The science behid why pushing our kids doesn't help them in the long run.

One of the most difficult things about parenting nowadays is knowing exactly what to expect of my kids. Should I set the bar high? If I do that will I make them even more stressed than your average stressed kid? Is stress really such a bad thing? What about if I tell them I don’t mind what they do? Will they feel I don’t care and then drift?

I see so many parents struggling with where to set their expectations, and in response I have created an episode, written a blog and interviewed both Dr David Yeager and Dr Rebecca Winthrop who were both enormously helpful in explaining how to do it well.

As a result of my research I’ve never pushed my kids. We focused on effort, never grades. We never gave them extra tuition unless they specifically struggled with something, we didn’t force them to do any extra curriculars, we secured them a good education and scaffolded their learning using all of the things I talk about in my podcast.

If you’re a long-time listener you’ll know that it hasn’t been an easy ride, (I think when people make it look easy they’re simply good at hiding the struggles) but I want to reassure you that building the connection with your kid, and mentoring them rather than pushing, is definitely the path to success.

What do I mean by success?

On paper, my 18 year old is ticking all of the traditional boxes and excelling at the highest level, but way more importantly to me she has developed her own inner compass; she feels capable of navigating the world without succumbing to too much stress. If I were to die tomorrow, I feel certain that she has the tools she needs to cope in a healthy way and, hilariously, she is now starting to parent me back. This is all I could have dreamed of.

My youngest was more of a conundrum. She’s a bright, warm, funny, audacious girl in a school system that wasn’t built to make the most of her neurodivergence. Figuring out how to support her has been a bumpy journey in which I made many, many mistakes.

Looking back, I know that pretty much all of my errors came about because the current parenting mantras send mixed messages about how to support our kids. As Dr David Yeager explains, I was wearing the lens that said this teenager was neurobiologically incompetent, (because of early struggles to read and coordinate) so I adopted the Protector Mindset. I set the bar too low and provided too much ‘support’ ; I was doing too much for her, inadvertently sending the message that she couldn’t do things herself. She became highly resistent to any help, and also to education.

Luckily, neuroscience has come on in leaps and bounds and we now have increasingly reliable data on what’s really happening in the teenage brain. Teens aren’t incompetent; far from it. The ‘stupid’ things they do are perfectly logical when we understand what’s motivating them.

The big issue is that we’re often obsessed with the idea that they should be motivated to study and do well at school. They, on the other hand, have far more important developmental issues to contend with, most of which cluster around gaining status and respect amongst their peers.

When Dr William Stixrud - clinical neuropsychologist - and Ned Johnson - teen tutor - teamed up to write The Self-Driven Child it was because they had seen that a lack of control was cropping up everywhere as a major problem for teens. According to Ned

‘You can summarize what’s stressful with the acronym NUTS:

N is for Novelty

U is for Unpredictability

T is for Threat

S is for Sense of Control

Looking at that list it’s hardly surprising that moving up to senior school can feel so stressful for our kids.

It’s not just teens though. As Ned pointed out, one of the most stressful experiences for any human is being put in a challenging situation over which they have very little control.

Which sets up a problem for us parents.

We want control, because it’s stressful when we don’t have it, so we try to control our kids. Funnily enough, our kids want control for the same reasons. We say, ‘Well, I know better, so I need to be in charge and tell you what to do.’ But as the eminent headmaster and educational thinker Sir Anthony Seldon pointed out at a conference I attended, education comes from the Latin ‘educare’ which is a drawing out of understanding. Instead, we parents and schools tend to try and ‘fill up’ our kids. You see the difference?

When we take the position of the person who knows what’s good for our child, and begin micromanaging anything; their homework, their sports, their friendships, we remove their sense of control.

Ned recommends we focus instead on the vital role of creating a safe emotional base at home; something we talk about all the time on the podcast.

This is exactly what Elaine Taylor-Klaus talked about in our interview on supporting complex kids who’re neurodivergent. Demonstrating to them a belief that they can tackle the problems they face until they have developed that ability, rather than panicking and giving them the impression that they can’t. This is a mistake I made a lot in the past. When I changed, and began telling my daughter ‘I know you can do it, you just need practice’ she began to really blossom.

Scaffolding our kids with routine, a safe space to talk about their fears and problems where they won’t be judged, and the opportunity to make their own mistakes is setting them up for resilience. One of the most incredible statements made by Ned was based on research done on rats where both were being shocked but one could stop the shock whilst the other had no control. The one with no control ended up as a basket case, whilst the one who experienced control became resilient.

Now that’s the sort vaccination that’s definitely worth having.

Getting back to success, it’s taken my youngest longer to find her path, but when I stopped surrounding her with people telling her what to do, and doing things for her, the real progress began.

She took a year out of schooling at the age of 16 and all bets were off. The only requirements were that she had to be employed, and had to study. That year has been the most important year of her life. She has toyed with all sorts of versions of who she might be, and tuned into what she really wants out of life. This September she went back to college to study, because it’s what she wants. She has stopped resisting any support because I’ve learned how to scaffold rather than intrude. Every time she does anything good I point out to her how much it is down to her taking control of what she wants. When things go wrong she now takes complete accountability.

In short, she has gone from (what Dr Rebecca Winthrop and Jenny Anderson in their brilliant book The Disengaged Teen describe as) Passenger Mode, through Resister Mode, and has now found her Explorer Mode. She’s a fully realised self-driven teenager and that is what I consider success.

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I’ll leave you with a practical tip:

A parent recently told me she had just clicked that it’s OK to not have an answer. I’d go one step further. It’s vital to not have an answer. Our job is to listen and ask questions that help our child find their answer. To do that we need to aim at being curious and understanding, not judging. We’re trying to build skills they can use for the rest of their life, not dependency.

If you think you might have a good suggestion ask “Would you like help?” or “I have an idea, would you like to hear it?” Don’t take it personally if they’re not interested or not ready to listen.

• Adolescents need to feel they can influence their lives.

• Parents should act as consultants, not managers.

• Offer choices instead of dictating solutions.

• Trust that teens definitely want their lives to work out more than they probably show.

For more on the science behind the positive effects of doing nothing, and why allowing your kids to obsess over their hobbies is the key to success, listen to the episode or subscribe for the explanation