Parenting a difficult teen can be an extremely challenging job.

If your teen is driving you mad here are some  tips that I recently write for TV Appearance – you are getting a sneak preview.

Don’t play them at their own game

More often than not, what your teenager wants is attention. They enjoy the battle and the power struggle that goes on. If you take away all the resistance and stay calm they have nothing to react to and eventually will get bored. Don’t lower yourself to their level – remember you’re the adult.

It’s not them it’s their behaviour

This is not about shifting responsibility or negating their involvement it is making sure that when you talk to your rebellious teen you come from this place. Communicate with them from a place of ‘I love you, but I do not like it when you do this.”

Change the why to how

When our teens exhibit behaviour we do not like to generally ask: “Why did you do that?” This results in the teen being defensive and ready for battle. Instead ask questions like: “I want to understand this, can you tell me how doing that made you feel?”

Zip your lips

Listen with your mouth shut and don’t assume you know all the answers. When your teen talks, listen from their point of view, get in their shoes, get a sense of how they feel, consider what their real issues are and respond from that place.
Take away the need to be right and ask yourself whether it’s more important to show love and understanding or to be right. This is about a lifelong relationship with your teen and if you can keep your relationship with your child then you’re half way there.

Give respect to get it

To give respect, your teenager needs to feel respected and shown what respect really is. Ask yourself if you show respect to your teenager, their space, their friends, their interests. Make a list of all the things you do respect about your teenager and when they come home from school tell them a least one of the things on the list.

Be Clear

Most arguments happen because a parent isn’t clear when they ask their teenager to do things. Explain what you want doing, what result you want, when you want it done by and the consequences if it doesn’t .

Create rules

House rules are needed but the older the teenager gets the fewer rules their should be.I suggest a maximum of five and they should be non-negotiable like no hitting, swearing etc.Create the rules with your teenager, discuss what the consequences should be if the rule is broken.Just telling them to do as they are told is not effective
Outside the rules, the rest of things in the house need to be negotiated by agreements. By doing this you are teaching your teenager valuable lessons about how the real world works. Instead of telling them to do the washing, tell them you want them to be responsible for the chores, discuss what they should be and the consequences for not doing them.

Give them choices, about what they do, when they do it and what will happen if they don’t.

Choice and state

If your teenager won’t do something, give them a choice. First give them a five-minute warning. If nothing happens they you employ the technique – give them a choice and then state what you will and will not do.You must follow through on the consequences if they don’t do as you ask so they no you mean it and then the next time you use this technique they will be more likely to listen.For example: “Dinner is on the table, it’s your choice whether you come down. When we have finished eating, I will be throwing the left over food away and I will not cook any more food. The choice is yours.”

How do you get through to a disillusioned teenager who appears to have given up on life?

This was the question I asked Brother Marcus on one of my Radio Shows. While this show was a little escape from the norm, being quite evangelistic in his approach, Brother Marcus shared some very useful insights.

1. Find some common ground – it is no good approaching this child from your own point of view, you need to approach them from a place that they can communicate from, something that they understand, be it music, popular culture, TV, whatever it is, find some common ground.

2. Love them more than they hate themselves. – I have to say this is one of the most profound things I have heard for such a long time. For me it is seeing beyond what is in front of you and seeing what lies beneath; seeing possibilities, not problems.

3. See their faults and ask what they need – very profound advice indeed. What is it really that this young person in front of you needs?

4. Be honest open and relax; young people can see straight through you.

5. Misuse of gifts – this is something I love and what I held true in the police when working with young offenders. Each of us is born with a special gift and it is how we use it that is important. Quiet often, criminality is a misuse of a gift. A drug dealer may be doing something immoral, however you have to admire their business sense. When a young person can embrace this as a gift, then you can really begin to make some headway.

To listen to the show and find our how to motivate an unmotivated teenagers click here….

Food and Behaviour

I have recently been working with a teenager who has been having very bad mood swings which we have linked down to food. This got me thinking how many other parents could be trying to change their teenager behaviour when all they made need to change is their diet?

So here are some thoughts for you from my foodie expert Karen Schachter.

One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.” – Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf was on to something: food – and our relationship to it – is our sustenance, our lifeblood. It has the potential to be a source of nourishment and wellbeing or, as is the case for many people, a source of angst and unhappiness.

