about chatbots, that actually there's a real danger that people can, boys can end up not finding girls attractive, having erectile dysfunction, really struggling with their relationships. Um, do the boys in your school know this? And what happens is they they they internalize it as information that they know and they understand themselves. So you don't have to say, I'm telling you, you say, I've heard this expert saying this. You can look it up. And the great thing about that is I've noticed it having a dramatic impact on my kids. That when I talk about it in those terms like about drugs, about vaping, any of that stuff, they absorb it. They will then try and help their friends, or they will look at their friends and go, I'm not gonna do that because I can see that they've been trapped by these awful executives in these corporate environments who just want to lure them into XYZ. They get it. Can a mum even have these conversations with their son? I think you can try.

I think I think you have to, I mean, I do. I do have these conversations with my sons because I think they need to be had. I quite often say to them, No, this is excruciating. And we actually we kind of turn into a bit of a laugh. And, you know, one of my um sons has a habit of saying, Right, mum, you know, when we're done with the conversation, you know, both my boys are like, ooh, right, you know, we can order out, you know. So so we kind of own the fact that this is obviously an excruciate, excruciating conversation to have. I am very respectful in not trying to interrogate them personally about their personal lives because there has to be privacy. And if they want to tell me something, that's up to them. But I don't ask questions which are, what are you personally doing and why? We have conversations about the principles and why these things happen and why they don't happen. And I quite often say to them, you know, what do you think I need to understand? Because I always say to parents that as someone who's working in this space, the best advice I have ever got about how to parent teenagers has always come from teenagers. Always. Because they're actually kind of living their life. And one of my go-to questions, whether it's my children, whether it's kind of students I teach, whether it's the you know, people I work with one-to-one on a pastoral basis, is always, what do you think the adults in your life need to understand? Because the fact is, as adults, we don't always understand it. If you want them to be serious about their own thought process, you've got to take it seriously yourself. And if you treat your kids' ideas like they have no value because you don't ask for them, that teenager is not going to grow up believing that their thoughts are worth listening to. Oh, I love that.

Yeah, absolutely. And talking about them growing up, I loved Dr. Sachs's line, strengthen the service of others. What you know, what do you want your boy to be? I think that's I think that's good for girls too. I think it's just the service of others. And looking for mentors, and I don't think I did a terribly good job because I didn't understand it. But Angela Duckworth has a good book out at the moment called Situated. And what I love about that is there's one whole chapter talking about mentors and the extraordinary power of finding mentors and how individuals can look for mentors. So it's not just on you, but I think lighting that fire and saying to your kids, you know, mentors can be incredibly impactful. And also talking to Mitchell Osmond, he's collected around him his iron five, five men who he really admires, who he went to to say, I can see you're so fit. How do you do it? What are you doing? I can see you have a great relationship with your wife. What are you doing? Teach me. I can see that you have a career that you really love. How did you do that? And asking these questions can be incredibly empowering and teaching our kids that that's a good thing to do. But what so what have you done about getting mentors for your boys?

So I think I think there's two things. I think first of all, asking the question, who do you admire? Who do you respect? is such an interesting question as a parent. Because again, you can ask that question anytime you like, and you'll get really interesting material back. Because if your kid says, Do you know what? I really respect this particular teacher at school, and you say, Oh, you know, what do they do? And you know, your kid says, Well, they do this, that, and the other, or they're really clear, or they're really firm, or they always listen. This is gold dust as a parent because hearing what your child admires in others, A, is really reassuring because it shows you the sort of person your child probably wants to be themselves. B, it's like this gorgeous code for what they would value you doing as well. So it's a kind of like absolutely powerhouse question. But I also think that role models can be all sorts of things. So the second thing I'm kind of interested in is, you know, although I I do I love that slogan of strength in the service of others, I think the idea that boys have no role models is like absolute rubbish. And actually, I remember, you know, a friend of mine running assembly saying the same thing, and I was like, well, you've clearly read the same book, you know. But actually, you know, there are so many role models out there. And even the example that Dr. Sachs gave of, you know, the comedy modern family, where, you know, Phil, the father figure's a bit goofy, and I'm like, well, hang about. In that comedy, there are actually four father figures. And if you track through, you know, Jay Phil, Cameron, you know, Mitchell's at the right name, hope it is, they are of very different types of men. There's a kind of like classic alpha, there's uh, you know, well-meaning but goofy, there's you know, someone who's much more kind of, I'm in touch with the feminine side themselves, there's a classic sort of like, you know, hyperachiever, you know, worrying, whatever. And I love the fact that my boys have grown up watching that show because what they're getting from that show is that masculinity does not have to be only one thing.

