4: Phones. Does your teen have a camera on their phone and have you talked with them about the issues? Also, money and how to increase responsibility using an allowance.

Rachel Richards: 0:02

Hello, I'm Rachel Richards, and welcome to teenagers untangled where we combine research by experts and ideas from other parents to solve your problems. As a parenting coach, I saw the incredible power of getting people together to share ideas and support each other. So, welcome. Pull up a chair. And let's begin. Coming up in this podcast we discuss Mark's question about money. His teenager is asking for an allowance but his dad says he's already spending a fortune on him that he doesn't seem to appreciate. To discuss this, I'm joined by Susie azulene, mindfulness coach and mum to three teenagers Hi, Susie. Hi there. But first, our teenagers are growing up in a world of tick tock, YouTube, and Instagram. These places are full of barely dressed people talking freely about body positivity and sex. Porn is easily accessible without device filters. So it's hardly surprising that they might have a different view of what's acceptable to someone, for example, who's my age. In fact, the digital changes have been so rapid that even my 27 year old stepdaughter sometimes shrugs and says she feels old. In our last episode, we talked about consensual sex between 16 year olds. So what about sexting, which is the sending, receiving or forwarding of sexually explicit photographs, or images of oneself? Now, here's what's confusing. 16 year old is the consensual age for sex. In the UK, in the eyes of the law, any sexual images of a person under 18 are deemed child pornography. And that's even when the person sending them is the Creator. What do you think Susie? Did you talk to your teenagers about sexting? how prevalent it is? And yeah,

Susie Asli: 1:45

I mean, I have 214 year olds and almost 17 year old and I did, knowing I was doing this podcast with you about sexting, I did have a conversation with them, all of them. And they surprised me in a way. And we've talked about it a lot recently. They were like, Well, why would you do that? We know that you shouldn't, so we don't so if you did, that would be daft. And then the conversation felt quite closed, which was really interesting. They've just been told, almost indoctrinated, do not do.

Rachel Richards: 2:14

And it was that something you discussed with them?

Susie Asli: 2:17

Yeah, I did discuss it with them quite a while ago, there was an incident at their school, which kind of exploded as they do. And somebody had shared something, which is always the problem. And we discussed it then and school have discussed it various times. And they seem to have just understood that do not do.

Rachel Richards: 2:35

It's so interesting, because my daughter had a class at school, where they were teaching about sexting and the person running it said, so Can anybody think of a reason why you shouldn't sext? And there was silence. And she put her hand up and said, because it's illegal at our age. And she said, there were a few what, what, what? And she said, you could just look around and see who'd been doing it and hadn't realized. And that, to me says that perhaps that school, there hadn't been an incident of, you know, outing someone who done this, but it was clear that that had happened, that discussion was happening happening later than it should in a sense, and it's hard for schools, I think, to judge exactly when you should start talking about this, which is why it's important for us parents at home to be having these conversations.

Susie Asli: 3:26

Yeah. And the age thing that surprised me, I presumed it was 16. But 18. I mean, the difference between 16 and 18 is huge.