As a psychotherapist, I was never taught to think about food and nutrition. I was taught that people’s unhappiness or anxiety or eating disorders or other various struggles were a result of their early upbringing or difficult experiences or traumatic losses. I was taught that if there was something going on with a person’s brain chemistry (as evidenced by specific signs and symptoms), it should be treated with medication.

Although this perspective is useful, it leaves out a huge missing piece: The idea that food matters; that my clients’ nutrition might be contributing to their depression, their anxiety, their binging, their purging, their lethargy, their attentional problems, their behavioral concerns, and their mood instabilities. And even more importantly that these feelings, in part caused by mis-firing or mis-wiring in their brain, might be improved by nutritional changes.

At this point in my career, I know better, but many people -psychotherapists, doctors, and consumers included – still do not think this way.

Yes, when a destructive or negative mood hits, it often does have some psychological and historical origins, and in some cases, medication may be needed. However, this is not always the case and it is almost never the only thing going on. What, how and when we eat – as well as the quality and quantity of the food we put in our mouths – has a profound effect on our mind and our mood.

According to Anne Marie Colbin, in her book, Food and Healing, “mood. . . can be one of the first indicators that something is out of kilter . . . A change in diet, which can be embarked upon at any time, at any hour of the day, can make us feel more centered, improve our disposition and concentration, and even increase our joyfulness and good cheer.”

And in her book, The Mood Cure, Julia Ross contends that the brain is responsible for most of our feelings. If our brain is high in certain neurotransmitters (like serotonin and endorphins, for example), we will feel happy and optimistic, focused and calm. However, when our brains run low on these neurotransmitters, due to genetic factors, stress, or diet – “it stops producing normal emotions on a consistent basis” and we feel bad. She states loud and clear that “regardless of your genes, but especially if your mood-programming genes are inefficient, good nutrition is essential.” According to Ms. Ross, we can repair our brain with foods and nutritional supplements.

However, some of us may use food (or other substances) to self-medicate. This is what I often see in my practice. Unfortunately, the foods we usually turn to are the foods that make us feel worse. Truth is, the Standard American Diet (also known as “SAD”) consists primarily of highly processed, refined foods . . . foods which are altered so much from their original state, that it’s not clear whether they are actually even a food anymore (I mean, what are Cheetos anyway???!).

Not only do these foods lack nutrients, enzymes, and essential fats, which are key to stable and healthy brain chemistry, but they contain a whole bunch of additives, dyes, pesticides and other neurotoxins. Many of the additives found in most processed foods (like sugar and refined flour, MSG and its relatives, aspartame and other fake sugars, and dyes) have been implicated in a host of neurological, behavioral and mood problems. In addition, thanks to these additives, many of these foods are addictive and enticing – they temporarily provide some relief, excitement and an energy boost, and keep us coming back for more.

Over time, however, eating SAD foods contributes to a SAD life. When our diets are primarily made up of these “fake” foods, is it a wonder we feel depressed, anxious, have trouble focusing, or feel stuck in a binge-diet or binge-purge cycle?

Remember, food and mood go hand in hand. Yes, the way we eat not only affects how we feel and the quality of our lives, but the opposite is also true: the way we live, the way we work, the way we love profoundly impacts how we choose to feed and nourish ourselves.

If you’d like to make changes in your diet to improve your mood, here are a few ideas to get you started:

1) Keep a food journal. This is not to be used as ammunition to criticize yourself but rather to notice how certain foods affect you. Take special note of your mood, your energy, your cravings or whatever symptoms you struggle with, both right after you eat as well as several hours later. You may find that you are sensitive to common foods found in your everyday diet that may be contributing to your crankiness.

2) If your diet is not rich in vegetables (and maybe even if it is), consider a good, whole-food based multi-vitamin and mineral supplement.

3) Reduce the worst bad-mood foods: sugar, white flour, caffeine, fake sweeteners, and chemicals. (Don’t recognize a word on a label? Don’t eat it!). Yes, sorry, but this does include diet soda!

4) Get enough of the best good-mood foods: high quality protein, water, unprocessed or minimally processed grains, fruits and veggies.

5) Get enough of the right kinds of fats(I know I need to write a whole separate article on this!). Consider an Omega-3 (fish oil) supplement (I like Nordic Naturals), which has been found to have a very positive impact on mood (of course check with your doctor if you have any medical concerns).

6) Get out and enjoy the SUNSHINE! The longer and brighter days of Spring can help us get out of a bad mood rut.