It has all those aspects of the response.

And I would not, it has all those different aspects, and actually all four of those characters are loved and valued by the people in the show. I think that is a great set of role models. So, you know, straight from the service of others sounds really nice. And if you sort of like the idea of masculinity of like we're all so strong and you know, whatever, fine. But not every kid is gonna want to be an alpha-esque type of male, and dare I say it, why would we want every kid to be an alpha-esque type of anything, right? You know, the world needs all sorts, and I also think even if you are 100% signed up to the idea of strength in the service of others, the more important question is where is your kid's strength going to be? Because some kids feel strong because they do good at school, some kids feel strong because they're great on the sports pitch, some kids feel strong because their mates button funny or whatever. But your kid does need to feel strong at something, and it may be the strength that's meaningful for them is not the strength you were looking for. And you need to understand which bit your child feels proud of. Because, as I said earlier, you know, in this conversation, if you cut that bit off, you know, if they are really proud of how strong their friendships are, or you know, how well they're doing in a particular online game or whatever, if you just cut that off totally, what are you leaving your kid with? And how are you going to help them build their strength in a way that they can feel proud of elsewhere?

Oh, I love that. And I think noticing the child you have, not the child you thought you were going to have or that you want them to be. And noticing their strengths gives them almost a sheet of armour. You know, when you say, you know, you're really good at this, and I I regularly notice things that my daughters do, and I say, you know, other adults find that really hard. That's a really interesting thing that you can do there, because those are the things that give them the feedback that make them think, oh, I'm I'm good at this, like I can do this. And then that fills up their knowing cup of of what they're good at. And those are little things, and we can notice them in a way that other people won't. I mean, the teachers will notice other things, which is great. Their friends will notice other things, but the people who love them most, who are in their home, are the people that they're really looking to to admire and notice things about them. I couldn't agree more. What's interesting is of course you have two different people, two different viewpoints. We've sort of talked a bit about Dr. Sachs. What about being good enough? You made a point to me, which was if we don't define what good enough is, then we're going to hold ourselves to unreachable standards. Can you talk a bit more about that?

Yeah, I I'm very pro good enough parenting, very pro it for all sorts of reasons. But the the challenge of signing up to it as a model is what does good enough even look like? Because brilliant is much easier to define than good enough, because brilliant is just, well, I'll just be the best I can possibly imagine. That's kind of like a you know, a much easier viewable thing.

But also, can we just like what is that? Well, troops, exactly.

Yeah, because actually one of the so I do quite a lot of work with you know very ambitious, very aspirational people who often have very, very, very low self-esteem because their kind of template for you know, brilliant is like the best possible version of absolutely everything, you know, all in the pot at once. And it's sort of like it's it's clear, but it's not necessarily fully cashed out in their mind as to how completely unrealistic and you know, above and beyond what's necessary it is. But the challenge with good enough is if I'm thinking, right, do you know what my parent, you know, my kids just need to be sort of like clean in a good enough way, like where do you actually draw the boundary line? You know, do I nag them to you know be in the shower for this length of time or you know, that, you know, whatever, when you're actually trying to kind of center in on where do I stop, where do I settle? That's really difficult because particularly if you want to be a good parent, you don't want to settle too low. So I think it does need a bit of thought about actually what are the thresholds you're chasing, what are the values you're trying to live up to? Are they realistic? And why are you settling there rather than somewhere else? Because if we don't invest in kind of thinking about that intentionally, the chances are we're just going to feel a nagging sense of failure that we're just not doing as well as the person who looks a bit more shiny over there.

But as people who listen to this podcast regularly, you will know that values are an absolute bedrock for my thinking. And I've actually been creating a course about values and how you figure out what your values are and then how you apply them to your parenting. That's soon to come. Um, I think what's really interesting about this problem is that when we're younger or we're thinking about having a family, we very often have this shiny idea of what we're going to be. And we we'll see people who go, Oh, I'm gonna be like that. Um, I'm gonna be the parent that has Eileen Goo, who's the American freestyle skier and incredible, most amazing girl. And we have these ideas that are absolutely different to who we are and the background we've come from. So we then when we try to be a parent, and it's sort of the wheels start coming off, and we're thinking, oh, well, I was going to be this parent, and I'm not, what's going wrong? Is that we're being unrealistic about what's achievable for one human being in the background and the setting that they are operating. So we have to be much kinder to ourselves and more honest about what we're capable of. So I would love to be one, you know, certain kind of parent, but I that's not achievable for me because it's not in my DNA. You know, I can't be a super, super tidy parent. I'd love to be a super tidy parent who's super organized, and I'm not. And that's okay because I can't suddenly transplant my entire personality and I have other things to offer. So I think it's also about getting realistic about what we have as a template for what is a perfect or a good parent, and then going, well, how realistic is that for for who I am? And that's the parent I came from.