Rachel Richards: 3:34

And here, in terms of the facts, I looked at research compiled by culture framed.org, which is an organization that's trying to educate parents about our hyper sexualized society, they have a course that you can do for free. And they say that one in seven, under 18 year olds sends sex messages, while one in four receives them to think about that ratio in your child's class. That is huge. It's huge, isn't it? And, and here's the scary bit, one in eight who have received a message say they sent it to others without the sender's consent. Now, it's a very interesting example that happened this holiday where a boy who's a friend of my daughter's who's just a lovely boy, and they've always had a really good relationship, sent her this this picture, which was of his torso, and it was slightly suggestive. And she was shocked because she wasn't, that's not their relationship. And the thing is, if I had that tool, so I'd be sending it to other people, because it's a great tool. So but what what if she laughed? Because she was shocked and then showed it to all of us. So this is a room of quite a few people. And what was happening there I think was he was trying to sort of move the relationship into a different area, different space. She's not ready and or doesn't want that. But in showing it to us, first of all, he probably doesn't know that when he sent that we all saw that picture. And thankfully, it wasn't anything we should worry about. It was very innocent in a way. But I said to her, Oh, my goodness, you know, to screenshot it, and she said, No, mommy, I can't do that. It's on Snapchat, you know, it tells you if you've been screenshot it, and I said, Oh, okay. I pulled out my phone and took a photo of it without asking her. And she said, Oh, no, you can't do that. And I said, obviously, I'm going to delete it. But I just want you to see how easy it is shocking, right? So I now have a photo. To me, he didn't send it to me. Everybody in the room has seen it. So imagine if that was something a bit more personal. And he's in his world, and hasn't really thought about what's happening in your world. So this was a very good, good example from my children. And those are sweet exchanges. Just to be clear, what's scary, is that girls are increasingly being groomed to do this, in 2020, the Internet Watch Foundation, which is the organization that I will link in the podcast information, because they are tasked with taking down these images that have been uploaded into it and shared around when people don't want them shared, they confirmed that 68,000 cases of self generated imagery had to be taken down in 2020. And here's the worst thing about it. In 80% of those cases, the victims were 11 to 13 year old girls, that's just which is Mind Mind blowing. So actually, your children are beyond that age group. And it seems to me that these are particularly vulnerable years, because we think our children are still quite innocent. And perhaps we're not having those conversations with them earlier. We need to start earlier, we need to start you give them a phone and an ability to take a photo. They need to understand what that entails. Yes. So the next question is, why are they sexting? Why are they doing this, Susie?

Susie Asli: 7:06

So research shows us that can be seeking someone's approval, there's a long distance or an online relationship where there's a desire to have a sexual relationship, feeling confident in their looks they want to share with other people, which is what happened. And yes, yeah. And that's kind of fun, isn't it? It's just a way of sharing peer pressure. Perhaps they're feeling pressure to sex as a way of proving their sexuality or perhaps as a result of harassment threats, or blackmail, which is, of course, a little bit more sinister.

Rachel Richards: 7:34

That's a really good point, Susie, because the research that I saw says that less than 8% of young women who send nude pics, actually want to do it. It's very upsetting. Yeah. So I suppose the question is, what do we do, and we need to talk to our children, both to protect them from creating the images. But also, so they're, they're not going to be viewed as sex offenders in the eyes of the law. Because I know, I mean, I, when my children were in that age group, that's 11 to 13 year old age group, my daughter came to me and said, Oh, my God, I've just seen this boy asking for nudes. Now, he shouldn't be doing that. And does he know he shouldn't be doing that, and what the consequences of that are, and in a way to protect our children, the advice is to actually just take an interest in their online life. So rather than letting them have fun, and you know, and then trying to monitor it, perhaps what we should be doing is having organic conversations about you know, what they post about themselves? Where they post it, do they posted their feelings online? What sites do they post on? What draws them there? And and what kind of attention are they looking for what what matters what you know, why do they need to do these things? And not in a accusative ways, just this kind of art? So, you know, what do you say? And how much information are you giving? So that they know where the where the the borders are?

Susie Asli: 9:08

Yeah, that gives them also an idea of what what they're using the social media afford, isn't it there's a really good awareness with this because it is so black and white being black and white with it early and and separating it and we've talked about this earlier, you know, separating, it's the law is very black and white, in this case, don't do it. You know, the really simple messaging, just don't take these pictures. And for goodness sake, don't send them but then separating that which I think is really important from what they're doing, which is simply being natural, young people who are curious about their sexuality and curious about the other sexes, bits, you know, they want to see is the whole you know, you show me yours. I'll show you mine behind the bike sheds, but that was never photographed. The problem is that digitalization of it, the problem isn't the curiosity and The excitement about it.

