Are you parenting out of fear? How much does this fear cost you and your child in energy, decision-making, and self-confidence? As a seasoned life leadership and success coach and a mother to three young adults, I, Renee, will guide you through these complexities. We'll unravel the intricacies of the fear-based mindset in parents and children alike, and navigate the delicate balance between fear and safety in decision-making. We'll take a hard look at the unspoken realities and anxieties of raising teenagers, and how these deeply affect their relationships and outlook.
The path to empowering your child and overcoming a fear-based mindset is no easy feat, but together we can tread this journey. We'll examine how this mindset impacts your child’s decision-making, relationships, self-confidence, and overall perspective. I'll provide practical tools and resources, like the summer coaching programs and the Better Connect Parent Collective, to bolster your child’s self-belief. By the end of our discussion, you’ll be more prepared to guide your teenager towards empowered decision-making, breaking free from the chains of a fear-based mindset. Let's explore the world of empowered parenting together!
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SOCIALS:
If you are looking for extra support, please don't hesitate to reach out. Send Renee an email at renee@teenesteemacademy.com
IMPORTANT FACEBOOK UPDATE: My FB was hacked recently, so there is not as much content as previously. I have created a new profile and FB community but it's acting up again. I've also got content on INSTAGRAM, YOUTUBE, and most recently, PINTEREST.
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OTHER HAPPENINGS:
UNLEASH CONFIDENCE and BOLSTER CONNECTION [For Teens, Tweens, and their Parents]
A hybrid journey for teens and tweens to ACTIVATE Self-Awareness, Self-Acceptance, Self-BELIEF, and Self-CONFIDENCE
Improve attitude so there is less arguing and conflict within the home
Let go of mom guilt and 24/7 worry, sleepless nights, and feeling like you are walking on eggshells
This journey be done solo-journey (with parent guidance of course), or with the added support of our teen/tween weekly catch up calls. Group coaching is a powerful modality of support for both teens and parents, as it helps you to feel like you are not the only one going through stuff!
UNLEASH CONFIDENCE BOLSTER CONNECTION for teens and tweens is our empowering SEL-inspired system, created specifically for this age group to Activate Confidence (the end result) through 3 powerful modules.
UNLEASH CONFIDENCE BOLSTER CONNECTION PARENT is an opportunity for you to get your questions and concerns answered on our weekly parent calls.
This journey is best suited for those between (11-15), though the content is relevant to all ages.
BETTER CONNECT MINDSET MASTERY
TEA's ongoing Parent Group separate from Rise Confident, but available as an add-on or as a stand-alone journey.
This is an opportunity to access a one-of-a-kind program, rooted in Energy Leadership that you can either work at your own pace (as it is a self-mastery program you will have lifetime access to), or join us for our weekly calls. 🙂
By the end of your journey I can all but guarantee that the lens through which you view the world and yourself will be different.
Speaker 1:
Welcome to the Empowered Parent Podcast with Renee. Being a teenager is hard. Being a parent of a teenager can be even harder. Each episode we deliver tips, tools, tricks and stories to help you feel empowered, confident and energized as the parents of a teenager. Teenagers want to be happy. Sometimes they just need a little help along the way. Now here's your host, renee Sinning. Renee is a certified life leadership and success coach for teenagers and their parents. She's also a mom of three young adults and an experienced high school educator of 18 years. Renee is well-versed in everything teen. Now, without any further ado, here's Renee.
Speaker 2:
Hey parents, it's Renee. Welcome to another episode of the Empowered Parent Podcast. I'm so glad you are here Today. On this episode, we're going to talk about the fear-based mindset.
Speaker 2:
Being the parent of a teen or tween, you naturally worry, right? We worry about all kinds of things, things like their mental health, are they happy? Will they succeed? You worry about things like does your child have friends who value them? Because it's really hard to watch kids when they're not in good friendships and we know that their friends aren't treating them well and we know that they're settling and we know that they're tolerating. So do your kiddos have friends who value them? And what if they choose the wrong friends? That's a huge worry because we don't get to pick our kids' friends. What if they make poor choices? How am I going to protect them?
Speaker 2:
And these are just some of the worries that we have as a parent of teens or tweens. So here's some other questions for you regarding worry what percent of your energy do your worries cost you? That's such a powerful question. What percent of your energy do your worries cost you? And then the second piece of that how much of that is chronic, meaning stuff you've been worrying about for a long time. That's just like a weight on your shoulder. Maybe it's stuff from your own past, maybe it's stuff relating to your kids. So how much of your worry is chronic and how much is it situational, like day to day or some week to week, whatever's going on with your kiddos? So of course, we all know why we worry, right, it's because we're parents of teens and tweens, and what do we want from our kids? We want to do so when our kids to be happy and successful and whatever that looks like. So here's the next powerful question for you how much of your parenting is driven by fear-based energy? By fear-based energy, that means you're making choices and decisions because you're afraid of what might happen. But then we could take that exact same question and pose it to our kiddos and I do ask this to my teen clients the same exact question how much of their day is driven by fear-based energy and how many of their choices are driven by fear-based energy? For teens and tweens, the answer to this, more often than not, is a lot.