I think I think the two really practical things that can help here is to be really alert to the glitches that take place in the human brain, right? So, you know, glitch number one is that our ideal template is always unrealistic. It's always the best moments of absolutely everyone. And no one ever delivers on their ideal. They can't, right? Because it's ideal. And sometimes when I'm working with parents, I say, well, for you to feel at peace with how good a parent you are, what conditions would you have to fulfil? And when they actually put out on the table all the things that they would have to do to get rid of that nagging doubt, it's actually quite reassuring because when you put it out, you suddenly realize, but no one's ever going to be able to do all these things. So, you know, kind of first thing is just notice how idealistic the ideal template is. But the second thing, I quite often say, you know, if you're worried you're not good enough, what's the fear? What's the problem that you're trying to avoid in all of this kind of attempt to be a better parent? And we often don't verbalize our fears either. And as a result, what happens is the brain kind of catastrophizes them. So I hear all the time when I'm working with parents who are worried about the grades their kids are going to get, you know, but if they don't do well, he's gonna end up flipping burgers. You would be amazed at how often I hear that. And I say, okay, I totally get the fact that you fear an idea that your kid is going to, you know, not have the adult existence you're hoping for. But let's just pause. What would have to be true for that feared outcome to actually happen? And if we notice how unrealistic our ideal is, and we actually see how far away our fear is, then we realise we've actually got all of this room between those two things. That's all this room for maneuver in the middle, where you are probably unproblematically realistically normal and human in your parenting, i.e., you're not hitting the ideal, but you are definitely above the feared outcome.

Yeah. I've talked before about being a concierge and just filling in all the gaps and doing too much where, you know, we have to stop and say, what skill am I taking away from my child here? What would they learn if I if I allowed them to do this for themselves? Because those skills are really, really important. And every time we do that, they don't learn those skills. So that gives me a relief. I'm like, oh, I don't have to do that, because actually it's really good for them. But the other thing I had um the other day was a perfect example of how hard it is to get this right. Because my daughter went to Reading Festival for four days. She's 18, she's fine, you know, and she was allowed this. And then she came back, and the next day she went out clubbing with her friend to celebrate his 18th birthday. It was a gift to him. So, you know, even though I said to her, Is that really a good idea? She went, No, no, no, because I promised him and I've given them the option, but he's good. Anyway, the day after that, after this five-day binge, um, she came downstairs in tears, like, Oh, mommy, I think I've got meningitis. And it was really one of those horrible moments because meningitis has flared up in the UK. It's very scary. Children die, and they have died. And so I'm looking at her, I felt her forehead, it's not that bad. And um, you know, and and she's like, I need to go to a hospital to get some treatment, and it's late at night. And I started putting my shoes on thinking, oh my goodness. And this is a child where, you know, one time she'll scream and there's nothing wrong. Another time she'll scream and she's basically broken her ankle, you know, and it's very hard when you've got these kids who don't know which one it is. My husband just stepped in and said, Can we just have a conversation about what's going on here? Um, darling, what you had is a hangover, and I there have been many times in my life when I I thought I was going to die. The best thing you can do is go to bed, take a paracetamol, and just get drink some water. I just was so grateful to him for that moment where he stepped in and stop me being the parent that was terrified and where you you do something with that you know in your heart of hearts isn't the isn't necessarily what needs to be done, but you think, but if I don't do this, then it could be catastrophic. And that's where it's difficult, isn't it? All parents struggle with this stuff where, you know, you know, what are the headlines going to be when my I didn't take my child in to the hospital? Yeah. And then the hospital's full of parents who are overly worried and the children who've just got a headache and a and a hangover, right? It it's a very, very difficult I I understand it's a very difficult line to tread, isn't it?

It is, it really is, because you know, we're all so desperate to avoid the horrific extreme circumstance that we can end up swooping into soon. So I remember a friend who, you know, her daughter was 10 or 11 and she wanted to walk to school on her own. And to walk to school was walking along a straight road, crossing no roads, it was like a wash with primary school kids. You know, you could not have asked for a safer walk to school. And the parent was really nervous about letting her daughter do this. And I said to her, What's the fear here? She said, I just couldn't bear the guilt if anything happened to her.

Yeah.