Rachel Richards: 10:02

And I think as soon as you start shaming them about it, they shut off and they will withdraw from you. And they may do things that, you know, we don't want. My message to my children would be, by all means, my own experiment. But it's better to do it in person. Yes. Show them your boobs in a rumor. Once they've handed that image to somebody else, they've lost control. They have literally no, it's no longer there's

Susie Asli: 10:26

so it's like a double edged thing really, isn't it to be really, really clear, and, and emphasize the seriousness of the digitalization of these images and the sharing of it because they can have hideous consequences, you know, rightly or wrongly, that is how the law is right now. But keeping light and beautiful the parts that are just natural curiosity for somebody else's body,

Rachel Richards: 10:52

and start those conversations really young, because I knew that I was quite explorative, below the age of 10. But I was doing it around my friends houses. And I think my parents didn't even think that I might be interested in some of the boys genitals, but for me, it was just fun. Yeah, and unfortunately, we've you know, particularly with lockdown, we've shot our children in rooms, we've given them digital devices. And, and clearly, we've let the wolf into the room,

Susie Asli: 11:20

and doing it within a context of of not shaming, because whenever shame is involved, which it often is in subjects like this, then that's immediate shutdown, you know, not sure I understand. Yeah, oh, you're you know, making them feel wrong for showing their bodies. And then that's, that can have, you know, huge consequences of how they feel about their bodies and how they feel about themselves in a social setting.

Rachel Richards: 11:42

I always like to talk about rather than saying, Don't do this, I like to say so this was what might happen. So I would say you've got a beautiful body and you would you show it to a boy you really liked. Yes, why not? Think you know, you couldn't, you could have so much fun. It's like a playground. But would you then go and show it to every boy in your school? Yes, no, of course you wouldn't? Well, that's what could happen. If you sent a digital image to a boy you really liked, because he may not even have control over

Susie Asli: 12:07

it. That's a really good way of expressing it to kids.

Rachel Richards: 12:11

And I think the adolescent boys must talk to them about it as well. They come under enormous pressure, sport, academics, sex, and with the sex, sometimes you get competitions who can get the most nude pics. Yeah, this is, this is a classic. You know, when my husband was, you know, at school age, boys used to you know, that the cool boys would be able to bring a stat and porn into the school and hand it round. And people, they were like, wow, you're such a God. And you know, that's not the thing now, so. So you have to accept that this could be one of the things that they're pressurized to do. And I think we need to ask our boys, you know, why would you feel entitled to demand a picture from a girl that you like? Why would you do that actually put the pressure on them to think about the consequences for either side, it happens to boys to where if they've shared an image, it could get shared around and shame them as well. So don't just think as a free pass for boys, and make them understand that this is actually a legal offense. And that it's not it's not funny, is not something to be proud of all. And if what upset me was when I found out that when a girl had been caught out, the response by other girls was Oh, my God, she's so you know, why would you do that? What a you know, what a slur, whatever? Well, actually, I pushed back and said, Don't you think you should be shaming the person who shared the photos, because this is a deeply personal thing she's done in trust. And we should be making the people who share this stuff, think twice about what they're doing,

Susie Asli: 13:46

there is still a gender bias, isn't it the unconscious bias of the boys or they're just having fun

Rachel Richards: 13:50

signs that something bad's happened, the child becomes more withdrawn, begins acting quite differently or changes in their mood and eating habits. We have to tell them that they can come to us if things go wrong, we have to say if you make a mistake, it's okay. Please, please please tell us a straightaway because we can help you

Susie Asli: 14:10

if it's done as a massive mistake from silliness in schools then then nobody wants those kids to have you know, records and note nobody wants that at all. So dealing with it in a proportionate way with you know, compassion and an educating and discussing however, of course, if it's you know, and outside predator then you know, straight to the