Speaker 2:
Today's teens and tweens make many decisions and choices from a place of fear. They might think I have to do ABC or I have to go to a party, I have to drink, I have to smoke, I have to be mean, I have to act like someone I'm not. I have to have sex, because if I don't which is where the fear comes in then I'm not going to get invited next time. I'm going to be made fun of, I'm going to be embarrassed, I won't fit in, no one's going to like me, my boyfriend or girlfriend or significant other is going to break up with me. How scary is that? As a parent, just the idea that our kids make decisions based on fear can be terrifying, honestly, if you're the parent of a teen or a tween, because the older they get, the less control we have and the more time they spend outside of the home Super scary, especially in today's world of social media and comparison culture and all the stuff they have coming at them nonstop.
Speaker 2:
Teen angst can also come in the form of internal pressure based on what they think the expectations are, even from within the family. I have to go to college, even though I don't want to, because my parents and all of my siblings went. And if I don't? And then they start making up stories in their head. I've talked on another podcast at some point, but I had a student one year senior year super smart, didn't want to go to college. Parents were basically forcing him to go so he failed classes second semester of senior year. This is like an A student, but he purposely failed classes semester two so he couldn't go to college. That's how much pressure was he felt. Whether that was valid and the parents are really putting that pressure on him I don't know, but I so remember that clearly because this was like an A student and he failed, like core classes, second semester, just because he felt forced to go to college and he felt that angst of that pressure coming at him. So those are just a few of things that happen when decisions and choices are made from a place of fear based thinking, that fear based mindset.
Speaker 2:
But it's not just our kids who make decisions from fear, it is also parents. We do the same thing. Now, some of the decisions that parents make from fear are based on safety, which is a good thing, and they have legitimate and valid reasons and we should be kind of like sticking to our gut on those. For example, telling your teen no, you can't take the car to the after prom party. People are going to be drinking and driving, I'll drop you off or get a ride with some other sober driver. No, you aren't going to a concert with your friends at 12 years old. And no, you're not going to sleep over. So and so's house until I talk to the parents and I'm sure they will be home. So those are maybe a little bit fear based, but valid and legit and Not things we necessarily might want to budget on. But other times we make your base decisions as parents based on our own stuff. Maybe you won't allow your 13 or 14 or 15 year old have a dating partner because you're afraid they're gonna be pressured into sex, because maybe that happened To you at two young of an age.
Speaker 2:
And so, while this is a valid concern, the truth is that sometimes we let our fear dictate the rules and boundaries and restrictions that we put on our kids, and it has the opposite effect and instead it might push them to be sneaky and do things behind our back, not share with us anymore, like shut off, close that door to communication so that communication gap widens, which we definitely don't want or lie, for example. And now this doesn't mean that your kids get to do what they want to do. You as a parent. We have to balance rules. You got a balance your rules, your decisions with your own beliefs, what feels right to you, but while also giving your child some freedoms and independence and helping them grow into those happy, confident young adults and a lot of times, confidence comes from those mistakes they made. No again, we don't ever want to put our kids in harm's way.
Speaker 2:
So I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that we want to be careful that the choices and boundaries and restrictions we have in place for our kiddos are not based on simply on our own fear, because we're afraid of the world that they live in and it is such a scary place, but at the same time, we live in it and so did they. And so it's important to question your reasoning for whatever limitations you have in place for your kiddos. So here's a few questions what is my reasoning? And now, what's the real reason? Really, make sure that your reasoning and the real deeper reason Are like in co, like they mesh. Is this decision that I'm making based on my own fears? Is their room for flexibility? What is the cost of not allowing my child to do ABC Versus what is the benefit of allowing them to do ABC, perhaps with some solid boundaries in place.