And I said, I I hear you. I totally hear how kind of difficult this fear is to carry. But the fact is the odds are really, really, really, really small. And at the same time, what you've got is a guaranteed outcome if you don't let her walk to school that she feels you don't trust her and you think she's incapable of walking down the road on her own. And that's not a great message for a kid either. So, you know, I have done sleepless nights, like I have done lying awake, you know, when my kids are out. Are they going to be home on time? You know, you know that the clock is ticking. Like I feel it, I feel the fear, but I have to keep saying to myself, there are two things that you use to measure risk. Like one is the severity of the outcome you're thinking about, and the second is its likelihood. And I just tell myself I have to do the maths. I have to actually pause and think to myself, right, I am terrified that my son is lying in a pool of blood, you know, on the street somewhere. Of course I am, but the likelihood is incredibly low, and therefore I have to run the maths. And, you know, the other thing of him feeling that I don't trust him at all, that feels like less severe in the short term, but the likelihood is absolutely guaranteed. And I think when we actually pause and force ourselves to quantify risks a bit, then we can be a bit more measured in how we handle them. Because unfortunately, if we parent like we think disaster is literally about to happen any moment, our children are going to be fearful.

Now, Catherine, I know you're gonna have to go, so just quickly, because I could talk to you all day. I let's quickly just touch on the messy bedrooms saga because I loved Dr. Tora Porter's point that um everybody thinks their child has the messiest bedroom. And I I just want to say, I do have a child who has the messiest bedroom. As she was growing up, it would make me, you know, I'd be absolutely panicking about it. I'd be trying to get on her about it, trying to discuss it with her. I then ducked back and thought, come on, you know, what am I trying to achieve here? Close the door. And then I would have conversations with her about how it felt. And I discovered that if it was too tidy, she felt like it wasn't cozy. And then we had conversations about how she could make it cosier, and we were slowly sort of inching towards how do we do this. But what's extraordinary is as she's got older, she has become, after you know, gentle conversations, reminding her how of how good it feels to be organized and all that sort of stuff, she is now self-correcting. She is now at the weekend, she'll go, right, I'm gonna tidy up my bedroom, I'm going to change my bedlin, and I'm going to, you know, put all the cups and things downstairs. And it's it's a very different scenario. So I want to give parents faith that even if you have the child whose bedroom literally is a bomb site, if you just keep gently supporting them in figuring this stuff out, you will shift that dial, but they're never going to be the tidest child in the planet. What are your thoughts?

There is a there's a lovely idea that comes back into my mind at moments like this. Um, and it's an idea I heard a very experienced headmaster say once to a set of parents, and he said, Don't make the mistake of confusing your teenage child with the adult they will be. Oh, yes, it's a lovely idea. Such a lovely idea because there's all sorts of space in between. But I think when it comes to things like messy bedrooms or you know, it's a bit like the whole kind of bed sharing thing, right? You know, when kids are little, like should you share a bed with your kid or not? And you know, when my kids were little, everyone was like, Oh, if you share a bed with your children, you know, they won't learn to be independent. And I was like, Well, they're probably they're three, but they don't need to be, you know, independent. Um, that I always come back to, you know, what problem are you trying to solve? But when does it need to be solved by and why? Because things like the bed sharing, like obviously you don't want an 18-year-old kid sleeping with their mum, like that would be really weird. But actually, that solving of the bed sharing is not a problem that needs to be solved when they're three. And the messy bedroom, it's not a problem that has to be solved when they're 12 either. Like, what you really want is you don't want your child to live in filth as an adult, like that's fair enough. But kind of thinking when does it need to be solved by just kind of eases it off a bit. And then when you get into the why, it's even more interesting because actually, is the messy bedroom a problem that needs to be solved because you, the parent, mind about it in your house? And if so, actually, if as an adult they had a house that was less tidy than yours, is that is that a huge problem? And therefore, I think just running whatever our kind of fears or our you know, our kind of ticks are through that really robust process of when does this need to be fixed and why, it helps us pick our battles because there are bigger battles to pick than a messy bedroom. I mean, you don't want mold growed up the walls, but you know, equally a few pants on the floor, like teenagers up and down the country have pants on the floor, and exactly as you know, Tara said, the fact is when their mates start coming over or a girlfriend or a boyfriend arrives, so actually magically it all gets that bedroom will probably smart itself up, you know.

Brilliant. Catherine, thank you so much for giving us so much of your time. I really, really appreciate it. Absolutely wonderful advice there. Um, if you found any of this useful, ping a friend with it right now. Let other people know, other people at school, people in your friendship group, anyone who's struggling a bit with trying to be too perfect or they're struggling with a boy who seems to be apathetic, it can help anybody. Uh, email me teenagersuntangled at gmail.com. All the links to Catherine's details are in the podcast notes. She has a fantastic sub stack with loads and loads of great advice, so make sure you click through to that. Have a great week. Bye bye.