Rachel Richards: 14:32

predator police are the children it's finding ways of removing the images. You know, we have to stop blaming the girls who get caught out. Yeah, and start early. Start early starting early. That's the big message. Do you have experience in any of these issues? We'd love to hear from you find us on Facebook and Instagram and Susie's own website. Next, we're going to talk about money and teenagers but I just wanted to mention my experience. So after our last episode, when we were talking about conversations with our teens, and in that I mentioned Daniel Siegel's advice on having reflective conversations, which I, I never really called it that, but I found it so helpful this week my daughter was had I was take her device away from her at night and charge it up. This one particular evening, I'd spent all evening trying to fix a problem with the technology. And it got really late, I sent it to bed, I had the device, and I left it near Wi Fi so that it could update and didn't plug it in. So the next morning, she's got a device now that's 20%. And she's fuming. It's all my fault. I've just been scraping ice off the windscreen of the car, but she's not focused on that. And I, if I'm attacked, I will attack back I'm very even tempered normally, but this morning was really not I'm not a good morning person either. So instead of trying to explain to her how it had happened, which would have been quite convoluted, I simply attacked back. And the worst thing I did was, you know, trolled through the reasons why she has this phone in particular because of all the mistakes she's made in the past. And I do have an unwritten rule in the house that you want. Somebody's made a mistake, you discuss it, you know, talk about what happened and then move on. So trawling through old, old behavior is a terrible thing, because they can never move on. It's not a nice thing to do. So that you're a human being I'm a human being. So we departed in not on good terms, I said, Have a nice day. And yeah, she's on the door, and on the way home. And then for a little bit after that I just reflected on it, I thought I'm gonna have this reflective conversation where I really tried to unpack exactly what had gone on there and why it had gone wrong. And it calmed me down, because I realized that I was crossed with myself for not charging the phone because this is something that matters to her. And then everything stemmed from all these other things that I'd been doing for her, which I felt hadn't been thanked. So I then sent her a message saying I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to get cross with you. And it was because I was angry with myself. And then when she came home that evening, I then went through the stages, I'd gone with my reflective conversation about what had happened there and all the things that had caused me to let fly and said, It's really unacceptable for someone to trawl out all the old stuff, just so you know that. And it was the most helpful conversation I probably have in quite a long time, because she saw how to go through those stages. You also saw that I was genuinely sorry. And then she was genuinely mortified that I had been doing all those other things, and she'd been ungrateful. So yeah, I just wanted to mention it because they thought that this is one of those wonderful scenarios that helped me from doing this podcast. Brilliant. So now on to Mark's question, what do I do about pocket money for my teenager? He's asking for an allowance, but I already seem to be spending a fortune on him. While he doesn't really appear to understand the value of things, Suze, where are you with the whole allowances? Pocket money?

Susie Asli: 18:11

is tricky, isn't it? And when they get older, they have more. They both have more needs financially, but they also have more ability to earn money.

Rachel Richards: 18:22

Do Yes. Very good point, though. I mean, I'm my friend's daughter and son both have weekend jobs. Yeah.

Susie Asli: 18:30

Brilliant. And, you know, then do you? Do you also pay for them to do things in the house? That's a whole area itself, isn't it? You know, there's the whole Well, actually, they should be doing things because they are members of family. Why, you know, do I need to pay them to do that. But then if I pay them that's giving them an idea of you know, working for something? Well, the

Rachel Richards: 18:53

problem with that is that I have tried a little bit of that in the past, like, you know, you have to empty the dishwasher. The problem is that then they assume that that's their only job. Yes. You think well no, no, no, that is not what it takes to run a house and so in a way when you attach it to very specific things, you're then limiting yourself in terms of their responsibilities.

Susie Asli: 19:13

Absolutely totally. And then I get caught up in the whole well actually, I really want to do those things for you because it's kind of part of being a nurturing parent I you know, I want to be able to make you know bring you up a snack even though I know you can you're perfectly capable of doing it yourself or you know, put your clothes away even though if I leave them on the floor you know, you can do that yourself. Whether you choose to or not is a whole different matter. But part you know, part of it of being a nurturing mother. I like doing that but not every time so then you kind of flitting in and out a little bit. Yeah, I

