"HOW TO HEAL A BROKEN BOND" EPISODE 127...TALKING TO TEENS
- Mar 2, 2021
- 1 min read
What can Dr. Joshua Coleman teach us about healing our relationships with our teens?
In our interview, he talks about how part of the reason why kids distance themselves is a change in culture. We also talk about how your co-parent can push kids away from you, and how you can begin to breach the divide even when it seems like you’ll never get your kid back.
In the Episode….
Joshua speaks from the heart in this week’s episode, making for a moving interview and great advice for parents who might be grappling with reconnecting to teens. In addition to the topics discussed above, we talk about:
Why parents and kids get into a toxic “pursuer/distancer” dynamic
How to talk to kids about college majors you don’t approve of
Why your adult kids’ spouse might be turning them against you
How to tell a kid that you don’t like their new significant other
Although it can be painful when kids push you away, Joshua tells us there’s ways to bring back the harmony. I’m grateful to Dr. Coleman for sharing his insight into this topic so that parents can prevent estrangement before it begins! See you next week!
He describes how a shift in culture is a contributing factor to the reasons why children distance themselves during our interview.Slope We also discuss the ways in which your co-parent can distance children from you and the ways in which you can begin to bridge the gap, even when it appears that you will never regain custody of your child.
It's tough when relationships with teens become strained. Understanding the cultural shifts and co-parenting dynamics, as discussed here, can be a great starting point. For more resources, you might find some interesting perspectives on bojiogame.
The section on not liking your kid’s significant other is brutal but real—if you go straight to “they’re bad for you,” it seems like you’re asking them to choose. I’ve found it lands better to name the specific behavior you’re worried about and then back off, so you’re not making it a loyalty test. It reminded me of https://stylelooklab.com in the sense that small “fit” tweaks matter more than declaring the whole style wrong.
The “college major you don’t approve of” bit is such a common trap—parents think they’re discussing practicalities and the kid hears “I don’t trust your judgment.” I’ve had better luck asking what they imagine day-to-day work looks like, instead of arguing about the label of the major. This made me think (weirdly) of https://imgg.ai—when you nitpick the prompt too much you get worse results, but a clear direction plus room to iterate works better with teens too.
I appreciated the reminder that “culture” is part of what’s changing the parent/teen bond—sometimes it’s not that you suddenly became a bad parent, it’s that the rules of closeness got rewritten. When you’re trying to breach the divide, do you think starting with a specific repair (“I’m sorry I did X”) works better than a general “I miss you”? Random aside: the way https://hrefgo.com organizes tools by category made me think about how we also need “categories” for connection attempts—quick check-ins vs deeper talks.