Speaker 2:
So remember, as a parent, our job is to raise independent young adults who have the ability to discern right from wrong, to make mistakes, to fall down, to quote, fail, find and achieve important lessons but then get back up and try again. We want our teens and tweens to be resilient. We want them to believe in themselves. We want them to trust their own judgment, which a lot of times does come from making those mistakes in learning from them, even if we were afraid To give them that space to do that and it's really hard because there's no right or wrong answers that hold true for every child, which means we have to trust our own judgment. As a parent, we have to believe in our own parenting. We don't want to compare Our parenting or our kids to anybody else. We want to recognize that this parenting journey is a learning experience for all of us, for all of us, right? We want to be open to the idea that maybe we have some things that we need to work through and we want to take a good, hard look in the mirror with loving grace at ourselves. Am I modeling for my kids the things that I want them to learn and, if not, what I benefit from support and my parenting from a place of fear. What are my stories that need to be addressed? Because we all have them, whether or not we've done the work yet. At some point. We do have stories and at some point it's a benefit to always address those. And when our kids are teens, that's really some of the best times, because it's storing that, those years where a lot of our stuff comes up. Are we living anyone back up?
Speaker 2:
Living with a fear based mindset, whether it's for ourselves or our kids, is extremely limiting, because that fear based mindset comes in some form from feelings of low self esteem or low self worth, a lack of confidence or acceptance or belief in our self, at least in some areas, and it's whether, again, whether we're talking about our kids Is that a parent or our kids? There's a lack of something in some area if we are living and making choices and decisions based on a fear based mindset. Not only that, living with a fear based mindset is hard, it's scary, it's heavy, it's uncomfortable and it causes a lot of stress, angst and worry. And the truth is that those fears are often masked and how they come out is in behaviors, sometimes reckless behaviors, other times behaviors like anger, apathy or conflict. Right, because it's a mask.
Speaker 2:
When we have a fear based mindset, it's kind of a lot of our stuff gets internalized because maybe we're not admitting that we have these fears, it's too hard to be vulnerable, so we mask it and it just all gets internalized and it comes out in behaviors like I just said anger, apathy, conflict. Sometimes, especially with the younger Adults, it'll come out as self harm or suicidal thoughts. But here's the deal. It doesn't have to be that way. Don't let your kids go through another day with a fear based mindset and don't let yourself go through another day with a fear based mindset. If this is resonating with you A fear based mindset.
Speaker 2:
We don't want our kids to ever feel like they don't like themselves, that they are not enough, that they're going through their school days worrying about what everybody else says or does or is thinking about them. We don't want our kids settling for friends who don't value them and aren't good for them. But they will do that if they do not value themselves, if they don't have that self acceptance and belief and confidence and that higher, those higher feelings of self-worth, they do settle, they do tolerate. They do make choices based on the values of other kids. They do do things that they don't want to do, and we don't want our kids to live life with a fear based mindset. It's hard, it's not easy, and it's just going to build until they learn tools and strategies to get them out of it.
Speaker 2:
And so here we are at the end of a school year, so it's April, so school year's end May, early June here in the States, right? So we're at the end of a school year and then summer is right around the corner. But we all know how fast summer comes and goes, which means the next school year is going to be here before you know it. That's why now is the best time of the year to get your kids and yourself that extra support, so they can finish the year knowing they have helped with their fingertips, so they can look forward to the next school year, regardless of how this school year went, knowing that they're going to learn skills and tools to help them thrive that they're. They're going to learn skills and tools and strategies so their true self can shine.
Speaker 2:
Here's another great question for your kids, and I asked Tienzis Is your true self hiding or shining? And for teenagers generally, their true self, the stuff that the person that they are that would make them happy is often hiding. We want to use this time of the year, use this this summer, to help them let go of self sabotaging thoughts and feelings, those rocks that are sitting on their shoulders, so they can create solid, empowering relationships, not only with their friends, but also with themselves and within the home. What would it mean if your child were to start the next school year with improved self confidence, feeling more motivation, excitement about their future, hope, belief in themselves, no longer settling, looking forward to building new and better and strong and powerful and empowering relationships? All of this is possible. It is all possible through Teen esteem Academy coaching. It's literally what I do. It's what I'm so passionate about.
Speaker 2:
I work every day with parents and teens to create healthy, empowering mindsets. More peace, inner and outer, less conflict, improved self awareness, improved self acceptance, self belief, self confidence, better connections in all areas of their life, within all relationships. All of this, everything I do with teens, tweens, parents and families is designed to empower your kiddos, yourself, in your families, so your family, so everyone has less stress and anxiety, more inner and outer joy, improved relationships and tools to navigate through strong emotions in a healthy manner. So, parents, I implore you, don't let your kids go through another day with a fear-based mindset.
Speaker 1:
See you next time, parents thanks for joining us this week on the empowered parent podcast. Be sure to subscribe so you'll never miss a show while you're at it. If you found value in this show, we'd appreciate a rating on iTunes, or if you'd simply tell a friend about the show, that would help us out too. Be sure to head over to Renee sending dot-com to pick up some parenting freebies. And remember teenagers want to be happy sometimes. They just need a little help along the way.