Rachel Richards: 19:48

think you're further down the nurturing scale, but I think there's a massive range of options depending on your circumstances in marks scenario, we don't have the age of the teenager. But I suspect the answer needs to be very different for an 11 year old compared with, say an 18 year old. Firstly, for a lot of parents, there won't be any spare money for allowances. And many say that they expect their teenager to do jobs around the house and find work to pay for their own treats. Regardless of your financial situation, I believe it's very important that teenagers begin to understand the realities of life, how hard it can be to make money, and then how important it is to spend that money wisely. Tracy told us that she's just set up an allowance for her son, she's given him 15 pounds a week, which might sound like a lot, but it's designed to mop up any of his extra spending. And he is expected to save so that he has spending money in the holidays, Natalie changed her system giving all of her boys and allowance instead of pocket money. She says the nagging stopped, it's made a massive difference to their attitudes, they now hesitate before buying things, and are far more inclined to save up so that they can get things they really want. So in terms of what I would say to Mark, he says he's already spending a fortune on his son, well, I had this scenario, I then thought, well, if I'm spending that money already, why don't I just taught it up, and then give it to them and say that's your responsibility. Now, you manage that, because it makes them think about what they're spending, and whether the things that they normally would beg for are things they want to spend their own money on, or whether they would be better off spending that money somewhere else. So in a way, it teaches them financial responsibility and makes them think more about the value of things. So I found that that's very helpful. They got an allowance once they went to senior school. And it involves me sitting them down. And I'm quite formal about this. And I said to them, right, I'm now going to give you an allowance, here's what it includes. And I went through all the things this includes. And I said, I don't expect you to ask me for any of these things. Now, that's your responsibility. Don't come to me asking for this stuff. And I it's a headache for me, I'm not giving you this money. So you can spend it, I'm giving you this money. So you can think about it. These are like your training wheels. And what I used was a bank called revolute, which is a challenger bank, there are other banks, some people use GoDaddy, I didn't because they charge and I don't see why I should be spending money on a facility like this. Frankly, I didn't want this to turn into an advert for revolute. But what I find useful is that I can see their accounts on my app, I can put money in, and I can choose for it to go in regularly. So I don't have to think about it. I can look and see what they're spending money on. I can also withdraw money from their account, I can also set up targets, I want to encourage them to do something, I can set that up, they can ticket when they think they've done it, and then I can give them the money if I think they I agree. So it's actually very, very useful. Again, set of training wheels. The problem with it is for example, one of my daughters was talking about sheen. And I said darling don't shop with sheen, don't it's so bad for our environment, and the poor people have to make the garments. And you know, I started explaining how I felt that this was not a suitable place to be spending your money. And she noted that Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Upstairs, and the next thing, I got a ping on my phone and it was shorted. And I just thought, you know, the thing is, that I just let it go. Because I thought it's her money. Yeah. And all I can do is explain to her my values. And if she disagrees, well, you know, I'm not going to sit here and go, Well, I told you not to. So you have to let it go. It's very valuable sometimes to be able to withdraw money. For example, you remember those days when you had to pay some money. And you know, the window cleaner has been in you need some cash, and you don't have the cash. And so you can just go into your child's bedroom and going

Susie Asli: 24:04

Yeah, done that. Definitely done that.

Rachel Richards: 24:06

So but the great thing is with an app, you can just withdraw the money using the app. How cool is that? So I did that the other day. Unfortunately, I have a child who actually monitors her app. And

Susie Asli: 24:17

I really didn't want to pay for the window.

Rachel Richards: 24:21

I got an instant message saying Mommy, have you just taken money out of my account? What? I felt like a naughty child. So

Susie Asli: 24:30

we've taught her well, she's monitoring. I've taught her well.

Rachel Richards: 24:33

It's a little bit scary, but that was great. And the suit for me, it's enough for them to do things is not enough for them to not do things. So they do need to supplement it from time if they want more I can say well you can wash the car you can you know and included in that if they're sitting there and I've I cooked we've had our supper and I say right you clear up anything. I say you remember you have All these allowances, and I'm not expecting things from you, but I do expect you to contribute to the house, and then no arguments. And then the other thing I did when my one of my older children had had this for a year, was I said to her, so what about a review? And she said, What do you mean? And I said, Well, presumably you want more. And she said, Oh, I didn't want I didn't know that was an option. And I said, Uh huh. So, if you go to work, and you've been given a salary each year, you should be trying to get more. And the reason for that is number one, you're more experienced, and more useful. And number two, there's something called inflation. I love this. So I explained what index linking is. And that if you get given 10 pounds this year, and inflation goes up by three pounds, so 3%, then your 10 pounds has now declined in value. So unless you start making sure you are keeping up, you're now reducing your salary. For me, this is an important training ground, this is a way to develop responsible adults who think about the various issues involved in in money.

Susie Asli: 26:17

I need to write these down and do this.

Rachel Richards: 26:20

So my daughter, she said, Okay, Sir, can I have some more money? And I said, No, you have to ask for it formally. And she went, what? And I said, Yeah, so we'll have a review on your performance I've given you this money to for you to learn how to manage it. So let's have a conversation about how well you've managed it. Those are the parameters I've set. And you can ask for more. She said, Well, can we do it on WhatsApp? I said, No, you can't. And she hated it. Absolutely. It was she was tearful. And I said, I'm going to force you to do this. Because I don't want the first time you do this to be in a work environment where you're being evaluated. I'd like you to gain a sense of your own worth, in an environment where I care about you, because at work, they may not, they may be trying to push back as much as possible. So so we went through this negotiation, and she told me what she think, thought she had achieved. And then I said, right now I'm going to tell you, and I praised her for all the amazing things she'd done. And she was shocked. And I said, No, no, I mean, I think this is incredible what you've managed to achieve with your money. And he you know, I can't actually fault it. It's been incredible, you know, and that may not be the same with the other one. But, you know, I said, so I don't have really any particular goals. I think you've done really well. So then she was thinking, what do I get for that? And I said, I don't know, what do you want? And she hadn't prepared. So I said, we'll stop this now. Go away and prepare. So she came back and tried negotiating and asking for more money. Yeah. And I said, I prepared to give you this much more, but it's not very much. And she went, Okay, okay. And I said, Oh, my God. They said, The point about a negotiation is don't make it just about one thing. Don't make it just about the money. Because if your employer can't give you any more money, then you That's it. Yeah, you're stuck, come to the table with other things to offer and a workplace may have medical healthcare, they may have longer holidays, I don't know, you know, you need to think about all the possible scenarios that are available in a workplace and also in the home. So what could I give you that would be valuable to you, but doesn't require me to give you more money?

Susie Asli: 28:38

Brilliant, what did she say?

Rachel Richards: 28:40

What lifts places? She wanted me to pay for hairdresser appointment, which anyway does involve more money, but it was sort of a different thing and some products that she values but no, so we I can't remember there were other things and yeah, more freedom, a bit more freedom, freedom, by your freedom. So you know what this is? This is something to teach our children that when you negotiate it's not that people always focus on these these narrow things like your grades or your just money. But let's try and get our children children to think creatively about what is out there and what we really want as human beings.

Susie Asli: 29:29

I think that's brilliant. I hugs Can I rethink my financial things?

Rachel Richards: 29:34

You can you can ask the children to cook. Yes. Well, you can ask them you know, to cook a meal once a week. You can ask that they can ask you to cook meals that they particularly like part of the negotiate. So as adults, we have to think creatively about what we can put in that mix. About the things we'd like our children to do to get better at. Yeah, focus on

Susie Asli: 29:54

you know what, what does it take to earn 10 pounds it's not just 10 pounds. 10 pounds is is a lot of work, you know, that's really, really important. Yes,

Rachel Richards: 30:03

yes, absolutely. And then they get really bored. And you say, Well, that's what you do if you don't have means to, you know, get a better job.

Susie Asli: 30:12

So maybe you didn't really need that burger. You know, maybe, maybe maybe that 10 pounds wasn't well spent

Rachel Richards: 30:18

taking a sandwich from home. Yeah. Do you have any examples of things you've done and give us your creative ideas about how to manage your child's finances? You know, are there particular apps you use banks that you found were more helpful than others? We'd love to hear all your suggestions. Next time we discuss what to do about academic motivation, and dealing with a child who might not be particularly academic, and seems to be struggling at school, where it's always prioritized. And our listener question was, my teenager is highly musical. But she's told me she wants to give up playing the piano agreed for I'm so upset about it, because whenever she seems to be good at something, she goes just so far, and then gives up and wants to hang out with her friends. If you have any thoughts about this. Have you had experience of a teenager giving up before you felt that they should? How did you motivate them to continue? Did you say okay, it's your life, you can do what you want. We'd love to hear from you. That's it. For now. All the information we've talked about is on our podcast notes. in them. You can also find a link to Susie's new online course teaching the skills of mindfulness help for teenagers or one to one coaching. Thanks for listening. You can find our discussions on social media. Don't forget to subscribe to our podcast and tell your friends bye for now. Bye for now.